Loner in Danmachi

What is the first thing humans tend to do in a dangerous situation?

Most people would try to escape, but what if escape is not an option?

Then, their primal instincts would awaken.

In the face of danger, humans sometimes become more savage than beasts, animals, or demons.

Please don't be mistaken; I don't mean to blame humans for that. It is just a cruel truth of the world.

Some of you might want to ask, who am I, and why am I saying these things to you?

I am Wayne Jervain, an orphan from Daedalus Street.

And, right now, the position I am in can be described as getting fucked.

Three bulky men surrounded me, and they were coming closer and closer.

"Hey, kid, didn't they tell you if you mess with adventurers, they will beat you to death? Do you have a death wish or something?"

The guy in the front said, and after that, he sent a punch to my face.

Even though I tried to dodge, the punch came too fast, so before I could even move an inch, my face was smashed into the wall.

"You stupid fucker, whom do you think you are to steal something from me and think you could live, huh? Did you really think you could get away after stealing my money, you bastard?"

The guy said again and started beating me.

He hit my stomach, my arms, my shoulder, my head, and my legs.

He kept hitting me until I was almost dead.

After seeing my condition, he deduced I would be dead if he kept hitting me, so he decided to leave me like that while saying something.

"Tomorrow, if you don't bring the things you stole to me, I will personally take you to the dungeon and make you eaten by monsters in the dungeon. So, you better be ready."

He said and left.

Is he stupid or something? I will die if no one helps me right now. I have broken bones everywhere around my body. I can't even get up, and it is also cold.

Some of you may ask, why am I in this situation?

To make you understand that, let me talk about my past and a bit of myself.

I am Wayne Jervain, an orphan from Daedalus Street, as I have said before.

I don't know anything about my parents. I was always in the streets since the day I was born.

I was raised by a thug whom I would like to call brother, even though he isn't related to me in any way.

He was also the one who recommended this name to me.

He said that he found me on the streets. I was crying in front of the door of some house, and at that time, he was returning from the dungeon.

He found me crying and decided to take me in. He said that since he lost his family at a very young age, he always wanted to have a brother or sister. That was the reason he took me in.

After that, he started to live as my only parent, and I still quite respect him a lot.

Since I was raised by a thug, I naturally lived my life while stealing and doing some shady business with other people.

I was also a good pick-pocketer from childhood.

When I was a child, I would play with the kids in the neighborhood until I was eight.

After that age, most kids from slums would start pickpocketing, stealing, and bringing money to their homes, so I also started doing that.

We had a group of three. Me, my best friend James, and Alicia.

We had a strong friendship from childhood. We always played together, ate together, and cried together when something happened.

After we reached eight, we started pickpocketing and stealing.

Since we were compatible as a team, we were fairly good at stealing as a group.

Sometimes Alicia would pretend as a lost kid and distract the adventurers, and I would pickpocket them with James.

Sometimes I would be bait, and sometimes it would be James.

But we were careful not to target the adventurers of level two or above. Since they are strong, their senses are strong too, so we didn't want to risk our lives by getting spotted while stealing.

And we were very successful among our peers, and we would always get the best food, the best clothes, and the best place to stay as kids.

The other kids were jealous of us, but we didn't care about it and kept stealing.

I would always bring my money to my brother, and he would take care of the gang matters himself since I am not very comfortable with other people too much.

Even though I can't say our living conditions were superb, at the very least, we could fill our stomachs, and we had a roof we could sleep under. That was enough for me.

This stealing spree kept going for five years, and right now, I am 13. And we were never caught in the process of stealing, not even once for these five years.

And today is the first time we got caught up in it.

Today started like any other day.

At dawn, I exited the house on Daedalus Street and started walking to the meeting point we decided on with the other two.

After reaching there, I saw James and Alicia waiting for me and greeted them.

"Hey, good morning, guys. Did you sleep well?"

I said to them.

"Yo, good morning to you as well. And to my sleep, it was sort of good. Don't worry."

James said while greeting me back.

"Hey, Wayne, good morning. I slept well yesterday; how about you?"

Alicia said while greeting back.

"I am okay, either. If both of you are ready, let's get going."

"Puff, Wayne, you are boring, you know. Starting working as soon as we met."

"Don't you know him, Alicia? This is how he is; there is nothing we can do about this stone head aside from following him."

"I know, I know. It is just that sometimes taking it easy would be good, you know."

They kept blabbering, and we started to walk to our hunting place. Generally speaking, we steal from either normal humans or low-class adventurers.

Since there are risks of getting spotted by strong adventurers, we would try to avoid them, and I would observe people and find people with low strength.

And every time we would change the positions we steal if we judge, the people start to become alert in that place.

After waiting for a bit, we started stealing from the targets we found.

We kept doing it until we decided to steal from an adventurer.

I said we shouldn't do it since that guy looked like he was a bit strong, but the other three wanted to do it.

Although he looked strong, it wasn't too much to make stealing impossible. At most, he was close to leveling up, but he was still level two.

After that, we baited him and stole his money.

But that guy was sharp, and he noticed something was amiss, and even though we were quite fast, he saw us leaving with his money and started chasing us.

However, since he was an adventurer, he was faster than us, and he started to close the distance between us.

Alicia, too, was starting to get slower, and we needed to support her while running.

After escaping for five minutes or so, we got very close to the entrance of Daedalus Street.

And that was the time when I felt something tripping on my feet, and I fell.

When I saw it was the foot of James, I was dumbfounded for a bit.

I couldn't understand why he would do something like that. We had almost reached the entrance of Daedalus Street, and we could surely lose him in that place.

Was there a need to do something like that?

And my ankle was injured while falling too. So I wasn't fast enough while getting up and got caught by the adventurer and his friends.

And that was the reason why I was in this situation, beaten to death, lying on the streets in the cold.

Do you know how I feel right now?

You don't, and you can never feel it.

The feeling of betrayal, the feeling of being close to death, the feeling of not being able to see tomorrow.

While I was thinking that, I saw a cloaked person coming close to me.

He came near me and spoke.

"My pitiful child, do you want to live?"

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