4
A few days after that little incident at Chuden Company…
In a tavern on the west end of Banan, a lone girl slumped over the bar, babbling endlessly to the bar matron about her troubles.
“Then he ditched me! Treated me like a nuisance, that stupid old man.”
“Oh dear, I see… Now I know why I haven’t seen that dog face of his around here for a while. And so now you’ve come here to drink away your feelings, have you, little Ana?”
“Yep. I’ve got a broken heart. Won’t you comfort me? And gimme another round of milk, too.”
The girl referred to as “little Ana”—as you might have guessed—was none other than Anastasia.
The bar matron, ever indulgent, had let her in before opening hours, offering her a safe place to wallow.
To her, Anastasia was a cute little former employee who had worked at the tavern until about three months ago. She had cared for her back then—though not quite as much as Ricardo did—and even now, she still turned a blind eye when Anastasia came in during prep time, lending an ear to the girl’s complaints.
“But I have to say, I’m a bit surprised,” the bar matron mused. “I always thought Ricardo’s feelings for you were one-sided. Seeing you this glum over his absence? That’s new.”
“Well, he’s my old man,” Anastasia huffed, resting her chin on the counter. “That’s supposed to be my collar on his neck, so he can’t just up and run off. And he knows that, the stupid oaf.”
A collar with a broken lock still hung around Ricardo’s thick neck.
Once, it had been a symbol of his enslavement and denied freedoms. Now it was nothing more than a decoration, stripped of power. And yet, even as a free man, Ricardo still wore it as a silent reminder of where he had come from.
That was something Anastasia hated.
Someday, she would buy Ricardo at a fair price, remove that collar herself, and throw it away.
That was one of Anastasia’s many dreams.
“Thanks to you and the old man, my dream is much closer to coming true. That’s why I’ve gotta work much, much harder.”
“Your dream? What’s that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“My dream is to become just as big as Hoshin! So right now, I’m busy gatherin’ all the power, knowledge, and money I can.”
She snorted with confidence, puffing out her chest.
The bar matron had to stop herself from laughing.
Most merchants idolized the legend of Hoshin of the Wasteland. Every boy born in Kararagi dreamed of making it big like the legendary hero at some point in his life.
But for such a little girl to dream of becoming Hoshin?
That was something special.
“Ugh! Why do you have to laugh at me, too?! You and the old man are just the same!”
“I’m sorry, hon,” the bar matron said, smiling. “But I actually don’t think your dream is crazy at all. You’ve already been taken in by Mister Chuden and his big company… If you stick around and marry him, you’ll at least become one of the top dogs of the city, won’t you?”
“Me? Marry Mister Chuden? Nah, that’ll never happen. Never ever never.”
Anastasia chortled innocently, entirely unaware of her own charm.
She was already pretty, and someday, she would mature into a beautiful woman. When that day came, the bar matron’s words wouldn’t seem so funny anymore.
“Listen, little Ana. You might not believe this now, but I want you to keep it in mind: You’re much prettier than most, and some people you meet might try to do bad things to you. If you ever get that feeling, tell Ricardo or Chuden right away. You hear me?”
“Aww, but I ain’t—”
“Just remember it for later.”
Seeing the serious look in the bar matron’s eyes, Anastasia nodded obediently.
Sensing a longer lecture coming, she gulped down the rest of her milk in one go.
“Thanks for the drinks. I gotta go. Still got work to do.”
Leaving three copper coins on the counter, Anastasia hopped off the barstool and darted out of the tavern.
For a moment, the bar matron watched her go with a wistful look, but then she waved at Anastasia’s retreating figure.
“Ana, swing by the next time you get some time off, ya hear?”
Her rarely heard Kararagi dialect slipped out as Anastasia disappeared into the streets.
“Hmmm, I’ve still got time to kill…and the old man isn’t around, so what should I do?”
Stretching outside the tavern, Anastasia pondered how to spend her precious day off.
It was the one day a week she didn’t have any work. Though she had implied otherwise to the bar matron, she actually had no plans.
But she could already picture the sour looks she’d get if she showed up on the trade floor to help out.
“I don’t want people calling me a goody-goody again… Okay, guess I’ll eat and walk around.”
Puffing out her still modest chest, she strolled toward a busier part of town.
Walking the streets with a full coin purse and buying whatever street food struck her fancy was one of her secret little joys.
When she had lived in the slums, the open-air food wagons had been nothing but a cruel temptation, their delicious smells mocking her empty stomach.
Now she could enjoy them freely, and every bite tasted like victory.
“Mm…”
Stuffing her face with a doughcut, Anastasia ambled down the street, when suddenly she sensed a pair of eyes on her. It only took her a moment to find a dirty boy staring at the contents of her hand. She quickly deduced who he was. He was one of the hyenas, street urchins living in extreme poverty.
They had no home, no food. They scavenged the city’s refuse, desperately scraping by however they could. These children of the slums were called “hyenas”—a name that had existed since Hoshin’s time. And once upon a time, Anastasia had been one of them.
The boy staring at her doughcut, living from moment to moment with no certainty of tomorrow, was no stranger to her. Seeing him triggered a feeling deep inside her. However…
“How silly.” She popped the rest of the doughcut into her mouth and deliberately flashed the empty wrapper at him. Startled by her gesture, the boy flinched, then scrambled into the alley.
The way he had opened his mouth like a baby bird, expecting a handout, irritated Anastasia more than anything. Because she had only escaped that fate because of a handout herself. And that realization gnawed at her heart with guilt.
She had Ricardo in her life. But what if Ricardo—?
“Ahhh?!”
A sudden pull at her waist snapped her out of her thoughts. She flailed her arms, but it was too late. A small shadow darted past her, snatching her purse from her pocket. She watched in shock as the figure dashed into the alley ahead.
She had been robbed—and so easily.
The victim is the fool. It was a saying she had known all too well as a former hyena. Ordinarily, she would have cut her losses and let it go…but this time, she couldn’t bring herself to do that.
“Not so fast!”
She launched into pursuit, tearing into the slums after the thief. It had been a while since she’d last run these streets, but she had spent years in this place, racing through its mazelike alleys since the moment she could walk. Her muscles still remembered the way. Within moments, she closed the gap.
Her loud footsteps and sharp voice startled the thief, forcing them right into a dead end. The shadowed figure turned around bitterly, realizing they had no escape.
“C’mon, gimme my purse. I’ve spent way more years on these streets than you.”
“L-like hell you have… Just look at your pretty clothes. A rich girl like you could never…!”
Anastasia sighed internally. She could have told him that she used to be just like him, but he wouldn’t believe her. There was no point in saying it. She moved forward, reaching out to snatch her coin purse back. She was well-fed, well-trained, and she had learned self-defense from the merchants. Taking it back should have been easy.
However—
“That’s right. I’m not gonna let a little runt like you talk down to me.”
A rough voice growled from behind her.
“Hmmf?!”
Anastasia tensed, instinctively trying to turn around—
But before she could, something blunt smashed into the back of her head. Her vision spun. She collapsed onto the cold, dirty ground, her limbs refusing to move. Her consciousness began to slip away.
“Heh! Well done, kid. Now, take that purse and get lost!”
Through the haze, she heard the man speaking to the child. A trap. She had walked right into it. Someone had set her up.
That rough voice…it sounded familiar. Somewhere… She had just heard it.
That man’s voice—a voice that sounded like a curse—she could have sworn she’d just heard it in the trade plaza.
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