Ch.1The Beginning of Adventure (1)

“Ha… hahaha….”

I laughed emptily.

In a secluded corner of the alley, alone and like a madman.

The reason was simple.

“One gold coin… I’ve finally saved enough.”

In my hand lay a brilliantly shining gold coin.

When did it start? When did I first think about setting off on an adventure?

On that night I can no longer remember, I resolved to save one gold coin, buy equipment with it, and embark on an adventure.

And from that day on, I worked relentlessly.

At that time, I was a 7-year-old who had just turned 8.

While ordinary children would be clinging to their mother’s or father’s pant legs, begging for white bread made from wheat, all I could eat was hard rye bread that was just one step away from growing mold.

I had no mother, no father, no friends, no relatives, no lover.

Some people considered me pitiful, but I couldn’t empathize with their gaze.

If I had something that disappeared, that would be one thing. But how could I feel the absence of something that was never there to begin with?

I simply had a worse start than others.

With no one to rely on. I thought that perhaps my past self had chosen this cruel path.

Crunch… crunch…

I bit down hard on the gold coin I was holding.

The scent of hard, cold metal spread across the mucous membrane of my mouth, and I looked down at the gold coin now bearing faint teeth marks.

“Gulp….”

This was the precious money I had barely managed to earn by working 240 hours a week until I turned 16.

With days being 36 hours and weeks being ten days long, I had invested two-thirds of the total 360 hours solely to earn money.

Looking around… looking around…

After savoring the moment briefly, I quickly hid the gold coin in my underwear.

Some might think it’s dirty, but hiding it anywhere else would be easily discovered. That’s how the back alleys worked.

“Haah….”

Enjoying the cold sensation of the gold coin against my underwear, I walked toward the bank.

It was time to exchange this gold coin for silver coins and replace these rags I was wearing with proper human clothes.

After passing through the winding city streets, I finally arrived at the bank. I took the money out from my underwear and gripped it in my right hand until it cut off circulation.

Eventually, I entered the bank and, despite the guard’s frowning gaze, exchanged my gold coin for silver coins and left.

In truth, it would have been better not to receive a gold coin in the first place and just get a bag of silver coins, but this couldn’t be helped.

Somehow, I wanted to see the fruits of my labor with my own eyes.

Clink. Clink.

I deliberately held the money bag in my hand and shook it, starting to show off that “I have money.”

And when eyes began to gleam from those dark corners, I flashed them a smile and opened my spatial storage with my palm, putting the money bag inside.

Soon the gleaming eyes faded with regretful looks, and I continued walking with my still-heavy body.

This spatial storage was an artifact I had bought cheaply from an artificer selling defective goods during my work-obsessed days. It could only be used once a day for 5 minutes, had capacity for just one small box, and couldn’t store food like bread or meat, or drinks like water or alcohol—an undeniable defective product.

But since there was no problem putting money in and taking it out, I had never had my money stolen since imprinting this artifact on my heart.

*

Creeeeak….

As the sound suggests—not a thud or a bang, but a creak—my dwelling place was utterly wretched.

With one wall already collapsed, removing any worry about it falling down, it was closer to ruins than lodging. Still, it was where I had slept for the past year. I might have grown slightly attached to it.

I stuffed my belongings into a loose sack I had picked up from the street, with the money placed at the very bottom.

“Textbooks and vocabulary books… these should fetch a decent price if I sell them secondhand, right?”

When I was working 240 hours a week, the first thing I did was learn to read.

And I did so by hiring a teacher directly.

It’s not particularly surprising.

Even gang leaders would be ridiculed as ignorant if they couldn’t read, so I judged that an adventurer should at least be literate.

“Ah… sadly, I must let you go now.”

I spoke with genuine regret to the two sword sheaths sitting in the corner.

Not long after becoming literate, while on my way to pay the remaining balance to my teacher, I was caught by robbers, beaten to tears, and in my anger afterward, purchased the two cheapest swords I could find.

One was a 135cm longsword, and the other was a medium sword about 50cm long. I wore the longsword on my left hip and the medium sword on my back with the handle facing left.

This left my right hip feeling empty, so I usually attached a water flask there as I roamed the back alleys.

After acquiring the swords, I developed a sense of pride as a swordsman and even received intensive training at a sword guild for a year. Thanks to that, troublemakers who approached me carelessly quickly disappeared.

Once someone loses their right arm, they must live as a disabled person unless they can regenerate the limb or attach a prosthetic.

“Hah… these can’t even be sold secondhand…”

Creak…

Without proper maintenance supplies like lubricant, rust remover, or scrubbing pads, and having used them roughly in harsh conditions, the cheapest swords quickly showed their limitations.

The longsword had its blade broken off, making it shorter than the medium sword, while the medium sword had rust penetrating to the tang, clearly ready to snap at the handle with just a few powerful swings.

But still, I attached these swords to my belt.

The longsword on my left hip, the medium sword above my buttocks with the handle facing left.

Though ruined inside, they still had a certain intimidating presence while in their scabbards.

Of course… if I were to take these scabbards to master craftsmen, I’d likely get slapped with a glove and challenged to a duel for calling these mere “sword covers” actual scabbards.

“With this… I’ve packed just about everything.”

I’ll leave behind things that aren’t worth selling secondhand or are too bulky.

Like a shed skin, I’ll leave them as evidence that a human called “I” once stayed here.

“This is my last night here.”

Covering myself with the old blanket, permeated with sweat and filth to the point that even the smell had faded, I fell asleep.

*

“Are you leaving?”

Stop.

Suddenly, words spoken without any warning stopped me in my tracks.

When I turned my head to the right, there stood a woman who appeared to have just passed her forties.

Her name was Eileen.

She was a benefactor, if you could call her that, who allowed bottom-feeders like me to eat and sleep in this place that could hardly be called lodging.

I don’t know why she lived in such a place or why she took care of children like me and vagrants.

She wouldn’t answer when asked, thinking about it yielded no answers, and most people didn’t even wonder about it.

At the very least, the soup she brought was delicious, and without the blanket she had scavenged for me, I would have frozen to death by now.

“Yes. I’m leaving now. I’ve earned enough money. There’s no reason to stay any longer.”

Saying that, I handed her twenty silver coins.

“What’s this?”

“It’s for you. Winter was tough, wasn’t it?”

Last winter was harsh, and more than ten people staying in these ruins perished, unable to withstand the cold.

Eileen wept for a long time as she buried them, and we couldn’t even think of comforting her as we dug graves for them.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t refuse the silver coins I gave her.

Perhaps there was a time when she would have.

Maybe she too once had a time when men courted her and children gave her bouquets.

A time when everyone was in bloom, when they thought they could live happily—that period commonly called youth.

But now in her forties, Eileen was someone who scraped up even feces-stained coins from the streets just to survive and help others survive.

“Will you come back?”

She asked me with her face covered in dark spots.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never return…”

This city.

These streets.

These ruins.

Could I come back? No, should I come back?

As I was thinking this, Eileen hugged me tightly.

“Oh… Viktor…”

“…Eileen.”

“Stay healthy.”

“You too.”

With that, I left the ruins.

Feeling the gaze of an unremarkable woman in shabby clothes watching me until the end, I turned my head one last time before leaving the alley to look at her.

“Take care.”

I gave my final greeting, and she just smiled without saying anything.

It was a day 200 days after I turned sixteen.

Today, I finally become an adventurer.