The bucktoothed boy, Padde Maos, was drowning his frustrations in alcohol at a recently opened tavern.
"Why the hell are we the only ones getting punished?! When two sides get into a fight, both are supposed to take the fall!"
Padde slammed his right fist onto the table, knocking over his wooden mug and splashing the fruit wine filled to the brim all over the surface.
"Hey, Padde, stop taking it out on the table! What a waste of good booze!"
The chubby male student who had taken part in Lumine's kidnapping scolded him with a scowl.
"Huh?! Aren't you pissed off too?! You know damn well Kai Heinemann went crying to Her Highness Rose to make her lean on the school!"
Despite Padde's furious outburst—
"..."
The other boys sitting around the table simply remained dead silent.
"Hey, Padde... why don't we just leave Kai Heinemann alone already?"
Amidst the heavy quiet, Pal, the Elf boy, made the suggestion in a calm, quiet tone. But to Padde, the idea was utterly intolerable.
"Don't screw with me! That guy is the most incompetent loser on the face of the earth! The weakest piece of trash in the entire kingdom! How the hell am I supposed to just roll over and take an L from a nobody like that?!"
He lashed out in a venomous tirade.
"B-But..."
"..."
Padde had fully expected them to back him up like always. Instead, they merely hung their heads with grim, bitter expressions. Not a single soul took his side.
"Is it true you guys kidnapped Lumine just to draw out Kai-san?"
Bill, the hulking youth who had stayed dead quiet without touching a drop of his drink, finally spoke, leveling a piercing glare at Padde and the others.
"Kai-san?! Bill, you bastard, what's with—"
Padde opened his mouth to berate him for slapping an honorific on such a useless weakling, but—
"Just shut up and answer the damn question!"
The roar tore from Bill's throat, louder and fiercer than anything Padde had ever heard from him before.
Cowed in spite of himself, Padde spat out words dripping with humiliation.
"Everything was supposed to go smoothly! But that damn fixer... he double-crossed us!"
Following the fixer's instructions, they had swiped that battered old doll Lumine cherished from her bag and left a note telling her where to show up if she wanted it back. When she swaggered into the meeting place and started mouthing off, he had kicked her around to shut her up. But after taking a few blows, Lumine drove something like a nail straight into the arm of the black-clad thug holding her down, broke free, and clocked Padde square in the jaw.
Getting dropped by a scrawny girl and rolling across the floor like a clown had made Padde see red with pure humiliation and rage. He had kicked Lumine back with every ounce of strength he could muster.
Right then, the fixer turned on them and shoved him away. His consciousness cut out on impact, and no matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn't remember a single thing after that.
"You crossed a line no decent person ever crosses. You're done."
Bill squeezed his eyes shut, his shoulders slumping as he let out a heavy sigh. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Bill, what the hell do you mean by—?!"
"Don't sweat it. I didn't stop you, which makes me just as guilty. I'll see this through to the bitter end with the rest of you. So... that settles our debt, right, Oboro-san?"
Bill called out toward the corner of the room, where a slender blond man with a tattoo of a sun and a crow across his right cheek was quietly nursing a drink.
"That ain't for me to decide. That's up to our King."
The blond man rose to his feet and bowed his head respectfully. Every employee in the tavern promptly stood up and did the exact same. And standing right where all their gazes converged was—
"You... Kai Heinemann!"
The person Padde loathed most in the world. But the instant the name left his lips—
"Gwah?!"
A hand clamped onto the back of his head in an iron grip, slamming his face straight into the floorboards.
As sparks exploded across his vision, a voice pressed directly into his ear, low and spine-chillingly cold.
"Yer in the presence of our King. Show any more disrespect, and I'll end ya on the spot. Ya hear me?"
"..."
With the blood freezing solid in his veins, Padde nodded desperately against the floor.
He hadn't even caught a glimpse of the man moving. One second he was standing, the next he was pinned to the floor with his face smashed into the wood. More than that, an overwhelming dread prickled across his skin, raising cold goosebumps all over his body. His primal survival instincts screamed that this was no hollow bluff—if he stepped out of line for even a second, this man would kill him without hesitation. He knew it with total certainty.
Kai Heinemann swept his gaze over Padde's group before settling his eyes on Bill.
"I've already been filled in on the details. Bill, you had nothing to do with this incident. There's no reason for you to go down with them, is there?"
Bill gave an emphatic shake of his head.
"I'm their friend. The second I failed to stop them, I became an accomplice. I'll take my share of the blame."
Kai Heinemann rubbed his chin, studying Bill with an intrigued look for a moment, before offering a curt nod.
"Very well. Oboro, I'll leave the discipline of these fools to Akegarasu. Just ensure none of them die."
He casually handed down a nightmare of a sentence to the slender blond man.
Wait... What did he just call them?
"A-Akegarasu...?"
Padde's voice trembled pathetically. The one who answered him was Bill.
"That's right. Oboro-san is the head of that Akegarasu. You idiots went and picked a fight with the worst people imaginable."
Not a single soul in the Holy Amelia Kingdom was ignorant of the name Akegarasu.
They were one of the undisputed rulers of the kingdom's criminal underworld—a colossal syndicate whispered to be so dangerous that even the crown's government went out of its way to avoid an open confrontation with them.
If that was the case, then there was one thing Padde couldn't fathom at all. Why would Oboro—the kingpin of Akegarasu—revere the most worthless weakling in the world, Kai Heinemann, as his own King?
"Bullshit! That guy is the biggest loser alive! Why the hell would Akegarasu take orders from trash like him?!"
"Oi. Didn't I just tell ya I'd put ya down if ya opened yer mouth again?"
A voice dripping with murderous malice hissed from right above him. The grip on the back of his skull tightened until bone groaned beneath the pressure.
"Gaaah!"
Agonizing pain shot straight down his spine. But just as his vision began to blur—
"Oboro, that's enough."
Kai Heinemann's sharp rebuke cut through the room. As if pulled by an invisible string, Oboro instantly released Padde and bowed deeply before Kai Heinemann.
Seeing that interaction laid the truth bare. Oboro had been entirely ready to crush Padde's skull right then and there. The only thing that stayed his hand was an order from his master, Kai Heinemann. To a monster like Oboro, Padde's life carried less weight than a speck of dust.
And that proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that Oboro truly served Kai Heinemann as his King.
Which meant... what? Padde had provoked Kai Heinemann's genuine fury. In doing so, he had effectively picked a direct fight with the underworld leviathan known as Akegarasu.
No way... This can't be happening!
The more he tried to deny it in his head, the harder the cold, merciless reality came crashing down upon him. Total despair swallowed his heart whole, chilling him to the bone.
It's over... We're dead...
To a syndicate like Akegarasu, the Viscount House of Maos was nothing more than an upstart backwater noble family. If they set their minds to it, his entire bloodline and every servant under their roof could be wiped out in a single night.
Kai Heinemann walked over, crouched down, and locked eyes with the trembling boy.
"Once you've received your proper baptism from Oboro and his crew, I'll personally beat that rotten attitude out of you. You'd better struggle with everything you've got."
With a faint, chilling smile on his lips, he sealed their fate.