Chapter 2 — 흉의 일족
Part 2, Episode 10
The Clan of Hyung
“Let me go, right now!”
The little boy flailed his arms and legs, squirming in Elric’s grip.
At that moment, Mord saw the kid’s face and his expression hardened fast. A flustered voice slipped out.
“Z-Zen?”
“What? You two know each other?”
Elric glanced between the kid and Mord. Come to think of it, there was a faint resemblance.
“Huh? Ah, yeah! He’s my second brother’s son.”
Elric let out a hollow laugh. The brat struggling and screaming to break free turned out to be Mord’s kin.
If he’d been tailing them since they arrived, there was no way the kid didn’t know Mord was with Elric’s group.
“So you were trying to pick the pocket of your uncle’s guest. You’ve got some nerve, huh?”
At this point, it wasn’t just the kid—Mord wasn’t looking too good in Elric’s eyes either.
Elric shot Mord a sidelong glare, and Mord hurriedly bowed his head, fidgeting.
Then the boy yelled.
“Uncle, my ass! You damn traitor!”
“Zen….”
When Mord called the boy—Zen—in a pained voice, the kid only thrashed harder.
“Anyway, let go! Do you even know who my dad is? You think you’ll be fine after this?”
Catching on to the gist, Elric clicked his tongue at Mord.
Seemed like there was something he couldn’t explain.
Elric yanked Zen closer and grinned wickedly.
“And who’s your father?”
“My dad is…!”
“Zen!”
As Zen puffed up to proudly declare his father, Mord cried out in alarm.
Elric deliberately ignored Mord and lowered his voice.
“I asked who.”
Zen glared at Elric’s face, then started shouting.
“A champion of the Revolu—!”
The instant the word “revolution” left Zen’s mouth, Elric cut him off like he didn’t need to hear more.
“Mord, how well do you know imperial law? You seem like you’ve done some studying.”
Blindsided, Mord hemmed and hawed, delaying his answer.
Elric didn’t so much as glance at him, keeping his eyes on Zen.
Realizing this could go very wrong, Mord belatedly came to his senses and nodded.
“A little….”
“What’s the punishment for pickpocketing?”
“…You have to repay five times what you stole, or if you can’t, you perform labor for the victim until it’s paid off. If even that is impossible, the wrist is to be cut.”
Elric smiled like a devil and said to Zen,
“You hear that? That’s what your uncle says.”
Mord, now catching on to Elric’s game, gave a wry smile.
“W-What…! What did I steal? I haven’t done anything yet!”
The brat who’d been so brash began to tremble.
“Yet? So you were going to. Hey, how are attempts handled?”
“…You receive half the sentence for the principal crime.”
“Hmm. So one wrist would do. Maybe here? What do you think?”
“H-Hiiik!”
When Elric pointed at Zen’s right wrist with a smile, the kid’s pupils quaked like an earthquake.
No matter how tough he acts, he’s still just a kid.
Seeing Zen completely cowed and docile, Elric’s grin turned even more impish.
“Lord Elric, perhaps that’s enough.”
“Is it? Heh heh, what should I do?”
Elric crept closer, leering.
“Eeeek!”
Zen was utterly terrified now, eyes brimming with tears.
Mephisto watched and shook his head.
『Sigh, ran into the worst possible mark. Poor kid, at that age already. Of all people to get caught by, a Merbinger… tsk, tsk!』
* * *
Hyuilan was broadly divided into a dozen-odd zones by faction.
And the Clan of Hyung—their destination—occupied one of them.
The Clan of Hyung’s autonomous district, commonly called the “Village.”
A rumor went around there.
Crackle, crackle.
Deep in a narrow alley.
A group of men tossed logs into a fire and talked.
“You guys hear the news?”
“What news?”
“They say Mord brought someone in from outside.”
“Ah, I heard that too. So what?”
Their faces were indifferent.
Incidents were everyday life in Hyuilan. It took a lot to move anyone.
But the moment the man who’d brought the news added one more line, every ear perked up.
“Apparently the guy’s blond with green eyes.”
“…What?”
“Y-You serious?”
“I’m telling you. If you’ve got a brain, you can guess who.”
There was no way they didn’t know.
Only one family in the world had features like that.
“Merbinger….”
When someone spoke the name aloud, silence fell.
That was how heavy the name Merbinger weighed among them.
“….”
“….”
“….”
And after a moment—
“Guess I should turn in early today.”
The men watched each other, then drifted off one by one.
And the rumor spread in a flash, surfacing among another group not far away.
Like that—
The rumor seeded across Hyuilan reached the southeastern quarter as well.
* * *
With Zen dangling from one arm, Elric followed Mord through Hyuilan’s slums.
There wasn’t a proper road to be seen.
The shanties were all sagging in on themselves, and every footpath was clogged with trash.
Elric nudged aside scraps that got in his way, then picked up a few items that caught his eye.
“These are from the Allied Kingdoms, huh?”
It was absurd to see goods from the Allied Kingdoms—hard to come by even in the Empire—thrown away as garbage here.
Mord, embarrassed by the situation, feigned ignorance.
So this is the world’s dumping ground, where all the trash gathers…. I see why they call it that.
What he’d taken as a metaphor turned out to be literal.
– Trash people living in a trash heap.
That was the phrase often used for the poor who lived in Hyuilan.
Sometimes they even threw away people.
Which was why there were so many orphans.
A sour taste rose in Elric’s mouth.
And of course their wariness toward outsiders would be sky-high.
It wasn’t just Zen, now somewhat subdued in Elric’s grasp, who watched warily.
Elric glanced around and met someone’s eyes.
The resident hastily slammed the window shut.
Kids playing jackstraws scattered the instant they fell within Elric’s sight.
Even the women laboring amid the trash stopped what they were doing, grabbed their children, and rushed inside.
Everywhere Elric passed—doors shut and shutters dropped.
The way they melted into the dark to avoid being seen, like…
『Cockroaches. They avoid contact this thoroughly?』
[Are you insane, Mephi? Calling people bugs?]
『Seems to me you were thinking something just as impure.』
[Don’t be ridiculous.]
If you’re talking about Crown Prince Zeraitz, maybe.
[Anyway, doesn’t this feel off to you?]
『What does?』
Elric felt the furtive gazes tracking him between gusts of bleak wind.
And threaded among those gazes was the scent of demonic energy.
[Even if this is a slum, it’s still imperial territory. But this much….]
Most of the demonic energy he sensed among Hyuilan’s residents was faint.
But here and there, traces of something far stronger pricked at him.
How did no one know a place like this existed until now?
『Hmph! They aren’t exactly in a position to report it themselves. That much is only natural.』
Mephisto wasn’t wrong.
Hyuilan was where people driven to the bottom of life—criminals guilty of every sin, wanted and on the run—gathered most.
[Even so, there’s no way the Empire doesn’t know. The Inspectorate, which foams at the mouth at the word “demon,” wouldn’t leave this alone unless….]
『Unless there’s only one reason.』
Elric nodded heavily.
It wasn’t that the Empire hadn’t found this place.
It chose not to.
Deliberately letting it be, so it could be used politically anytime.
The more he thought about it, the more disgust clawed at his throat.
Whether Mord knew any of this or not—
Walking ahead, he wore a faintly abashed look, as if ashamed of his hometown.
“This is it. It’s… a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”
Scratching his cheek, Mord stopped before what was, even by this dump’s standards, an especially dilapidated ruin.
Mephisto screwed up his face at the pitiful sight.
『People actually live here? It looks like it could collapse any second.』
[What can’t people do? If you hate it, you can rest outside.]
『Bloody hell. I’d sooner sleep rough than in this place.』
Mephisto kept grumbling, as if the idea of anyone living here defied common sense.
Come to think of it, the Mephisto Elric knew was unusually fastidious about cleanliness.
Because he used to be a Demon King?
For someone who must’ve seen every kind of filth, he sure got picky in odd places.
Elric himself was a high noble, and even he wasn’t bothered.
Just from the outside, it’s this bad. If we go in, he’s going to lose it.
Curious to see the reaction, Elric followed Mord in as if nothing were amiss.
They opened the door and descended a spiral staircase into the basement.
And then—
“…Huh?”
Surprise was written plain on Elric’s face at what he saw inside.
“This,” Mord said.
Something he’d never imagined.
A different world unfurled before his eyes.
“—is the main lodge of our ‘Pharos.’”
Above was nothing but a shabby ruin.
But the space beneath was anything but.
How much is all this?
A red carpet of Eastern silk ran along the floor, and the walls were hung with various paintings.
There were ornate decorations everywhere—porcelain, silver candlesticks.
Unlike outside, not a speck of dust anywhere—cleanliness and the height of luxury.
What impressed him most was the harmony of it all.
A pile of expensive things can easily look gaudy, but this felt tastefully antique.
It spoke to deep knowledge of luxury goods and antiquities.
He’d never imagined something like this would be in a slum.
『…Ho! To think I’d see this painting here.』
Before he knew it, Mephisto had stopped before a canvas, looking up.
[What is it?]
『Chainaphrut. In my day, a once-in-a-century genius who died young after leaving exactly four paintings.』
“Ch-Chainaphrut?!”
Elric blurted it out before he could stop himself.
“You recognize the work?”
Mord tilted his head at Elric’s reaction.
“Hey, don’t tell me you don’t—”
Elric was about to launch into a lecture on the great artist Chainaphrut when—
Step, step.
Footfalls sounded.
“I hear Mord brought a guest. Seems we have someone with a rather refined eye. A true noble has come.”
An old man emerged from within, leaning on a cane.
A pair of spectacles perched low on his nose.
He looked like an ordinary old man, but the weight in his gait and tone was anything but.
“…You!”
Recognizing him, Elric was startled all over again.
“It has been a while, Lord of House Merbinger.”
The Mage Who Devoured Talent