Chapter 8

He looked from the flint to the steel. They had brought him a matched pair. He had to admire the logic—they had matched them properly—but he remained bewildered.

“I am not some maniac desperate to light a fire in the dark. I don’t even smoke. What am I supposed to do with these?” Isaac asked them, his frustration tinged with amusement.

At the sound of his voice, the cats looked genuinely flustered, as if they understood every word and were appalled by his lack of appreciation. Isaac stared at them, watched them blink in confused rhythm, and finally erupted into laughter.

“If you’re going to bring me these, you need to bring the tinderbox too. Where is the box, hmm?” He scolded them as if they were errant children, tossing the flint and steel aside. It was ridiculous, but he could not help but find it charming. They must have watched someone use such things and determined it was the most impressive thing a human could possess.

“Good. Good cats. I am going to sleep now. Get out of here.”

Isaac scooped up a cat in each hand, tossed them gently out the window, threw a few pieces of sausage after them for good measure, and latched the window shut.

Good grief. A long life really did expose a person to the most bizarre sights. Who used flint and steel in this age? Still, it’s a massive improvement over a dead mouse. Isaac decided then and there that he would be gentler with them from now on, even if they broke in to steal his dinner. These cats were at least trying to show their gratitude in their own strange way.

Thinking this, Isaac climbed into bed. The moment his head hit the pillow, exhaustion pulled him under into a deep, heavy slumber.

But…

「That, that, that little bastard! We were so moved by how commendable it was that he noticed I was hurt, escorted me home, and nursed me that, with boundless generosity, we brought him the one and only treasure in the world. And he sleeps? Sleeps?! I ought to chew him up starting from the head!」

「Now, now. The ignorant little thing has no manners because he knows no better. Endure it, Third. Adults must be patient.」

「After I magnanimously forgave his insolent, wicked remarks about my beautiful eyes being useless, he does this? Have you ever seen such a rotten bastard?」

「Tsk, tsk. How can he know so little? It seems we’ll have to help him after all.」

「Even if we try, he has to light a fire with those first before we can help him. What are we supposed to do about this?」

As Isaac slept, a persistent, chattering murmur clawed at his ears.

Even in the depths of exhaustion, the dream remained impossibly noisy, forcing him to endure a nonsensical, indecipherable lecture for the duration of the night. He had a fleeting impression they were arguing over a chest or some treasure, but it was just a dream—he could not be certain. There had been a distinct, rhythmic meowing mixed into the chorus of voices, too.

He woke feeling as though he had not slept at all.

I have been having strange, dog-headed dreams lately. Is my health failing me?

While Isaac was seriously contemplating the necessity of an expensive herbal tonic, the flower seller across the table went stiff, her eyes widening in genuine shock when she heard him mention he resided at the old church site on the hill.

“Oh my, people actually reside there? The building is practically crumbling. So our guard-oppa is a pauper after all. You look so clean-cut and handsome that I assumed you hailed from a decent household.”

“What’s so handsome about him? I’m significantly better-looking!”

His colleague, who had been tracking the young woman with a glazed, fixated expression, blurted the rebuttal sulkily. He glared at Isaac, dripping with palpable envy. Isaac understood that jealousy had twisted the man’s heart, but even so, with that distended belly and scruffy beard, claiming superiority in appearance crossed the line into absurdity. He grumbled inwardly while nursing his drink.

“Why not? Back in my youth, I was told I was handsome as well. Don’t you recall when I first enlisted in the royal guard? Before the squad leader bothered to memorize my name, he used to refer to me as ‘that clean-faced one over there.’”

“How many years have passed since then? The rivers and mountains have shifted twice over! Sure, in your prime, you were passably attractive, but that’s ancient history. You’ve aged quite brutally.”

Isaac glared disapprovingly at his colleague, who delivered this impassioned assessment with the heat of pure jealousy. It was true that his handsomeness had waned into a thoroughly ordinary middle age. It was also true that Isaac had never prioritized his own appearance. Still, now that street children had begun addressing him as “mister,” hearing such blatant dismissals felt far from pleasant.

“Why? If he dressed with more care, refined his style, and paid attention to his skin, I suspect people would still find him quite handsome.”

The young woman across the table came to his defense. Isaac deliberately glanced at his colleague’s sullen expression before leaning toward her to whisper with practiced gentleness.

“Would you fall for me, then?”

“Goodness, no. No matter how handsome a man is, I have no affinity for paupers.”

The young woman smiled sweetly, yet her words remained ruthless. His colleague erupted into raucous laughter, performing for the room, while Isaac lowered his head. Such was the harsh reality of life. With shoulders drooping, he brought his glass to his lips and averted his gaze.

At that precise moment, a group descended the stairs from the upper floor. At a glance, there were four or five men who projected a palpable sense of danger, accompanied by several women who appeared to be courtesans. The women were all radiant, but the one trailing behind the man at the rear possessed an extraordinary, haunting beauty. Nine out of ten men in the tavern froze, their eyes helplessly snagged by her presence. It was Celiña, the courtesan whispered to be the greatest beauty in the capital.

“…She’s truly breathtaking…”

Isaac, too, had been staring after her in a daze. Only when she vanished from the tavern did he finally exhale a sigh and murmur the admission. The young woman sitting across from him offered a playful, sidelong look.

“So our guard-oppa appreciates beauties as well?”

“What man is immune to the sight of a beautiful woman?”

“Of course. And this one in particular is notorious for his eye for pretty things,” Isaac’s colleague barged into the conversation again, leaking the information like a tattletale.

Isaac, in turn, shoved the man’s face away with his palm. “If there exists a man who hates beautiful things, let him step forward,” Isaac grumbled. Predictably, not a single man in the room volunteered to identify himself as such.

“But if Celiña herself is entertaining him, that man can’t be an ordinary individual.”

As one of his colleagues muttered the observation, Isaac recalled the middle-aged man who had stood beside that dazzling beauty without being eclipsed, radiating an oppressive, heavy presence. His generous, wrinkled eyes seemed to have carved harsh decades into every crease, and instinct warned Isaac that men of that caliber were not to be approached lightly.

“Oh my, are you truly unaware? That man is Roverni!”

Naturally. At the name she dropped, Isaac felt his suspicions confirmed. The other colleagues displayed immediate signs of shock. Roverni was the titan perched at the peak of the black-market factions, holding sway over not only the capital but a vast territory stretching days away. He was a man born with uncanny cunning, swift in his judgment, and legendary for a youth spent dominating any physical confrontation. Blessed with a fortune that flourished like wildfire, he had ascended to a status where even high-ranking nobles hesitated to cross him.

He was, in every sense, the emperor of the underworld.

“Is that the man who fears nothing under the sun? If it’s Roverni, shouldn’t he be approaching sixty? He barely looks fifty.”

“When a man commands the world to bend to his will, what could he possibly worry about enough to show his age?”

“He even keeps the capital’s greatest beauty at his beck and call,” one colleague muttered with envy. The woman beside him leaned in, whispering, “Even so, the rumors suggest his circle has been quite volatile lately. Haven’t you heard? Some unknown assailant has been inciting one disaster after another within Roverni’s territory.”

“Disasters?”

“They say he’s systematically dismantling Roverni’s men. Specifically, those in high-ranking positions.”

“What? Is a new organization emerging?”

If a turf war erupted, it would be an administrative nightmare. The guards collectively frowned, but the woman shook her head.

“No. Nothing is certain, but apparently, it’s the work of a single person.”

“Alone? How could one person inflict such damage on Roverni’s faction? They would require an absurd level of talent.”

“That’s the question! Why are they doing it? Revenge? It must be revenge, right? Too many people have suffered at the hands of his syndicate for it to be anything else.”

“No one knows. They’re keeping it under wraps, so that’s all I’ve heard. Regardless, the atmosphere among Roverni’s people has been abysmal lately. They issued a warrant with an astronomical bounty, yet the culprit remains at large.”

“Well, well. The world is filled with strange occurrences. Has some self-styled apostle of justice appeared?”

The guards exchanged glances, each wearing the look of men who had heard enough. Even so, the thought that unified them was not admiration for this vigilante.

“There’s courage, and then there’s sheer stupidity. Roverni, of all people? Why would anyone invite such a death sentence?”

At that abrupt remark, everyone nodded in silent agreement. Roverni’s reach extended like a spiderweb, his connections snaking through the high nobility and perhaps even the royal court. His wealth was so immense he could have forged a castle from gold. His power was so absolute that it seemed supernatural.

“They say he can even command a top-tier magician.”

“Is that rumor verified? They say high-tier mages refuse to even acknowledge those outside of royalty.”

“Even if not top-tier, he must command a fairly high-ranking caster. There have been incidents that defy natural explanation. Take the assassination of the rival Sider faction years ago. To execute such an impossible murder so flawlessly, leaving no scrap of evidence? Who else could have managed that but a magician?” The colleague reciting these sinister rumors lowered his voice to a hiss. “There is even a theory it was not a magician, but a witch. They say the coroner had never witnessed bodies dismantled so grotesquely.”

“Oh, have mercy. Let us cease this talk. It gives me goosebumps.”

The woman who had been listening hunched her shoulders, shivering. Only then did Isaac’s colleagues shift the subject, and Isaac handed a fresh drink to the woman. “Is it truly that frightening?”

“Of course. A magician would be terrifying, but a witch? How vile. I feel a chill down my spine just hearing about them.”

One of his colleagues tossed a light joke her way. “Magicians and witches both manipulate magic. What’s the difference?”

“How are they the same? Witches are far more abhorrent. Surely you agree?”

The woman sought Isaac’s validation. He, who had been sipping his drink, nodded slowly.

“There is a profound difference between a human who has learned to harness magic and something that was never human in the first place. Another glass, please.”

As Isaac raised his cup and a server hurried to refill it, the conversation veered into triviality. Isaac remained silent, occupied with crunching the peanuts that served as his snack.

This was the status quo.

This was the collective perception of witches—beings fundamentally alien to humanity, monstrous things some even dared to label demons.

There was no cause to feel wounded or disappointed by such rhetoric. Isaac had walked this earth for decades, and he had long since made his peace with it. Even so, he could not repress the sudden, frigid isolation that sometimes pooled in his chest. It was the crushing sensation of being an anomaly, of knowing that no matter how seamlessly he labored among them, he would never truly belong. Like an orphan abandoned in the wilderness, he was a creature apart.

But the feeling was fleeting.