Chapter 61
That night...
“Your Highness, are you asleep?”
“No, not yet.”
I was lying in the bed, and Eleris was seated in the chair by the bedside. I definitely felt uncomfortable falling asleep, but at the same time, I didn’t mind her presence at all. It was a strange feeling.
“Why, do you have something to say?”
“...”
Eleris didn’t respond with a clear yes or no.
After a long silence, Eleris said quietly, “I do not think that humans are better beings than demons.”
I wondered what she was getting at. Eleris was gazing at me steadily. Sadness lingered in her red vampire eyes.
“You’re right. Demons are a mix of many races, while humans are a single-blooded species.”
I didn’t really know which race was better or worse. There were many individual demon races with superior racial traits. However, even if they were physically superior to humans, they might still be comparatively lacking in intelligence. Perhaps there were even races that were lacking in both, or races that were superior in both.
Eleris shook her head in response. “That is not what I mean.”
“Then? What do you mean?”
“I’m saying that I do not believe humans are more virtuous than demons.”
“Oh. Is that what you were talking about?”
“Yes.”
Eleris might have considered the demons’ defeat to be a fortunate event, but perhaps she simply hated war.
Factually speaking, Eleris was basically a betrayer of demons.
“Humans as a race know what prosperity is.”
To Eleris, the Demon Realm focused only on war, and was all about establishing a stronger army and better weaponry. However, humans as a species knew how to focus on life itself. She had felt this difference after she came to the imperial city, and did not wish for such a world to be destroyed.
The whole Demon Realm revolved around the sole purpose of war with humans, and Eleris did not like that world.
“But humans go to war with their own kind and kill each other too,” Eleris said.
Yes, humans also waged war and committed massacres against their own kind. Eleris disliked the demon world, but she knew that even the human world had its dark side. Perhaps Eleris merely thought of human society as the lesser of the two evils, and did not think humans were more virtuous than demons.
“That’s why at times, the wickedness of humans is utterly repulsive.”
“Like that Borton guy, the swindler?” I asked.
“Yes. He could be considered one example.”
A man who would play with another’s life for the sake of money. That could indeed be seen as the epitome of human malevolence. However, it didn’t seem like that was the story Eleris was aiming to tell.
Eleris remained silent for a while, trembling quietly as if lost in thought.
“Your Highness...”
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Tomorrow... You will find out tomorrow...”
It seemed Eleris could not bring herself to say any more out loud.
***
The following day...
I headed to the Rotary Club with Eleris. It was the same meeting place as always; a large cavity inside a drainage channel.
The sound of the water streaming inside the cavity was loud, probably because of the recent rain.
Loyar was standing in front of a campfire, quietly observing us. We had contacted Sarkegar beforehand, and he had also come to the meeting.
While Eleris was casting a soundproofing spell, Sarkegar approached and hugged me tightly.
“Your Highness!! I never doubted you! I believed you would become the owner of a mighty power someday! Truly, Your Highness, you are befitting of your lineage, one that inherited the qualities of a world ruler! It is my earnest hope that you will progress quickly and bring down the fury of the Demon Realm on those human scoundrels—”
“Can you quiet down? I think I might start bleeding from the ears.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He always talked too much.
Since Self-Deception was an ability that was relative to the size of one’s belief, the ability would have been really effective if Sarkegar wielded it. He, without a doubt, believed that I was going to become the next great leader of the Demon Realm, and his belief was so strong and firm that I probably wouldn’t have to do anything in order for it to become a reality.
Eleris had already conveyed the broad details to everyone when she called them the day before to schedule the meeting, so there was no need to go over how I became a superhuman.
“Your Highness, aren’t your actions a little too flashy? At first, I heard that you were going around beating up kids, but now, a duel?”
I shrugged my shoulders in response to Loyar.
“What can I say? If you act cocky, you deserve a beating. That guy was such a coward that I couldn’t help but slam his head into the floor.”
When I described how I had forced Mayaton to surrender, strong emotions had played across Loyar and Eleris’s faces.
“Your Highness is truly born with the qualities of a ruler. The ruthlessness! The pride! The fighting spirit! All are the virtues befitting a great monarch!” Sarekegar exclaimed.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Sarkegar!” I responded.
“Yesssss, Your Highness!!”
Sarkegar couldn’t keep it in, and his entire body shuddered with the depth of his gratitude.
“I’m worried that Your Highness is relying too much on violence...” Eleris commented.
“And I heard that you caused a ruckus on the magical train yesterday as well,” Loyar added with a sigh.
“A ruckus?” Eleris asked.
Eleris looked surprised as if she was hearing about it for the first time. I hadn’t mentioned it earlier, having concluded that speaking about the incident on the magical train would only elicit more nagging from her.
Loyar looked at me as if I was like a leaking bucket, causing trouble everywhere I went.
But I had something to say about that, too.
“Well, if you want to butt into someone else’s business like that, you ought to find a way to do it respectfully, instead of brazenly sitting down where someone else has already laid out their mat, right? Even if the club’s activities may be morally questionable, it’s still common sense to at least give some sort of offering if you want to step into a space someone else has already established. Don’t you think so?”
I couldn’t just let these fellows take over the business the club had established by telling the club members to shove off without offering anything in return. Not a chance.
Loyar narrowed her eyes at me. “Supernatural powers aside, it seems the education that the Temple provides is quite impressive, since you’ve only just enrolled and yet you’re already capable of beating up an adult man.”
‘Is she mocking me right now? She’s trying to insinuate that all I learned in school was how to fight with other students, right?’
“Well, she has a point, actually.”
Logically speaking, it’s impossible for someone trained in a mixed martial arts academy to get beaten up by some street thug. Of course, it also helped that I had supernatural powers, and that I had caught my opponent off-guard.
Students at the Temple were still young. However, students like the guys in fifth and sixth grade with combat talents could easily chew up practically any ordinary human once they were back out in society again. Not only were they talented, but the Temple did not allow their students to grow up to be weak and worthless.
“Moreover, you told us not to get into fights with others, yet you got into one yourself. Why?” Loyar asked.
I was the one who had told them not to start any sort of fight on the train and had warned that we could face sanctions and be made to shut down our operations if we attracted too much attention.
“Well, I didn’t mean that we should just let people who are trying to steal our business off the hook. Should we just sit idly by when someone tries to mess with our business right in front of us?”
If we’re going to get robbed one way or another, we might as well throw a punch.
“Does this sort of thing often happen to the members of the club?”
I sat down uncertainly, and Loyar nodded.
“It seems word has gotten out that our club has started a new type of business that makes decent money. Consequently, there are now quite a few copy-cats around, some of which are genuinely trying to make it into an organized business.”
The magical trains were a public, open space, so if a large, unspecified number of people saw others selling stuff on the subway, some would naturally begin to wonder if that was something they could do as well.
Hence, individuals had started to do business on their own, and others were even trying to organize themselves into a more legitimate business.
“So, the ones who are forming an organized business group are planting people on the trains and driving out other peddlers.”
“Idiots... They’re going to cause the business as a whole to be shut down at this rate.”
The mere presence of thugs on the train was creating an atmosphere of fear, and the bullying that we faced was already a negative factor for us. Once the passengers started filing complaints, it would only be a matter of time before security was deployed. Then, business and whatever else would cease to matter, because no one would be able to use that space.
The ones trying to monopolize the business would eventually ruin it for themselves. It seemed that, because of my instructions to Loyar not to get into fights, she had merely been observing the situation develop without taking action.
‘You pretend to be indifferent to my words, but in reality, you’re so obedient! Are you really a dog or what?’
“Do you think it’s possible to track down each one of these organizations and take them down?”
I couldn’t believe that even merchants on the magic train were now involved in power struggles.
‘This place never ceases to amaze me with the unexpected...’
“There’s nothing stopping us, but... the club members aren’t exactly skilled at fighting to begin with.”
The club was made up of homeless people and beggars who had no real experience in fighting. Even if the club members resorted to physical force, they wouldn’t stand a chance against an organization that had even slightly-skilled fighters.
“This means that I would inevitably have to step in and fight myself, but as you know, our base of operations has become quite well-known. So, if I go around demolishing these competitors one by one, I would likely attract the security forces, and that could adversely affect Your Highness.”
Loyar was a lycanthrope. If she got caught by security, it could lead to troublesome issues, and that might ultimately lead to me. Vertus had promised to have my back, but if it was revealed to him that Loyar was a demon, it would complicate matters.
“Hmm... This is a difficult issue.”
If this continued, the organized business groups would continue to try to exert control over the entire subway, and eventually, the security forces would intervene and prohibit all merchants and peddlers from accessing the trains.
Doing nothing meant that we would have to shut down the business, but taking action had its own significant risks as well.
“Can’t we use magic to do something about it?” I asked Eleris, hoping that magic—the versatile cheat code of this world—could offer a solution.
Eleris replied immediately, “I am averse to violent methods, but if we were to resort to that, the repercussions and investigations due to magic-induced violence could be even more severe than those arising from physical altercations between gangs. Another option is domination, but as it’s been mentioned before, that is a highly dangerous method.”
If a violent incident or homicide involving magic occurred, the empire would carry out an intense investigation, since magic had the potential to cause a massacre when misused. Likewise, though, using magic to dominate every competing business organization was just as dangerous.
Sarkegar looked at me with an ominously-pleasant smile. “Your Highness, if it’s a matter of killing them all, please leave it to me.”
Indeed, with his shape-shifting abilities, Sarkegar could easily wipe out the thugs without leaving any evidence behind.
Of course, this made Eleris’s face turn pale.
“Carrying out a massacre in the heart of the imperial city? Whether it’s feasible or not, I absolutely cannot permit that.”
Above all, seeing how casually Sarkegar spoke about killing people was so eerie that it almost sent shivers down my spine. Each time I realized he truly meant what he said, it chilled me to the bone.
As heinous as those guys might be, killing them wasn’t the solution. Yet, we had to take some sort of action...
“Hmm.”
While I was mulling over this, Loyar suddenly stood up and headed towards the cistern’s exit.
“What’s the matter? We’re not done here yet!”
“There seems to be some disturbance outside. I’ll go have a look then come back.”
‘A disturbance?’
***
Sarkegar and Eleris stayed by the reservoir, and I, who was also a member of the Rotary Club, followed Loyar outside. Eleris had suggested I stay put, but I felt the need to see what was happening with my own eyes.
As we stepped outside, I saw that all the club members had gathered together.
We pushed our way through the crowd and saw Dybun standing in front.
“What’s going on?” Loyar asked.
“Oh, boss! And... Reinhart? When did you get here?” Dybun asked.
“Just now,” I responded.
“Never mind that. Tell me, who are they?”
“Ah, well...”
Across from where the club members were gathered, about a dozen men were staring intently at us.
“It’s him! That’s the guy, hyung!”
A man with a face I recognized all too well pointed at me.
It was definitely the guy from the subway that I’d beaten up after he tried to mess with one of our club members. The man whom he called “hyung” did not appreciate the sudden outburst and slapped the back of his head.
Slap!
“Argh!”
“Are you an idiot? You got beaten by a kid like that?”
“Well, he... he might look scrawny, but he’s ridiculously strong!”
It seemed they had assumed I was a member of the Rotary Club and had come here for revenge. Loyar glanced at me with a reproachful look that said, ‘Why did you have to cause such trouble?’
The one who’d been called “hyung” looked back and forth between me and Loyar.
“So, are you the famous Hound of Irine, Loyar? It’s our first time meeting, right?”
“That seems to be the case. What do you want?”
“Oh, nothing much. It’s just that our young friend over there who is part of your group beat up my little brother in front of everyone.”
“Ah, I heard about that,” Loyar replied.
Loyar stared at the guy intently, as if taunting him to continue yapping.
“Personally, I think that if someone gets beaten up by a kid, it’s their own fault... But, you know, we have our own pride to consider too,” he continued.
“And who exactly are you all?”
In response to Loyar’s question, the guy performed an exaggerated gesture and clapped his hands.
He sure was good at making people feel upset.
“Ah, apologies for the belated introduction. Ever heard of Seven Stars?”
‘Seven Stars? Isn’t that a brand of cigarettes?’
No, wait...
“My name is Argent, the vice squad leader of the Seven Stars Action Team.”
The Seven Stars was basically the Chilseong Pa[1], right?!
1. Chilseong Pa (???) is a well-known large-scale criminal organization based in Busan, South Korea. ?
Updat𝓮d fr𝙤m fre𝒆webnov(e)l.com