…
"No, sir. I'm sorry. I wanted to know more," El said, his voice steady and resolute.
As the man get swayed, the woman pushed the final nail with her words, making the man relented at the end. "It'll be known throughout the entire city tomorrow anyway, sir. Might as well tell him. The kid seems to know the restaurant too…"
After done closing his eyes and contemplating, the man locked eyes with El, whose gaze was stubborn. "The restaurant was visited by important guests of the mayor three days ago. I heard they offended one of them, someone of noble lineage. It was not confirmed yet, just vague word of mouth. But still, today is the day they are to be executed in the front yard of the mayor's office…"
The young woman then interjects from the side. "But I also heard different version from it. They said, it was because the mayor purposely investigated the owner background. And found out about his lineage," hesitated for a bit, she resumed. "They mentioned that he is coming from the underside. His parents, they said. I'm not too sure myself."
"Nonsense…" the man retorted angrily, struggling to contain his frustration as he allowed the woman to finish. "Everyone's registered from their childbirth in this city. There is no way the old man could even have built the restaurant if he was from the underside. You know what, I'm sure it was those pompous nobility bast…" the man abruptly halted his words upon noticing El, who remained in place, listening attentively.
"I've heard another version though," a voice chimed in from behind El. Turning around, El's sight met the brown eyes of a petite young woman. She wore a grayish-blue formal uniform adorned with a golden badge on her upper arm and a shield motif on her chest. A hat and gloves completed her attire, along with a short metal rod which hung at her waist. She then continued her words. "I heard it's because the owner was proved to be connected with a thief who stole something from the mayor's office. It was important enough even a Vanguard like me was dispatched here to investigate it."
"Ah, you are. I apologize, ma'am. I didn't mean to speak so rashly about the nobility," the man said, his voice trembling as he bowed slightly from fear and trepidation. The woman beside him also stepped back, clearly intimidated by her nervous expression.
"Relax, uncle, sister. I was born as a commoner here in Mirthwater. I'm not like those people from the capital," the Vanguard woman said with a reassuring smile, attempting to ease their wariness.
"Oh, I see. It's good then," replied the man, hesitating and still didn't believe the woman.
"Wait, where is the boy?" the young woman suddenly asked, realizing El was no longer with them.
"I saw him going there. It's fine. It's better if the kid going back to his parents," the Vanguard woman stated while pointing to her back, indicating the direction where El, was currently running back to the alley from which he had emerged earlier.
Arriving at the house, hastily unlocking the door and then rushing to the inside, El went straight to his room. Rummaging through the drawer on the study table, until he finally found what he intended to retrieve.
It was, a map.
A simple creation made by his own hand with pencil on a piece of cheap white paper. He had copied it from a large map that was displayed on an equally large wooden board in the plaza, a place who always bustling with visitors in this city.
He hadn't yet fully examined the map though – because he had been preoccupied with reading many other books, so he had carelessly left it tucked away in a drawer. Now, however, he needed it. He quickly tried to memorize the relevant parts, especially focusing on the directions to the mayor's office.
It was lucky though, as one way or another, since waking up in this room for the first time that day, he somehow had not experienced the memory lapses that had plagued him for so long in the village. Back then, despite his extensive reading and the knowledge he had accumulated, he would sometimes or maybe often times - based on whether he is lucky or not, would lose chunks of his memories out of nowhere without any warning. This left him often feeling disoriented and disconnected from reality.
Now to the matters at hand, once El had committed the path to his memory, El swiftly brushed everything back to its place. Stepping away from the bedroom and the house, locked the door behind him and stepped outside, he subsequently walked down the narrow alleyway, pulling on his hoodie and then donning a black mask that he had found in the drawer for unknown reasons – perhaps purposedly left by 'the man'.
As he walked, he suddenly veered off the original path that led to the main road, taking a different route.
Finding the streets deserted, he quickened his pace. After spending considerable time reading various books from the wooden bookshelf in his room, he had learned that the house where he lived, along with the alleyway he was traversing right now, served as a dividing line between the two regions in the city, that is known as the 'underside' or the Downtrodden region – and the 'upper side', where the more normal citizens resided in Mirthwater.
As he finally moved further and further away from the house, he unexpectedly encountered five individuals who blocked his path unintentionally.
They had been startled at first, having heard footsteps approaching their secluded spot where they often relaxed. Their initial reaction had been one of fear; they had assumed that guards from the upper side had come to cause trouble, as had happened many times before. A few guards, with their peculiar tendencies (Unique fetish), often took pleasure in harassing or beating up people from the underside.
So, this group at first had planned to flee the area as fast as possible, as individuals from the underside were not permitted to be outside of the fences according to the regulations.
However, one of the individuals soon realized that the figure who emerged from the intersection and approaching them was just a small kid wearing a gray jacket and a black mask.
El, as he had come to know himself, was acutely aware of his own stature. He understood that he was quite short for his age compared to the other residents of the city. From his readings, he had learned that children who did not receive proper nutrition during their formative years often ended up stunted in growth.
Now here he was, standing before people who, just from their demeanor alone, or perhaps from their pale, sickly looks, rather average in height, and scrawny frames – it was understood right away that they were people from the underside. Poor plus poor, if he were to express it himself, as he also understood their situation. Their height and bodies might resemble those of teenagers, but their faces were rather old, like people in their twenties reaching close to the thirties, making them look odd for some reason.
"Bloody fockin' hell kid, you scared us," one of the men exclaimed loudly, causing the others of his buddies, who had been preparing to flee, to turn their heads in surprise. One of them, who was the first to run away and was now quite far from the others, glanced back nervously upon hearing the cry (the traitor among the buddies, bruh).
…