“Haha. So that’s why you were so startled?”

When the young man laughed, the older man gave an awkward cough.

“Go on and wake him. He should get inside and rest somewhere proper as soon as possible.”

“Hmm. I don’t think he’s going to wake up. He must’ve been absolutely exhausted.”

“Still, what can we do? He has to wake up if we’re going to get through the gate.”

The young man sounded sympathetic, and the older man also looked troubled, as if he felt bad about waking a child sleeping so deeply. The boy’s face was so gaunt it looked like he hadn’t been eating, and his eyes were inflamed. Seeing that, the man remembered the soaked, ragged voice he’d heard the night before.

What had happened to make him set out alone in the middle of the night?

Everyone had their reasons, of course, but a beautiful person’s suffering always seemed more pitiful.

“Hah. Then maybe we ought to wait nearby until he wakes up.”

The middle-aged man looked around as if searching for somewhere to leave the wagon for a while.

“Hmm. Aren’t you in a hurry, though?”

The young man pointed at the sacks piled high in the wagon.

“I am, yes.”

As the man made an uncomfortable face, the young man suddenly grabbed his arm.

“The inspection here isn’t that strict anyway.”

Delfona, the harbor city. Trade was active in this region, so the inspections were relatively lax. You stated your reason for visiting, wrote down your name and a simple description of your appearance, and they issued you a travel pass. Unless you were boarding a ship to leave or got dragged off by the guards over some major trouble, there was hardly ever any reason to use that pass.

“But if we don’t fill out the inspection form, there could be trouble later.”

When the man voiced his concern, the young man shook his head.

“We’re all just travelers anyway. I’ve never seen anyone get into serious trouble over not doing it. At worst, he’d get scolded for a minute.”

The young man smiled slyly.

“But what if they suddenly check travel passes—”

“Hmm. You said you happened to help this boy out, just like you helped me, right? Then I’ll help this boy too. The way you helped me.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“Doesn’t kindness go around in circles? I’ll make sure nothing troublesome happens, so let’s just let him sleep. Poor thing.”

The young man took hold of Ren’s head and turned it.

“Oh...”

This time he took Ren’s hand. The man had been about to ask what he was doing, but then he noticed the swollen back of Ren’s hand peeking out between the worn bandages and fell silent.

It had been too dark to notice last night, but now that he looked, the boy seemed like someone who’d been beaten and driven out from somewhere.

“I feel bad waking him when he’s sleeping this deeply. And I’d feel even worse holding up your schedule.”

That was what he said, but what he really meant ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) was that someone might come chasing after a child beaten up like this, so they should hide him.

Without thinking, the man stared hard at Ren’s face.

Who had been holding him?

Curiosity began to needle at him.

“...What are you planning to do?”

Some faint part of him thought this was a bad idea, but with the young man speaking so pleasantly, he found himself being drawn in anyway. He swallowed hard.

The young man pulled out one of the smaller sacks loaded onto the wagon and yanked it open.

“What are you doing—”

As the man approached in alarm, the young man shrugged.

“We’ll hide him in here for a bit. No sunlight, either. Wouldn’t he sleep even better?”

The young man grinned.

The man shut his mouth.

A moment later, the young man lifted the still-sleeping Ren in one smooth motion and put him inside the sack. Ren let out a sick, pained sound, but showed no sign of waking. The young man covered him with the clothes inside the sack, then tied it tight like all the others.

“W-what if he can’t breathe—”

“It’ll only be for a little while. We’re both in a hurry, so shall we get going?”

The young man looked at him with an unreadable gaze, then smiled in that same evasive way.

They passed the inspection without incident and entered through Delfona’s gate.

Maybe because it was a city, there were already plenty of people about even this early in the morning. Fruit carts out at dawn were aggressively hawking their goods right there in the road. After buying a basket of apples, the man and the young stranger got a room at an inn, then came back outside.

The man had goods to deliver.

The young man followed him out and naturally sat down beside him on the driver’s bench.

“...”

When the man just looked at him instead of starting the wagon, the young man gave him a friendly smile.

“Mister, you know what I’m about to say, don’t you?”

“...”

The man did not answer.

“If so, that makes this easy. I do feel bad about it. The person who helped me turning out to be someone involved in that sort of work. And targeting someone else you helped, too.”

The young man lowered his voice for the last part, almost to a whisper. His eyes flicked toward the back, where the cargo was loaded.

“But I know that even a man like you, who shows kindness to people’s faces, is doing something else behind the scenes. You saw the boy’s injuries and hesitated, didn’t you? You were conflicted, weren’t you?”

His languid voice coiled around the man like a snake.

“That’s enough! Just get to the point!”

The man barked the words. The young man flinched, then nodded and reached into his coat.

“If anyone comes looking for him, say you don’t know. I trust you understand what I mean.”

What he took out was a small pouch. The man received it, loosened the leather string, and found gold coins inside. He swallowed.

“How long are you going to keep doing this sort of thing? You’re a man with a son.”

Talking so much on the road the night before had been his mistake.

Hadn’t he even said the boy in the back reminded him of his own son, and that was why he’d helped him?

Something strange crossed the man’s face. Watching guilt and expectation stain it at once, the young man bared his teeth in a smile. He was smiling, but there was something chilling about it.

“They say everyone gets three chances in life to change it. Feels like today’s one of those chances for both you and me, doesn’t it? Don’t do anything stupid. Once you’re done with your business, leave immediately. Understood, mister?”

The young man gripped the man’s shoulder hard.

“Ugh. Fine. But what kind of chance is that boy supposed to be? He may be beautiful, but is he really worth enough for you to hand over gold like this?”

The middle-aged man could have done nothing even if the young man had simply taken the boy by force. He had no right to report anyone, doing the kind of shady work he did himself. The young man patted him on the shoulder as though he understood.

“If something’s valuable, you pay what it’s worth. Otherwise it causes trouble. That’s all you need to know.”

The young man made a little motion as if zipping his lips shut.

The man watching him spoke haltingly.

“...Be kind to the boy.”

“Hahahahaha! Of course!”

The young man laughed heartily. There was a trace of ridicule, almost contempt, in his eyes. The man lowered his head, clutching the pouch of gold coins tightly.

Leaving him behind, the young man went around to the back of the wagon and untied one of the large cargo sacks.

When he pulled away the clothes piled on top, there was the boy, breathing faintly. White skin, blond hair, strikingly pretty. He was still young, but give it a few years...

He would turn into a very valuable commodity.

And who knew? Maybe this beautiful boy was the very thing the quietly spreading prophecy was pointing to.

The young man snorted off the ridiculous thought, then grinned. He dragged out every piece of clothing from inside the sack and tossed it out of the wagon, then tied the sack shut tight again. After that, he slung the sack over his shoulder and, as he passed the older man, flicked him a coin.

“Buy yourself a new sack. Well then, take care, mister! Thanks!”

The young man bowed neatly from the waist, then strolled off at ease. He did not look like a kidnapper in the slightest.

“Tsk, tsk. What is the world coming to...” 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

The man headed around to the back of the wagon the stranger had disturbed.

Then he picked up the clothes the young man had tossed carelessly onto the wagon bed. Among the clothes in his hands and the ones strewn across the floor of the wagon, there was not a single thing anyone could wear as ordinary clothing.

Garments that barely covered the necessary parts—less than underwear.

The man’s job was supplying clothes the sexual playthings in an illegal merchant ring might wear.

A flicker of pain crossed his face and disappeared.

Guilt only lasted a moment, but gold remained forever. Before long, a pitying smile touched his mouth.

That was why you should never accept a stranger’s kindness too easily. The boy was the foolish one, sitting there helplessly, then grabbing at someone else’s kindness without a thought. With a face like that, wandering around defenseless—of course he’d become a target for bad people.

If the man hadn’t shown kindness at all, the boy surely would have frozen to death or suffered himself sick. Or maybe something worse would have happened and he’d have been snatched up by someone even crueler.

The young man had seemed pleasant enough, so he probably wouldn’t treat the boy too badly. Better to be groomed properly and sold well than suffer that kind of humiliation out on the road. Maybe that would be better for the boy too.

He looked worn down to nothing, but judging by the faint cuts on his face, the light bruising just beginning to rise, and the back of his hand, he must have resisted somewhere and run. Better to be sold for a high price and live in luxury than keep getting beaten like that. Maybe the boy had wanted exactly that and was why he’d been sitting there so pitifully on the roadside. Tsk, tsk. At least the man himself wasn’t shameless, and the young stranger was the kind who paid full price. How fortunate was that?

This is why you have to raise your children properly.

Thinking such thoughts, the man tucked the heavy pouch of gold deep inside his clothes. Then he shoved the clothes to one side, headed to a nearby shop, and bought a new sack large enough to hold a big item. With hurried hands, he stuffed all the garments inside.

After that, he drove the wagon in haste toward the merchant company.