Life in the Swordhearth family had continued as normal, with Levi recieving the regular dose of verbal abuse from both his mother and sister while Isabelle basked in all of their parents' attention.
But today was a bit different from the rest. It was the only day a month that Levi actually looked forward to, it was payday.
Payday was a certain day at the beginning of the new month in which Raymond Swordhearth, the head of the Swordhearth family, distributed monthly allowance to all of his children.
As children of aristocrat families, you can be hell sure that their monthly allowance wasn't a small amount in the least. It was a total of 50 silver coins, for Levi at least, his sister's were granted far higher sums.
As a noble, Levi had been forced to attend several compulsory classes, from which he learnt the value of the new worlds' currency. They used metal coins as their currency, but depending on the production material, coins could vary in value.
One silver coin was equivalent to one hundred copper coins. While one gold coin was equivalent to one hundred silvers.
The coin currency wasn't the best means of exchange as it lacked divisibility. There was a great divide between the three denominations and as such, one would need to buy several things in order to spend a single gold or even silver coin.
Although the amount paled in comparison to his sister's, fifty silver coins was no small sum. A person who earned such an amount per month was well above average and possibly at the cusp of high class society.
Immediately after Levi recieved his allowance, he got dressed and left the house for Stan's bar lest he suffer more embarrassment from his family.
He entered the alley and walked down, taking several turns as memory guided him to his destination. But then, he suddenly stopped walking.
'someone is following me.' he concluded.
He turned his neck to look behind him. At first, he didn't see anything, but as he squinted his eyes and concentrated he noticed a shadowy figure dash from one corner to another startling the stray cats and making quite some noise.
'whoever is tailing me is quite sloppy, they must have gotten panicked at my discovering them. This place is not the best spot for a fight, I'll lead them to where there's more space'.
Levi shrugged to put his tail at ease then turned around and continued walking. He took a detour and ended up in an old backyard of an abandoned house.
'here will do'. Levi thought as he scanned the surrounding space for a good weapon.
He then called out to the darkness, "I know you're there. Show yourself, now!" Levi said out loud.
He waited for some time and discovered that no one was responding to his call, but mere silence wasn't enough to suppress Levi's superior instinct. He casually strolled over to a place where an intact bottle lay on the ground, he picked it up.
"Let me show you a type of magic I learnt. It's pretty simple, it doesn't need a chant or any mana. But it super~ effective for dealing with idiots like you".
*Smash*
Smashing the bottom on the ground, he had successfully transformed the blunt weapon into a proper street fighting weapon which could take a person's life.
"Come out now, or I'll come to you. Your choice. Either way, it won't be a happy ending for you". Levi confidently said while pointing his weapon at the darkness.
There was a long silence, until a faint but audible sound reached Levi's ears.
'footsteps...' he discerned.
'but it's not just one, it's coming from at least four directions'. Levi had pretty good sense for his age, and his previous life had already hardened him in the face of danger so he clearly understood.
'show any weakness to the opposition, and they'll instantly goble you up'.
The steps became more and more audible as the mysterious persons closed in on Levi's position. With this, he was clearly able to discern their number.
'they are five in total. Damn, I don't think I can take that many people with this body, but I'm confident that I can at least take a beating'.
In a few more seconds, the mysterious stalkers came into view. They wore black clothing, but didn't cover their faces.
'if they can do this something like this without hiding their face at least, then I don't think they have any plans to let me live through this...... Damn fighting is pointless, I have to somehow escape from this place'.
The mysterious persons fully came in to view. Out of those five people, Levi recognized two of them.
The first one was the person he had defeated in Stan's bar the other day, while the second one was a person he had seen in the bar that very same day.
Normally, Levi wouldn't have such a good memory so as to still remember the face of a random person even after several weeks. No, the second man had a very conspicuous scar on his face, it was very big and ran from his right eye down to his left cheek.
"Well, well. So you came back for round two, huh?". Levi said, maintaining his overly confident facade. He was pretending to be overly confident so as to make them lower their guard and allow him a chance to escape, hopefully with all his limbs intact.
"How fair is it to ambush a twelve year old kid with five men? Do you people have no shame?" Levi added.
"You can yap all you want kid.....you may have beaten me in the bar, but let's see how you handle me with an entire squad of mercenaries".
"Mercenaries?" Levi questioned. It was actually a bait to make the other man spill the beans.
"That's right. These guys here are from the dark horse mercenary guild, and they agreed to help me get rid of you, for the right price of course". The bait worked.
"Damn! Raaz! You can't go around telling kids about our group. Especially not the count's son".
"Oh, sorry bout that Jeff but....what's the big deal, he's gonna die here anyway". Raaz shrugged with a mischievous smile plastered on his face.
"No. You forget our agreement. You are not allowed to kill him while we are with you. We warned you to wear a mask for your own safety but you wouldn't listen".
"Oh give me a break. You're not wearing a mask either".
"Yes, and that's because our guild has a way of handling these things".
"Yeah, but I pay you. So you should take care of me as well".
"May I remind you, we don't extend such privileges to any client below the gold rank. And you're not even bronze. If the count comes after you because of this, don't blame us. I only offered you this chance cause you're an old friend of mine, so don't screw this up". Jeff responded, a bit pissed of at razz's attitude.
"What the hell! How dare you yell back at your client!" Raaz shouted and an argument erupted.
'looks like it's my lucky day. The so called 'mercenaries' are incompetent and even more, the client. This is my chance to get away. I'll run straight back to the mansion, I will be safe there'. Levi thought while taking subtle but purposeful steps back, so as to not alert his assailants.
'and...now!' Levi thought and turned around as swiftly as he could for a dash. He was headed straight for the Swordhearth estate.
He manuvered around the two mercenaries who tried to stop him quite easily, and had already gained some distance ahead by the time the third caught up. By now, Jeff and Raaz had ceased their arguing and had directed all their attention to their fleeing target.
"Fools! How can you let him escape! Go after him, now!!" Jeff barked orders to his incompetent subordinates.
The two men geared up and started running after Levi. They seemed to have some skill by the way they moved, but they were horribly lacking in experience.
Levi didn't look back, he just ran. He took several sharp turns around the alleys and although he had inferior physical, he somehow managed to keep a good distance ahead of his pursuers, but he couldn't keep it up for too long.
"Huff...huff..pant". Levi was getting exhausted after running for just ten minutes.
'damn it! If I make it out of this alive, I'll make sure to work out more!' Levi thought as he ran, his speed was steadily decreasing as his stamina was failing.
"He's running out of breath, do it, now!" One of Levi's pursuers screamed at his acquaintance.
The men started using mana and one of them cast a spell.
The man stopped, for a while to gather some mana. Then he started muttering indiscernible words as the spells chant, before shouting out:
"Wind burst!"
A powerful gust of wind enveloped the man and propelled him straight to Levi's position.
'shit!' Levi thought as he saw the man approaching him at far superior speeds. A few seconds after that, Levi felt a powerful impact from his back which pushed him off his feet and caused him to tumble down the narrow alleyway.
"Got him!". Shouted the man who had crashed into Levi. The same man had pinned him to he floor and there was little Levi could do with his inferior physique.
The other two caught up soon afterwards, followed by both Raaz and Jeff.
"Good. You managed to catch him". Jeff said to his subordinates before turning to Raaz.
"Get this sh*t done quickly, else we're out of here". Jeff said to Raaz, and he was extremely rude about it.
".....alright. I'll make this quick." Raaz said as he walked towards the pinned Levi, not minding Jeff's tone.
'