Chapter 17

The three merchants looked down at Serpens, their anger plain on their faces.
At the unpleasant gazes he felt for the first time in a while, Serpens instead let out a laugh.

“I heard you ran off with our merchant house’s goods without paying the proper price.”

A blonde woman stepped forward.

Serpens slowly looked up at her.
Her features were distinct, with an especially high nose.
She was a woman whose white skin and refined appearance gave off an elegant air.

“Ahh, that was a kind of settlement money-”
“And the money you paid was not even yours, little boy.”
“Huh?”

A soft voice, but by no means a friendly one.
She was a young woman who looked twenty at most, but to Serpens, she was merely the same kind of adult as the merchants beside her.

“You lied to our employees. You said you were an aspiring knight?”

The woman’s eyes swept over Serpens.
Then she gave a small laugh as if she found him ridiculous.

“I have some connections with the academy, so I contacted them.. There are only three students who can be called aspiring knights. And they are all in their late teens, I was told. But you…… no matter how I look at you, you don’t look like you are in your late teens.”

Serpens couldn’t answer.

“I thought it was strange as soon as I heard my employee’s words. I wondered why an aspiring knight who should be in the academy at this time would have come all the way to the distant capital.”

He had thought about insisting on it if he had to.
But that was a stretch.
Serpens knew it too.
He was neither large in build nor plump from eating well.
With an ordinary, or rather thin, boy’s body, he could look younger than twelve, let alone fifteen.

“Phew…….”

Serpens slowly steadied his breathing and worked his head.
The more sudden the situation, the more he had to stay calm.
The more he lost his reason, the more it would be no different from making a self-defeating move.

“Ahh, I will pay the remaining amount now. I was just getting some change-”
“That isn’t the problem. The silver coin our employees received, and the gold coin you must have. Those are not things a mere child can possess. Of course, that sword as well.”

The woman glanced at the merchants.
They nodded and quietly moved toward Serpens.

Serpens’s eyes moved as he watched them approach.
Serpens sharpened his nerves.

“Don’t worry too much. We won’t harm the child inside the hospital. I can readily overlook the fact that you paid the price for the child lying in the hospital.”

Serpens slowly backed away.
It was to maintain a certain distance from the approaching merchants.

“But not you. First, you will have to come with us to the guard. We need to find out the source of the money and your identity.”

Serpens noticed the merchants beginning to tense.
The boy clenched his teeth and barely managed to smile.

“Sorry. I happen to have a dinner appointment.”

Serpens grabbed the goblin’s dagger he had put in his back pocket.

Swaek-!

And the dagger flew toward the merchants,
but the throw of a boy who had never been properly taught merely spun quickly as it flew.

But that was enough.
It was not sharp, but it was fast.

At the dagger that suddenly flew at them, the merchants closed their eyes and flinched.

“And I refuse the guard, you sons of bitches!”

Pabababat.

After letting loose one last satisfying curse, Serpens ran along his escape route.
The paths he had looked over on the way to the hospital, just in case.
As long as he knew the roads, he was sure there was no way the merchants would catch him.

“Fucking hell, seriously!”

He didn’t care about the dagger he had thrown.
From the start, it was meant to buy him a chance to run.
It had belonged to a goblin and was not something he had bought with money, so it was not a waste either.

Meanwhile, the merchants didn’t chase the boy.
Because someone behind them stopped them.

“Miss Clora. Were you not trying to catch that guy?”
“I was.”
“Then why……?”
“Who knows. Think of it as a gift for a good child.”
“A gift?”
“Well, his lie about being an aspiring knight and that large sum of unknown origin were both used for a good deed in the end. It was enough to scare him.”
“We lost about an hour because of this.”
“If you think of it as finding one silver coin during a walk I took to cool my head, it isn’t a loss.”
“But-”
“That is true. Father would not have simply let this pass.”
“If he learns of this, you will surely be reprimanded, Miss.”
“True. But Father won’t know.”

Clora Quantums’s golden eyes stared at the merchants.
A smile as if frosted over.
Facing that smiling warning, the three merchants bowed their heads.

“We will be careful.”
“Of course you should. A source of profit is at stake.”

Bang!

When the inn door opened noisily, Lucas’s eyes moved slightly.
A boy came in, panting for breath.
It was obvious who would enter in a way so utterly devoid of manners.

“There was no need to come in such a hurry.”
“Do you think I ran because I wanted to?”

Serpens spoke as if he would run out of breath at any moment.

“From now on, I am going to be wary of anything with the word ‘finest’ attached to it. People’s words really cannot be trusted. You have to experience things yourself and judge.”

Lucas thought as he looked at the noisy Serpens.
He lost money.
And quite a large amount at that.

“It seems you did something foolish.”
“What are you talking about? I just came back from doing one of the few good deeds of my life.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“I’m serious, okay? I just saved someone and came back.”
“Why not put down what you are holding before saying that?”
“No, this is……”

Serpens looked at the clothes in his hand.
Beige clothes that had fallen near the inn.
They were not new, but seeing that they were fairly clean, Serpens thought someone’s laundry must have fallen.
So he had only picked them up to find their owner.
And since they seemed about the right size, he was thinking of wearing them just until he found the owner.
He absolutely had not intended to steal them.

“This is also a good deed, while I am at it.”

In Serpens’s way of thinking, it was not particularly wrong.
If he had not picked them up, the clothes would have been stepped on, rolled around, and dirtied.
If they had to be washed again anyway, what was wrong with him wearing them around?
He would find clothes to change into, and if he eventually found the owner, they would recover the clothes they had lost.
It was mutual aid.

“I don’t know what you were thinking, but it was definitely the wrong idea.”
“Please call it efficient.”
“I refuse.”
“At least to me, it’s efficient.”
“It isn’t right.”
“You don’t even know exactly what I was thinking.”
“What a thief was thinking when they stole something doesn’t matter. The fact that they committed the crime of theft doesn’t change.”
“Yes, yes. You truly live such an upright life.”
“…….”

The two sat down and ordered their dinners.
While eating, Serpens noisily chattered about what he had gone through.
Lucas listened to Serpens’s resentment without much reaction.

“Ha. Life really is unfair, so unfair. If I do badly, I get cursed at, and even if I do well, I get suspected.”

Serpens looked back on what happened with the Quantums Merchant House.
The more he thought about it, the more his insides boiled.
If he faced the same situation, could he create a different result?
Serpens knew he couldn’t.
The only way was not to save that beggar.
That was a path opposite to the goal he had chosen as his dream.

“Lucas.”

Lucas looked at Serpens while eating bread.

“What were you thinking when you saved me?”
“The timing of that question seems quite late.”
“What can I do if I only got curious late?”
“…….”
“So what was it like!”

Lucas, who had been eating bread, took a sip of water.
The longer the answer was delayed, the more Serpens began to feel an impatience he could not explain.

“I wasn’t thinking anything in particular. I simply didn’t want to see a young child die.”
“Even though I was a beggar who had stolen something?”
“You were a beggar, but the fact that you were a young child came first. The fact that you were socially vulnerable didn’t change.”
“If I had been an adult, would you not have saved me?”
“The standard for adulthood is ambiguous. But if you are asking for my standard, then yes.”
“How does that make sense? They are the same beggars.”
“Beggars can still find work. They can earn money doing manual labor or join mercenaries. Even if they cannot do any of those things, they could have chosen a way to survive other than theft.”
“For example?”
“They could have solved their meals in the forest without taking other people’s things. Through hunting or gathering, at least.”
“That’s too dangerous.”
“At the very least, they would not have harmed others.”

Serpens tapped the empty plate with his fork.
Lucas shook his head as he looked at him.

“Remember that just as you steal food to live, merchants also sell food to live.”

Lucas put down his bread and continued.

“However, there are not many choices given to young beggars. Begging, theft, robbery, or death, I suppose.”

Memories of the past passed through Serpens’s mind.
There were only a handful of kind people to beg from, he lacked the strength to rob, and dying felt far too unfair.
That was why Serpens had no choice but to choose theft in order to live.

“‘Making a choice’ and ‘having no choice’ are different. That was also why I saved you.”
“So that is why you said you would not have helped if I had been an adult?”
“Yes. One may complain about the environment they were given, but not making any effort to overcome it is wrong.”
“You don’t know how much effort stealing takes, do you?”
“An unjust method can never be called effort.”
“……I get it, I get it.”

One corner of Serpens’s heart felt uneasy.
Lucas was clearly a good person.
Because he treated him well and was a person who was clear about right and wrong.
But that part did not sit well with Serpens.

“At this rate, the story will go completely off track. Just tell me what it was like when you saved me.”

When he was with Lucas, Serpens felt as if his life was being denied.
Was it because he was coming to realize that what he had believed was right all his life had been wrong?
Perhaps it was because Lucas’s words were closer to what was right than the life the boy had lived.

‘Still, I don’t regret it.’

Even so, Serpens didn’t dislike talking with Lucas.
He didn’t know the exact reason.
He was always being scolded and always being corrected.
Even so, he didn’t feel offended because he knew those words were for his sake.
Also, because every time Lucas admonished him, he felt that he wasn’t alone.

“I clearly said I wasn’t thinking much.”
“Hmm……. Then I’ll change the question. Do you not regret saving me?”

Lucas’s eyes swept Serpens up and down.
Then, instead of answering, he let out a sigh.

“What is that sigh supposed to mean!”
“I do not regret it.”
“Do you think I am going to believe that in this situation?”
“If you do not want to, then do not believe it.”
“Wow. Look at this guy.”

Lucas stood up from his seat without any change in expression.

“If your questions are over, I will go upstairs.”

Jingle.

Serpens received the key Lucas tossed him.
A key with an inn room number written on it.
Seeing that one was also held in Lucas’s hand, he could tell they were using separate rooms.

“Tsk. I finished eating too, you know.”

Lucas turned away first.
Looking at his back, Serpens fell into thought.

‘What is my goal?’

It had definitely been firm.
To create a world for young beggars like himself.
To be precise, he wanted to create a world where there were no people suited to the word “beggar.”
He wanted to create a world where everyone could eat as much as they worked, and everyone could live while smiling.

Serpens moved his feet and walked among the people.
The inn’s guests wore smiling faces, crying faces, and dazed faces.

As Serpens climbed the stairs, he clenched his fist.

The boy’s goal had not changed.
He vowed that at least his will to create a fair world would not change.
He didn’t want the kid he had saved to cough up blood for the sake of his family.
He wanted to stop the crying of young beggars throughout the empire.

It was not because he pitied himself and them.
It was even less because he wanted to be praised as a kind and righteous person.

This was the boy’s anger toward the world.
It was Serpens’s will to change this damned world.

“Good. I should practice a bit before sleeping.”

The most urgent thing needed to achieve that will was strength.
Serpens had to become strong.