Shine

“O? So, y’know, that money you brought from the countryside. O? We’re sayin’ we’ll put it to good use for you. O? You get it, right? O?”

Lynferia and I, dressed like villagers and wandering around the territorial capital, had gotten cornered by a gang of skinhead thugs in a spot about two streets off the main road.

There were four of them, and every single one was bald—so bald it was almost too clean. One of them must’ve joined the Skinhead Squad recently, because he wasn’t tanned and his scalp still looked bluish.

Also, he’d probably been trying hard to shave with a razor, but it looked like he’d nicked his head a little—it was painful to look at… No good. More than what they were saying, I couldn’t stop staring at the three shining heads and the one pale-blue head.

As I stared at those four scalps, I noticed something off… maybe it was just me, but it felt less like all four were surrounding me, and more like the other three were carefully watching the one guy who was harassing me…

I returned my gaze to the scalp in front of me.

“Do skinheads get popular with women?”

“Haaah!?”

Ah. What I was thinking slipped out.

I mean, he looked pretty young, but was a skinhead actually acceptable to girls?

In foreign movies and dramas, you had cool older skinhead guys… but young skinheads… I felt like they only existed as Background Bandit C or D…

“Is there demand?”

“Are you messin’ with me!? O!? There’s tons of demand! O!?”

Hmm… judging from the town residents, it didn’t seem like it was trending…

“Is it early-onset baldness?”

“Die, you punk!!”

The skinhead in front of me, eyes turning a bit watery, threw a spirited punch—yet somehow it had no weight behind it.

Looks like I’d said something bad… but that didn’t mean I was going to take a punch.

As I dodged, I observed the other three.

The only one who took emotional damage seemed to be the one throwing punches.

The other skinheads looked flustered… but rather than trying to do something to me, it looked like they were trying to stop him.

“Sorry. That was my fault. I didn’t mean to gouge out your heart.”

By the way, Lynferia looked unbelievably irritated… but I’d drilled it into her not to lay a hand on them.

The same went for Ururu, watching from somewhere.

Because they were ordinary citizens… my precious people.

If Lynferia and the others so much as stomach-punched them, their abdomens would burst.

They wouldn’t hold back against people who’d treated me like this… and that was exactly the problem.

But these people gave me ten mana stones per month.

Four of them meant forty a month—not quite enough for a single potion, but according to Karmos, one potion was two hundred gold coins.

Which meant they could produce one hundred sixty gold coins’ worth of value per month.

Killing such precious citizens would be unthinkable.

So I wanted to settle this peacefully… yet for some reason, lines that sounded like I was deliberately provoking him kept slipping out of my mouth.

My tongue was weirdly… smooth. Slippery.

“Who are you callin’ smooth-headed, you bastard!?”

This guy was half-reading my mind!

“Who are you callin’ half-bald!?”

Having lost even the spare breath to keep saying “O?”, the skinhead kept attacking me, but didn’t land a scratch… and he went from teary-eyed to half-crying, while his punches started to look like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Even though I was supposed to be the one being harassed, from the outside it was starting to look like I was the bully.

“Calm down. You were the one who picked a fight, but I had my bad parts too. So let’s call it even and—”

“So you’re sayin’ I don’t have hair to split!?”

“That’s paranoid delusion!”

“Who are you sayin’ has delusions down to the roots!?”

Once he hit full throttle, he looked like the type where nothing you said would help.

It was getting kind of funny, but the skinhead’s whole head was turning bright red, and he looked like he was about to go from half-crying to full-on sobbing.

Still, I couldn’t let him hit me.

If I did, Lynferia and the others might break my strict orders and snuff out their lives.

And then Lynferia and the others would probably kill themselves right after… If a disaster that huge happened over this funny skinhead guy, I’d never recover.

I grabbed the skinhead’s wrist and pulled him toward me, then as he stumbled and stepped forward, I swept the outside of his ankle with my foot.

It was a judo technique called a foot sweep.

“Guh!?”

The skinhead went rolling to the ground… I’d been careful not to injure him, so it should be fine.

“Anyway, calm down. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

““We’re soooorryyyyy!!””

As I spoke to the skinhead lying on his back, before he could say anything, the other skinheads instantly moved into a full prostration posture and apologized.

“We’re truly sorry for causing you trouble! This is compensation for the inconvenience!”

A leather pouch was thrust out at me with the speed of something pre-prepared.

Suspicious of how fast that was, I spoke to Skinhead Number Two—the one offering the pouch.

Meanwhile, the skinhead I’d swept was staring blankly up at the sky, tears silently streaming down his face.

“I don’t need that. But tell me why you harassed us. Depending on your answer, I’ll decide whether to forgive you or hand you over to the guards.”

“T-that… s-sorry! Please forgive us!”

“Then explain the reason. It depends on what you say.”

“Y-yes… um… the guy my lord just threw down… yesterday he got dumped by a woman…”

“…”

I gently released the wrist I was still holding, and the skinhead—still on the ground—covered his eyes with both hands and began trembling.

This… wasn’t embarrassment anymore. He’d entered real crying.

“And… he’d been chugging down angry breakup booze until just now… and when he saw you two being so… affectionate, he kinda…”

“A-affectionate!?”

From a little distance away, Lynferia made a strange squeak, but I ignored that for now.

“…I see. So you were keeping him company while he drank. That means you’re his friends, right? Then you should’ve stopped him from bothering people.”

“S-sorry… we thought if this would help him feel better… we were planning to stop him if it looked like it would turn serious…”

So that was why their behavior felt odd—they weren’t watching me, they were watching him.

“We’re truly sorry.”

“…If you’re friends, you should’ve stopped him sooner. He could’ve injured someone, or the other person might’ve had a self-defense weapon and injured him instead, you know?”

“…”

“Don’t resort to violence over something stupid. Use your imagination—worst cases can happen. If things become irreversible, the one who regrets it won’t be just him.”

“…”

“Alright, that’s enough lecturing… why’d he get dumped?”

“You’re asking that!?”

Number Two, who’d been nodding apologetically, yelled.

Looking around, Number Three and Blue-Head were staring at me like I was a monster.

“I said I don’t need the pouch, but I never said I wouldn’t take compensation. Now—talk, quickly.”

I wasn’t going to hand them to the guards, but they’d harassed the Overlord, so they could put up with this much unreasonable treatment.

“I-I mean… that’s a bit…”

Number Two averted his gaze awkwardly and glanced at the skinhead on the ground.

“…Ha.”

Then the skinhead, still covering his eyes, spoke.

“…She said… ‘Bald is kind of…’”

The Overlord felt sick to his stomach.