After Yasen had scrambled away on all fours. Guy turn to the woman in his arms.
"Miss, are you all right?"
"Ah, yes... no, wait—I, I'm fine. Thank you, young man." The woman suddenly seemed to come to herself, and then, flustered, she squirmed free of his embrace.
In the instant she pulled away from that scalding warmth, her flushed skin met the cool of the air.
And it left her with a strange reluctance to leave that embrace behind.
Ashamed of herself for harboring such a thought, the woman lowered her head, not daring to look at him again.
"My name's Guy!" Hearing the woman address him as "young man" didn't sit quite right with Guy, so he offered his name without delay.
The woman hesitated, then said as well, "I'm... Tania."
There was something odd in the air between the two of them—though of course children understand nothing of such things.
The four little ones had all clustered around Tania now, clinging to her, hemming her in so tightly she couldn't even take a step.
The eldest among them, a child of seven or eight, worked up the courage to come over to Guy's feet, grabbed a corner of his trouser leg, and said in a small voice, "Thank you, mister, for helping our mom."
Seeing how clear and guileless the little boy's eyes were, Guy crouched down, ruffled his hair, and gave him a smile.
"You're brave. But you're not strong enough yet. If you want to protect your mom, you've got to get as strong as I am!"
Like Nanashu, Guy too was an orphan the Empire had bought.
He had a hazy impression of his parents, though not much of one, and every trace of them had grown fainter and fainter from the day they sold him onward.
He had no idea whether they were even still alive in this world now.
Though even if they were, it had nothing to do with him anymore.
"I want to get strong! Will you teach me, please?!" the little boy asked, his eyes shining.
Guy's smile froze for a moment.
He'd only said it to fill the silence, and the kid had gone and taken it to heart.
Where would he find the spare time to make some child strong?
'Huh, wait.'
Guy glanced over at the bashful Tania, taking her in from head to toe, then quietly swallowed and, without letting it show, changed his mind.
"Sure. It's a promise, then—from now on you call me Master!"
"Master!" the boy shouted at once, not a trace of hesitation.
Seeing that Tania didn't object, Guy felt a small, secret thrill.
Now he had a reason to come back.
...
When night fell, people set out in search of places to drink and eat their fill of meat.
Gin, drenched in sweat, swung her cleaver without pause, splitting bone and flesh apart as the blade bit into the chopping block with a steady thunk, thunk.
She flung a great basin of meat out toward the front, and it landed right at the mouth of the food-pass window—leaving the rest of the kitchen staff gaping.
That basin of meat weighed a full forty kilograms.
For an ordinary person, never mind the meat—even the big wooden tub itself, the kind you could bathe a child in, would take both arms to lift.
Yet this strapping young woman had flicked one arm and sent the whole thing, basin and meat together, sailing through the air.
What kind of monstrous strength was that?
Thwack!
Gin stood her cleaver upright in the board and rolled her aching shoulders.
If she hadn't been skilled with big blades to begin with, she truly couldn't have managed this work.
"Next!" After a brief rest, she let out a roar.
Soon enough, three men hauled an entire pig over and set it down before her.
By the small hours of the night, only two tables of customers remained, and they were all together—soldiers, it seemed, from some army camp.
Gin had stopped working and stood by the food-pass, watching the men and listening to them spew obscenities for a good long while.
She was getting drowsy by the time the group finally made to leave.
That was when Gin saw the owner hurry out after them—trying to collect the bill, it looked like.
The next second, to her astonishment, she watched the owner get knocked flat to the ground by a slap from one of them.
"Hey!"
Gin, brimming with a sense of justice, charged straight out. "Knock it off!"
She helped the owner up.
But the moment he saw she'd come out, his expression changed dramatically, and he hastily grabbed her arm to pull her back toward the kitchen.
"Boss?" Gin couldn't understand why the owner was choosing to swallow it all.
Just then, the same soldier who'd struck the owner reached out drunkenly and seized him by the shoulder.
"Hold on a minute."
The drunk soldier, hooking an arm around the owner's neck just like that, leaned his face in close and looked carefully past him—first at her face.
The soldier's expression quickly turned lecherous. Then his gaze slid lower, and he caught sight of those magnificent peaks.
"Oho ho ho, well now, isn't there a fine woman right here? Why didn't you come pour our drinks earlier, eh?"
The soldier reached straight for Gin's chest.
Her eyes went sharp, and a clean, crisp sidestep took her out of reach of the lecher's grabbing hands.
Just as she was about to teach this lustful drunk a lesson, she suddenly saw the man pitch forward toward the floor.
After a dull thud, he seemed to have passed out cold on the spot.
Seeing this, the owner quickly shoved Gin toward the back kitchen, then summoned every ounce of strength to heave the soldier up and deliver him out the door to his companions.
He explained the whole thing away as the man being drunk and having fallen on his own, and the fellow's group burst out laughing, all of them jeering at their passed-out comrade.
The man forgot to pursue the matter further.
Once he'd seen off this group of military thugs he couldn't afford to cross, the owner let out a long breath of relief.
Gin came back out at this point and asked, "Boss, they don't pay, and they've got the nerve to hit people on top of it?"
The owner's face went sour at her words. "It happens all the time. You get used to it."
"Huh?" Gin pressed. "How is anyone supposed to get used to something like that? Skipping out on the bill is against the law, isn't it?"
"Ahh, just leave it be. The point is, you remember this—from now on, don't go wandering out front from the kitchen as you please. You know what happens to women who get marked by drunks like those?" Wearing the look of a man who knew better than to provoke that lot, the owner had no wish to say any more on the subject.
Gin could only let it drop.
After all, she wasn't the one who'd been hit, and the money lost was the owner's.
It was just... wasn't this the Imperial Capital?
Right under the noses of the Emperor and his ministers—were they really going to let such injustices happen as though it were the most natural thing in the world?
...
At that same hour, within the Capital Guard.
Guy had been lashed to the frame used for interrogating prisoners.
His clothes had been stripped down to nothing but his underwear, and his body bore the marks of a thorough beating in more than a few places.
"Damn, this kid's a tough one. I wear myself out swinging at him and he barely flinches."
"What's his head made of? I've smashed a whole crate of bottles over it and haven't even broken the skin."
Yasen spat on Guy and pressed his face up close, almost touching.
"Listen here, newbie. You laid hands on my property—I'd be doing you a disservice not to set you straight." Grinning, he lifted a branding iron from the brazier beside him.
"Heh. No matter how tough you are, there's no way you'll hold up against this." He aimed the iron at Guy and said in a sinister voice, "How about I give you a cute little birthmark to remember me by?"
"Ha ha ha ha."
The men around him roared with laughter.
When it came to "educating" newcomers, the Capital Guard had long since developed a whole established procedure.
It was only that it had been a long while since they'd had any real cause to use it.
Now that a green fool had finally come along after all this time, they were as giddy as if they'd been handed a brand-new toy.
Watching the iron draw closer and closer, Guy could feel the heat radiating off it—and even he couldn't keep a flicker of panic from rising.
'Damn it. It's only my first day.'
He'd held out through the earlier beating, since it hadn't hurt much.
But this was no laughing matter.
He had to break free and strike back. Everyone here was a weakling—the instant he wanted to, he could wipe out the whole lot of them.
But after that he'd surely be a wanted man, and there was every chance his former comrades would be sent to hunt him down on top of it.
'Damn, looks like there's no time left to hesitate!'
Guy waited as the searing, red-hot iron loomed right before his eyes, and his arms began to gather their strength.
In the very instant before he could make his move, a girl suddenly burst into the Capital Guard's interrogation room.
"A girl?"
Guy stared toward the doorway in shock.
A girl in uniform? There were women in the Guard here?
Seryu charged into the interrogation room and spotted the bound Guy at a single glance.
Noticing her arrival, Yasen let the iron in his hand sink slowly back down, never bringing it to bear on Guy.
"Uncle Yasen, everyone—so you've been interrogating a prisoner."
"..."
"I've brought you all some dinner." The girl lifted the packed meal box in her hand and held it out to them.
Seeing her misunderstand, Guy hurriedly called out, "No, I'm not a prisoner—I'm a new recruit who just joined the Capital Guard today!"
The girl's gaze wasn't clouded over like the others'.
He had a feeling this girl wasn't the type to be in cahoots with Yasen and his lot.
After he called out, the girl first looked at him and tilted her head.
Then, after thinking it over for a moment, she suddenly clapped her hands.
"Ah—are you Guy, by any chance?"
"That's right!" Guy hastily confirmed his identity.
At this, Yasen's face changed, and he set the branding iron back on the brazier.
This girl Seryu might have a few screws loose, but she was the disciple of the Capital Guard's captain—her standing was nothing like that of common grunts like them.
"Haha, Seryu, you came to bring us food, did you? Much appreciated." Yasen stepped forward to take the meal box, then called to the others.
"You lot, get Guy down for now. We'll put the mock interrogation training on hold."
'M-mock?'
The others blanked for a beat, then caught on immediately and rushed over to Guy together, swiftly undoing his restraints.
Watching their reaction, Guy let out a quiet breath of relief too. He'd come within a hair of exposing his true strength.
Mission failure—that, to him, would be the greatest disgrace of all.
Seryu came up to Guy, took his two hands, and clasped them together in hers.
"I'm so glad, Guy! I heard someone my own age had come to the Guard, and I've been wanting to see you with my own eyes this whole time. Now I'm a senior too!" Seryu looked thoroughly delighted.
Though he had no patience for these small fry, for the sake of staying on at the Capital Guard without trouble, Guy kept what Yasen and the others had done to himself.
Seeing that the kid "knew how to play along," Yasen thought to himself.
'Good thing the brat was so tough—no matter how they'd beaten him earlier, it had left no marks, otherwise this would've been hard to explain away.'
'But after this, for a while at least, he wouldn't be able to lay hands on him like that again. With Seryu taking an interest, if the kid met with some accident too soon, suspicion would fall their way no matter how they spun it.'
'Phew. Lucky little bastard.'
'But seeing as you went and stole a woman from me—the first chance I get, I'll arrange a one-way trip to hell for you. Such as... falling in the line of duty mid-mission. Hehe.'
Guy looked at the nastily grinning Yasen without the slightest ripple of feeling inside—if anything, he happened to be turning over much the same kind of plan himself.
The only thing he had to account for was this: if all his teammates ended up dead and he alone survived, how would he explain it? He'd certainly become the prime suspect
Best to have a witness who could vouch that he'd had no opportunity to commit the act—an alibi.
'Mm. That girl—Seryu, was it? Very... usable.'