Chapter 272

272nd Episode

Entrance of Fall #8

“I-I’m Prince Friedrich! If you’re a cultist, you should kneel before me! This is just a game!”

“This isn’t some kind of game, it is not…!”

“No, if this isn’t a game, then what is it…?”

“Hurry up and kneel, pledging your allegiance to me!”

Just a moment ago, they had been playing tag and jumping around together, but now, glancing around, Paranoi was knocking some boy’s head, making him cry.

The boy who had declared himself Prince Friedrich was buckling under the ruthless knuckle sandwich from a Cultist of level 20, landing squarely on the floor, bawling.

“Having defeated the prince, the kingdom is now mine…! Ultimately, the influence of Pluto will spread corruption throughout the kingdom…!”

Then, Paranoi took it up a notch by sticking a leaf on the heads of the crying children.

“With my hands, you have died, and now you shall resurrect as undead…! You’ll become a member of the Scourge, spreading ruin and d*ath as my d*ath Knights…!”

“Aaaaaaah, Mom, Momuuu!”

Terrified by Paranoi’s horrific threats, the boys scattered and ran off somewhere.

With that, the nearby mothers, who had been chatting, were now flustered and began to voice their protests.

“No, why are you making the children cry? Ralph, you shouldn’t cry if you get hit by someone like a nymph! Pull yourself together!”

“No, Mom, it really hurts. She’s insanely strong!”

“Jo…nna? Where did you learn words like that? Did you play with Barak again? I told you not to play with Barak! Wild habits stick, you know!”

“A…no, Mom, it’s not that—”

Perhaps I should just leave them be.

The rather complex situation seemed to conclude as the mothers took their sons and daughters by the hand and left the place.

From behind me, Paranoi, whose intimidating presence seemed to be why the issue didn’t escalate further, likely chose to avoid creating more trouble by simply leaving the spot.

“Bye, let’s play again next time.”

“Sure-!”

Once the noisy commotion of crying children had subsided, leaving a relatively peaceful atmosphere, I spoke to Paranoi.

“Hey, what are you doing beating up kids and making them cry? sh*t, I thought something serious was about to happen.”

If angry mothers had come to protest, there was no way I could have dealt with it just by throwing fists. Nonetheless, Paranoi appeared proud of her actions, puffing out her chest.

“Since I overthrew Prince Friedrich, I deserve a medal, don’t you think…? Even if he was fake, nonetheless…!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Prince Friedrich…is a terrible scoundrel…! There’s no one worse than that guy…!”

Paranoi growled loudly, clearly still upset about something with Friedrich. Maybe they had some kind of personal feud or something. However, I also knew of someone with the name Prince Friedrich.

He was the one who, instead of the elderly and ailing current king, took care of the citizens and the common folk, even venturing without hesitation into the slums plagued with epidemics or the Monster-ridden Wild Zone.

It was the kind of prince one might find in fairy tales from olden days, riding a white horse and being beloved by the people – and it was just like Prince Friedrich in real life.

In fact, I had received help from him as well.

That day, Prince Friedrich personally dispatched for the investigation of the Abyss incident and Antiope’s unauthorized departure from the Royal Castle. Had he not declared me innocent, I might very well be facing a much greater retaliation today.

So, was Friedrich simply not to Paranoi’s liking because he was a pawn of justice, as a Priestess of Pluto?

“Friedrich is a moron…! That guy broke Pluto’s shrine, drove Pluto’s priests to d*ath as cultists, and beheaded them…!”

“Huh?”

“Thanks to that, the followers of Pluto couldn’t escape being treated as cultists…! Plenty of people actually ended up corrupted and turned to truly cultist ways because of that….”

That was a new fact to me.

I had many questions about how the influence of Pluto—one of the three great gods—had declined to such a state, but I hadn’t expected to learn the reason here.

“In any case, don’t hit kids’ heads while playing.”

“Understood….”

Cleared of the children, Juno’s Garden became eerily quiet.

All that remained there were the toys kids left behind while playing, the footprints, and the lingering echoes of laughter.

However, a lone boy still lingered, picking up what other children of his age had discarded and placing them into a sort of box.

In stark contrast to other kids who had left with their mothers and still looked fairly tidy despite dirty feet, the boy who remained had ragged clothes, messy hair, and dark locks.

A Samaritan, perhaps?

It’s not something I’ve encountered or mentioned much, as it passed me by, but seeing another Samaritan in the great city of Sodomora isn’t an altogether rare sight.

Just as I thought that Juno’s shrine housed quite an interesting set of characters, Paranoi, nursing the bump on her head from earlier, quietly explained.

“That boy is Barak… They say he’s an orphan cared for here at Juno’s temple….”

“I see.”

An orphan, huh.

In this world, where oppression like war and famine abound, orphans aren’t particularly special. Standing right here with me, me, Luna, and Paranoi are almost all orphans.

Really, thinking like that, it feels like we’re some sort of strange combination.

Like parentless siblings or something. Thinking about it, Antiope and Hippolyte also never mentioned their parents. Maybe the son of Mars or something.

I don’t know why there are so many children abandoned in this world.

Among them, I am… well, who the hell left me here.

While I was thinking this, Luna came over and spoke to me.

“Hassan, shall we have dinner together after such a long time?”

“Dinner?”

Would it be alright to have dinner with Luna? Surely there would be a lot of annoying people clinging to this and that, and it would definitely cause trouble. If Luna got hurt somehow, it would be a real headache.

“Hey, Samaritan! Let’s fight!”

Before going off for dinner in Juno’s shrine, someone was picking a fight with me.

So I turned my head to see who it might be, and my eyes met dark ones looking up at me.

It was the Samaritan orphan boy, Barak, who had been cleaning up earlier.

The kid, wielding what seemed to be a wooden training sword, carved rather amateurishly, stared at me with a firm and determined expression.

“Let’s fight!”

“d*mn it.”

As I had said earlier, there are quite a few people in Sodomora who look like me, the Samaritans. You can bump into one at least once a day.

However, I had never mentioned them, nor did I especially seek them out, simply because I usually avoided them.

I didn’t mention them, and I didn’t deliberately confront them. That’s how I handled Samaritans.

The reason was that Samaritans always had a combative nature, frequently picking fights and demanding duels once they encountered each other.

It was something like the sudden duels in Pokémon, or you could think of it as a physical duel.

Even these young kids seemed to challenge me at first sight. d*mn Samaritans.

“I don’t fight kids, you idiot.”

No matter what, I’m not Paranoi. Beating kids is pretty uncouth.

If I were to brawl with this kid and whack his head for no reason, those mothers still in the Temple of Juno might start gossiping about “Samaritan Hassan over there…”, spreading rumors about me far and wide.

Being marked as a bad delinquent by mothers?

That’s bad PR. If it got that bad, it would be better to move to another city and start fresh.

So, I decided to try scaring him off instead.

But this Barak kid surprisingly not only didn’t back down but became even more fervent.

“Let’s fight! Please, you’re not scared, are you? I’ve heard Samaritans never refuse a fight when challenged!”

“Yeah, sure. But I’m not a Samaritan either.”

“Son of a b*tch!”

“What, d*mn?”

I suddenly flared up in anger. How dare he provoke me with the one phrase I should never use. When the heat rose in me inexplicably, Luna, who was standing next to me, poked my arm.

“Hassan, why would you take a kid seriously? Let’s go—.”

“Yeah.”

*

In the end, I ended up parting ways with Luna instead of having dinner together.

Luna seemed reluctant to part with me, fumbling nervously. But since my identity and circumstances are still uncertain, it’s probably better to be alone for now.

Though Luna and I seem to be starting to rekindle some rapport, not sure how much that actually matters since we’re still mostly stuck in a rut and don’t have a clear answer about how to proceed.

“Luna, see you next time.”

“Yeah. Next time, I’ll contact you first, okay? Take care, Luna. Don’t join any strange foundations, Paranoi.”

“At this point, foundations make me want to vomit…! Now, the only meeting I attend is the Nymph Association…!”

“What? What’s this Nymph Association?”

“It’s where the Nymphs of Goddess Vesta meet periodically…! It’s a very wholesome association…! Echo, the wife of the innkeeper, is also there…!”

“I see, gotcha.”

After that, Luna and Paranoi headed towards the hut near the West Gate, while I moved towards the inn near the North Gate.

Rustle, rustle—.

However, the closer I got to the area near the North Gate, the louder footsteps trailing behind me became. And then the distance closed even further. At first, I thought it was some delinquent.

A delinquent sneaking around with a dagger or a club in hand, waiting for an opportunity to attack me. But the number was too small to match a gang, and the steps were too light. About the same size as Paranoi maybe.

It was either a small dwarf, or perhaps an underdeveloped young child.

“Alright, stop it and come out.”

As I nonchalantly asked the person following behind, there was a loud rumbling sound as a small trash can toppled over. Soon enough, someone timidly appeared from behind, turning in my direction.

It was the Samaritan kid I met earlier at Juno’s temple. Snot dripped from his nose, and his unkempt hair hung wildly like the mane of a lion.

The shirt, originally a pure white, had an elongated neck that reached his shoulder, and his legs were exposed, revealing his dark skin. He wore an old pair of sandals.

All together, it was a meager-looking orphan.

Of course, in terms of appearance alone, this kid and I weren’t all too different.

“To think you followed me this far. You don’t know your way home?”

Upon my question, the boy drew something out from his coat. This shocked me slightly because it was not something that suited a young child; it was a blade. A decent-looking dagger.

The boy said,

“I’m not going home, I’m either going to knock you down here or d*e trying! It’s one of the two!”

“You’re a fool. Do you even know what d*ath is? d*ath is way scarier than you think, man.”

“Better than this life, being mocked as an orphan every day! Better to d*e now, or defeat you and gain fame as a warrior and succeed! It’s either one or the other!”

The boy’s eyes were filled with a murderous intent. In his dark pupils, a blazing fire seemed to flicker continuously.

I had no idea what this kid did or who he was, but for some reason, I thought I understood him.

An orphan who isn’t treated well in this world. More than that, the orphan of a savage.

Needless to say, in a world where everyone must earn their keep to avoid starvation, there’s not much a child can do.

“Draw your weapon, Hassan! I will defeat you at full strength and enhance my fame!”

The boy growled at me. In response, I casually spread my arms in front of him.

“Here’s a weapon. Ten fingers. This ought to be enough.”

“Don’t you dare look down on me—!”

Seeing the child flare up, for a moment, my past self flashed before my eyes.

It was when I first met Hippolyte, and he must have felt something similar when facing me sword-less as he tried to take me on with bare hands.

The words that the Skeleton Knight, Hippolyte, and even Kalidur had repeatedly said—“A true warrior knows the outcome before the battle even begins.”—hit me like a revelation.

My fight with this kid was like a match between an egg and a rock.

Given his blind determination to rush into it anyway, it was clear that he was still an ambiguous chick to call a warrior.

“Don’t look down on me, say it!”

At that moment, the young savage with the dagger lunged at me in reverse grip. It was both agile, as expected from a child, and powerful—an impressive leap as you’d expect from a Samaritan.

Chop!

The boy leaped high and swung his blade toward my neck. Is he really trying to k*ll me?

A mediocre delinquent might really be dead by now.

But I simply raised my palm and slapped his cheek, sending him flying.

“Gruuuck—!”

The weird scream echoed as the child fell to the ground. As he wobbled and tried to get back up, I delivered a powerful punch.

Whoosh. Bang!

My superhuman strength cracked the ground slightly, and the child dodged it narrowly with fear in his teary eyes, trembling.

I told the child,

“Never casually talk about dying again, fool. d*ath is far scarier than you think.”

“Uuuuuh…”

However, as I might have scared him too much, the child collapsed, fainting.

d*mn it, this is infuriating.

While furrowing my brow slightly with that feeling, I suddenly felt the sensation of a sharp blade flying towards my neck. In an instant, I drew a club from my waist and raised it to block.

Was there an accomplice?

But.

There was nothing.

Around me was just the fallen child.

Was it my mistake?

While I was checking the surroundings in tension, someone emerged from the darkness with a whoosh. I didn’t feel any presence before. When did they get so close?

In this city, the only person who could approach me like this is Kalidur the Flash, and one other person.

“Is that you, Hippolyte?”

“Your reflexes have become sharp. Your ability to sense ki is excellent— reacting to the energy I sent out like that. Seems the tense life of a Samaritan fuels their spirited desire to fight.”

Jangle—

As always, Hippolyte, clad in armor, appeared beneath the shadowed eaves of the roof.

“I have something to say to you, Samaritan, or should I say, Hassan.”

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