Chapter 24

If you want to find a quiet inn, you should visit an inn very early at dawn, around the time the sun begins to rise.
That doesn’t mean it is completely quiet.
Because the snoring of a thoroughly drunk patron is never quiet.
But you do not hear any rowdy noise.
So early dawn is not a bad time to look out the window and sort out your thoughts.

Lucas often enjoyed that time of day.

Quite some time had passed since he sat silently in his seat and drank tea.
He shook off the noise in his head and brushed away the worries ahead.
When he was having that time of his own.
The server spoke to him.

“Did you not sleep?”

She was thin and short. A woman with long light-brown hair, a yellow dress engraved with flower patterns, and striking freckles.
Even with tired eyes, she showed quite a kind smile.

“Well……. Something like that.”
“I don’t know what happened, but take it easy. People these days need sleep, you know!”
“……Yes.”

The server smiled brightly and began mopping.

Lucas’s own time returned once again.
Outside the window, it gradually grew brighter.

‘This leisure will not last much long-’

Thump, thump.

Someone knocked on the inn door.
Lucas’s attention turned toward the door.
Generally, people did not knock when entering an inn.
An inn was a space open to anyone.
Guests, beggars, rich people, and thugs did not enter after asking permission. An inn was a place where one entered first and paid for permission afterward.

The server who had been mopping hurried over.

“Who is it?”

There was only one kind of person who knocked on an inn door.
The city guards.

“Excuse us.”

Three sturdy men in silver armor entered.
The city guards looked around.
One of them even met Lucas’s eyes.

“We heard this kid is staying here.”

At the word “kid,” Lucas’s attention focused.
Among the people staying at this inn, there was only one person who fit the word “kid.”
Only Serpens, who was asleep upstairs in a near-unconscious state.

“Ah, yes. That is right.”

The server glanced toward Lucas.
Since she worked at the inn almost all day, she knew Lucas was with the kid.
But she was hesitating over telling them that fact.
Lucas could not understand it.
Whether she withheld the truth or told a lie.
Whatever she did, she would be severely punished.

‘I do not need this kind of help…….’

Helping someone meant helping another while being prepared to suffer a loss oneself.
If the loss one suffered grew too large, it went beyond help and became sacrifice.
For the server to help Lucas would be sacrifice.
Deceiving the city guards would not end with a light punishment.
If she was lucky, she might have to pay compensation. If she was unlucky, she might have to pay with a part of her body.

That was why Lucas gave the server a slight nod.
He did not want someone to sacrifice themselves for him.

At that sight, the server, who had been hesitating, opened her mouth.

“He is with him.”

The city guards’ gazes moved along the tip of her pale finger.

“…….”

Lucas met their eyes for a moment.
Perhaps because his eyes were so lifeless.
To the city guards, those eyes instead came across as defiant.

Bang-

The tallest man among them struck the table in front of Lucas and spoke.

“That kid said to be traveling with you has been reported for theft. And the one who reported him is the Quantums Merchant House.”

His voice was low but sharp.
His skill at applying pressure was decent enough.

“I see.”

Lucas straightened himself and looked at the guard.
His voice was quiet but firm.
And the lifeless coldness in his gaze made the guard even more uneasy.

“You speak as if you already knew.”
“I did not know the details.”
“So you knew either way.”

The guards looked at each other and nodded.
They quickly surrounded Lucas.

“You will need to come with us as well. Where is the kid?”
“He is probably in a dream.”
“Enough wordplay!”

Kang!

The sound of weapons scraping echoed through the inn.
The guard was flustered when his attack was blocked.
The attack just now had been meant as a threat.
He had swung hard because he meant to strike the table, not cause direct harm.
That attack had been blocked at once.
And he had not even seen the man before him draw his sword.

‘He is strong.’

It was not will but instinct that made him slowly step back.
At that sight, the other guards also gripped their weapons.

“Drop your weapon without resistance! We cannot overlook this any further.”

Thud.

Then Lucas’s greatsword was placed on the table.

“You must come with us as well.”

The guard, relieved, reached towards Lucas.
At that moment.

Crack.

The back of Lucas’s hand slammed into the guard’s face.
A person had been struck by a person’s hand, yet the sound that rang out could not possibly have come from a human body.

“Keoheok!”

Unable to withstand the attack, the guard lost consciousness and collapsed.

“Oh dear. I meant to stretch, but someone got hit.”

Lucas drank his tea with a calm expression.

“You bastard!”

Unable to stand it any longer, the remaining guards rushed in all at once.
Four swords came at Lucas as he sat there.
Were the city guards allowed to draw swords against citizens?
Well, they must have been, since they were doing this.

Crack!

Two swords embedded themselves in the table in front of him.
At the same time, Lucas rose from his seat and extended his fist.

The first fist struck the jaw.
The second that followed struck the liver.

The guards struck by those blows collapsed one after another.

“You bastard! Die!”

With a shout full of rage, a sword flew toward Lucas’s neck.
Lucas leaned his head back to dodge, then twisted his waist and struck his opponent’s abdomen with rotation behind the blow.

“Keugh!”

The guard vomited blood and dropped to his knees.

Now only one remained.
Lucas raised his leg and kicked the guard behind him.

Crack.

With the sound of bone breaking, even the last remaining guard lost consciousness and collapsed.

The surroundings became quiet in an instant.

Scrape-

Among the fallen guards, Lucas sat back down before the table.
His breathing was unchanged, and there was not the slightest tremor in his expression.

The only person who had watched the whole situation in her right mind was the server.
She lowered her head, unable to look directly at Lucas.
As if she had seen something she shouldn’t have seen.

Lucas spoke to her.

“Just now, they used their swords first. I only blocked them. You saw that, right?”
“……Yes! I saw it!”

The server’s voice trembled.
But Lucas didn’t mind, and merely drank the remaining tea at his leisure.

That bloodstained leisure lasted for a moment.
A miserable wail came from the stairs connected to the upper floor.
It was a strange sound that seemed like a mix of human and beast.

“What is this……?”

Serpens came down with his hair disheveled.

He looked rather flustered.
Lucas quietly stared at the boy and spoke.

“It seems you made quite a mess.”
“Me?”
“Did you not say you saved someone?”
“Ah, don’t tell me those Quantums bastards reported me? Wow. They are seriously petty.”
“…….”
“Will you please believe me? This time, it really is true.”

The boy’s eyes were not fully open from sleep.
With irritation mixed in, they looked as if they were closed.

Scrape-

Serpens sat in front of Lucas.
The boy ordered food while grumbling, his lips jutting out in a pout.

“So. You said it was the Quantums Merchant House?”
“Probably.”
“I see.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I intend to go there.”
“There? Why?”
“Since the matter has grown bigger, I will have to resolve it myself.”

The boy felt an ominous feeling.
In truth, he had no choice but to feel it.
Under his seat, city guards were lying sprawled out.
Resolving matters like this……
It was not that he didn’t trust Lucas.
But in Serpens’s short life, force had been closer to something that made problems bigger than something that solved them.

Lucas noticed Serpens’s worry and spoke.

“Do not worry. I will not resolve it with force.”
“That is a relief, then.”

After waiting for a while, the food Serpens had ordered came out.
He did eat, but it was not exactly a pleasant meal.
Because the guards kept entering his sight even when he didn’t want them to, he felt as if he might get indigestion.

“Shall we go if you are done eating?”
“Yeah.”
“You did not leave anything behind, did you?”
“I don’t even carry anything around.”

Lucas widened his stride and stepped around the city guards.
Serpens also followed him and moved toward the door.

“Thank you for visiting our inn. Please visit again next time!”

The server called out a farewell to the two as they left.
Was that invitation to visit again sincere?
Lucas couldn’t know.

Just as the two were about to go out the door.

“W……wait!”

The server grabbed Serpens’s wrist.
At her rather strong grip, the boy’s eyes widened.

“Yes……?”

Serpens looked at the server.
Her eyebrows had lowered faintly, and the corners of her eyes seemed to tremble slightly.
Several times, she tried to open her mouth and stopped.
Did she have something to say?

“Do you have something to say……?”

Serpens asked first.
Because his wrist was starting to hurt.

The server noticed that and hurriedly let go.
Then she squeezed her eyes shut and bowed.

“I am sorry! I think I put you in a difficult situation yesterday by blurting things out without thinking.”
“……Huh?”
“I am sorry for making you rush out when you probably couldn’t even eat your meal!”

The memories of yesterday flashed through Serpens’s mind.
The name of the dish he had ordered at the inn.
The city guards who had suddenly barged in.
And running.
Meeting Lucas and getting beaten up.

“Ah.”

Now that he thought about it, he remembered seeing this server.
Wasn’t she the woman who had told the guards who barged in his location without hesitation?

‘But why is she apologizing?’

He didn’t particularly resent her.
The boy himself had run because he had to run.
And this server had cooperated because she had to cooperate.
They had each only done what they had to do, so what was there to be sorry about?
From a third party’s perspective, the server was a model citizen.
If anything, the one who should apologize was Serpens.
Just making the city guards come to her place of business was already a great inconvenience.

“No. Why are you apologizing? You did nothing wrong.”
“Still, I am sorry! No matter what, you are a guest at our inn, and I think you must have felt uncomfortable.”
“…….”

Even if he said it was fine, she didn’t seem like she would listen.
Was she such a kind person that one could call her innocent?
Whatever she was, she was tiring in a refreshingly new way.

“No. I am sorry too.”
“I am truly sorry. If you visit again next time, I will provide the food you could not eat last time free of charge.”
“Thank you.”

Even so, was a kind person not better than a bad one?

Serpens exchanged farewells with the server while wearing an awkward smile.
He trotted toward Lucas, who was walking slowly.
The boy thought.
Right now, he always walked the path Lucas chose.
But someday, after who knew how much time had passed, could the two of them walk a path the boy himself had chosen?

His muscle pain and the pain from training rang through him, but when he thought that, it was not only painful.

“Are you going to resolve it with words, without using force?”
“That will depend on how Quantums responds.”
“Since we are going there anyway, can we also get back the money they took from me?”
“…….”
“It wasn’t just a measly coin or two!”
“……Alright.”