Chapter 52 - A Disturbance

At any rate, surrounded by people like these, Aiden could afford to survey the situation calmly.

"Don't try to be a hero! Stay down!"

Calmly enough to notice something a little strange about the men shouting at the top of their lungs.

'... That voice sounds young.'

The thought briefly tickled his mind. It wasn't simply a thin voice. It was so high that he felt certain its owner wasn't even an adult.

Looking them over, he saw that most had extremely frail builds. The arms and legs exposed beyond their clothes were scrawny, and they seemed distinctly unsteady on their feet.

... Nothing about them suggested professional criminals.

'Wait.'

An uneasy chill crept up his spine. His gaze lingered on the guns they were carrying.

Old revolvers. Clearly not new. They obviously hadn't been used in a long time. He would have believed it if someone said they'd picked them up off the street.

Aiden examined them carefully.

... It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.

"..."

He squeezed his eyes shut. Having noticed that much, he couldn't simply turn a blind eye.

Especially when one of the robbers was approaching Katya, of all people.

"What are you doing? I said get down!"

"... Hmm."

Twirling her fork in her hand, Katya gave the robber a long look.

"What if I don't want to?"

"..."

"Will you shoot?"

The robber gave an incredulous laugh at her brazen reply.

"If you want to die, I won't stop you."

"Hmm."

"Get down. Last warning."

"Mm-hmm."

"..."

Katya's leisurely replies, her fork still twirling, left the robber utterly speechless.

"... Hey, big brother, is something wrong over there?"

One of the men keeping the customers on the floor by waving his gun spoke up.

His voice trembled. He was trying to hide it, but Aiden noticed immediately.

They were the ones committing the crime, yet they were the ones who were frightened.

"No. Nothing."

The man holding his gun on Katya, clearly the eldest of the group, cocked the hammer and brought it closer to her forehead.

The situation was on a knife edge, yet her smile showed no sign of fading.

"Aren't you going to shoot?"

Then her eyes sank into shadow. Divinity gathered around her body, heating the surrounding air.

"... Your Highness?"

Noel spoke from behind her, sounding incredulous.

"What are you doing here?"

"... Does that really matter right now?"

Streams of seething divinity poured from Katya's body.

"If you aren't going to shoot, I'll go first—"

The moment he heard that, Aiden took a deep breath and rose.

His decision was swift, his actions swifter still. Just as Katya was about to unleash her divinity, she involuntarily flinched and stopped.

"... Point that at me."

Aiden had stepped directly in front of her as he spoke, his fingertip pointing straight at the robber's gun muzzle.

"...?"

Katya glared at him as if to ask what the hell he was doing, but he ignored her and met the eyes behind the robber's mask.

While the robber stood dumbfounded, Aiden seized the barrel and forced it against the space between his own eyebrows.

Noel and Katya sprang to their feet in horror.

The faces that had been so composed moments earlier now displayed unmistakable terror.

"What the hell are you doing...!"

"Aiden, have you lost your mind?!"

Supernatural power surged from both women as they spoke.

Its density was incomparably greater than before. Not only the robbers but even those customers who had barely remained standing found their legs giving out, sending them crumpling to the floor.

"... E-eek—!"

With a terrified squeal, one robber swung his gun toward Noel and Katya.

Aiden's voice tore through it all.

"Point your gun at me!"

"... Wh-what...!"

"Point it at me if you want to live!"

"..."

He sounded so resolute that even Noel and Katya flinched as they released their power.

As their imposing presence briefly faltered, Aiden continued calmly.

"Dame Noel, Your Highness. You can see the gun pointed at me, can't you? One wrong move and I die. Withdraw your power."

"What the hell are you—"

"Please withdraw it. I'm asking you."

His voice was polite but low, which only lent his words more weight.

Meeting his gaze, both women flinched. Aiden's eyes, usually drooping as if weighed down by constant exhaustion, were exceptionally clear now.

"..."

"..."

As Noel and Katya silently eased their power a little, Aiden slowly reached inside his clothes. He moved with deliberate slowness, making it perfectly clear that he meant no threat, and drew out his leather wallet.

It was quite thick, thanks to the various things Noel had given him recently.

He slowly held it out to the robber.

"Take it."

"..."

"Hurry. Take it. Don't touch anyone else's things."

Keeping the robber's gun pressed between his eyebrows, Aiden insistently thrust the wallet toward him.

As the robber hesitantly accepted it, Aiden spoke again in the same calm voice.

"Keep going down Fourth Street and you'll find a shelter district for the poor. You can at least find work there. Make an honest living, if you want to keep feeding the people depending on you."

"..."

"Live like this and you'll die young. Listen to me if you don't want to let your family down."

"..."

"Go. Hurry."

"..."

"I said go!"

Flinching at Aiden's shout, the robber clutched the wallet and backed away. He gathered the others, who were still hesitating in a daze, and hurried out of the restaurant.

... An empty hush hung over the restaurant, as though a storm had swept through and left it silent.

Everyone simply stared blankly between Aiden and the departing robbers.

"... Haaa..."

With a deep sigh, Aiden slumped into his chair.

'... I really hate standing out.'

He had thrown himself into danger plenty of times because he needed skill-copying opportunities, but taking center stage so dramatically drained him every time. There was a limit to how ill-suited something could be to him...

"What was that just now?"

Katya asked, propping her chin on her hand at the table.

Her face was perfectly expressionless.

... Knowing her usual disposition, that meant she was angry. She clearly disapproved of what Aiden had just done.

"What were you thinking, doing something like—"

"... They weren't even real robbers to begin with."

But Aiden hadn't done it because he had suddenly gone mad. Rubbing his face, he spoke in a weary voice.

"The cylinders were empty."

"What?"

"The guns weren't loaded. They probably picked up broken scrap and patched it up to look convincing."

A robbery for quick cash, passing fake guns off as real ones.

And not even targeting somewhere big like a bank for a substantial haul, but the till of a restaurant like this. Small fry who didn't even qualify as third-rate.

"... It was a common trick in the slums."

All of it remained in Aiden's memories.

"One mistake could easily get you killed, so only people on the verge of starving to death did it. I doubt they wanted to."

Their own desperation and fear throughout the robbery made that all the clearer.

The one they had called big brother was probably the eldest of a band of boys and girls with neither parents nor guardians.

People who lived hand to mouth, slept without a roof over their heads, and barely kept from freezing to death with each other's body heat.

"That still doesn't justify a crime. I'm not defending them. But..."

Scratching his head roughly, he continued in a brusque voice.

"... Can't we at least give one last chance to someone desperate to feed the people relying on him? He's trying to feed his family."

"..."

"And he only took my things, so no one else has a reason to hold a grudge."

Katya, who had been listening quietly, tilted her head.

"How do you know all that?"

"..."

After a brief silence, Aiden narrowed his eyes and answered.

"Because I came close to doing the same thing myself once."

Katya's brow furrowed as if to ask what he meant.

But beside her, Noel's eyes widened slightly as she listened.

["Both him and Siscella... I took them in off the streets, actually. I've never pressed them about their pasts. I think that's part of why we get along so well."]

["Th-that's all because of me. Neither of them has any choice..."]

... She remembered hearing those things from Aiden's family before.

He had been a war orphan, begging on the streets. No one knew where or how he had lived.

'... Once again.'

She realized she knew nothing about this man. What he had been through, what he had endured to become the man sitting here now.

She truly knew nothing.

"..."

Turning that realization over in her mind, Noel quietly bit her lip.

'This man—'

... Where had he come from, and what had he done?

She was curious about the origins of his abilities: how he wielded her energy so effortlessly, used divinity, and casually employed the techniques of a legend like the Knight of Dawn. But for her part, Noel was just as curious about the man's true past, hidden beneath those dazzling abilities.

'What kind of person are you, Aiden?'

As she pondered that question, Aiden was looking around, his eyes still narrowed.

"... Still, something doesn't add up."

"What?"

"No matter how desperate they were, they wouldn't come to a flashy, upscale shopping district like this. Usually they'd stick to robbing little corner stores."

As he spoke, someone strode up and pulled out a chair in front of him.

Watching the newcomer sit down, Aiden practically spat out his next words.

"Unless someone pushed them into it."

"An interesting interpretation."

He was a gentleman entering his later years, with broad shoulders and a scar crossing his entire face. Numerous medals adorned his suit.

Upon recognizing him, Noel visibly stiffened. Katya's eyes widened a little as well.

That suggested he was someone quite famous.

Though the man hadn't introduced himself yet, Aiden knew who he was.

Not so much because of his fame, but because...

-System Message

▶ Affection of target 'Grand Duke Aslan' increases.

▶ Bond level increases!

▶ You may copy 1 skill!

...this thing was telling him outright.

"What exactly are you doing here?"

"Recruiting."

The man grinned at Aiden's question.

The Grand Duke of the North, Rendal Dreyfus Aslan.

"And you just passed. Congratulations."

The Empire's oldest—and greatest—noble curled the corners of his mouth slightly upward.