Chapter 3: Fake It Till You Make It
Three days since not dying-twice-Young was seriously reconsidering his life choices. Both sets of them.
"Weakest war child my ass," he grumbled, doing his best to look pitiful as he staggered through the Slums of Whispers marketplace. "All the guy ever did was push-ups and running laps. Of course, he could not fight worth shit."
It wasn't that Muriel's body was in particularly bad shape, quite the contrary. The kid had obviously invested a great lot of time, energy, and dedication into becoming physically fit-perhaps even establishing a base-level foundation that the Young's old systema instructors dreamt of having pop out of an academy. Nothing more than unadulterated physical conditioning: zero actual martial training. Or, rather, setting up a smithy but knowing nothing aboutsmithing.
Still, it was a good cover. No one so much as cast a second glance at Muriel as he weaved between stalls, occasionally clipping a person and muttering an apology. Yet another war child who had managed to survive through dumb luck, probably on his way to blow what little savings he had on some vinegar-flavored rotgut wine.
Nobody noticed him charting the routes of the guard patrols, watching which corridors constituted choke points, and working out optimal escape routes. And nobody saw him observing how the thugs of the Wolf Fang Mercenary Group made their rounds, performing their version of "protection".
"Protection racket doesn't even have proper lookouts," Young muttered to himself, counting off the seconds between patrols. "What is this, amateur hour?"
The last three days had been enlightening, to say the least. After patching himself up with stolen medical supplies-thank you, previous life's first aid obsession-he'd spent every waking moment gathering intel. The Slums of Whispers was a maze of territorial conflicts, with various mercenary groups carving out their own little kingdoms. And at the bottom of that hierarchy? The war children.
Young's borrowed memories brought into clear tableau that kids went one of two ways-usually either joining merc outfits already established or banding together simply out of basic needs and survival for whatever jobs would take them-whereas the truly lucky ones inevitably earned their places into better assignments, the unlucky ones had that alley of bodies.
But the interesting part? The way everyone kept underestimating them.
"Fresh meat!" A voice right on cue called out. "Hey, fresh meat! I'm talking to you, Muriel!"
Showtime.
Young whirled, ensuring he stumbled halfway through the spin, and sure enough, landed face to face with precisely the sort for whom he was waiting-one of Wolf Fang's more new recruits, hankering desperately around any place for the slightest chance someone whom they could boss around would actually prove their prowess, a "weakest war child."
"S-sorry," Young stammered, taking a cue from every weak protagonist he'd ever read about. "I didn't hear you."
The thug, no bigger than eighteen years old, gave him a broad grin, happy as if he had found money lying on the sidewalk. "Heard you survived the Moon Shadow massacre, man. Gotta have hid real good huh?
Young let his shoulders hunch. "I. I got lucky."
"Lucky!" The thug laughed, and right on cue, two of his buddies materialized from the crowd. "How about you share some of that luck? Territory tax just went up."
Territory tax was the unofficial name for whatever Wolf Fang felt like extorting from anyone in their area. Young had spent three days watching them pull this routine, tracing out the patterns of their methods, analyzing what tactics they employed.
They were just as sloppy as he had hoped.
"I don't. I don't have anything," Young whimpered, backing into the alley he'd picked out two days ago. Nice and narrow, with a sharp turn that would keep anyone from seeing what happened inside. "Please, I just—"
"Search him," said the leader, and a friend stepped forth to reach between Young's pot belly and blue jeans for his sad excuse of a coin purse.
Young let him get within arm's reach before everything changed.
The "frightened stumble" became a pivot. The "weak grip" on his cheap sword turned into steel. And all those hours of practicing knife disarms in his old apartment finally paid off as he stripped the thug's weapon and buried it in his own foot.
The scream brought the other two running, just about right according to plan. Young kicked the first thug into them, creating a beautiful bottleneck in the narrow alley. Three bodies, no room to maneuver, and completely oblivious to the fact that the "weakest war child" had just led them on a merry chase.
"The fuck—" the leader managed before Young's sword opened a neat line across his chest. Not deep enough to kill, but more than enough to hurt.
"Hello," Young said with a smile, channeling a little bit of mana into his sword - as he, indeed, had been practicing, so now an ominous blue showed - "You want to hear a funny story? I've been out here watching how you go on patrol for three days. Do you know what I learned?"
The three thugs stared at him, clutching various wounds and looking like they'd just seen a ghost. Which, technically, they had. "Nobody knows where you are right now," Young said, not the smile ever leaving his face. "Nobody's going to check on you for another hour at least. And nobody is going to hear whatever happens in this nice little alley I've found." He cocked his head to one side. "Isn't that funny?
"You're supposed to be weak!" exclaimed the leader in a burst, clutching his bleeding chest.
"I know, right? Really makes you think about life choices." Young stepped forward and the three scrambled back. "So here's what's gonna happen. One of you is going to go tell your boss that Muriel says hello. But first."
The mana in his sword pulsed, and this time he let it spread, creating an eerie blue glow which painted the alley in supernatural light. Three days of relentless practice had taught him that while he wasn't able to do anything too fancy yet, he could sure manage a nice light show.
"First, you're going to give me every detail about Wolf Fang's operations that your tiny little brains can remember. And you're going to do it quickly, because I skipped breakfast and I get kind of stabby when I'm hungry."
Ten minutes later, Young watched the three thugs flee-one of them limping badly, all of them considerably poorer. He waited until they were out of sight before sagging against the wall, letting out a shaky breath.
"Holy shit, that actually worked." He'd been worried the intimidation act might have been too much, but apparently this world's version of street thugs were just as susceptible to theatrical bullshit as any other.
Now he had intel on Wolf Fang's operations, a decent chunk of protection money, and best of all, the perfect setup for his next move. "Time to see how fast rumors spread in the slums," he mused, counting his newly acquired coins.
"Bet you anything that their boss will sends someone to kill me by tonight." Young grinned, his mind racing with thoughts of perfect ambush points around his dive of a hideout. If he played this right, he could take out Wolf Fang's elite thugs one by one, building his reputation while maintaining the element of surprise.
After all, nobody expects the weakest war child to be a secretly reincarnated martial arts nerd with a penchant for tactical warfare and really dramatic lighting.
"I should probably work on my one-liners though," he muttered to himself, heading back into the crowd. "'I get stabby when I'm hungry?' Really? I can do better than that."
Behind him, the alleyway's shadows hid hints of blue light, the beginning of what would be called the "Ghost Light Incidents"-the mysterious start of the weakest war child's rise to power. But first, really, he was in need of breakfast.