The Lone Beggar

An old beggar walked the bustling streets full of people. His back was bent, and the wooden staff he was holding was as long as him. His white beard touched the ground while he walked.

As he reached one of the fruit shops, he took a plum from the baskets that were kept outside. Without even looking at the side of the shop, he walked with his dragging steps.

"Hey, old man, where do you think you are going?" The shopkeeper, noticing this, went and stopped him from the back.

"Who do you think will pay for that, uh?" He pulled him by his shoulder. With no strength in his legs, he fell down along with the plum and the wooden staff.

The plum got dirty, but he dragged himself to where it was. His already ragged clothes got torn by the roughness of the streets.

"You geezer, are you even listening to what I am saying?" He picked him up by his collar.

The shopkeeper stood tall and broad with his massive frame. He was a bald man with a bushy beard that stretched down to his chest. His arms, thick as tree trunks, strained against the tight sleeves of this shirt wherever he moved his hands.

The old beggar was half the height of the shopkeeper, so his feet left the ground. The shopkeeper could crush him with just the strength of his arm. Even then, his eyes were locked on the plum fruit on the ground.

"Look here when I am talking, old coot. Slap!" He slapped him. Blood spilled on the ground. But the expression on the old beggar's face remained the same.

"I said, look here!" He removed his grip on his clothes and held him by his neck. Veins bulged on his arm as he tightened his grip.

"Ooh… look, look, look! Another person is going to die today!" "Man, that looks brutal!" "Aah, killing a person in broad daylight. What has this world come to?"

The passing crowd made their own assumptions.

"Tch!" With contemptuous looks from onlookers, the shopkeeper threw the old beggar on the ground.

He dragged himself in the direction of the fruit.

"You really are asking for it now!" His patience ran out with the carefree nature of the old beggar.

He picked up the old beggar's staff on the street.

"Ugh!" It weighed more than the old beggar himself. For the onlookers, it looked funny that the shopkeeper, with his stature, was struggling to hold a puny wooden stick. But they were not the ones who held it in their hands. So they didn't know how heavy it was.

He tried to hit the old beggar with the wooden staff, but being able to lift that was already a feat in itself.

"Gasp!" He gasped for air as he could not hold the staff any longer.

"Thud!" It fell to the ground with a thud.

The old beggar didn't care for any of that. He just picked the plum fruit from the ground and, without even cleaning the dirt off it, he took a huge bite.

"Crunch! Chomp!" He chewed the fruit with heavy sounds. He took one bite after another until the fruit in his hand disappeared.

"What a way to start this day." The shopkeeper was angry, but he could do anything.

The old beggar didn't struggle, nor did he resist in the least.

"Is someone there?" Customers began to gather near the shop.

It was a waste of his time to be here instead of managing his shop. He understood that.

"Spit! I had to waste my time on someone like you." After spitting on the old beggar, the shopkeeper went to tend to his customers.

The old beggar, taking his staff, moved in the direction he had been going.

"Never show your face around here, you dirt nugget!" He shouted from the back, but the old beggar never stopped to look.

Everyone on the streets avoided him because of him being a beggar. They carry infectious diseases that could spread easily. So most of the beggars on the streets die suddenly and without notice.

No one asks, even if they are beaten to death. Even the city guards ignore them. He was a vagrant that came to the town along with flocks of people from other kingdoms.

His origin was unknown, but it didn't matter. He was just another beggar with no proper clothes and a skinny body. He looked like he would die with a single beating from the stick.

He went and sat in his usual place. A wall at the end of the street. The night came right after, but he never closed his eyes to sleep. The empty look in his eyes remained the same.

The bustling streets became silent. The shopkeepers closed their stores at usual timings.

Howls of the night monsters echoed on the full moon night. A huge, familiar figure appeared before the old beggar.

"You had the nerve to ignore me then. What do you think about now?"

It was the shopkeeper from the morning. He waited till it became night. Two more figures appeared beside him.

"Boss, should we just throw him into the dungeon?" One said.

"Why go that far for a mere bread stick? I can just break him like a twig." The other said it while making a gesture with a smirk on his face.

It is already unfair to round up an old, weak beggar. And three against one was overkill.

"You idiot, did you think our boss couldn't do that?"

"Then why…? You don't mean… he wants to torture that guy?" He pointed at the beggar, who was still gazing at the distant night sky. He would just die even without the need to torture, so why bother?

"Kekeke! The boss is getting into his old habits again." They both laughed brazenly. The form of torture they thought, differed from the norm.

"Esmar, Teuk, drag him into the alleyways." Getting impatient, he ordered both of them.

Not waiting any longer, they both held him by each hand and dragged him to an empty, dark alleyway.

They threw the old beggar onto the ground. Beside him was a young woman who wore high-quality clothes. But all of them were tattered.

The lipstick was smeared all over. Her brown hair was loose. The little blood on her thighs resembled something horrible. The deadpan look on her face reflected her agony.

The signs of struggle were clear, and with her puffy red eyes, she begged to die.

The old beggar beside her just gazed at her with nothing to say.

"Oh, her? Our boss had a little appointment with her before you, you see," one man said.

"She was just throwing a tantrum instead of begging on her knees. So she got a little punishment for that." Another one added.

The shopkeeper just crossed his hands with a smile on his face. It was a smile thinking about what happened a few minutes ago and what will happen a few minutes later.

The two underlings expressed his thoughts completely.

"Teuk, take that bitch away."

"Should I just kill her boss? It would be easy, ya know."

"You idiot, why would we do that? She could be useful in many other ways. Isn't that right, boss?" The shopkeeper nodded.

"Well, no killing today either, huh? That's disappointing." With a sulking face, he dragged the woman to the back by her hair.

"Now, let's see… What type of pleasure do you prefer for ignoring me, old man? I hope I can satisfy you. I need to satisfy myself later too…" He licked the back of his hand while looking at the lifeless woman in the back.

"Esmar…"

"Yes, boss!" He immediately took out a pouch from under his shirt and tossed it over to the shopkeeper.

"Do you know what this is?" As he said that, he shook the pouch and opened it. It made a clinking sound.

"I am going to put each of them thoroughly in your body until you can't ignore me." It was a pouch filled with long steel nails.

"Hope you enjoy the pleasure. Hold him to the wall!"

They both dragged him and held him to the wall by his wrists.

"To continue the pleasure, I need you to stay in one place. So… "

He took out the small hammer tied to his hip and placed the steel nail facing the old beggar's palm.

"Here we go." With enough force to punch a hole through the wall at the back, he hammered the head of the nail. His face had a thrilled expression while doing that. Almost sadistic. But something happened.

"What the—?"

The shock on his face was clear.

"What happened, boss? Should I help you with that?" Teuk asked.

But the shopkeeper didn't respond. The nail held by his hand was left suspended in the air without an inch of motion. The other two saw it after he let go of his hand.

"There are healers in this world who heal." The old man spoke for the first time. His gaze was fixed on the woman lying on the ground.

"But there are some wounds that cannot be healed."

"Wh-What are you, bastard!?" With a surprised look, the shopkeeper fell on his back, and his two underlings let go of the old beggar in caution and came to his side.

"So what is the use of them when there is no use for them?" His gaze finally became lifelike.