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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Brother
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"What a funny kid. I send him to wash his face, and he's just standing there grinning at the mirror."
Loan quickly turned and bowed his head.
"I'm sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about. But why do you close your eyes even when you're looking in a mirror? Or should I even call that looking…"
The supervisor, his voice trailing off, casually crossed his arms and asked.
"Anyway. You keep your eyes closed almost every day. Why the hell do you do that?"
The glare fixed on him was so sharp that Loan flinched inwardly.
This was a man who beat the children mercilessly at every opportunity. Flustered, Loan couldn't find the right words to answer.
He wondered where to start and where to end his story.
So he stood there, face tense and breaking out in a cold sweat.
Seeing this, the supervisor shook his head and said.
"No, just follow me. Let's go talk somewhere. I'm too damn curious to let this go."
"What?"
Startled, Loan silently followed the supervisor, who had already started walking away.
They ended up in the café alley of the District 1 shopping area, a place where the wealthy sat at outdoor tables, leisurely sipping their tea.
The supervisor, seemingly unconcerned with Loan's shabby appearance, plopped down at a table in a luxurious open-air café.
Loan hesitated before sitting across from him, glancing around. In the meantime, the items the supervisor had ordered were served to their table.
"Eat."
The supervisor lit a cigarette and gestured with his chin toward a bowl of ice cream.
Loan was stunned by the taste; it was the first time he had ever eaten such a thing.
"Wow…"
He stared at the supervisor with wide eyes, and the supervisor couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle. Then.
"Finish it before it melts, then we'll talk."
After licking the bowl clean, Loan slowly began to tell the story he had organized in his head on the way over.
The day his grandmother died and he came to the shelter, meeting Pauline and living as her fake son.
The memory of the last day with Pauline, the only person who had ever been on his side.
And the words Pauline had spoken to him in his sorrow.
"She said that if I keep the people who left in my heart, I'll never be alone. That if I close my eyes and look closely, I can see the love…"
Would that be a sufficient answer?
Finishing his story while staring at the shiny bottom of the bowl, Loan glanced up when the supervisor didn't respond.
"Ha, that's got a certain poetry to it…"
The supervisor sighed, rubbing his moist eyes.
As a bewildered Loan watched him, unsure what to say, the supervisor ruffled his hair.
Just like Pauline used to, though he had never mentioned it.
The supervisor nodded as if he finally understood.
"So you believed those words hook, line, and sinker. How starved for love must you have been to walk around with your eyes closed all day, you sentimental little bastard."
It wasn't entirely wrong, so Loan gave a small nod.
He truly believed that his ability to see the shimmer of light was a gift from those who had cared for him.
*Fshhh-!*
The supervisor lit another cigarette and exhaled a long sigh toward the sky.
Through the spreading smoke, a low mutter followed.
"I had times like that, too... lonely and tough..."
After a moment of silence.
The supervisor looked at Loan with reddened eyes and said something unexpected.
"Right. This must be fate. I'll be your big brother, kid."
"What?"
"From now on, when we're not on the clock, just call me your brother. Brother Blake."
Loan was momentarily bewildered by the unwelcome offer.
Was the man who beat people in a frenzy really the same person as this man blinking back tears?
That was confusing enough, and now he was telling him to call him 'brother.'
He wondered if this was another trick, like the mud-throwing from before, some scheme to find fault and make his life difficult.
Above all, he felt a strong aversion to calling someone he disliked 'brother'.
Unsure what to do, Loan watched Blake's expression.
"If you're having a hard time or struggling with something, don't just suffer in silence. Come talk to me. And feel free to ask me anything you're curious about."
Going a step further and inviting him to ask questions, Blake's offer was too tempting to ignore.
Curiosity always had a way of completely captivating Loan's heart.
"Huh? Can I really do that, sir?"
"Hey... I said brother. Brother Blake."
He winked playfully, but Loan couldn't for the life of him understand why he was so insistent on being called 'brother'.
Still, he had to do what the supervisor said.
"Ah, yes. Brother Blake."
But once he actually said it, some of his fear seemed to fade.
Feeling a surge of courage, Loan asked Blake a direct question.
"Brother Blake, how are you so strong?"
Blake, taking it as a compliment, scratched his head.
"What's this, all of a sudden? Sucking up to me now?"
"Uh... I'm not sucking up. I'm just genuinely curious."
After all, a man who could take a hit from a wooden plank and be perfectly fine didn't seem like an ordinary person.
Somehow, he felt it might also be related to the waves of shimmering light.
Blake shrugged as if it were a silly question and answered.
"Because I'm a swordsman, of course."
"A swordsman?"
He had heard the term before.
Swordsman, magician, fighter, and so on...
But for the beggars who shuffled between the shelter and the streets every day, such things were no different from fantasy.
So, while Loan knew a swordsman was someone who carried a sword, he didn't know what they actually did.
Besides, Blake didn't even have a sword. He was a supervisor, yet also a swordsman. The connection didn't make sense.
A stream of questions followed.
"If you're a swordsman, why don't you have a sword?"
"Hmm... Well, I have other uses for it at the moment. Besides, what do I need a sword for to manage a bunch of beggars? This is more than enough."
Blake raised his right fist and gave it a little shake.
Having seen that fist beat Manson's gang to a pulp, Loan was quickly convinced.
"So, you're a supervisor and a swordsman at the same time?"
"I'm originally a swordsman, but I was dispatched to the shelter for this job."
"What's 'dispatched'?"
"Uh, it means I was sent here to work."
"Oh..."
"Well, for example, if a skilled cook got a job at the shelter as a supervisor, he'd be a cook and a supervisor. Something like that, I guess?"
He had never thought of it that way.
That if you became something by being good at one thing, you could then go on to do something else.
If he also became good at something, maybe he could leave the shelter and live wherever he wanted. That would be better than being forcibly kicked out with nowhere to go.
As Loan was lost in thought, Blake asked.
"What are you thinking so hard about?"
"Nothing. So, why are swordsmen strong?"
Blake's brow furrowed for a moment as he looked at Loan.
Loan flinched.
"I tell this kid to ask freely, and he really goes all out, huh?"
"I'm sorry. I was just curious."
Finding it amusing to tease Loan, Blake let out a chuckle.
He took a moment to choose his words before answering.
"Hmm... By training mana and learning swordsmanship?"
"What's mana?"
"Mana, huh. Mana is... you could say it's in all things... the very source of everything. Training to use it is called mana training."
In that instant, it felt as if a spark had ignited before his eyes.
'It's in all things!'
The shimmering light he saw in his mind and the 'mana' Blake spoke of became one and the same.
This connection, formed so naturally, became another clue.
If you can find the end of a tangled thread, you can unravel it and use it however you wish.
For Loan, the word 'mana' was that end of the thread.
'The shimmering light was mana. The supervisor must be able to make the mana ripple like waves through something called training.'
The realization made his heart race with excitement.
His emotions must have shown on his face again, as Blake frowned at him.
"What are you so happy about?"
"It's just... it seems so amazing and incredible."
"You're not already thinking you want to be a great swordsman like me, are you?"
"..."
He had never considered it, but he definitely didn't want to become like him.
The problem wasn't the appeal of being a swordsman. It was his wariness of Blake.
He was a violent man.
He always beat the children who didn't earn enough, cleverly striking them where the bruises wouldn't show.
He was the greatest villain Loan knew, and if he weren't the supervisor, Loan would want nothing to do with him.
Toward Blake, he felt no emotions other than 'fear, dread, disgust, and anger'.
So even though he called him 'brother,' he wasn't one. On the other hand, Pauline had been a fake mother, but she was a real mother.
Still, as thanks for the ice cream and the clue, Loan decided to tell Blake what he wanted to hear.
After all, there was no need to show unnecessary hostility to someone who was being kind to him.
"That sounds pretty good."
"Heh, 'pretty good'?"
"To do that, I'd have to learn how to use mana first, I suppose."
But at Loan's words, Blake's expression suddenly turned serious, and he gave a stern warning.
"Don't even think about it. I've seen plenty of guys mess around with things they've only half-heard about and end up crippled."
Blake's expression was incredibly grim, and his rough voice carried an unidentifiable sincerity, so Loan gave up on asking what he meant.
But he clearly remembered the feeling that using mana was dangerous.
"Anyway, stop getting interested in useless things and just do your job. The director likes you, so you won't be kicked out easily."
"Yes."
"Keep at it, and you could become the best beggar there is, little brother."
Blake winked one more time and stood up from his seat.
'Is there something wrong with his eye...'
Tilting his head, Loan returned to his spot to start his afternoon work.
Just the thought of sitting down in his spot made his heart pound.
The ingredients were ready; now it was time to experiment.
'Let's try again.'
Loan set his begging bowl in front of him, sat up straight, and slowly closed his eyes.
He started again by observing the world of shimmering light—no, of mana.
And just as he had in front of the mirror, he shifted his focus from the 'world' to 'himself'.
The human 'Loan', made of mana.
It was a very strange feeling. Different from his reflection in the mirror. It was like seeing another version of himself, or himself in a dream.
And—
'So this is me, a being of such faint shimmering light.'
—came the realization.
Loan continued to focus on observing himself.
When he looked at the world, it felt like expanding his vision and senses. When he looked at himself, it felt like shutting the world out.
He looked only at himself and the mana enveloping him.
Then, at a certain moment.
'Ah...'
Loan realized he was deeply connected to the mana of the world.
He didn't just realize it; he saw it with his own eyes.
'It was my breath.'
The floating motes of light danced faintly with the rhythm of his breathing.
Countless, tiny grains of light, tangled like mist, flowed into his body with each inhale and out with each exhale.
Slowly and very gently, the shimmer of his own being brightened and faded in a repeating cycle.
'To think I was interfering with the flow of the world just by breathing.'
The mana floating in the world and the mana that constituted the being called Loan were, in the end, the same thing.
'This must be the natural state. To become like the supervisor, I'd have to use some kind of unnatural method. Maybe that's why he said it was dangerous.'
After this realization flowed through him.
Loan recalled Blake's warning and relaxed his body.
'I just have to remember that mana enters and leaves my body through my breath.'
There was something else he had to be careful about.
Focusing on one thing meant losing sight of another.
When he shut out the world to focus on himself, he couldn't hear any of the noise or sense any of the presences around him.
What if another danger, like the supervisor throwing mud, occurred during that time?
The mere thought was terrifying.
He would be attacked in a completely defenseless state.
'I have to be able to see the world and myself at the same time.'
It seemed possible.
After all, hadn't he just solved a seemingly impossible problem by simply looking at himself?
For now, he made that his goal.
'This is really fun. Today is a really strange day.'
A day of realizations, of new tastes, of new knowledge, and of gaining a fake brother with a twitchy eye.
But the more he learned and gained, the more a feeling of dissatisfaction grew within him.
'I know so little. About the world, about mana, about swordsmen, about ice cream...'
Loan straightened his chest and thought.
'I want to know more. About everything.'
It was the first desire he had ever had.
This change of heart, both a purpose and a driving force, didn't leave him be even after he returned to the dormitory.
"I have a favor to ask, guys."
After tidying his space, Loan sat on his bed and spoke to the other children.
"Could you all help me with something for a moment?"