Interactions In The Slums

“It’s here! I greeted Lazaar the lizard here today!”

After the children finished stuffing their cheeks with meat, they arrived here under the guidance of the boy Pero, who said he had seen Lazaar.

An abandoned house. A collapsing house. What Pero had led them to was the yard of a decayed residence where no one could possibly be living.

“Pero. Is it really here? There’s nothing here.”

“No, there’s a tent set up in the back. Looks like someone was here, but it seems empty now. Sorry, Brother. We’ll check other connections and search for the Lizardonian too. We’ll do work worth the fee.”

Rida spotted it in the back of the yard, just along the side of the house, in an inconspicuous place.

Just as he said, a tent made of old wood and rags stood there alone.

“…Rida, I’ll help too. I’ll run around the city.”

Rida and Luca were fully motivated.

However, Tooyama shook his head.

“No, brats, this is fine. Looks like this is the right place.”

“But no one’s here, right? It looks like he used fire, though.”

Luca pointed beside the tent, toward the scorched ground that looked like the remains of a campfire.

“No problem. I’ll search from here on. Rida, you helped me.”

Tooyama lightly thanked the children and spoke words of farewell.

“Ah, yeah. If you’re okay with it, Brother, we’ll still help.”

“Th-that’s right! You even treated us to food and paid us ten copper coins. Just say anything!”

“…That’s right. We haven’t repaid you anything yet.”

But apparently, the children were dissatisfied. They each said they would help Tooyama.

“…No, it’s fine. The job is complete. This is where I say goodbye to you. Pero, thanks for telling me.”

Tooyama looked away from them as they offered to help and patted Pero’s head, which happened to be nearby. He patted softly so his hand would not get tangled in the curly hair.

“Hmm, we’re already saying goodbye?”

Pero narrowed his eyes ticklishly and asked in a drawn-out voice. He looked slow, but this child might actually be unexpectedly clever.

“Yeah, you helped me. Stay well. Shiro, don’t bite Pero’s hair.”

Tooyama crouched so his eyes met Pero’s, then poked the cheek of the tiny child being carried on his small back.

It was soft and squishy. He became worried that, by some chance, his finger might break through that soft cheek.

“Ah-uu!”

Shiro, however, smiled happily. Tooyama ended up smiling along with him.

“Brother.”

At Rida’s voice, which sounded like he wanted to say something, Tooyama shook his head and looked straight at him.

“Rida, think about priorities. You and I are equal business partners. The job is over, so there’s no need to get any more friendly than necessary. You understand that, right?”

He placed a hand on Rida’s shoulder and admonished him.

He was a smart child. This way of putting it should be enough to get the message across.

“Ah, yeah, that’s… right.”

Even so, Rida seemed to want to say something, but he held it back and nodded to Tooyama.

“Eh, really, really, we’re already saying goodbye? I thought we might be able to get along.”

Niko again looked anxiously between Rida and Luca with tears in her strong-looking upturned eyes, then finally looked up at Tooyama.

When a small girl looked up at him with teary eyes, it made him feel as though he had done something terribly wrong.

Tooyama met Niko’s eyes and quietly nodded.

“…Niko, you can’t. You’ll trouble him. Brother, um, thank you. The meat was delicious.”

Unexpectedly, the one who admonished Niko was the pickpocket boy, Luca.

“Yeah. Next time, don’t steal from me again.”

“…We can’t meet anymore?”

Luca timidly looked up at Tooyama.

This time, Tooyama answered without looking away.

“Yeah. Farewell is all life is, as they say. Let’s not get too attached to each other. Luca, you have something I didn’t have. Take care of it.”

“Something you didn’t have, but I do?”

Luca murmured with a face of disbelief.

“Rida, Niko, Pero, and Shiro. When I was your age, I didn’t have a single friend or companion. No, I lost the one I had. I can never meet him again.”

He could not help overlapping them. These children, weak and fragile, yet huddling close to the world and living with all their might, overlapped with his old self.

“Ah…”

Luca looked at the companions around him.

It resembled the admiration Tooyama had yearned for in his childhood, but had been taken from him.

“So treasure them. There’s a limit to how many people a human can treasure. I can’t choose you guys to be among mine, and you’re the same.”

“Brother, even so, I won’t forget that you treated us as equals. If there’s ever anything else we can help with, call us. Let us help you as equals.”

Even at Tooyama’s cold words, Rida was not intimidated.

The eyes staring firmly at Tooyama held the light of intelligence.

“Thanks, Rida. Hey, Niko, stop crying. Pero and Shiro will get anxious. You’re the big sister, right?”

Tooyama stroked Niko’s head as she sniffled.

“B-but… No, I-I’m not crying! There’s no way I’d cry over something like this.”

Niko wiped her tears and puffed out her chest with a hmph. Her strong-willed behavior was probably meant to hide that she was a crybaby.

Tooyama laughed and wiped Niko’s tears with the hem of his robe.

“I see. My bad. Rida, Luca, Niko, Pero, Shiro.”

Tooyama stood up again and looked around at them. The people he had briefly interacted with in the slums, but with whom he had indeed exchanged words.

“Thanks. You helped me. But this is goodbye.”

He had no intention of getting deeply involved. That was Tooyama’s current conclusion.

“…Yeah, understood.”

Luca nodded slightly.

“Brother, our house is near that plaza. Come visit us anytime!”

Rida thumped his own chest.

“B-Brother, absolutely, okay? Absolutely come visit us again!”

Niko ran over to Tooyama, grabbed his robe, and pleaded.

“Brother, thanks for the food! I was happy to eat meat for the first time in a while. Come on, Shiro too.”

“Ah-uu, uu!”

Pero and Shiro waved their small hands with all their might.

Tooyama smiled wryly and honestly waved to the children as they left.

It had been the right choice to part before he truly got attached. This was not the same as keeping a dog or cat.

“…This is fine. I’m not wrong.”

Stepping in more than necessary due to temporary emotions would not be good for them either.

So this was fine.

He had neither the leeway nor the obligation to step too deeply into other people’s lives and do something for them. That was not Tooyama’s desire. It should not be.

“…Then why did I help Lazaar back then?”

That small murmur, however, was a word that rose from somewhere separate from reason.

Tooyama shook off those words.

He swallowed the slight feeling caught in his chest, and after their figures disappeared from sight, Tooyama once again looked around.

“Now then, where are you?”

He pulled himself together and was about to seriously search for him.

Ping.

The arrow pointed at the empty tent.

Judging from the message as well, there seemed no doubt that this was Lazaar’s location.

Tooyama first approached the scorched ground.

Charred old wood and kindling had turned to ash.

“After a campfire… So he was using fire.”

After checking the ground, he peered into the contents of a bucket placed nearby.

“Are these clothes…? They’ve been washed. Where did he get them?”

There was an easy-to-move-in tunic and clean-looking cloth pants. They were different from what Lazaar had been wearing back then.

“A cup. What is this? It’s different from coffee or tea.”

The tiny amount of liquid left at the bottom, a mixture of black and brown, gave off a faintly sweet smell when he sniffed it.

“Scrap wood, using planks as a bed? The tent material is old cloth, a fabric like denim.”

He peered into the empty tent. About two scrap planks had been laid out. There was enough space for one human to sleep comfortably.

“Hm? What is this? Something…”

Inside the tent he peered into, he felt a faint sense of unease.

Even though no one should be there, somehow, he felt something like breathing. It was close to the feeling he had when entering a monster species’ nest.

Tooyama immediately left the tent and looked around again.

“He’s not here… But this campfire…”

He held his hand over the remains of the campfire.

The lingering heat gradually warmed his palm.

“It’s still warm. Not much time has passed since the fire went out.”

Was he out? Even so, something felt off. Just as Tooyama tried to sit down there and organize his thoughts—

“Whoa?! W-what is it?”

Something stirred around his heart. There was no discomfort, and he knew this sensation well.

“Kiriyaiba…?”

It was as if the relic sleeping inside Tooyama’s body began stirring, as though saying, “Draw me.”

This had never happened before.

It felt as though blood was running and rampaging throughout his entire body, as though a puppy was excitedly running around inside him.

Strangely, it was neither painful nor unpleasant.

“Whoa, whoa?! I get it, I get it! Come, Kiriyaiba!”

He placed his hand over his heart and called its name. He drew into the world the relic that lived inside his body as naturally as if it belonged there.

What kind of mechanism had made it so the guild’s physical examination never found it? If he seriously thought about it, it was frightening, so he had decided not to care too much.

“Whoa?!”

The strange behavior was not over yet.

The Kiriyaiba he drew from his chest rattled, and from that momentum, it flew out of his palm.

“Ehhh… You had that kind of function?”

Shock.

Kiriyaiba began rattling and circling around the area.

The campfire, the bucket, the cup, the tent.

In the order Tooyama had investigated them, the small curved blade, with its chipped tip and battered edge, continued moving on its own.

What kind of horror was this?

“Well, there’s no instruction manual… I guess it’s like making hamburger steak with a rice cooker.”

With a uniquely explorer-like low-intelligence thought, Tooyama accepted the reality before him. In this world, there were also things one could not endure unless one became an idiot.

Rattle, rattle.

Kiriyaiba crawled around the area.

Why was it? No, even though they should not resemble each other at all, somehow that figure looked like that of an old furry friend searching for a toy ball—

“Ho? Hey, Kiriyaiba?”

Pshuu.

Mist filled the surroundings.

Of course, it was Kiriyaiba’s doing. A mist like white, heavy smoke. Regardless of Tooyama’s will, it brought fog into the world.

“Somehow, you’ve gotten pretty aggressive—huh?”

Something moved within the mist.

A black haze.

A shadow—

The mist made the shadow surface and smoked it out.

“Cough! Cough?! What? What is happening…? My shadow, why? …Could it be, oh, by our ‘Fangs’!! Naruhito, could it be Naruhito?!”

The mist cleared in an instant.

The black shadow also vanished as though melting away, and what appeared from it was a lizard face one would never forget after seeing it once.

Slave clothes from that time, scaly skin, vertically slit pupils. A strangely sensual handsome voice.

“Ehhh… L-Lazaar, seriously? I don’t understand anything anymore.”

Lazaar the Lizardonian was there.

Posun.

…………….

……

“Wasn’t he a good person?”

“Yeah, he was. It was my first time having an adult treat me to food. Come to think of it, it was also the first time Shiro wasn’t scared at all. He must be a good person.”

“Yeah, that brother didn’t just treat us like humans, he treated us as equal beings. He also didn’t tell us to pay him back until the end.”

After parting from Tooyama, the children walked through the familiar scenery of the slums. They walked together at the edge of the road, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible.

That was the wisdom of those who were overwhelmingly weak in this city. The accumulation of such small things had allowed them to survive in this city until this age.

“…So there are adults like that too.”

Luca muttered quietly.

He wore his hunting cap low over his eyes, but his vision properly captured Niko and the others walking ahead.

“Yeah, they’re not all enemies. Maybe we’re just kids who still don’t know anything. Luca, I’ve decided.”

Rida, walking beside him, declared in a strong tone.

“Eh?”

“When I grow bigger than I am now, and my body is fully grown, I’m going to become an adventurer. I’ll earn money there and let you all eat your fill.”

Rida’s voice was unusually hot and powerful. Even though he was smart, Rida was easily influenced.

Surely, he had been influenced by that person.

“You’re not suited for it, Rida. You don’t have a skill, and you’re weak in fights.”

Luca smiled at the older friend beside him.

Rida was smart, but weak. He was probably fundamentally unsuited for conflicts that used force.

When it came to using his head, Luca could not beat him, but in physical strength, Luca was aware he was far stronger.

“Shut up. I’ll train from now on! That brother was probably an adventurer too, right? Wasn’t he cool? That brother can decide everything by himself. That’s because he has strength. I want to become like that too.”

Rida swung his arms around, unusually excited.

His eyes were shining. Seeing Rida act childishly for the first time in a while made Luca a little happy.

“…Rida, even if you become an adventurer, you’ll just die right away. It’s apparently a world where eight out of ten people die while still fourth-rank. And becoming an adventurer costs money too.”

He had heard that story before. A former adventurer who had fallen into the slums had told him.

Apparently, that man had also been an adventurer.

It was a world of survival of the fittest, where more people lost their lives while still being fourth-rank, the lowest class of adventurer.

“Hmph, I’ll earn it by cleaning gutters or whatever. With work that I can accept.”

At those words, Luca placed his hand on his own chest.

That person’s words still remained here.

“…Accept, huh. Rida, I’m going to stop pickpocketing.”

“Oh?”

At Luca’s words, Rida widened his eyes.

“When that person said it to me, I realized. I was always making excuses. That it couldn’t be helped. That stealing from blessed people couldn’t be helped.”

When he had been called out, he had truly been shocked.

As if his heart had been read.

Remembering the shock from that time, Luca looked at Rida.

The things that person did not have, but he did.

Looking at the faces of his companions and friends, he declared it.

“But I’ll stop. If you’re going to become an adventurer, then I’ll become one too. If it’s just you alone, Rida, it feels like you’ll die right away.”

“You bastard. Heh, do what you want. Don’t drag me down.”

Neither knew who extended their arm first.

“Which one of us are you talking about, Rida?”

With a small tap, the two small fists met.

“Wow, youth?”

“Ah-uu?”

“Boys are so easily influenced. Well, that part is cute too.”

Niko, Pero, and Shiro, who had been walking ahead, turned back and watched the exchange between the two with grins.

Their interaction with a certain traveler had given them a small, truly tiny influence.

Small lives living in the slums, walking the path of resignation and corruption. A greedy human had suddenly appeared on the road of their fate.

For these children, who had never properly interacted with an adult, the influence that greedy human had given them would, however, change the way they walked.

“First, let’s start with picking up trash. We might find copper coins.”

“Yeah, I’ll help too. Maybe I should ask the person in charge around here if we can get gutter-cleaning work.”

Hope.

They should have only been heading slowly toward despair, but now, they were changing. It was a tiny little change.

However, to them, it was the greatest thing that should not be stolen by anyone—

“Ah?! F-found you! Finally found you, you brats!”

But adults knew very well that such things were fragile.

The children did not know yet.

They, who had begun to swell with dreams, who had begun to hold a little hope for the future from an ordinary interaction with an adult, did not yet know.

“Ah!! Those are the brats! Wise-san!”

“Hmm, so those are the children. Hello, hello, you all.”

Smoothly.

That man blocked their path as if it were natural.

Without ever lowering his gaze to their height, he looked down and smiled gently.

“Uu…”

He had features far more refined than the robed traveler, but seeing that smile, Shiro, the youngest child, began crying without even raising his voice.

“Ah…”

Luca, Rida, and Niko.

The faces of the three slum residents turned pale.

It was not because they were surrounded by many adult vagrants.

Nor was it because the older group who had hurt Luca were among them, their battered faces twisted as they grinned at them.

“Now, now, don’t be so frightened. I will not do anything cruel.”

It was because they saw the tattoo carved on the cheek of that gentle-faced man.

“Could you talk with me for just a little while? Don’t worry, I won’t take much of your time… okay?”

With a “crow-feather tattoo” displayed proudly, the gentle-looking man looked down at the children with a truly gentle smile, coldly, endlessly coldly.

“C-Crows…”

Yes, the world was—

Not so soft that it would change from just one slightly special encounter.

And yet, it was harsh to the weak, thoroughly so.