🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 01
The lowest, dirtiest place.
“Argh!”
Even when a burly man dragged a woman down the street by her hair, not a single person turned to look.
Neighbors, gaunt and hollow-eyed, clung to fleeting pleasures and base desires like a lifeline just to keep on living.
At night, the air filled with shouting, fights, and bone-chilling screams.
This was the Elm Slums.
“Ugh, l-let go!”
“You bitch!”
The nameless woman who had been dragged along the ground suddenly pulled out a knife hidden in her clothes and stabbed the man in the wrist. Then she bolted.
“Huff… haah!”
“Catch her! Whoever brings her back gets a glass of spirits!”
Her life was worth only a single penny—no more than a cup of cheap liquor.
Shouts rang out behind her, and the sound of many footsteps closed in.
If she hesitated even for a moment, they’d catch her and kill her.
Terrified, the nameless woman ran, and ran, and ran.
The Nameless Girl
She was born in the lowest, filthiest, darkest place—
under a bridge in the Elm Slums, where no sunlight ever reached.
Abandoned there the moment she was born, she survived only because the weather was mild that day.
A patrol of guards, still in good spirits after a night of looting, took pity on her and dropped her off at an orphanage.
By the slum’s standards, she was lucky—lucky just to live at all.
But survival was not happiness.
“You call that cleaning?!”
The orphanage director had quarreled with his mistress again. Grimacing through the sting of pain, the nameless girl quietly scrubbed the rotting window frames. She was seven.
She grew up amid constant abuse and neglect. Still, even that was better than most in Elm—few orphans were ever taken in.
“Number 8. The director wants you.”
At the orphanage, she was simply “Number 8.”
Number 8 was both the most severely beaten and the most trusted child.
“You called for me, Director?”
“Yes. Memorize this.”
Sometimes, the director summoned Number 8 to give her instructions she couldn’t understand. This time, he handed her a document crammed with black ink.
She would sit hunched in his office and memorize every word without knowing what it meant.
The director never taught her to read—perhaps so that no one else would ever know.
“I’ve memorized it.”
Once she finished, the director burned the document. Then men with hard faces came to “inspect” the orphanage but always left empty-handed.
Of course—they found nothing. The secrets existed only in Number 8’s mind.
Afterward, the director would make her copy everything from memory onto blank paper. Her arm ached as if it might fall off, but she bit her lip and kept writing.
If the director was in a good mood, he tossed her a crust of bread. She would snatch it up like a starving dog and wolf it down.
“Director. Number 7 is missing.”
The next morning, when she noticed one child gone, the director struck her hard across the head.
“Shut your mouth! Useless brat. No wonder you were abandoned.”
From his reaction, she knew immediately—Number 7 had run away during the night.
Something stirred in her chest.
Was it envy? Fear? Relief? She couldn’t tell.
Later that day, while running an errand, she found Number 7.
“Tch. Filthy.”
Number 7 lay face-down in the dirt, unmoving.
A man stood nearby, adjusting his fine clothes—garb so rare it was never seen in the slums. The other beggars shrank away, watching him nervously.
A noble.
“Dispose of it. Alive or dead, trash like that is nothing but a nuisance.”
The noble climbed into his carriage. The wheels crushed Number 7’s body as it rolled away, leaving the corpse behind.
Only once the carriage vanished did the slums come alive with noise again.
Number 8 staggered forward and knelt beside the boy.
“Runny Nose.”
She hated calling children by numbers, so she gave them nicknames instead. Number 7 had always been sniffling—thus, Runny Nose.
“Runny Nose.”
“……”
His eyes were empty. He was gone. She dragged his small body away.
If she left him there, he would rot for days on the cold street.
That night, after burying him behind the orphanage hill, she was beaten nearly to death for returning late.
Kicks landed in her stomach; when she curled up to shield herself, the director’s fists slammed down on her head.
Even as she endured the blows, she thought of what she’d seen.
She had believed the director was the most frightening man alive. But there was someone worse.
A noble.
For people like her, even touching them was a crime.
So scary.
For the first time, she realized a noble in fine clothes could be more terrifying than any thug.
“You ungrateful brat! I sent you on an errand, and where did you loiter off to?!”
The beating continued.
Curled into a ball, she thought:
She would never escape this place. Not in her whole life.
Twelve Years Old
“You’ve already turned twelve.”
The director looked her up and down.
The orphanage only kept children until twelve. Anyone not adopted by then was cast out.
“I thought you’d be taken quickly, since you’re fairly pretty. Guess the black hair ruined your chances.”
She vaguely knew where the “adopted” children went. That was why she had clung so desperately to the orphanage.
But the year she turned twelve, she was expelled into the slums.
“That brat stole my bread!”
“Kill her!”
She begged for scraps, stole food, and took beatings that nearly killed her.
Huddled up, she endured the misery in silence.
Her wretched life seemed endless.
Into the Forest
Years passed, until her body grew no taller.
Now, for the first time since birth, she was leaving the Elm Slums.
“Hahh… urgh!”
She sprinted blindly, lungs burning, until the footsteps behind her faded. Only then did she collapse, coughing up blood.
She had stumbled into a forest.
Dark. Damp. And empty of people.
Or so she thought—until she spotted patrols.
“Those are…”
On the knights’ uniforms gleamed a crest: a blue falcon.
The sigil of House Feyros, the Dukedom.
Panic gripped her. She had to run. But where?
While she froze, the knights moved off into the distance. Her legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground.
There was nowhere to go.
“…Ah.”
She looked up.
The wind howled, clouds racing fast. Rain would soon come.
And it did. Sheets of rain drenched her hair, black strands sticking to her cheeks.
Of all places, she had fled into the Duke of Feyros’s territory.
Even in the slums, tales of him abounded.
That he fought alone against a hundred men. That he killed without mercy, even among nobles.
The scariest of the scary.
“I’m hungry…”
But hunger was always worse than fear.
Carefully avoiding patrols, she crept about the woods.
With no plan, she decided to hide there until she thought of something.
The forest was vast; for months, she saw no one.
“Aaagh!”
Life was brutal. She climbed trees to escape beasts, fell off cliffs more than once, and starved on sour, unripe fruit after birds stole the ripe ones.
Each day was desperate.
If a god appeared before her, she would crawl, kiss his feet, and beg until her hands were raw.
Perhaps that prayer was heard.
The knights returned, hunting game with bows marked by the Duke’s crest.
They killed a deer and left its body behind.
Silently, she crept toward it.
She knew how to steal—slipping one leg of meat away was nothing.
But she wasn’t the only hungry one.
A pack of wild dogs had noticed the carcass, and her.
They turned on her.
“D-don’t come near!”
She ran until her lungs tore, until blood filled her mouth. Ahead, she saw knights.
“Help me!”
She cried out desperately. But even as she screamed, she feared—would the knights’ blades kill her before the dogs did?
That instant of hesitation cost her.
One dog leapt, knocking her down. She thrashed, flailing her arms.
Hot saliva dripped onto her face.
“Please… please!”
Her pleas spilled out, meaningless, to no one at all.
The dog’s teeth sank toward her arm—
To be continued…
