Chapter 2: The Man Named Iesu

Chapter 2:
The Man Named Iesu

 

THE ASHEN-HAIRED MAN tailed the swordsman out of the square, and I carefully followed them both. Either could have been the man I was looking for.

The swordsman headed into a squalid commercial area. I assumed he was going to go into a bar, but instead he took a turn down a narrow side alley, and the other ashen-haired man followed. I turned the corner to see the two of them confront each other and swiftly hid myself in the shadows. I could just barely pick up on their conversation. The ashen-haired man asked the swordsman to do something, and the swordsman loudly turned him down. By the looks of it, the swordsman knew he’d been followed and had accepted the possibility of a fight.

If it looked as though I was at risk of getting dragged into it, I’d have to run. But not a few moments later, the ashen-haired man just turned around and walked out of the alley as though nothing had happened. More shockingly, the swordsman turned to follow with a vacant look in his eyes.

What was going on here? The swordsman had been too angry to give in so quickly. I had to get closer. I needed to find out what was happening.

First, I used my Discerning Eye on the swordsman. He was strong, as I’d expected, but he didn’t have any notable skills. Apparently, he was employed by a general store. So the real question was: Who was the other man?

 

Name: Iesu Michalder

Age: 25

Species: Human

Level: 102

Occupation: Butcher; Revolutionary

Skills: Brainwashing; Uninhibited

 

Oh, this was definitely the right guy! I mean, you couldn’t get more suspicious than “revolutionary,” and I was pretty sure that killing a king would count as revolution. Even so, I was starting to think Gyro was a bit of a tyrant. Would it really be such a bad thing if he died?

Either way, the ashen-haired man sure was strong. My level was higher than his, but he was plenty powerful for someone who didn’t have my particular skills. Besides, it wasn’t like the person with the highest level always won. If that were true, I would have died a hundred times over in the hidden dungeon.

However, the scariest thing about Iesu was his skills. After what I’d seen happen to the swordsman, I had kind of anticipated something like Brainwashing. I was using Editor to look into his Uninhibited skill when he turned around abruptly to face me.

My heart leaped into my throat, and I hastily slipped into an alleyway. Luckily, it opened onto a busy street, so I didn’t think he saw me. All the same, it was better to be safe, so I pretended to be a regular civilian and walked into a nearby inn. I wouldn’t be able to overuse the Great Sage, but I could always ask him to find Iesu again. Right now, it was more important to protect my identity.

I waited just inside the inn door for a few moments, but neither Iesu nor the swordsman seemed to be following me. I let out a sigh of relief. I’d thought I was dead for sure. I was a coward, and there was nothing more terrifying than an enemy I knew nothing about. No matter how strong I got or how many skills I accumulated, I didn’t think that would ever change.

“Are you okay?” asked a girl. “You look like you just saw a dragon.”

She was staring at me, so I supposed my face must have looked pretty dumb. She was taller than me and gorgeous, with freckles and red hair that made her stand out from everyone else in the room.

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said. “I’d like a room for the night.”

“Well, we do technically have some vacancies, but I’m not so sure you’ll sleep too well tonight.”

Apparently there was some kind of meeting going on in the first-floor dining area tonight.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

The girl looked startled. “It’s a Fangs of Wrath hunting party, and some of those guys get quite unruly. Might make it difficult to sleep, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Actually, I’m kinda curious about them. I’m new in town. Getting to know some interesting and dangerous folks sounds like fun.”

If I could charm my way into the party, maybe I could find out something interesting about Iesu, but the girl’s face darkened instead. I thought she was about to tell me to get lost, but in the next moment, she smiled and led me to my room.

“My name’s Nina, by the way,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

I returned pleasantries and dropped my bags off in the room. There, I took a little breather, then headed down for dinner. The inn seemed more like a little mom-and-pop shop, but the food was surprisingly delicious. As I ate, I considered how to deal with the group meeting this evening.

First, I spent 300 LP to acquire the skill Tail, which would make it harder for anyone I was following to notice me. Now I’d know intuitively how close I could get without being seen, though it wasn’t foolproof. I still needed to be careful, and I would need to figure out how to earn more LP soon.

I had about 2,000 LP left, which sounded like a lot in theory, but I doubted it would be enough. Ideally, I’d have at least five or ten thousand before facing Iesu, but without Emma and the others around to help me earn it, that was going to be tricky.

Well, I had a little time before the hunting party, so I decided to explore the town a little. It was dark by now, and somehow a red-light district had manifested in the middle of town, seemingly out of nowhere. As I walked through it, one of the young women called out to me.

“Oh, aren’t we cute. Lookin’ for some fun, honeybun?”

“What kind of fun are you selling?” I asked.

“The exotic dance variety. I’ll give you a front row seat—my treat.”

So the sexy kind of exotic dance, right? That would be fine, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t cross any lines, and my chastity would be preserved, so I followed the woman in. I stayed on guard to protect my innocence, but according to Discerning Eye, she didn’t have any skills I needed to worry about, at least.

There were several large tables inside, but most of the customers were standing up—swarming around the dancers on the stage. Magical spotlights hung from the ceiling, shining straight through the dancers’ scanty clothes as they undulated, opening and closing their legs provocatively.

“C’mere, babe.”

The girl from outside took my arm and led me to the front row. The atmosphere in here was so thick that it was hard to catch my breath.

“It’s this kid’s first time in a place like this,” she told some of the other dancers. “So treat him extra nice, okay?”

“Wait,” I said. “What?”

But before I had the chance to argue, the dancers pulled me up onto the stage and surrounded me. There were five or six of them, pressing in on every side and touching me all over. The woman from outside even took my hands and started moving them over their bodies too!

The audience shouted and swelled with jealousy, but the dancers didn’t seem to care. It was almost ten minutes later before I was finally returned to the audience, feeling like used goods but 500 LP better off.

“Touch me too!” shouted one of the other men.

Suddenly, the whole place felt terrifying. However, the dancers were on a break now. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out why they were still out here and not in their dressing rooms. They looked like they were waiting for something. After a second, I realized what it was: large sums of money. The men swarmed around the woman who’d brought me in, taking cash out of their pockets and negotiating prices.

One of the dancers looked me up and down.

“I’d let the kid have me for 1 percent the going rate,” she said.

I guess she’d taken a liking to me. For that rate, it might as well be free.

“What do you say?” asked the woman who’d brought me in. “I can find you a cheap place to spend the night.”

“Oh, no, I’m not interested in that.”

“Really?”

“I want my first time to be special!” I said firmly. “Bye!”

Before they could argue, I dashed back out into the street where the embarrassment promptly hit me like a stampeding dragon. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Considering I’d gone in there in the first place, the claim that I wasn’t at all tempted would hardly stand up to scrutiny. Even worse, every attempt I’d made to play it cool had failed miserably. I was weak at the knees!

All the same, the city was kind of scary at night, so I hurried back to the inn. As I turned the corner, I saw a bunch of burly men already heading inside. They must have been the hunting party.

I headed to the first floor and found Nina waiting for me with her hands on her hips. She looked intimidating, and the atmosphere was completely different from when I’d first walked in that afternoon. After I stepped inside, Nina closed the door behind me and locked it. They really didn’t want anyone to hear what they were about to discuss.

“Glad to see everyone here,” said Nina. “Noir will also be joining us tonight.”

“I haven’t seen that guy before,” said one of the men. “Who is he?”

He had sharp eyes, and he was staring directly at me. The threatening tone in his voice worried me too. I mean, I was locked in a room with thirty people and, from what I could gather with my Discerning Eye, they were all fairly strong.

“Most of the people here have been wronged by Iesu and the Fangs of Wrath,” Nina explained, ignoring the man’s complaints. “So we meet up every once in a while to exchange information about him.”

To me, that meant Iesu might know about their meetings too. No wonder they were suspicious.

Almost right on cue, the biggest and brawniest of the group closed in on me and put me in a headlock. “How do we know you’re not a spy?”

“Now, now,” said Nina. “There’s no need for violence.”

“What else do you suggest we do?” the man asked.

“Just have Poporozzi question him.”

As the brawny guy let go of me, a slim man in a top hat stepped forward and set out two chairs. He sat in one of them and motioned for me to sit in the other. I didn’t have much choice but to do as he said, but I used Discerning Eye on him as I obeyed.

 

Name: Poporozzi Chirozzi

Age: 38

Species: Human

Level: 12

Occupation: Storyteller; Conversationalist

Skills: Lie Detector

 

I’d never seen that particular skill before, but I guess that explained it. I’d have to be careful with what I said now. If I tried to stretch the truth, this guy would see right through me.

“Do you have any relation to Iesu?” he asked.

“I’ve never met him directly,” I said. “But I did see him earlier today.”

I figured it was best to be upfront about it. After all, even if it wasn’t for the human lie detector here, these guys were Iesu’s enemies. If I could make friends with them, maybe I’d get some useful information.

Either way, my answer caused quite the stir. Apparently, I was the only person who’d actually seen Iesu’s face. I gave them a rough physical description and described his unique skills, but none of them had heard of that Uninhibited skill either. It seemed it was extremely rare. There had to be some kind of explanation there.

Once they were sure I wasn’t lying, the hunting party welcomed me into the fold. They all had their own reasons for hating Iesu and the Fangs. Some had been robbed, others had been injured in incidents Iesu caused.

“We call ourselves the Shields of Righteousness,” said Nina. “And I’m their leader. Sorry for not saying something sooner, Noir.”

She wasn’t much older than me, but she’d managed to earn the trust of all the people here. Frankly, I was impressed.

“You better watch out, Noir,” warned one of the men. “She turns into an ogre when she’s mad.”

“What do you mean, ‘turns into’?” another asked. “Can’t turn into something you already are!”

“And she’s got the mind of someone over twice her age,” a third added.

“I think I’m gonna have to have a little talk with you lot after this meeting,” Nina said pointedly.

Immediately, the joking stopped and the room fell silent. They really weren’t kidding about not wanting to piss her off!

All in all, they were an impressive bunch, and they had some decent information on the Fangs. Much more than I’d gotten out of the king’s men, at least! According to these guys, the Fangs had a ton of wanted criminals in their ranks, and all of them were completely devoted to Iesu. Even if they were captured and tortured, they’d bite off their tongues or kill themselves before they gave anything away.

“I always thought Iesu had some kind of special ability,” Nina said. “If what Noir says is true, it all makes sense. I wonder if there’s anything we can do or use to protect ourselves against his Brainwashing.”

Poporozzi had broad knowledge of various skills and abilities, so he soon stepped forward to explain the effects of Brainwashing. Apparently, when the skill was deployed, the target became enthralled by the sound of the user’s voice. Eye and physical contact accelerated the results. The skill was often ineffective against someone of a much higher level than the user, but ultimately it depended more on an individual’s character and the specifics of the situation. If you were weak-willed or easily swayed, you were in trouble either way.

Wait, had I just described myself?!

Thankfully, there were skills that could counter it. High-Grade Abnormal Status Effect Immunity was an effective defense, and even C-Grade Mental Status Effect Immunity made it much harder for Brainwashing to work. I investigated and found it would only cost me 400 LP, so that was kind of a no-brainer. My level was quite a bit higher than Iesu’s, so I probably would have been fine anyway, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Despite his in-depth knowledge of skills, even Poporozzi didn’t know anything about Uninhibited. I supposed I’d just have to investigate it myself the next time I ran into Iesu.

For now, I decided it would be a good idea to covertly examine everyone in the Shields of Righteousness. Ultimately, none of them were outstandingly powerful, although they were all above average. The one thing that surprised me was that their leader was the weakest of them all.

 

Name: Nina Able

Age: 18

Species: Human-Ogre

Occupation: Inn Employee

Skills: Ogre Transformation

 

Strange that her position as group leader didn’t register under her occupations. Maybe that was because it wasn’t something she profited from. Even more curious was her species. Was she a human and an ogre? Judging from her skill, she could at least transform into one. I used Editor to investigate it further, and yup, that’s exactly what it was. The guys hadn’t been joking when they said she turned into an ogre when she was mad. The transformation drastically increased her combat abilities too.

I’d learned at school how strong ogres could be; even their children could defeat a human adventurer. I didn’t want to think about how terrifying Nina would be if she transformed. I’d have to try even harder than normal to get along with her!

 

***

 

The next thing on my to-do list was to earn some more LP in preparation for fighting Iesu. With that in mind, I spent the next day looking for restaurants that served unusual foods, and at night I headed into some of the tamer establishments in the red-light district.

I had plenty of money, so this seemed like the best way to go about it, but I still felt a little weird. I did need the LP though, so I didn’t really have a choice.

The other thing I needed to do was figure out Iesu’s routine without raising any suspicions. I started off by identifying his current location with the Great Sage. Without Emma around, I had to be careful with how much I used it, but this time, it paid off.

Iesu had a small butcher’s shop on the border between the commercial district and the aristocratic quarter. It didn’t take me long to find a place nearby to hide and observe him. I could see him through the window of his shop, wearing an apron and engaging warmly with his customers. He hardly seemed like the same person I’d encountered yesterday. Even his expression was different, and the shop appeared to be thriving.

“Move it!”

As I watched, three soldiers forced their way into the line. From the look of their armor, they were castle guards. As they pushed their way to the front of the line, the people around them muttered and glanced at each other, but this only made the soldiers angrier.

“What the hell are you all lookin’ at?” one of them demanded. “Who do you think keeps this city safe? And this is how you repay us?! Answer me, weakling scum!”

Wow…

How could anyone be so far up their own butts? Even the worst nobles I’d met had some shred of humanity left. Worse, the townspeople seemed used to this kind of treatment and meekly got out of the way.

“Hey, Michalder. Gimme the usual.”

“Yes, sir…”

Iesu packed a container full of meat and handed it over. It seemed like a lot, but the soldiers only gave him a paltry sum in return.

“This is barely half the cost…” Iesu said.

“Then give it to me for half-price.”

“I can’t survive like this!”

Iesu’s complaint seemed justified to me but, unbelievably, the soldiers responded by dragging him out of his shop and beating him to a pulp. A crowd formed around them, but no one stepped in to help.

I was just as guilty as the rest of them, watching from a safe distance.

Despite his powerful abilities, Iesu didn’t put up a fight. Feigning weakness to protect his identity, huh?

“Isn’t this a little extreme?” I muttered.

The old man beside me shook his head. “They always do this kind of thing,” he said. “You don’t seem like you’re from around here. You a traveler?”

“I am,” I said. “Are all the soldiers in the city like this?”

“They sure are, but the king and nobles are no better. And the soldiers who serve the king think they’re above the law.”

I encouraged him to keep talking, and I soon learned that the city was more or less under authoritarian rule. Apparently, when Gyro took the throne, he’d increased taxes aggressively, driving a vast number of his people into poverty.

I thought about how he’d treated me and my friends, even when we were invited to the palace as honored guests for our service to the kingdom. I couldn’t imagine how much worse it had to be for the common folk who lived here. Most people in the city seemed to think that Gyro would go down in history as the greatest buffoon ever to take the throne, and I couldn’t say I disagreed with them.

“Poor Michalder,” said the old man. “He lost his sister to the nobles’ sick games too.”

Were these games the ones I’d heard of earlier?

“Games?” I asked.

But the old man just shook his head. “I can’t say more than that, and you shouldn’t ask about it either. You’re a tourist. Enjoy the city—and leave.”

With that chilly warning settling over me, the old man wandered off. It looked like the soldiers were almost done assaulting Iesu, and the crowd thinned out. A few people stayed behind to tend his wounds, and for a moment, I felt a pang of sympathy for him.

No. This man was my enemy. I needed to remember that.

I left the area and headed for a nearby pub to gather more information. It was crowded with people having lunch, and I headed over to a group of middle-aged adventurers.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone well versed in the city’s current circumstances, would you?” I asked.

They looked at me dubiously. After a moment, one of them responded.

“I do. Why do you want them?”

“I’m new here, and I need to ask some questions. If I gave you this, could you point me in the right direction? Let me know who to ask?”

I handed over enough for a few cheap drinks, and the man nodded, jerking his chin toward the pub’s owner.

“He knows everything,” he said. “He used to be in the kingdom’s intelligence agency, but he quit to run this place.”

“Thank you very much.”

I wanted to approach the owner right away, but the place was still so busy that I decided to wait. There was a good chance he wouldn’t thank me for interrupting him during lunch service.

In the end, I waited for almost an hour—until the seats began to empty and everyone left. I approached the owner cautiously. He was a somber-looking man in his late forties with a beard and slicked-back hair.

“I have some questions for you,” I said. “Do you know anything about Michalder’s sister? I’m prepared to pay for whatever you can tell me.”

In the end, he was quick enough to agree to it. What I really wanted to know about was this “game” the nobles played. The one that had led to the death of Iesu’s sister. The owner nodded and led me to the back of the shop. Seemed this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about in public.

We stopped near the trash cans and he lit a cigar. Wasn’t that a little dangerous? I mean, he could start a fire! But he just asked for payment to the tune of about what it cost me to stay a night at a decent inn. Fair enough.

“So there’s this thing they call Noble Fight Club,” he explained. “There, the royals and aristocrats do battle with their ‘pets.’ The winner gets some kind of prize. If you’re sharp, you probably already picked up on this, but their ‘pets’ are people.”

More specifically, they were commoners without any combat skills—mostly women, the elderly, and children. They only made exceptions for younger men if they were seriously ill. These people were forced to fight and kill each other during the event, which happened twice a year.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s…awful.”

“I used to feel the same way,” said the man. “But after a while, you get numb to that sort of thing. It’s just the way things are. The only way to survive is to protect your own tail.”

I fell silent. That couldn’t be the answer. I’d rather die than live like that—than watch someone I loved get hauled away to fight and die in some stupid game without lifting a finger to help them. All of a sudden, I didn’t have to work so hard to imagine what had happened to Iesu’s sister.

“So Michalder didn’t try to save her?”

“What was he going to do? She was just taken. The guards did it. That’s why I don’t work for them anymore.”

There was only one winner in Noble Fight Club and, if they were lucky, they would be exiled from the kingdom. If they were unlucky, they’d be made a slave. And the losers, of course, were all long dead by then. Typically, their corpses were dumped outside the city walls.

The whole existence of this game was meant to be a secret, but the nobles were so sloppy about it that a wide swath of the population knew. All I could think was…what if someone had taken my sister like that? What if someone used Alice as their pet?

“What about justice?” I choked out.

The owner shrugged. “There ain’t no justice, kid. Everything that lives just has to keep fighting to stay that way, every day. Listen, I know you’re curious, but don’t go asking any more questions about this, okay? Nothing good will come of it.”

He understood enough about the game to know what he was talking about, and his warning carried some serious weight. He didn’t seem like a bad person. I mean, that was why he’d quit the guard, right? But the whole conversation put me in a dark mood. If I wasn’t careful, I would end up wallowing.

Instead, I paid him and asked after any local restaurants that served unusual cuisine. He told me about two places, so I headed straight for the closest one and ordered myself some seafood. Shortly afterward, some kind of fermented herring dish arrived.

“It stinks!”

I knew that wasn’t polite, but I couldn’t help myself! The smell was bad. Even the waiter must have thought so, because he put the plate down and bolted. Even the nearby diners started to move away to other tables.

“Is this actually edible?” I shouted across the room.

The waiter waved his arms to indicate that, in fact, it was.

“But it smells like ass!” I complained.

The waiter just repeated the signal. Was I losing my mind here? The things I had to do for LP!

I took the tiniest piece of it and timidly brought it to my mouth, wondering if I was offending the fish gods. Surely they couldn’t be okay with this!

“Disguuuusting!”

The tiny piece flew out of my mouth with such force it landed right in the waiter’s face on the other side of the room. He collapsed to the floor without making a sound.

Sorry about that, friend!

After that, I ran out of the restaurant as fast as I could. Not only did they want more money for the trouble I’d caused, I didn’t even earn any LP from the ordeal. Today was getting worse and worse.

I held back my tears long enough to find the second place the owner had recommended to me. This once sold fast food as well as a bunch of other goods. I ordered some lizard skewers and deep-fried spiders, and my heart pounded while I waited for it to arrive.

“Order up!”

The lizards were just skewered and roasted whole, and the spiders were the same! It was very rustic cuisine, but at least it didn’t stink. I was confident I could handle it.

The fried spiders were almost like crunchy confectionery. The legs were particularly brittle and easy to eat, and the whole thing was kinda sweet and delicious. They must have been marinated in something sugary before frying. The lizards were delicious too. The bones were annoying, but the flavor was magnificent, and the flesh was just the right texture. And everything was cheap to boot. I even wanted to order seconds!

“Only 800 LP, huh? I’m glad I came.”

My bad experience with the seafood must have even heightened my second flavor experience. Thank you, poor herring, although I shall never eat you again!

 

***

 

Plenty of cities change once it gets dark, but in this town, the transformation was particularly dramatic. At night, all the children vanished. In their place, gaggles of women in strapless dresses and gangs of scarred and burly men roamed the streets. I headed back to the red-light district, feeling like the moon was silently judging me.

Numerous sex workers propositioned me as I went. Apparently, my face suited the local taste, because they always shouted out to me and called me cute. Admittedly, it wounded my masculine pride to be called cute, although the attention was nice.

I wasn’t looking to go all the way, so I kept walking until I found a slightly more proper shop to visit. Eventually, I found exactly what I was looking for: “Harem Time—Satisfy Your Heart, Not Your Libido.”

If the name was anything to go by, at least this place didn’t trade in the passions of the flesh. Was there really anyone else interested in this stuff apart from me? Still, the rules outside clearly stated that they didn’t provide “full service,” so it seemed safe enough to go in. My heart still rattled as I opened the door.

“Welcome! Welcome!”

The friendly man just inside greeted me twice and guided me through the door. I was almost worried that he’d kick me out for being too young, but in the end, he didn’t mention my age at all.

Inside, the club was large and littered with sofas and tables, each with a seated customer. It was dark and, if not for Night Vision, I would have struggled to make out people’s faces. There was a surprising number of younger folks here, and most of them had the same weak aura as me.

“One moment, please. What name shall we call you?”

Huh, so a fake name was totally acceptable. But I couldn’t decide on one in time, so I just told him Noir. Why did it matter anyway?

A few minutes later, I found out.

A woman in a revealing outfit slid onto the sofa next to me and smiled.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Noir. I’m so glad I could see you today.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but before I had the chance, another woman sat down on my other side.

“Hey!” she said. “Don’t touch my Noir.”

“I haven’t laid a finger on him—yet.”

It went on like that for a while, both of them touching my arms and my chest as we were joined by a third, and eventually a fourth woman—crowding around me, straddling me…

It was all getting a little too much, but they seemed utterly unconcerned with how flustered I was. They kept groping me all over, and they started taking my hands to press them against whichever parts of their bodies they were most confident and comfortable with.

“Noir, you’re so my type. And I’m not just saying that because I have to,” said one of the women.

She buried my face in her chest, so, um, guess she wasn’t lying? At a glance, none of the other customers seemed to be getting this kind of treatment. Most of them were just holding hands with the girls. I was the only boy in here drowning in boobs.

“A cute boy like you must have plenty of experience,” she said.

“A-actually, I’ve never…”

“Why don’t you let me make you a man then?” she whispered in my ear.

My whole body tingled, but I shook my head. “I-I want my first time to be with someone I love!”

That only seemed to excite her more. “That’s adorable!”

I wasn’t sure if she was actually attracted to me or whether she just wanted to tease. Either way, I couldn’t help but take a peek at their skills. One of them even had something called Heavenly Release, which seemed completely terrifying. But I was sure I’d made the right call in coming here, all the same.

I must have done, because I was steadily earning LP. Best of all, because there were so many different women, I could keep doing different things with them and keep earning more and more. If there had only been one of them, it wouldn’t have been long before we did everything we could and I stopped gaining any more LP for a day or so. As it was, I figured I could earn over 10,000 LP if I was diligent. And besides, I needed as much as I could get to fight Iesu, right? Right?!

If Emma or Lola had seen me that night, I’m sure they would have glared daggers.