Joji knew the sort. These were local union gangs of Everhart City, n rooted in the streets deeply enough to call themselves part of the city’s bones.
n like these were part of the reason Sins Crossroads, once the strongest border city in Vicario, had held for over eighty-one days against the full army of the Wickworks Empire of Magic.
Not because of betrayal, but because their unity ran too deep and their lack of discord made any operation ant to penetrate the city from within nearly impossible.
That, however, had long displeased the royal family, for they had never truly trusted the old power of House Sins.
So, when the fatal day finally ca, no royal reinforcents marched to answer the call. Only the forces of Everhart ca.
The second reason was far simpler. Life here was too good. In so ways, it had been the sa at Sins Crossroads before its destruction.
Better, even, than life in Revere Vicario, the kingdom’s capital.
That alone was a threat to the crown. A city too rich, too capable, too proud, too far from the throne’s imdiate grip.
And Duchess Rosalind had survived. That made the old sche only half a failure.
Everhart City and Sins Crossroads had each stood far from the capital in their own way, nearly opposite it across a brutal stretch of more than two thousand miles.
A distance long enough to breed caution, resentnt, and ambition alike.
The original Joji had understood that and put forth a treacherous proposal.
It was the very reason the first mission had been given, for many knights had grown hostile toward him.
He had proposed that the Duchy of Everhart stand as an independent state.
Joji of Earth, however, was not naive enough to think independence would be simple.
He understood the map too well for that.
To the north stretched the vast waters of Aqua Iviza, a sea so deadly that no tale spoke of any man surviving its crossing.
Many scholars believed it marked the very edge of Priria, so vast was it, stretching far beyond the bounds of any single kingdom.
To the east lay the Elven Alessa Matriarchy.
To the south stood the Pinnacler Theocracy and the Wickworks Empire of Magic.
Closer to the capital in the west sat the Aruba Desert Monarchy.
As Joji turned these thoughts over, Sid watched him with growing wariness.
Joji’s silence had unsettled the young man. Sid seed to take it for the silence of soone asuring him, judging whether he had broken the Union’s code, or worse, whether he had just tried to extort an Everhart knight on secret business.
Looking for the safest road out, Sid lifted both hands and signaled. His n dispersed at once.
"Sir, you know we got rules here," Sid said. "Locals get jobs first. Locals first, outsiders later. It is true we beat people for a living, but this is our city. I hope you understand."
Joji smiled and clapped a hand onto Sid’s shoulder.
"Well said," he replied. "That is how a real man ought to speak."
Then he flashed the man his token. Sid’s breath caught. His instincts had been dead right.
He cast a quick glance to either side, checking the street, then crooked a finger for Joji to lower his head. Even standing close, Sid barely reached his shoulder.
"Sir," Sid whispered, "is soone about to cause trouble here? Let help. My gang is not afraid to spill blood on these streets."
"Nothing that ssy. You see, I was thinking of buying this very establishnt," Joji said, though the place was already under his na.
Sid understood at once. The knight was here for business and plainly did not want his identity spoken aloud in the open.
"Sir, you may not know this, but the previous owner was an absolute wanker. That lchor bastard even set his sights on my sister, so I let him et Mister Greaves right here," Sid said, raising his left leg, where a piece of makeshift armor covered the shin.
"A given," Joji said in the sa rough tongue. "I would not let my sister fuck just anyone either."
"Exactly, sir. Family is family." Sid nodded with feeling, then jerked his chin toward the building.
"But enough about . The place got wrecked by the union gangs, trashed overnight. Still, if you want to run it, just say the word. We are all Everhart n here."
"Well, I do have an assistant I will be bringing in," Joji said. "You know how it is. Knights do not have much ti to spare when missions keep coming."
"Right."
Sid paused, then drew a small whistle from his pocket and wiped it clean against his clothes before offering it over.
"Blow this and my ssenger dog will co running. A token of sincerity." He grinned.
"I will even have the union help fix that dump up at a discount."
Joji took the whistle and turned it once in his fingers.
"You carry that much clout around here?" he asked.
Sid puffed up at that, though only a little.
"They do not call the Slum Young Master for nothing. Still, that is hardly worth ntioning before a man of your station, sir."
He lowered himself slightly as he said it, careful not to sound as though he were putting himself too high before a knight.
Joji took out a map of the city then and began pointing out several locations.
Sid was young, capable, and worth befriending.
Rizz had missed out on much in his previous life, and it would not be a bad thing if he had people his own age to spend ti with.
At the next location, they found a ruined storefront. Broken bottles littered the ground.
Wilted vegetables lay dried and blackened near the wall.
Across the front, soone had painted one blunt word in great ugly strokes.
Get out of Everhart. Trash.
"Used to be a tavern," Sid said.
"Mister Walter owned it once, but then lchor started bringing in foreign hookers. We told him to have the won checked at the local temple, and he said we were trampling on his dignity."
Sid spat to the side as if lchor’s arrogance had left a taste in his mouth.
"We are not trying to spread jock itch through the whole district again. Damn temple charges a hundred gold for treatnt, and guess what? You need five. Five. Fucking five."
His voice carried both anger and helplessness, the sort born from knowing exactly how badly one was being bled and having no power to stop it.
They moved on to another site.
This one had been a shop once, though there was hardly enough left of it now to justify the na.
It was the worst of the lot, charred black from end to end, the whole place burned down until only ruin remained.
"lchor brought in foreign alchemists too," Sid said. "Tried to cook up so substance that made people daydream all day and get hooked on."
"I said we should burn the shit down, so we did. All of that happened in one month. One month. Imagine being that much of a fool."
Sid shook his head, still sounding half unbelieving that one man could court so much ruin so quickly.
Joji, however, saw the scene with shining eyes. Every one of these was pri location.
Even so, he knew he still lacked the harder lessons of the world, the streetwise instincts that n like Sid had been forced to grow just to survive.
So he pointed toward the ruined building and asked the question plainly.
"When you burned it down, did no one around here help him?"
Sid gave him a look, half amused, half offended by the very premise.
"Do you pick dog shit off the roadside and tuck it into your pocket?" he asked.
"That lchor was not one of ours. We are not discriminating, but at his best he was still filth."
That was answer enough.
Joji knew the young man was busy, so he handed him twenty gold coins for the tour.
Sid stared at the money, then at him.
"Sir, this is too much," he said.
Joji had been waiting for the right mont to stroke the boy’s pride, and now that mont had co.
He had already seen it in him. The shape of it. The dormant bend of talent that had gone unnoticed or unused.
"I rember you tried to beco a squire once, then quit while serving as a guard. Why?" Joji asked.
Sid’s face tightened.
"I... I did not quit," he said at last, forcing out a wry smile.
"The world simply decided aura was not for ."
Joji studied him a mont longer.
"Do you know that you have strong affinity for nature and decent talent for prana?"
Sid went still.
He had grown up in the slums, yes, but even as a boy he had spent coin on sit-ins and lessons he barely understood, because his old father, dead now, had always told him that the strongest power in the world was knowledge.
So Sid knew the aning of those words. He understood enough for hope to hurt.
"Sir, you jest," he said. "A cruelly good jest."
He tried to brush it aside, unwilling to linger where disappointnt had already scarred him once.
But Joji pressed.
"I am serious. Work with , and I will show you your worth. If I find you truly have the ability, I will give you a Druid Job Manuscript." His voice hardened.
"Listen well, boy. Nothing cos free, and I despise n who slack."
Sid rooted to the ground as though his boots had sunk into stone.
His whole body trembled. A druid.
A class that could speak with beasts and trees, command living things, draw power from the pulse of the natural world itself.
In one flashing instant, Sid saw it all. Himself crowned in antlers, old and fearso, with a beard flowing down his chest, dragons wheeling at his call across the sky.
Joji saw that he had perhaps frightened him with the suddenness of it and was just about to speak again when Sid burst out.
"I’ll fucking do it. But I want it written on paper."
Then he hesitated, suspicion wrestling with hunger.
"Can that be written on paper?"
"It can," Joji said. "But I will be the one to set the terms."
"When do I start?" Sid asked, eagerness spilling through him now.
Joji glanced upward. The sky was already leaning toward evening.
He raised the whistle Sid had given him.
"I’ll call for you within a month. Earliest, five days from now. Business is not simple. There is planning to be done, and all the ss that cos with it."
Sid swallowed and gave a stiff nod.
"Sir... how may I address you?"
Joji looked at him, steady and plain.
"Joji of Sins Crossroads and Everhart."
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