A year later, the City of Banco, in the Republic of Dol-Ar.
Royal maids were an endangered profession. Leaf’s loyalty was to the Dol-Ar royal family, and there were only two of them left. Her Highness, Mor d’Dol-Ar, was already at the door, leaving before the dawn, hard at work doing…whatever it was fallen princesses did.
She watched as Mor left, her eyes dead and cracked around the edges, yet desperate to catch one last glance of her sister: Aria Loan d’Dol-Ar. The little girl was still sleeping in bed, seemingly uncaring of how low her status in life had truly fallen. Mor left, entrusting her to Leaf’s sole care.
The mattress was hard. The wallpapers were torn. It constantly smelled of smoke. They were living in the attic of a loyalist landlady. No one would suspect the last of the royal family staying in such sordid conditions, in the heart of their enemies’ territory, but here they were.
There was a knock on the door. It swung open on its own, and an old lady greeted Leaf. Some small talk was exchanged before the maid received a helping of bread. “Thank you,” Leaf said. The landlady glanced at Loan, pitying the state of her once-fashionable dress. Perhaps it could be sold at a high price, if only it could be sold without drawing the suspicions of the Republic’s market agents.
The landlady bowed, then left.
Leaf prepared Her Little Highness’s breakfast by the window. A quarter of the capital still laid in ruins. The Republican Guard patrolled the streets—an attempt to establish order among the flood of the poor. Vagabonds and beggars-by held out their hands and jars to the guards, but they ignored them, interested only in catching murderers and thieves. The crowds parted as the Guard came, and then closed like water as the Guard left.
Somewhere down there, in the maze of rubble and misery, was Princess Mor.
She was in disguise, cloak-and-dagger and all, with messy, unbraided silver hair, stained by a week of no bathing. Long gone was her valorous battle dress, long auctioned away at a black market to keep her funds afloat. She had spent those funds as soon as she’d got them, exchanged for something far more valuable: information.
She waded through the crowd, dodging snatchers and pickpockets. Some people recognized her, but as soon as they locked eyes, they came to an instant agreement: no one recognized her.
The agents of the dark guilds, however, reported back to their superiors. The debt collector was coming.
Mor steered away from the crowd and entered a slum. It was a state within a state, with its own rules and obligations, such as:
Don’t look at Her Highness.
Don’t talk to Her Highness.
Don’t talk about Her Highness.
What a cruel joke. In this part of the world, she was still royalty—a princess of the underworld. She had a certain set of skills, and she would use them. If the mercenary companies wouldn’t take her in, then she’d simply take her skillset underground. What a waste of the most popular face on Most Wanted posters in the continent.
Really, did the countries of Meridea not think about the consequences of spinning the Hero Princess into a war criminal? She scoffed at the fools in her mind. That useless maneuver, turning the anguish and pain of the people towards one untouchable target, only allowed those kingdoms to survive another two months. If they didn’t collapse under dissatisfaction and rebellion, then they did under the weight of monsters and beasts.
For now, she had a job to do. Marquis Fredland had not paid back even a single Crown to Mr. Death. Now, the assassin wasn’t interested in collecting the debt himself, as it would have been a messy affair. People tended to underestimate other people, you see, to the point of expending a foolish amount of men and resources to the point that it would have been cheaper to simply pay back the damned loan.
But no one with half a brain cell underestimated the Hero Princess, and that’s why she rendered her service of convenience.
All she would do was knock on a door, ask for the money, receive it gladly, then leave. She took a cut based on the amount of hassle involved—or rather, how much convincing she needed to do, which tended to go up the more of an idiot someone was. She hated dealing with them.
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The door in question was surrounded by ten bouncers. They all stepped away and even opened the door for her, because they weren’t idiots.
“The stairs are at the end, then take a left. Mr. Fredland’s office is on the third floor, hard to miss,” one of the bouncers said with a customer-facing smile.
She thanked them, tipped them, then went on her way.
Marquis Fredland ran a brothel. Even now, there was lewd moaning coming from the rooms to her left and right. He had had a certain competitor killed last week, but he wasn’t paying up, despite his business running quite fine.
She followed the stairs up to the third floor, which opened up to a wide space. There was a chandelier, clean and fresh sofas, and quite a number of guards, 30 in all, lined up in front of a door on the other side of the room.
“W-what are you doing! Get her!” Fredland’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door.
A tool on Mor’s breast pocket flashed. Because Fredland said such a cliched thing, she got a +1% on her cut. She and Mr. Death agreed as such, and her contract terms were…aggressively specific about it.
One of the guards scoffed—and they all parted like the sea, like a funnel to guide Mor to the door.
“Y-you idiots!”
“Shut up,” one of the guards said. Fredland stifled a whimper.
Mor thanked the guards, and penalized Fredland by kicking the door off its hinges. She knew precisely how much property damage she was inflicting.
Fredland had taken cover behind his desk. He peeked over the edge and gasped at the damage. He pointed at her. “Y-you’ll pay for that!”
“And who will collect that debt?” she replied. He couldn’t say anything back. She smirked. “I’m sure you know why I’m here, oh-dear-Marquis.”
“L-look, I’m still preparing the funds, okay! It takes a while to scrounge things and”—
Mor sighed. “Then you should’ve accounted for that in Mr. Death’s contract. Do you have any professional courtesy whatsoever? If you’re expecting to take a while for business to pick up, then just hike up the total payment and do it in installments.”
“H-huh…”
“Look, Mr. Death is actually a nicely understanding personage. He’s a professional, okay? Times are rough, I know, but that’s why we have to look out for each other.”
“T-then”—
“And pay up.” Mor narrowed her eyes. “Look, it looks like business is moving along nicely, so I’ll cut you a deal here. How much can you pay right now?”
“I—uh—100,000 Crowns?”
“So that’s 70%… Alright, pay me that right now, and I’ll expect the other 30% in one…no, two weeks.”
Fredland couldn’t believe his ears. That was really lenient—suspiciously so.
“W-what’s the catch?” he said, sliding out from under his desk and slowly settling himself on his chair.
Even if this was the underworld, Mor didn’t want to be unfair to her clients, or even potential clients. In fact, she almost never killed any of her debt collection targets. Just like this time, most of them were pretty productive, and it made no sense to kill perfectly productive criminals who were just encountering a bit of financial turbulence.
A few times, her debt collection targets became clients later on, so it was all in good business. She had a good feeling Marquis Fredland would be one of those converts.
“I’ll take a 5% commission on top of the 30% you will be transferring to me in two weeks.”
“5%… of the total?”
“No, just 5% of the 30%.”
“Wow, are you sure?”
“…only if you give me something.”
“O-of course!… What is it?”
“The slave auction. I need a ticket.”
Fredland’s brows arched up.
“What?” Mor said.
“N-no, sorry, I just thought it was strange that you of all people could not source tickets.”
“Someone is blocking my attempts at acquiring one. Oh, if you happen to know who, I’ll be happy to render my future services to you at a discount.”
“Oh, how I wish I knew...”
Just like that, 100,000 Crowns and an auction ticket changed hands.
“Also, I expect to see the guards who treated me fairly today...in the future,” she added before leaving. This was another reason why goons called her the Angel of Debt: she properly made sure that the guards never received backlash from their bosses for doing the not-stupid thing of staying away and avoiding a natural disaster.
Also for the same reason, she had accidentally created a fan club among the low-level goons, who now served as her chief source of leads in the underworld. None of them had access to juicy secrets, of course, but she nevertheless had an unprecedented bird’s eye view of the general movements of the entirety of Banco’s underworld.
“I-I hope for a blossoming partnership in the future, Your Highness,” Fredland bowed. Mor cocked an eyebrow at this. It was a traditional display of fealty from a noble to the royal family.
“Of course,” she curtsied in reply. “Also, have you never heard of soundproofing?”
Leaving the establishment, she met Mr. Death just around the corner. On top of the 100,000 Crowns, she paid for the remaining 30% out-of-pocket, but it was more like 19% because of the 11% commission fee for the job, calculated with the 10% flat rate plus 1% from the amount of hassle Mor had to go through to have to explain to Fredland what professional courtesy was. If Mr. Death and Marquis Fredland dealt with each other again, hopefully the marquis will be better able to earn Mr. Death’s confidence.
She sighed. That was the trouble with nobles who had had to turn to a life of crime. They had a lot of money, but no real understanding of the scene. Well, anyway, it was another job well done.
“Mr. Death,” she called out. He turned around, his face obscured by a plague mask. “I’ll be sure to call upon your services soon,” she continued.
He smiled under that mask. “Of course, Your Highness,” he said disappearing behind a black mist.
How strange it was, that the underworld made her feel like she hadn’t yet lost her place in the world. She re-read the details of the ticket in her hand...and sighed. The details weren’t right.