11 The royal capital

There was a day when Lea had to refuel the warehouses, I took advantage of the occasion to get to know the outskirts of the castle and I offered to go with her. As expected of a Beastman, I just could help to carry some bags, Lea easily pushed a cart filled with barrels and boxes with food and spices.

On the way, I got to know several places and experiment life in the royal capital, the streets seemed full from the castle windows, but look at it in person undoubtedly gave you another perspective.

The people were mostly good, the guards did their job and the economy seemed to go in pearls, the values and customs from the previous heroes were truly palpable the more you wandered.

On our way back, outside the castle´s walls, the replica of Himeji castle was being custody by a pair of mastodonts wearing samurai armor, a cherry blossom as their characteristics symbol.

When we walked past there, Lea looked especially melancholic, the connection between her and the place was evident.

After talking to her for a while, she showed me a bracelet with cherry blossoms under her sleeve, she told me it was a graduation gift, although she never told me she attended school, so the only place I could think of was Himeji.

Taking into care how Molly almost killed me the night I was invoked, I supposed the graduation of Lea and the maids were to do something similar someday.

Well, they must take care of the rulers of a kingdom, it has sense.

I got along well with most people of the castle, when I could, I helped the maids with their tasks, from time to time I talked with the knight about legends and other stories from my country, discussed with magicians and priests about mana, magic, and religion. I even came to serve princess Samanta under the supervision of Molly once in a while.

I should give her an invitation to a picnic in the garden one of these days, gain the friendship of the royal family will be the best when I have to deal with nobles or aristocrats.

The administrative personnel of the castle was mainly formed by nobles and aristocrats since they were the only ones with the academic preparation necessary for the post.

Education was obligatory in the kingdom, but the necessity of the nobles to maintain their status had made that the private and public schools were as different as day and night, I heard that commoners can enter a noble school with a scholarship, but I didn´t want to imagine the discrimination they had to endure after that.

Maybe I should visit them, just for the experience.

As I planned my next moves I found myself crossing a dark alleyway to the cemetery.

Welp, they should be coming out now.

A pair of men came out from the shadows, blocking my way.

-Eh, sir, walking by these alleyways could be dangerous, Why don't we walk together?

The guy in front of me looked like a regular robber, with simple clothes that looked bad, an ugly face, and a disgusting smile. His almighty attitude made how obvious he didn´t consider me as a threat, besides the fact that he was talking to me with a dagger in his hand.

-By a reasonable price, we´ll help you cross and you may arrive alive, Aren´t we generous?

The guy behind me blocking my exit route was the same as the other, ugly, skinny, and armed, honestly, the only dangerous thing about them was their weapons.

-...All right, all right, you want money no? Take it and let's end this

I raised my hand in sign of surrender and walked to the robber.

-Oh! It seems like you have some brain friend, just leave everything of value and you can go in peace.

While the man was talking I kept walking to him, I slowly put my hand in my pockets and pulled out a leather purse, I shake it so my robbers could hear its content.

Hearing the sound of the tinkling metal, the smiling robber extended his hand to take the bag.

When he had it, I placed my hand over his.

-Eh? What are you doing man? Are you gay?

-Putrefaction.

A sky green light sprouted from my hand.

-Magic?! Ghk! Gha! I can´t take off my hand!

-Not exactly, is a skill, but that doesn´t matter, since you will soon lose it.

-W-What?

When the robber looked at the hand I grabbed, his face lost its colors, his hand, once of a healthy tone, was now rotten and gray, pus coming out from his nails and the meat slowly melted showing the bone.

-M-My hand!! My hand!!

The robber dropped his dagger and fell to the ground in fetal position, grabbing what was left of his hand in cries and wails.

-D-Damn bastard! You´re dead!

The robber behind me rushed to me with all the intention of stabbing me, I quickly picked up the purse from the ground and when the robber was in front of me I threw it to his face.

-Ghk?!

The object stunned him, making him lose balance.

-Bastard, that hurt!

-And this will hurt more.

With the dagger I picked up, I cut the robber´s wrist, forcing him to drop his weapon.

-Gyaaaa!

Then, I buried my feet on his crotch with all my strength, making his testicles turn into ground meat.

-Blgh* Bleagh*

-...

The force of my hit had made that the robber throw out all the contents of his stomach, it was something unpleasant to see.

Being on the ground I smashed his head against it, knocking him out in a puddle of blood.

-Okay, that´s enough.

Having finished with one I returned to the one twitching on the ground.

-Hey! I think he´s still alive if you want the same luck you should pick him up and go.

Somehow he managed to stand up and look at me with bloodshot eyes filled with hatred.

-Ghrk! Son of a bitch! You´ll pay for this!

-He-he-hey~ I´m the only one who can insult my mother little bitch.

I menacingly stared at the man while approaching him with both daggers on my hands.

He changed his attitude almost instantly and started to step back with shaking legs and a face filled with terror.

-D-Don´t come any closer! S-Stay away from me!

-Hahahahaha!!! What´s wrong? Didn´t you tell me you would help me cross the alleyway? Now that I´m moving closer to get your help you step away, you´re hurting my fragile heart you know.

I quickly got near the man with a small jump and cut his legs.

-AAAHHHH! H-HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!

-Don´t hold grudges against me, you were the ones who tried to kill me first, is just natural that I had defended myself.

Now, my once confident and arrogant robber, found himself crawling under my feet like a worm. After knocking him down with a kick on his chin I decided to take back my money and throw the daggers in the alleyway, close to the robber's hands.

As I walked out, I noticed that my suit and face were stained with blood.

For these cases, I have the item Lea gave me.

From the inner pocket of my suit, I pulled out a pendant with a blue crystal.

-Cleaning bubbles.

After giving some mana and speak the spell, the pendant shined and embraced me in soap bubbles that cleaned my clothes, face, and glasses, I was a little wet at the end, but nothing too bothersome.

What I have used was a magic support item that Lea had gave me while we were cleaning the kitchen. Lots of times we stained ourselves with dust or sauces, but Lea always remained clean somehow, when I asked how she did it, she gave me a copy of her magic item.

After that, I promised her that I would treat her to a meal once I had got my pay, which leads us to now, at least in a certain way.

-I hope I didn´t lose a lot of time with that.

When I finally got out of the alleyway, I told some guards that were patroling that a pair of men had a fight and ended hurting each other pretty bad.

They quickly ran to the alleyway to inspect what had happened while I kept my way.

Killing a human being wasn´t a new experience to me, there were certain occasions where I had to sacrifice the lives of others to keep myself alive. Not something to be proud of, but my doubts faded on that day.

It´s kill or be killed, if someone threatens your life is simply natural that you do the same, they got what they deserved. I thought touching the scar on my face.

It was an irregular line on my left cheek that went from the low part of my eye to the beginning of my throat. For a time I tried to hide it with make-up and clothes, but I eventually grew used to it and the gazes of people became as heavy as a feather.

I really wanted to pull out the eyes of those people, just to give them a real reason to be scared of me.

I put everything back in place and rushed to the cemetery.

After what seemed like an eternity of streets and corners, I arrived at the entrance, "Community cemetery of the rest" said in a wooden sign hanged on the doors.

When I got close to the doors a pair of guards stopped me.

-Identification.

Most of these spaces required an ID to enter, simply security measures and formalities.

I pulled out my status card and showed it to the guard.

-... A being from another world... Come in.

I kept the card to my pants and entered the cemetery.

Good, now let´s experiment a little.