“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the bigwig who’s been making a splash around here.” Dressed in soot-stained coarse clothing, she had beady eyes and a striking cleft chin. “You’re new to these ends so you wouldn’t know, but it’s established tradition around here for everyone to pay protection fees to me. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the same.”
She brandished a long, rusty machete and jerked her wrist to flick the rotten fruit peelings off the blade, but they clung on due to some sticky, sludge-like substance that’d been in the trash. She therefore made the executive decision to go along with it: “In case you’re curious, this is the blood of the last guy who wasn’t so interested in paying his dues, all dried up now.”
The future mayor peered at his would-be assailant with an expression of curiosity. “What frequency are we talking for this payment?”
She made a noise like a braying donkey. “Huh?”
“Say that I were to pay, how long would the protection last?”
“Till I say so!”
Shaking his head, Ovaro looked genuinely disappointed with the up-and-coming generation. “That kind of attitude is not going to give businesses the confidence to be able to invest in capital or take on any new hires, is it? They’re left with uncertainty of when you’ll next strike, of how much you’ll ask for (taking into account any present inflationary concerns), of what exact cost they’ll incur from you should they not pay up, and really, all these unanswered questions are going to dampen their animal spirits and stymie their growth.”
He paused to really drive in his lecture. “If all you do is take, take, take, and never give, then it’s only a matter of time before your clientele rebel against you. Just imagine if you were a business operating under this kind of obscure regime, how would you feel?”
She made a quieter donkey noise this time, having lost confidence following his tongue-lashing. “Huh… Well, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought it out that far, you know.”
Ovaro clicked his tongue. “Once you’re an adult, there is no excuse for harebrained behaviour like this anymore; if you’re thought-shy, you should have teamed up with someone who’s not and covered your weaknesses that way.”
He paused, a glimmer of recognition passing through his eyes. “Wait, I recognise the strong chin on you – you’re one of the Sloggin brood, aren’t you?” The future mayor chuckled. “No wonder I was feeling nostalgic – your dad and I used to run a similar racket back in the day, done properly, of course, not like this mom-and-pop-esque operation you’ve got going here.”
“Sloggin Simone’s the name, don’t forget it,” his would-be assailant said, regaining some of her spunk now that they were on a more easily digestible topic. It helped her remember her original purpose in ambushing this richling. “It doesn’t mean shit to me if you knew my pops, cos I hardly knew him myself; the ol’ bastard took off when I was little, saying he was just going out to get some mountain goat milk and would be back in a jiffy.”
Yours too, eh? Must have been all the craze back in the day.
Simone ground her teeth at the thought, and continued. “So don’t expect me to get all sentimental and allow you to get away scot-free, flowerboy. Better you cough up some money – treat it as a donation for my lil bro going through his growing spurts – or else die.”
This must be Sloggin Saul’s sister, who’s somehow bigger than even he is. Given her size, I’m surprised she didn’t participate in the tournament.
Meanwhile, the future mayor stroked his chin and gently smiled, reminiscing with eyes glazed over. “Good times those were, back when there were no questions about loyalty or any upstarts encroaching on our business.” He sighed wistfully.
“Hey, did you hear me? I’m going to kill you, ya dingus!” Simone roared as she raised her weapon, about to strike.
Fortunately for the future mayor, a guard heard the hooliganess’s raised voice and came into sight at the mouth of the alleyway; Lucas – dressed in a motley of stained clothes that in no way constituted a work uniform – held up his baton and peered into the alleyway to see who was making the din. “Oi, what’s going on here?”
Taking a moment to comprehend what in fact was going on, Lucas compared Simone’s raised machete against his considerably shorter baton, after which he furtively averted his eyes away from the ongoing mugging. “Hmm, must have been the wind, I guess.”
Whistling innocuously, he was quick to disappear from the scene, thoughtful enough to not disturb them while they were in the middle of something.
At this, the hooliganess laughed coarsely. “Heh heh, best you don’t count on outside help to get you out of this, flowerboy. There ain’t nobody in this village who’d stand a chance against me.”
Fortunately for the future mayor – second time lucky, fingers crossed – a side door from the pub to the alley creaked open, and out came a waiter carrying a bucket of dirty water and a mop. When he saw what was going on in the passageway, Rory shook his head with a stern expression.
“Come on, Simone. We made it clear to you to stop mugging our pub patrons like this – it’s not good for our business.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Shut up, Rory. I don’t care if you’ve, uh, like if you don’t have the confidence to invest in your capitals or whatever.”
Seeing her at least make an effort, however misguided, the future mayor nodded on like the proud father she’d never had.
Encouraged by this, Simone continued. “Yeah, if I wanna fleece a fat cat, I’m gonna skin him real good whether you like it or not.”
“Well, I don’t.” Rory stepped towards the hooliganess, holding the mop near its head and wielding its handle like a sword.
Angered by his arrogance, Sloggin Simone swung her machete at the boy, yet her blow was knocked aside by a sharp swing of the bucket. Before she could recover, the broom thrust into her stomach and caused her to double up, wheezing with pain.
Having effortlessly dispatched his foe, Rory upturned the bucket and poured its contents onto her. “Now bugger off, you goon.”
It was here the vision stopped, freezing on the last frame that showed the future mayor eyeing up the sharp-faced waiter with keen interest.
“What do you think?” Penbrooke asked his AI.
Given Cal’s recent brush with death (or so his instincts had labelled that experience as being) at Penbrooke’s hands, he felt a need to be obsequious towards the knight. Not that this made Cal despair, however, as being a sycophant did not mean serving your superior’s interests but rather satisfying your superior’s interests to a fault in order to ultimately serve your own; by sharing his opinion in the correct way, Cal knew he could now influence Penbrooke towards certain actions and, more importantly, away from the senseless sort the knight had been carrying out until now.
With this in mind, Cal knew before anything else, he needed to hear Penbrooke’s view so that he could base his own position off that. “Hmm, did you say this vision was a backstory viewer? I would have hoped it to answer more questions than it raised.”
“Mm, agreed,” Penbrooke said. “It’s obvious the mayor’s the one who turned their lives around, but I can’t help getting the feeling they were happier in their Shit Hole than they are in the current Fragrant Grove. I haven’t received any quests about it yet, but you know, I’m starting to think I was brought here to inspire the unwashed masses to rise up against their tyrant lord.”
Woah, woah, woah, I was following you until midway, but where’s this coming from… Uprising? What!
Wait, calm down, Cal. This is where you can convince him away from such a course of action.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go against the mayor. I mean the last person who tried to go against him was this Sloggin lady, and my gut feeling’s telling me it’s not a coincidence she’s also the only person in the vision that’s not present in the current village. She claimed no one in the village could beat her, so you’d think a tournament’s perfect for proving a claim like that, right?”
Penbrooke shrugged. “Maybe she’s on holiday right now.”
Where? A holiday to the spirit realm?! Cal almost said this, before realising that ghosts like Penbrooke may indeed consider moving between the corporeal and non-corporeal realms a genuine holiday. Phew, good thing I didn’t say that, then. But if he doesn’t care about punishments, how else am I supposed to convince him? Maybe something to do about being a knight?
“Even then, are you sure it would be right to do, ser knight? When others doubted your identity during the initial registration, it was the mayor who vouched for you, even going as far as to put his name on the line to see you through. Would it not go against the knight’s code to repay such kindness with treachery?”
To further beef up his argument, Cal thought of a more sensible action the knight could do to satisfy his desire for justice. “But I totally understand your desire to help the masses, so maybe you could do something about the re-education building? To me, it seems like the torture taking place there is what’s causing the villagers to live in fear and inhibiting their freedom of expression. So were you to win the tournament, maybe you could use your newfound champion status to convince the mayor away from such practices. I’m sure the villagers would massively appreciate such a gesture.”
What Cal didn’t bank on, however, was the possibility that he was an unwitting comedy genius, as his seriously said suggestion had reduced Penbrooke to body-jerking laughter.
When the knight did eventually manage to recompose himself, wiping tears from his eyes, he said, “I hadn’t thought you were watching me back then, Cal; I thought I’d been alone so went a bit unhinged, if you know what I mean. It’s a bit embarrassing now to think someone saw those actions.”
What do you mean?! You were doing that in public with hundreds of eyes trained on you! In front of my mum, in front of Auntie Jane, in front of the villagers.
Penbrooke stifled another burst of laughter at the memory of his hijinks and continued, “Listen, Cal, I may have somewhat misled you so far, because I’m not actually a knight, no, no.”
It vexed Cal to hear Penbrooke’s slightly abashed tone saying this, as though he’d only done a little to confuse Cal over his identity, and certainly hadn’t been persistently claiming to be a knight every opportunity he got.
“No, I just liked the knight class, that’s all. In truth, I’m not some piddling knight of Twirdly Castle – I just made that up, so I doubt the place even exists. Rather, I’m the hero.”
…huh?
“And it’s not heroic to let people, even mob NPCs, suffer under a tyrant.” Penbrooke clapped his hands, and the illusion around him shattered, returning the not-knight to reality.
Lucas approached him in the arena out of concern. “Can you hear me, ser knight? Are you okay?”
Penbrooke raised his arms until they were chest height, his palms facing up, and addressed the audience in a blaring voice. “Fragrant Grove used to be Shit Hole.”
The crowd gave a synchronised gasp; meanwhile, Lucas did a 180 so smooth it looked like he’d slipped, continued slipping, and slipped so far that he’d accidentally managed to do a record-beating sprint.
Penbrooke must have been blind to all these signs, for he continued unperturbed. “That’s right, you heard me right: Fragrant Grove was a filthy, run-down Shit Hole. I can see why you all worked so hard to change your image because this village used to be a crummy, crusty around the edges, grotty little Shit Hole.”
SOS. Oh Saviour, please save my soul. This spirit is dying to go on a holiday with Sloggin Simone and forcing me to go with, even though I’m not ready to join them yet. Please, Saviour! SOS.
By the time Penbrooke had finished his sentence, Lucas was already back in his original seat, turning and facing his neighbours on either side and sharing with them the same scandalised expression. He showed no sign whatsoever that he was in any way associated with this pariah knight, and, in fact, he would have been both appalled and sickened to the core if anyone were to accuse him of such when he’d been in his seat this entire time, watching the bouts just like everyone else.