How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 65

When one of the children suggested exchanging shoes after noticing how loosely Rianus’s shoes fit, Rianus was so taken aback that he could only break out in a cold sweat.

That was understandable, considering the shabby-looking shoes were actually high-quality footwear lined entirely with soft fur on the inside. Nihil had even stuffed them full of cotton to make the oversized shoes more comfortable.

Worried that the trembling of his eyes might give him away, Rianus lowered his head and politely refused, explaining that his brother had gone to great trouble to get the shoes for him.

Fortunately, the child didn’t insist on trading.

The children continued chatting for quite some time afterward.

“…And although it might look like the guards rounded us all up indiscriminately, they actually took care when bringing us here. If there are any more of us, the guards will have trouble handling everyone. So we mustn’t cause a commotion here. Once, there was a fight, and some important person caught us. We nearly got kicked out, but the guards barely managed to stop it.”

After explaining this, Kane glanced at a group of children sitting some distance away. Lowering his voice, he continued quietly.

“Those guys belong to a gang led by someone named Kelvin. They’re greedy and often fight among themselves, too. They make younger kids do all sorts of work and bully them, so stay away from them. There’s a boy named Pan in our group. He couldn’t control his temper, so he got into a huge fight with them. Pan isn’t bad at fighting, but their gang has more people, and they’re older, too. He got beaten to a pulp. Anyway, you absolutely mustn’t join their group. Got it?”

“Mm-hmm…”

Rianus had absolutely no intention of joining a gang of street children, but he nodded awkwardly anyway.

Besides, wasn’t Pan the boy Nihil had tripped earlier that day, causing him to get a nosebleed? The boy had even been beaten by his own father.

Pan had seemed rather hot-tempered, and apparently his inability to control it had gotten him beaten up all over the place.

Just then, a boy from Kelvin’s gang stood up abruptly and pointed at Rianus, shouting furiously.

“Don’t make me laugh! We don’t want a whore in our gang, either!”

“…What?”

Rianus froze, unable to believe what he had just heard.

A whore? Out of nowhere?

Did he really look like one? For that matter, he had never even heard of children as young as himself selling their bodies.

The freckled boy from Kelvin’s gang seemed determined to hurt Rianus’s feelings, because he repeated the insult with even greater venom.

“We’re not taking in some filthy little slut who sells his body!”

“Hey! Watch your mouth!”

Horrified, Kane stepped in front of Rianus, blocking the other boy’s view.

Still confused and utterly bewildered, Rianus turned to Kane and asked,

“…Selling his body? Who? Do I look like I sell my body?”

“N-No! Nerr, you don’t look like that at all.”

“Then…?”

Kane hurriedly opened his mouth to explain that it wasn’t like that, but the freckled boy shouted over him first.

“You idiot! How’s a pretty little thing who can’t steal or pick pockets supposed to get food? Your brother sells his body to feed you! Right now, he’s probably lying underneath some filthy pig, crying and gasping for breath!”

“Hey! Watch what you say!!”

“Myaaaaaaaaaaowwwwwwwwwwwww!”

The cat let out a desperate, anguished yowl, twisting its whole body.

The atmosphere turned so vicious that it seemed a fight could break out at any moment. The children glanced nervously at one another.

Kane glared at the freckled boy, but perhaps because he knew they would all be thrown out if they fought, he didn’t charge at him first.

Instead, he kept glancing at Rianus, anxiously checking whether he was all right.

Only belatedly did Rianus understand what was happening. His expression twisted when he realized that, because of him, Nihil was being treated like a prostitute.

Worse, Nihil was undoubtedly hiding somewhere nearby and had probably heard this entire conversation.

Rianus worried that his friend might be hurt by the misunderstanding his own careless words had caused.

Tap.

A tiny sound brushed past Rianus’s ear.

He flinched at the faint noise, and then another tap followed, as if to reassure him.

Do as you please.

That was what it seemed to say. As though Nihil were promising to take responsibility for whatever happened afterward.

Even if Rianus lost his temper and beat up the unpleasant boy standing in front of him, Nihil would gladly handle the aftermath.

Nihil had a strange ability to make anything that happened seem as though it were no big deal.

He might even beat the boy up himself on Rianus’s behalf.

But knowing that was precisely what allowed Rianus to regain his composure.

If he lost his temper here, all the other children would suffer the consequences, too.

Rianus took a deep breath and spoke clearly enough for the rude boy in front of him to hear every word.

“You’re an idiot. Don’t say things when you don’t know anything. My brother doesn’t do anything like selling his body.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t know anything! If he doesn’t sell his body, how else is he supposed to feed you?”

“T-That’s…”

Rianus was at a loss for words again. How could a child wandering the streets with nothing to their name get food without begging or stealing?

But if it were Nihil, he probably wouldn’t beg or steal food. Instead…

“My brother knows how to hunt.”

“Myaaaawk?”

The cat made a strange noise and stared at Rianus, as though asking whether he seriously thought such a ridiculous excuse would work.

It might sound far-fetched to the children, but it didn’t matter. There was no way for them to verify it, and even if they insisted on checking, Rianus wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences anyway.

Nihil had told him to do as he pleased, so that was exactly what he would do.

Then came another faint tap.

A broad smile spread across Rianus’s face.

With Nihil’s permission granted so readily, Rianus puffed out his chest and spoke proudly.

“My brother is strong, fast, and good at hunting! That’s why I eat meat every day.”

“Meow!”

“And I ate breakfast this morning, and I ate lunch, too.”

“Myaow!”

“I’ve eaten meat so often that I’m actually getting a little tired of it.”

“Myaaaow!”

“And I ate cookies, too!”

“Myaaaaaaowww!”

Bella had leaped into Rianus’s arms at some point and was enthusiastically backing him up with a chorus of meows.

Feeling emboldened by his rather boastful claims, Rianus went a step further and declared that once the weather warmed up, he would ask his brother to catch fish for him by the river.

The boy listened to the lies—which were also partly true—with deeply furrowed brows and pointed at him.

“Aren’t you just a big liar?”

“You’re the liar! You’ve never even met my brother!”

“Myaow-myaow!”

“Argh! Seriously! What’s wrong with this cat?!”

The boy glared irritably at the cat, which kept talking back in its own way.

But the cat pretended to be nothing more than a frail little animal that couldn’t speak, continuing to meow innocently.

Apparently furious, the freckled boy’s face turned bright red. He approached Rianus, grabbed him by the collar, and threatened him.

“You…!”

“What?!”

“Myaow!”

“Want me to beat you up?”

“If you hit me, my brother won’t let you get away with it!”

“Mya-myaow!”

As if threatening the boy that she wouldn’t let him get away with it, either, Bella repeatedly smacked the back of his hand with her adorable little paw pads.

She kept her claws retracted, but the whap-whap-whap sounds were surprisingly forceful.

The freckled boy glared at the cat as though he wanted to throw it away and clenched his trembling fist. However, apparently deciding against hitting them, he roughly released Rianus’s collar, turned on his heel, and returned to his seat.

He disliked the little brat and cat who kept answering him back, but if he got into a fistfight here, he would obviously be thrown out.

Rianus, meanwhile, soothed Bella, who was still throwing punches at the air, and settled back into his corner.

As time passed, the tense atmosphere gradually eased. Separately, however, curiosity about Nerr’s older brother, who was strong, fast, and good at hunting began to bubble up among the children.

The original image of a poor, pretty older brother who secretly went out to sell his body without telling his younger sibling had changed considerably. In the children’s imaginations, Nihil had become a strong, fast, handsome older brother who was good at hunting and provided all three meals for his younger sibling.

Their mental image of him continued to grow more exaggerated and distorted.

After a while, Kane cautiously spoke up.

“Nerr.”

“Yes?”

“When do you think your brother will come?”

“…Soon, I think. Why?”

“No reason… Is your brother really good at hunting?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, if he really is, maybe he could teach us.”

“I don’t think that would help much…”

Rianus didn’t actually know whether Nihil was good at hunting. He had only claimed it because it seemed plausible.

Of course, he couldn’t imagine Nihil being bad at hunting… No, he actually suspected Nihil would be exceptionally good at it. But he had a feeling that Nihil’s methods would be rather different from those of an ordinary person.

“I don’t really know, but ask him when he comes.”

Without dwelling on it, Rianus immediately passed the responsibility to Nihil. By now, he had decided that Nihil would simply take care of everything anyway.

Sure enough, a faint tap sounded, as if Nihil were promising to handle anything that came their way.

Then Rianus suddenly realized he had forgotten to ask about the most important thing and opened his mouth.

“Hey, I heard a rumor that children have been disappearing around here. Is it true?”

“Oh, right. There have been rumors like that lately. Nobody in our group has disappeared, but… Do any of you know anything?”

Kane asked the other children on everyone’s behalf, but they seemed to have heard only rumors as well. None of them knew who had gone missing or where it had happened.

“If there really are missing kids, I think they might be children who wander around alone or don’t interact with any of the other groups. Maybe someone’s targeting kids who just arrived in this district. It could just be a rumor, but all sorts of things happen on Sharton Street besides disappearances. So never wander around at night, and make sure you stay with your brother.”

“Okay. I will.”

“By the way, do you have somewhere to sleep?”

“Somewhere to… sleep? I don’t know.”

“You really do seem to leave everything to your brother…”

Looking at Nerr, who seemed to have been raised like a hothouse flower rather than a child who lived on the streets, Kane shook his head.

His older brother must be the sort of person who absolutely doted on his younger sibling.

Kane imagined a tall, sturdy older brother. Then he remembered that Nerr had said he was pretty, so he adjusted the imagined face a little.

The handsome face and imposing physique didn’t quite fit together. They remained separate in Kane’s imagination until the sound of the door opening made the image vanish.

A guard opened the door and looked around the room, apparently searching for someone.

For some reason, his expression seemed a little awkward…

Then, after scanning the children, the guard spoke.

“Which one of you is Nerr? Your brother is here to see you…”