The owner of the back alley
‘Do you know? Or just guess?’
We were the first ones to start patrolling Area 7, so there was no way we would know anything.
If those ignorant medieval bastards had seen me release Hans, they would not have questioned me so politely.
‘He must have been thrown right into the basement of Yeongju Castle.’
The worries were short.
“I was late for the assembly that day because I was on duty, so I started from an area that hadn’t been searched yet. That was Area 7.”
“Hmm… That’s right. Still, it’s absurd that there were empty areas during the search. Discipline has become lax.”
William clicked his tongue and sat back down on his chair. Then he opened the drawers of his desk and started searching for something. The captain next to him jumped, but he couldn’t stop him and just opened his mouth.
“So you found nothing in District 7? That’s the only area the inner guards haven’t been to, so I’d like to hear it from you. Oh, here it is. Oh, it’s Kennelt’s stuff. Where did you get it?”
What William took out from the desk was a fancy square box, and inside it were cigars. Even to me, a layman, they looked expensive.
William, his face relaxed, took one out, put it in his mouth, cut the end off, and lit it.
“Haha… that’s… a gift from a relative… haha….”
The captain’s face instantly crumpled into a pitiful grimace. Since he was a stingy captain who never bought me alcohol, I had to try hard to suppress my laughter.
“Yes. I found nothing.”
I answered, holding back a laughter.
“Really? Tsk. Now this is a headache. Phew- This smells really good. Do you want some too?”
William took out a cigar and handed it to me. The captain behind William shook his head desperately. Looking at him, I wondered if I should learn how to smoke now, but I soon shook my head.
Here, people of all ages and genders smoked happily because they thought cigarettes were good for the body, but I knew that cigarettes were a dye that painted the lungs black.
“it’s okay.”
“Really? I see. Why did this have to happen at such an important moment when a wedding was in progress… Tsk.”
William took out another cigar, put it in his mouth, closed his eyes, and waved his hand. It was a cigar. At that, I bowed my head deeply and left the room.
‘I guess you escaped safely.’
He was a man with a tiger-like demeanor, not just in appearance. Is this what it would feel like to meet a detective in an interrogation room?
Even if Hans were caught, I didn’t worry. These ignorant men were afraid of being bewitched by the devil and would surely cut off Hans’ head without asking him anything.
‘Anyway, life is going to be tough for a while.’
I sighed as I recalled William muttering about how discipline had become lax. Based on my experience in the military, it wasn’t a good sign.
‘But today is the problem, right now.’
Normally, if I worked overnight for several days because of an emergency, I would be guaranteed some rest, but this ignorant place with no employment laws would not allow me that kind of flexibility. I had to get to work right away, even though I had barely slept for two hours.
It was fortunate that I was in good physical shape. As I was leaving the headquarters of the Foreign Defense Corps, I promised myself that I would definitely take a bath after work today.
I came face to face with a woman in gleaming silver armor. Her orange hair was tied tightly, her expression was stiff, but her beauty was not hidden by that.
I habitually glanced at the length of the woman’s arm and the sword hanging at her waist. The sword seemed quite heavy. However, it was not long. If we were to fight…
‘If it’s before taking out the Aura, then it’ll be difficult. If I take out the Aura… That damn Aura.’
Then my eyes met with the woman’s and I quickly lowered my head. In this era, wearing iron on your body was a sign of status.
In this castle, aside from the nobles, there weren’t many people who could possess such a level of armament. At best, there were the captain of the inner guard and the knights. Among them, the only woman was the knight Adela.
Thud thud.
As I was lowering my head, heavy footsteps passed by. Only after the footsteps had faded away did I raise my head.
‘I didn’t catch it.’
If it weren’t for the lord’s orders, the knight wouldn’t have marched all the way to the outer castle guard. The knight’s face was also slightly wrinkled. The emotion contained in that wrinkled expression was clearly annoyance.
It seemed that Hans was more talented than I thought.
‘Or is there really some sort of movement-related magic?’
Well, it’s none of my business anymore.
***
“No, Captain, isn’t this really too much? I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. And now I have to go straight to work like this….”
The baggy Kel guy grumbled.
“But you still had about three hours to sleep. The problem is that you went to that woman’s house as soon as you got off work. Do you want to do that?”
“No, the castle has been in turmoil these past few days, and Rosa is scared. How could a gentleman refuse a lady’s request?”
“The gentleman is not yet solved.”
Kel, who was about to say something, closed his mouth with a squeak when I frowned.
Although Kel was particularly horny, the others were no different. There wasn’t much to do in a castle on the outskirts of the Middle Ages, so the birth rate wasn’t a concern.
Of course, if you give birth to four, two of them will die. These guys give birth to ten on average, so the birth rate is guaranteed to be five.
So, wherever you went in the castle, it was bustling, noisy and crowded.
“By the way, Team Leader. Luna next door sent me a letter, but you didn’t reply, right? It’s not like Team Leader has another woman… Even Heo Woo-dae is a perfectly fine person, but he just swings his sword around all day long….”
“shut up.”
Luna, like Rosa, was a famous prostitute. Of course, I didn’t know exactly, but I had seen several men coming and going from her house.
He’s been openly flirting with Luna ever since she took the sticky man off her during patrol.
Luna was beautiful, but that didn’t mean I could wallow in the lap of a medieval prostitute.
‘If you get an STD, your dick will turn into dick again, I’m crazy…’
Before coming here, I knew the horrors of sexually transmitted diseases from the shocking pictures I saw in sex education classes, so there was no way I could roll around with prostitutes in this uncivilized world full of guys who shit on the street.
“Oh my… my apology… Oh my….”
“Hands off! You bastards! You little bastards! Get off! Get off!”
“It fell! According to Imperial law, what falls belongs to no one!”
“Wow. That Hans guy caught a lot of people.”
I nodded to Kel’s muttering. The street was a mess.
As if they thought I was hiding under the stalls that weren’t even waist-high, the stalls were all overturned and the fruits and vegetables that had been on them were scattered on the floor.
People were trying to pick up things that had fallen on the ground, and the stall owner was swinging a skewer to stop them.
“Everyone get away!”
As I shouted loudly with all my might, the people who had been swarming around me like maggots on rotten meat began to look around and fall. When dealing with these guys, it was best to be loud and wear a helmet.
“Put down what you’re holding.”
“Put it down! You little shits! Can’t you hear me?! Huh?!”
Kel shouted and drew his sword. Then, people put down what they were holding and slowly retreated. Perhaps Kel thought that was not enough, so he followed a few of them and struck them with his own fists. There was no need to do that, but since they seemed to be relieving the fatigue that had built up recently in their own way, he did not bother to stop them.
“Oh my! Thank you! Thank you!”
The stall owner expressed his gratitude and hurriedly picked up the fallen items and put them back. I picked up a few apples that were in good condition.
“···?”
“An apple in the morning is good for your health.”
The goatee man who was picking apples looked up at me, but soon turned his head away and went back to busily picking them up.
“Thank you, Captain. I was just about to go out.”
Kel took a clean handkerchief with a flower pattern from his pocket and wiped the apple. I waited until he was done and then swapped it with mine. Kel wiped the apple again, fuming.
‘It’s delicious.’
I savored the taste of apples that would have clearly been Chungju apples if I were in Korea, and waited for the stalls to clear out.
After eating about two apples, a little boy wearing a baker’s hat approached me.
“···Carnelian flowers do not wither.”
The little boy next to me whispered something incomprehensible and walked away slowly.
‘This is fucking crazy. Seriously.’
I felt a pounding in my head and pressed my temples, knowing what the little boy meant by the hat he was wearing. When on earth did he come up with such a fucking code again?
“I’ll be back shortly. I’m patrolling this area.”
“Yes. Have a nice day. Oh- this is really sweet. Rosa would love it. Hey! Put some for me.”
Kel, who was answering, was already peeling an orange. At Kel’s shouting, the goatee man put a few oranges into a paper bag with trembling hands.
The little boy who had gone to the far alley just stuck his head out and waited for me. When I got closer, he ran again and I followed him.
‘It’s spinning.’
I knew the exact location, but I wondered why he kept going in circles… I reached my destination just before I ran out of patience and punched the kid in the head.
It was a shabby bar with the word ‘Jackson’ written in crooked letters.
As I opened the door to the bar and went in, I saw young men. They all had their youthful faces and were wearing black hats and holding their weight. However, their childishness was not hidden at all.
They looked at me and bowed their heads deeply, and I waved my hand lightly.
“The boss is waiting.”
One of them approached me and spoke to me politely. He seemed polite, but his accent was too strong.
‘The boss is a bastard.’
The shameless guy’s words brought swear words to the tip of my tongue.
The place he guided me to was the innermost room on the second floor. There was a shabby desk that looked like it had been found somewhere, and a large man was sitting across from it.
“It’s been a while.”
A close-cropped head, thick neck and torso, a bushy beard that covers more than half of his lower body, and innocent eyes that don’t match it. He called himself the shadow of the Cassadic Castle. Of course, others call him Bear Scar.
“Didn’t I tell you not to call me during work hours?”
“No, wait! I couldn’t help it! This time, because of that Hans guy, we suffered a lot of damage!”
“The damage isn’t that serious… All they had to do was confiscate a few cases of bootleg liquor and pay a fine.”
As if my prediction was right, the Scar guy rolled his eyes and avoided my gaze. The guy who couldn’t even drink alcohol fiddled with the glass containing brown liquid on the table.
I snatched it from him and poured it into my mouth. The cheap bootleg liquor burned my esophagus as I swallowed it. It was really bad, but thanks to it, my fatigue was somewhat washed away.
“And you haven’t been home lately? What are you trying to do?”
I quickly grabbed the guy by the collar and pulled him out. He slapped my hand as if he was suffocating and shook his head furiously.
“Ugh! Ah… No, that’s because some unidentified strangers have been coming in lately to watch over me… But where did you hear that… It’s Cash again! This damn woman! An outsider is accomplishing a great feat, and you can’t even help her….”
I lightly hit the head of the guy who kept talking nonsense with my fist and let him go. Scar muttered with a sullen face and sat back down in his chair.
In a remote castle, how much must there be to eat for a guy like that to be taking over the back alleys… Of course, his father’s influence was a big factor in his taking over the back alleys, but it was also big that he showed off his brute strength by lifting a stone the size of his body in the town square.
“What kind of foreigner is that…? A tourist, I guess. Don’t you remember how you got locked up for a week last time after making a fuss about being suspicious of a tourist?”
“This time, unlike last time, it’s really strange···.”
I held out my palm to cut him off, and he grumbled as he took a shabby pouch out of a drawer and handed it to me.
When he opened his pocket, he found a few silver coins. It was really small money considering he was dealing with a back alley owner, but he was grateful for this since his salary as a security guard was meager.
“Do you remember the promise we made back then? Aaron, from the sunny side, and I from the shady side, we would take control of Cassidy Castle.”
Suddenly, the Scar guy’s expression hardened and he spoke in an unusually low voice. I couldn’t stand his shameless appearance any longer.
“What the hell are you trying to control? Isn’t today the day you go to the woodworking shop?”
“Ah! Damn it! Is it that day already? The old man is going to nag me again!”
The guy who had been carrying a lot of weight jumped up with a startled look on his face, hurriedly grabbed the clothes piled up on one side, and ran out.
“Go and take control of the carpenter’s shop! Don’t get beaten up by a man in his sixties!”
I shouted and giggled behind the guy who was running out of breath.
As I was about to pick up the barely-empty bottle of alcohol on the table, my eyes caught the note Scar had written on it.
– It’s been three days since they entered the castle and they haven’t come out. I’m suspicious. You can fool others, but you can’t fool Naska, the Shadow King.
‘If you can write, you can work in the castle.’
I’ve already told him several times, but he insists on going to work at the rough woodworking shop, talking about the master of shadows. He keeps saying that he’ll leave the sun to me.
I poured some moonshine into my glass and took another sip. It felt like I had swallowed fire. It was clearly the lowest grade moonshine, with a faint, pungent aroma.
He put down the glass he had finished drinking from and shoved the pouch he had received from the guy inside his leather armor.
Then I saw a piece of paper with the stranger’s whereabouts written on it, and after thinking about it for a moment, I took it. It was clearly a waste of time, but I had to check it since it was the kind of salary I was paid to do.
‘Tsk.’
It wasn’t a bad deal, since I could just check and if it wasn’t anything serious, I could just smack that guy’s head a few times.
