The next day, the streets were in an uproar over the Thirteenth Corps Commander. Rumors no one could trace the source of swelled up however they pleased.
People pieced together every action I might have taken, one by one, and struggled to find the intent hidden inside it.
The conclusion was always the same.
That the Thirteenth Corps Commander was an extremely wicked and dangerous being.
Once you’ve planted a bad impression, this part is convenient. Whatever I do afterward, people interpret it as malice all on their own. I’d become a far more magnificent villain than I’d expected, to the point where it was fascinating.
Putting the drugs in my inventory was intentional, yes. I wanted it to look like obtaining them was my objective. But the notion that I was trying to become a mastermind who’d use drugs and a cure to seize the empire and run it... seriously, what? I might have to take a lesson or two from the good faction.
Theo went to the needless trouble of worrying about what we’d do if the commander slipped drugs into my meals too. He asked how I was feeling two or three times an hour, and kept checking my complexion even while we ate.
“I’ll get strong quickly. Strong enough to protect you, Rihen.”
He devoted himself to sword practice in the yard. Considering he was only fifteen, his skill was already considerable. His movements were a little rough compared to adult Theo’s, but his will was unmistakable. He didn’t stop when sweat beaded on him, and whenever his form slipped he corrected it right away.
The streets falling into this much turmoil was definitely a headache for the good faction. But the fact that Theo now had a reason to work harder at his swordsmanship, at least, wasn’t bad.
There was one more thing to be thankful for. The citizens didn’t fall all the way into panic. That was thanks to Shasha reassuring them that a cure would be made soon. Parents were relieved their children had come home safe, and drew up the strength to return to their daily lives.
I stopped walking. I quietly watched a couple who had gotten their precious son and daughter back hold on to each other, crying and laughing, then open their shop, greet customers, and carry on with their day.
It was beautiful.
Offering up as many as eleven gang members at once gave me confidence. Over the four days that followed I offered eight more souls, and the infamy points I’d gathered had reached 2,000 before I knew it.
I chose only the humans that by my standards could at least be called evil. Of course I knew how absurd it was for someone like me to be dividing good from evil single-handedly. But I could hardly offer up the souls of good people like Damian or Luna or Shasha just because the score looked like it would be high.
Human traffickers, domestic abusers, con artists...
Maybe because men like that had disappeared, the mood in the neighborhoods had actually improved considerably. And curiously, criminals of that sort had weak minds across the board. Put a little pressure on them in proper corps commander fashion and they crumbled fast, which made drawing out the soul easy. Was goodness the strongest thing after all?
Tonight’s target was a corrupt tax collector.
His name was Lopez. He squeezed the poor, levied excessive taxes on them, and used the money to serve his own greed. He loved drink and indulged in lust, and they said that if a thing was pretty he brought it into his bed regardless of whether it was a man or a woman. Dealing with one drunk lecher was no work at all.
Lopez was sprawled across the bed, deep asleep. Completely drunk, his consciousness was somewhere far away, and off his body came a nauseating mix of heavy perfume, liquor, face powder, and sweat. The traces of the sloppy carousing he’d been at with men and women alike until moments ago were still all over him.
Though no wind blew, the candles wavered, and then every flame went out at once. In the darkness a black shadow slowly took shape. Feeling the wrongness of it even inside his dream, Lopez frowned and opened his eyes. The figure standing in front of the bed came into view. It wore a robe, so its face couldn’t be seen.
“Wh-What...”
Lopez pushed himself up unsteadily. His heart pounded like mad. He didn’t know why, but his instincts were warning him. Run.
He pulled the cord beside the bed. It was the signal used to summon the mercenaries. Prepared for threats to his life, Lopez always kept heavily armed mercenaries on standby inside the house. All that was left was to hold out until they arrived.
Lopez fumbled for the sword propped by the bed and gripped it. Drunk as he was, the memory of swordsmanship he’d trained in for years moved his hand on instinct. Lopez threatened the intruder.
“You there! Get out this instant! Do you have any idea whose house you’ve broken-”
Before he finished, the man took a single step. Just one. And with that alone the air in the room was crushed flat. His mind went white, and an inexplicable terror rolled in like a wave.
Lopez clenched his teeth and swung. It was a fairly precise strike, all things considered. But his attack didn’t leave a single scratch on the man. The intruder merely flicked his wrist, light as anything. And yet in the next instant Lopez’s sword lost all its force, bounced off the floor, and lodged itself in the wall. A numbing pain spread up his wrist.
“Master Lopez! Are you all right?”
The bedroom door opened. Burly mercenaries came pouring in. The fight started at once. But the intruder didn’t even bother to draw his blade from its sheath. He fought as many as twenty mercenaries with his weapon still in the scabbard.
The man turned aside their attacks with ease. He struck temples with the sheath to drop them, pressed precisely on the pressure points at the back of their necks to knock them out. Clean, unadorned movements aimed at nothing but subjugation. What followed was a one-sided beating you couldn’t even call a battle. After a mere two or three blows each, the mercenaries lost consciousness one by one and collapsed to the floor.
While he watched, Lopez’s mental fortitude was shaved down at speed. As if he’d been waiting for exactly that, the unidentified intruder raised his hand. His gesture cut through the air. A complete void with neither light nor depth opened its mouth. The passage used when offering souls to the Demon King.
“A-A demon? Damn it...!”
Lopez made one last act of defiance. He grabbed the bottle on the nightstand and hurled it at the man. The man didn’t bother to dodge. The bottle struck his shoulder and shattered. Strong liquor soaked thickly into his clothes. Without the slightest sign of pain, the man looked down at Lopez. Without blinking once. Which made it all the more terrifying. Like a being that didn’t know what pain was.
“Spare me... please...”
Lopez sobbed. But it was already too late. The soul that slipped from his chest was sucked into the fissure. Robbed of it, Lopez slumped limply onto the bed. He was still breathing, but there was no focus in his eyes.
At the same time, a notification window visible only to Shane appeared.
Infamy +50p
Theo woke to a chill that had crept in. Out of habit he reached to the side to pull Rihen into his arms. But all his hand met was a blanket gone cold.
...He’s gone?
His heart dropped.
Where did he go?
Into his half-awake head, all sorts of thoughts came rushing at once.
Did I do something wrong? Is that why he threw me away? Or did he find some other child worth raising instead of me?
In his alarm Theo was about to shoot upright when he heard the door opening. Acting as if nothing had happened, he pretended to be sleeping quietly and cracked his eyes open.
Gray hair, red eyes. A tall frame and a lean body. It was Rihen. The smell of liquor wafted off him, and his left shoulder was damp with it. How much did he drink to get his clothes wet like that?
Theo sniffed. His sensitive nose caught other smells besides the strong liquor. A very faint trace of perfume, and a disordered body scent, somehow raw, that didn’t seem to be Rihen’s. It was the smell Rihen had picked up while dealing with Lopez as Shane. Of course, there was no way Theo could know that.
Rihen went into the bathroom. He washed quickly, came out, and changed into his sleepwear. Then he lay down beside Theo without a sound.
What on earth was he doing in the middle of the night?
His stomach churned.
It wasn’t hard to picture Rihen surrounded by people, drinking, laughing, chattering away. He was an objectively handsome young man, his manner of speaking was affectionate and his voice was gentle. There had to be people who felt drawn to him.
Someone at that drinking table spilling liquor on Rihen’s clothes on purpose, grabbing the drunk man by the collar, pulling him in and kissing him.
And after that... with Theo’s knowledge it was hard to imagine what would happen, but for some reason his heart clenched.
Theo shut his eyes tight. He didn’t want to be caught awake. At the same time, an emotion he couldn’t explain caught in his throat like a fish bone. He forced it down and swallowed it.
Whoever Rihen met at night, however much he drank... it wasn’t Theo’s place to presume to care. He was merely someone living off Rihen’s goodwill. Asking what he’d been doing in the middle of the night was beyond his standing.
Surely Rihen had a private life too. A secret domain a fifteen-year-old wasn’t supposed to know about. Judging people by their looks wasn’t right, but honestly, Rihen didn’t exactly give off an upstanding impression.
He heard shifting behind him. Rihen turned over and pulled Theo into his arms. Judging by how his breathing had settled into an even rhythm, he’d fallen asleep.
Feeling Rihen’s warm body heat, Theo lay unable to move a muscle and stayed awake through the night.
