Chapter 1 - Where All The Misery Began (1/2)
Stahurt is one of the five great cities of the Melki Empire. With the rampant growth of the economy and because of the wars raging in the North, the city has attracted great nobles from various regions, who have left their huge mansions in the countryside to live together in a high-class society.
However, everyone knows one thing: where there is money, there are thieves.
”Hey! Get him! He stole my purse!” A beautiful lady was bawling for help and the idiotic city guards, who got dashing whenever they saw a pair of breasts, rushed to catch the thief.
The men wore large white armour with gold details, which showed that they were just sons of nobles and cared only about looks. Meanwhile, the agile thief, who looked like a running shadow, quickly jumped more than three meters high to climb onto the roofs of the houses. The guards ran less than twenty meters before giving up.
”Ah! Never mind, let's have a beer. That's not our problem anymore.”
”That's it. If I want to fuck someone, I can have my dad hire a whole brothel for me.”
”Urgh! Brothel? You're disgusting, Adam.”
”What? A man has to satisfy his needs.”
From the top of the buildings, the hiding thief listened attentively to that conversation. Since most of the guards were dumb, they were very vulnerable when drunk, making robbing them easy.
But since it wasn't even past three in the afternoon, he decided not to follow them; after all, it was too early, and if he got involved in a fight, they could identify him.
The noise of someone landing behind the thief alerted him. Vulp! ”Luke, did you get any information?”
The thief looked seriously at the woman climbing on the roof and replied: ”Nothing. They don't have a fixed route; they just… go back and forth like confused rats.”
”What a bummer! I can't believe I had to wear that ridiculous dress and pretend to be a slut for nothing.”
Realizing that the man did not react to her irritation, Meredith did not continue with her drama. ”Now what? What are we going to do? It's been two months since we arrived in this town, and we still haven't found anything. Should we not have left New Yukiat?”
”We made the right decision. That religion is growing even more there, and you know they think we are as dangerous as demons.”
Luke is a half-wolf, and Meredith is a half-fox. However, both were positive human lineage, so they only had superficial characteristics like tails, ears, and eyes. Before the negative human half-beast lineage was discovered, positive lineage half-beasts could even walk among people if they were brave... but everything changed when the great Sakan Religion announced began to condemn all half-beasts.
”You know I will always be on your side, so why don't we go back to Oukiwa? We grew up there and have our connections.”
Luke looked angrily at the girl with his yellow eyes, as if that was a forbidden subject to the touch.
”So what? Why not?” She persisted in her question.
He stood up and spoke angrily while frowning all over his face. ”Don't irritate me when I haven't even had lunch yet.” After that, he started bouncing around the buildings as he seemed to look for something among the dozens of alleys.
”Luke... Man, it's been a year since we left Oukiwa and you never told me the reason we had to rush out of there.”
”I did tell you!” He started to let go, and his quick heels made a noise only when he touched the ground with his feet. Vulp! Vulp! Luke jumped forward two jumps.
Meredith caught up to him because she was fast and grew up doing it, but she knew that if Luke wanted to get away from her, he could easily do it. ”Refresh my memory. What was the motive then?”
”Ann... I told you I owed someone.”
Being his childhood friend, she knew that Luke was a great thief and a terrible liar, so she decided to tease even more: ”Who was it?”
”Annn...” Luke thought for a while. ”It was Matthew.”
”Are you kidding? Matthew turned to father and was your best friend, why would you run away from him?”
”Because he was a jerk?” The half-wolf said as he stopped at one of the buildings near the main avenue.
Stahurt was a city hundred miles long, packed with guards for every corner, so it was hard to get victims worth the risk. There were plenty of ladies and boys who left the Academy full of money in their pockets, but Meredith didn't like the idea of drawing that much attention, and that suited Luke's sneaky style.
Since he had already robbed a lot of innocent people, Luke wasn't worried about stealing a few students or small food tents; however, they were not after robbery like this; they needed information.
”Who are you looking for? We already came here this morning, and we haven't found anyone who fits our description.” Meredith asked but was ignored.
Luke was checking person by person in the vast crowd that strolled down the main street when finally, his eye stopped on one place. Meredith looked to see who her partner was looking for so hard.
Numerous people were gathered around a bulletin board, and amidst all the people, this girl's experienced eyes didn't miss a man.
He wore an inconspicuous brown hood, was short, and moved slowly, the perfect profile for a thief. Excited, Meredith said: ”There are more thieves! We should follow him.”
”Maybe, but calm down.” Luke looked attentively at the short man as well.
Taking advantage of the distress of the crowd of adventurers, who were fighting to get good quests, the little guy reached out for the coin purse that was on the utility belt of a big guy.
The big guy was wearing heavy armour and had stretched out to pick up a mission, so the little guy easily managed to grab the bag.