Chapter 108: Sometimes Being a Little Domineering Isn't Bad
Once the Celestial Dragons were gone, the street slowly began to breathe again.
People stood up one after another, rubbing numb knees and letting out the kind of relieved sigh that only came after surviving a disaster. The fear did not vanish, though. It lingered in the air, clinging to every face.
Eli slapped the dust from his pants and straightened up, his legs still a little weak.
Just thinking back to Saint Clarence's procession turning toward their corner made his scalp prickle. He had genuinely thought he was about to die.
Then he looked at Axel and the others—and his expression changed at once.
He wanted nothing more to do with them.
These three were either mad, monstrously strong, or some awful combination of both. Whichever it was, staying near them clearly invited trouble.
He forced out a dry laugh and backed away. "You should find another guide. I just remembered I've got something urgent to do."
He had only taken two steps when a wooden sword slid out and blocked his path.
"Wait a second, Mr. Guide," Axel said.
Eli froze.
Axel lifted the wooden sword lightly. "Take a look at this."
The blade flashed.
It moved so fast Eli barely saw it. He only felt something cold skim past the side of his head. Instinctively, he jerked and clapped a hand to his ear, convinced for a second that the thing had sliced him open.
But there was no blood.
Only a faint chill.
He slowly turned his head and looked down at his shoulder.
His clothes had split open cleanly at the seam.
Eli sucked in a sharp breath.
The wooden sword had not touched him. He was sure of that. Which meant the tear had been made by the edge of the slash itself.
That alone was frightening enough. But before he could recover, a soft cracking sound came from behind him.
He turned.
The box nearby had fallen apart into two clean halves, the cut smooth enough to make his skin crawl.
Eli stared at it for a long moment, then slowly looked back at Axel.
A kid.
A kid had done that.
Are children in Sabaody this terrifying now?
He wanted to tell himself Axel was only pretending to be blind, that this was all a cheap trick. A squinting brat faking it for sympathy. But the sword control had been too precise. Too delicate. Tearing cloth without touching skin, cutting a box without splintering it apart—those weren't tricks.
That was skill.
Real skill.
And suddenly Eli understood very clearly that refusal was no longer on the table.
He gently pushed the wooden sword aside with two fingers and forced a smile onto his face. "Actually... now that I think about it, doing a little free guiding today would be a nice change of pace. You can leave everything to me."
Axel lowered the sword. "Then I'll be relying on you."
"No trouble. None at all."
"Also," Axel added, "pay for the box. Out of your own wallet."
Eli's smile cracked. "My wallet?"
Axel tilted his head. "What, were you planning to use mine?"
Eli nearly choked.
He wanted to scream that Axel was the one who had destroyed it. That making him pay was outrageous. That this was extortion in broad daylight.
But he had already seen what happened to boxes that got in Axel's way.
He swallowed all of it.
"There's no need to pay, really," he said weakly. "In a situation like this, if we leave fast enough—"
Axel's tone turned just slightly colder. "You don't want to pay?"
That was all it took.
Eli's backbone folded instantly. "I'll pay. I'll pay."
Sometimes being a little domineering really did save time.
A while later, Eli shuffled back out of the shop looking like his soul had been scooped out with a spoon. His wallet was empty, and the owner had squeezed extra compensation out of him for the damaged goods inside the box too.
He had been forced to pay for a mess he hadn't made, then drag himself back to do free work for the people who caused it.
Life truly was cruel.
Still mourning his vanished Berries, he barely noticed Issho step forward.
Then there was another flash.
A thin slash whisked past Eli's other ear.
He went rigid.
When he turned, the shoulder on the other side of his clothes had been neatly cut open too.
This time it was not a wooden sword.
It was a real blade, already back in its sheath, its edge so sharp that Eli could still feel the ghost of it at his neck.
His face went pale.
"What now?" he asked miserably.
Axel blinked. "Uncle Issho, what was that for?"
Issho scratched his cheek, looking almost embarrassed. "What you did earlier seemed pretty effective, so I gave it a try."
Eli almost wept.
That was not something you tried. That was not an experiment. That was a heart attack.
Axel looked at him, then at Issho, and gave a small approving nod. "Not bad. Sometimes being a little domineering isn't bad after all."
Eli stared at the two of them in disbelief.
One big, one small.
Both monsters.
The child at least could pretend to have working eyes. Issho, on the other hand, had the old scar running across his face. That man truly was blind. There was no mistaking it.
And yet his slash had landed with the same terrifying precision.
That thought was so much worse.
Seeing Eli's panic rising again, Axel finally said, "Relax. You're already hired. There's no need to threaten you anymore."
Issho sheathed his sword fully and added, almost apologetically, "Where are the people taken by the traffickers usually sent?"
Eli swallowed hard and forced himself to answer.
"There's a lot of human trafficking in Sabaody. Different buyers, different routes, different handlers. No one knows every destination." He hesitated, then went on. "But the most notorious places are the Human Auction House on Grove One and the Peterman Base on Grove Eight."
Axel turned slightly. "What's the difference?"
"The auction house is open business," Eli said bitterly. "Backed by nobles and people from the Underworld. They don't even bother hiding it. Peterman Base is newer. Meaner. It's run by a bunch of hunting dogs who specialize in kidnapping people off the street."
"Then take us there."
Eli's heart sank.
"To... what?" He already knew the answer. He just hoped he was wrong.
"To cause trouble," Axel said.
Straightforward. Calm. Completely serious.
Eli felt his knees soften again.
Cause trouble? In those places?
Did they know what they were talking about? Those were not back-alley dens with two or three thugs inside. Those were the kind of places that swallowed people whole. If he led them there, and things went bad, the traffickers would skin him alive for it later.
He licked his lips and made one last desperate attempt. "Can I not go?"
Before Axel or Issho could answer, Hawkins stepped forward.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't make a threat. He simply looked at Eli with those unreadable eyes of his.
Eli stiffened anyway.
Hawkins' face was expressionless as always, but there was something deeply unsettling about being stared at by him at close range. It felt like being weighed by something invisible.
"What?" Eli asked nervously.
Hawkins answered in his usual flat tone.
"Don't worry. I still don't see any signs that you're going to die."
Eli stood there for a second, then let out a miserable laugh.
What kind of reassurance was that supposed to be?
.....
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