DMHS 3

The last time Kian had come to the capital was relatively recent.

Thirty years ago, Kian had worked with a merchant group that connected the capital with provincial cities. They mostly dealt in leather shoes and clothes.

The place Kian was heading to now was the shop that the merchants had traded with back then.

The owner, who ran the store through generations, had a keen eye for leather and took great pride in his products, which was why the merchant group trusted him with their goods.

‘That man lost his wife early and lived alone with his daughter.’

Lost in the memory, Kian passed a grocery store and went into the market. Soon he saw the shop selling leather shoes.

He felt glad the shop was still there, but only for a moment.

‘Something is wrong.’

Narrowing his eyes, Kian looked over the shop.

It looked as if it had been attacked by a gang of ruffians.

The sign hanging from the roof edge was split in half and dangling. The glass door had a hole the size of a child’s head. Muddy footprints stained the floor in patches.

From inside the shop came a girl with her hair braided into two plaits.

“Stop coming here! I told you yesterday too. Just wait one more day. By tomorrow, we will be leaving this wretched town!”

For a moment, Kian felt the illusion that time had flowed backward.

‘That girl from back then cannot still be here… This must be her daughter. She looks exactly like her mother.’

Being immortal, one naturally came to know certain things. For example, human life changed quickly, and at the same time, repeated in the same forms.

Whenever Kian saw people who looked like their parents or elders, he thought of that.

“…She looks very much alike.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I came to buy shoes. As you can see, the ones I’m wearing ended up like this.”

Kian lifted his foot to show the shoes with torn soles. The girl’s expression softened.

“Oh, you’re a customer. I’m sorry for shouting so suddenly. The shop has been having some trouble. As you can see, it ended up like this.”

She shrugged her shoulders and pointed at the shop, wearing the same expression Kian had when showing his shoes.

Kian raised his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“What happened to the shop?”

“What do you think. It’s all because of those noble dukes. We decided to give up the shop and go to my father’s hometown.”

The dukes’ faction had started running wild in earnest since last year.

In the fall of last year, an untimely notice was posted in the market. The market would be divided in half, the north under the Duke of the North, and the south under the Duke of the South. Naturally, the people of the market all resisted.

The market had belonged to those who worked there generation after generation since the founding of the kingdom.

But the resistance did not last long. Each passing night, those trying to form an opposing faction began to be found dead under suspicious circumstances. Anyone with sense could tell the ducal houses were behind it.

In the end, the market people one by one agreed to the dukes’ “management.”

It was the girl who had pushed her parents to leave the capital.

‘Even so, it’s better to leave this place now.’

In the end, her parents decided to open a shop in her father’s hometown. They found a house to live in together and planned to move with her tomorrow. So if they endured just today, they would no longer have to see the thugs backed by the dukes…

“The sun is up, so you owe today’s payment.”

One of the men collecting daily dues around the market picked a fight in front of the shop. The damned thug had appeared again.

The girl crossed her arms and frowned.

“Well, really. After ruining someone’s shop like this, you should be paying, not collecting. Can’t you calculate properly?”

“Calculation? Good. Let’s calculate properly this time. The overdue protection money is… what, over a hundred days? At one gold a day, that’s a hundred gold. Add the late fee, and I’ll take two hundred gold.”

“Two hundred gold… Fine. Write me a bill.”

“Hahaha. See, it’s cheaper if you just pay right away. The amount I set is the same as what the duke himself set.”

The man opened a pen cap with his mouth and scribbled on a slip, handing it over.

Checking the shop name and the amount, the girl folded the paper neatly and put it inside her clothes.

“Now it’s time for us to demand compensation. Since you’ve shown leniency, I’ll return the favor. Two hundred gold for the glass window, three hundred for the signboard, five hundred for the stall, five hundred for the ruined shoes, altogether just fifteen hundred gold. Isn’t that cheap?”

The man’s expression twisted as he realized he had been played.

“Y-you little brat, are you joking with me!”

He grabbed a sack from the next shop and hurled it.

“Kyaa!”

The girl quickly turned her body to the side, but she had no expectation of dodging something flying that fast.

‘I’ll just have to rub my stinging cheek soon.’

But her expectation was wrong. A large shadow fell before her, and then,

Thud!

A heavy sound rang out.

When she lifted her turned head, she saw someone standing in front of her, blocking her. It was the customer who had come to the shop just moments ago.

In his hand was a long shoehorn.

‘Huh…?’

The sack the man had thrown lay in pieces at his feet.

She did not know what had happened in that short moment, but clearly the customer had blocked the sack with the shoehorn. The flour inside the sack had burst all over his face, his hands, and the shoehorn.

“Who the hell is this guy now?!”

The angry man began throwing things recklessly from the neighboring shop.

The customer stood firm in place, swinging the shoehorn to block the incoming objects.

“Wow…”

With light movements of his hand, he struck down the things flying at him. Some rebounded and flew back, dirtying the man’s clothes. The man’s face turned red with rage.

“Some nobody who crawled out of nowhere dares challenge me!”

The customer tilted his head slightly. He spoke in a flat tone.

“Who are you?”

“I am one entrusted by the Duke of the North himself to manage this market!”

“So what. You’re just a thug.”

The customer picked up a tomato from the ground and threw it at the man.

Unlike the casual way he tossed it, the man who took the splattered tomato doubled over clutching his stomach.

“Urk! What the hell….”

“You think you become some big shot just because you threaten people and extort money from them?”

Next, the customer grabbed an apple.

Thud!

A heavy sound rang out as if something solid had been hit. The apple was driven deep into the ground, crushed beyond recognition.

The man’s face turned pale.

“Hm.”

The customer, now crouched in front of the man, muttered.

“Leave this place immediately. Stop tormenting people and live decently. Even hellfire would be wasted on trash like you.”

“……”

“Hm?”

The man clutched his stomach and struggled to his feet.

“I-I have business right now, so I’ll be going first!”

“Good choice. You also owe this shop money. If you don’t want to repay the one thousand three hundred gold, you’d better run. Go on.”

Like shooing away a fly, the customer waved his hand. The man, holding his stomach, trembled and disappeared.

The girl bowed her waist to the customer.

“Thank you for helping me. If you hadn’t been here, it would have been serious trouble. But…”

The girl slowly scanned the customer from head to toe.

“What should we do about your clothes being such a mess?”

Flour covering his face. Tomato juice splattered red and blotchy over his lips.

Anyone who saw him would think he had made some strange disguise with food.

If only it had ended at a funny face, it might have been fine. Unfortunately, most of the fruit juice had splashed on the center of his trousers, around his crotch. Anyone passing by would inevitably look there.

‘If he goes out like this, he will be mistaken for a pervert in a bizarre disguise.’

The girl wanted to protect her benefactor.

“Would you like to come inside and wash up for a bit? I’ll lend you my father’s clothes so you can change before you leave.”

Instead of answering, the customer looked up at the sun. Judging the time by its position, he shook his head.

“I have somewhere I must go today. Just let me buy new shoes and I’ll be on my way.”

“But…”

“It’s fine.”

The girl reluctantly brought out new shoes. When the customer changed into them and was about to leave, she quickly grabbed a blanket from a corner of the shop.

“At least wrap this around your waist. That part of your trousers, no, your clothes… are too messy. And of course, you don’t need to pay for the shoes. If we meet again someday, I’ll repay you then. Though since we’re leaving the capital, I don’t know when that will be.”

“Thank you.”

The customer, who seemed about to leave, turned back.

“Oh, since I’m here, please give my regards to your mother as well.”

“You know my mother?”

“She was a smart girl. Just like you, she was good at calculating. She was happy to call me uncle whenever I came by.”

“Uncle?”

The girl looked at the customer again.

He looked far younger than her mother. At most, he seemed only five years older than herself.

“That was all a long time ago.”

The customer crouched briefly in front of the shop, then stood and walked away.

It felt like something black was left in the spot he vacated, but when she approached, nothing was there.

The customer who had appeared suddenly, helped, and vanished…

‘He seems exactly like the man Mom told me about.’

Her mother had said that when she was a child, a mysterious young man had helped their shop.

He had driven out the loan shark who came daily to harass them, and connected them with a merchant group.

Thanks to him, her grandfather had been able to move past the grief of losing her grandmother and begin a new life.

‘Mom said that man also had black hair and black eyes.’

The girl shook off the strange feeling of familiarity in her mind.

‘No. That man would be middle-aged by now. He couldn’t still be that young.’

She looked in the direction the customer had gone and prayed quietly that only good things would happen to him. That like her own experience today, good coincidences upon coincidences would come together to create a new fate.