"Youth really is something else. All that energy." Old Man Rom's voice carried over as he and Subaru walked up together.
Felt had no interest in engaging with Gojo. She'd figured him out completely. The bastard was doing it on purpose, needling her just to get a reaction.
Rising to the bait would only mean she'd lost.
And losing was something she couldn't afford.
"Let's go!" She aimed a kick at Gojo, who dodged with a theatrical twist of his body that was far more dramatic than the situation called for.
"Starting today, I'm done playing nice. You'd better pray you can pay back those twenty Holy Gold Coins soon, because if you can't, I've got no problem handing you over to some wealthy merchant." Her voice dropped, sharp and vicious. "I hear plenty of nobles aren't exactly interested in women..."
She let the implication hang, hoping to wipe that infuriating look off his face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I only owe ten Holy Gold Coins. The other ten are Subaru's debt."
"Real shame about that, Subaru. At least I could be sold off to some noble. But you..." Gojo shook his head with exaggerated pity.
"How is any of that something to brag about?!"
The group didn't linger at the Knight's Manor. They'd been given a place to sleep for one night, and that was generous enough. Overstaying their welcome wasn't an option, even if Gojo privately thought the beds were extremely comfortable.
Felt, however, saw it differently.
The way she put it: if anyone came looking for trouble, being outside at least gave her a chance to run.
Inside those walls? That was walking straight into a cage.
No escape whatsoever.
What made things worse was that Gojo, with his complete lack of shame, had stopped to cheerfully greet every knight they passed on the way out. Reinhard. Julius. Anyone within earshot.
Felt, who had been hoping to slip away quietly, wanted to bite him.
The moment they cleared the manor gates, she went silent, her small face dark as a stormcloud, and bolted toward the slums without a word.
Old Man Rom kept up well enough. Giant blood meant long strides, and even with his age, no ordinary person could match his pace.
Gojo was Gojo. Keeping up was never a question.
Subaru, on the other hand, fell behind almost immediately.
Fortunately, Gojo was not the kind of man who abandoned a teammate.
"Hey, Gojo? Is there maybe a slightly more dignified way to carry me?" Subaru struggled to get the words out while tucked under Gojo's arm like a briefcase.
"So picky. But I guess that's what partners are for."
That indulgent grin spread across Gojo's face. He yanked Subaru up from under his arm and shifted him into a bridal carry.
Subaru had nothing to say to that.
How they made it back to the slums was a blank spot in his memory. All he knew was that he never wanted to experience it again.
The moment they arrived, Felt sprinted straight to her hideout.
Compared to the filth and clutter of the surrounding slums, the area around her little den was noticeably cleaner. She clearly maintained it.
But the inside was a wreck. Someone had been through it.
Felt said nothing. She didn't look surprised, either. This was something she'd expected.
She walked straight in, reaching into cracks and crevices, feeling along walls and under debris. After a minute, a small pouch appeared in her hand. She shook it, and the clear clink of coins rang out.
"Nice try. Like I'd leave my money where anyone could find it."
She surveyed the trashed room with a look of pure contempt, as though she'd already made peace with all of it long ago. Not a trace of the panic from earlier.
"One, two, three... fifteen."
"Fifteen gold coins?"
"Didn't realize you'd saved up this much, Felt." Gojo counted through the pouch, genuine surprise in his voice.
"You absolute..."
"You stole it again!"
The pouch had somehow migrated into Gojo's hands without her noticing. Felt lunged at him, clawing it back with both hands.
This was everything she had. Every coin scraped together through years of effort. A family of four could live for a whole year on five gold coins. Felt's work was limited to petty theft on the streets. She'd never dared hit a merchant guild or anywhere that kept valuables worth real money.
Saving this much had taken everything she had.
"So... what do we actually do now?"
Subaru watched the two of them scuffle, exhaustion written all over his face. "Rom's place is gone. Gojo and I don't have anywhere to stay. And we've got no way to earn money..."
Before he could finish, Gojo threw an arm around his shoulders and beamed.
"Relax. We've got Lady Felt, haven't we? No way she'd let her two most valuable assets starve to death." He pressed a hand to his chest, the picture of sincerity. "We're worth twenty Holy Gold Coins, after all. She'll take good care of us."
"Get lost! Don't even think about touching my savings!" Felt clutched the pouch to her chest, eyes locked on Gojo like a cat guarding its kill.
"We're companions, Felt. Even from you, words like that hurt.
Besides, I told you yesterday. I have a plan..."
"Shut it!
Whatever your so-called plan is, it's definitely just some scheme to trick me out of every last coin so you can blow it all on sweets!"
Not.... Happening."
Each word landed like a nail driven into wood. Her eyes dared him to try.
Gojo shrugged. "Fine. If you don't want to hear it, forget it.
We'll follow your lead, then. You're the boss, and we'll work for you."
Not a shred of wounded pride in his voice. He said it with a grin, like working for a teenage girl from the slums was the most natural thing in the world.
"But you'll need to sort out food and shelter at minimum. This place doesn't exactly look like it fits four people."
He gestured at her den, that smile still plastered across his face, and Felt wanted to hit him.
But she knew he was right. These were problems that needed solving.
On the surface, every interaction between them was bickering and chaos. Underneath it, though, she understood something clearly: with Gojo's strength, making money would be trivial. Raw power like his would make him a prized guest at any noble's estate or merchant's table, anywhere in the kingdom.
The only reason he was still here, in the slums, standing next to her, was because he chose to be.
Because he was kind.
That kindness wasn't something she could ignore.
Teasing was teasing, fighting was fighting. But she'd never let herself believe that anyone owed her anything. Growing up in a place like this, the only person who'd ever treated her with genuine care was Old Man Rom.
The strong devoured the weak. That was how the world worked.
She'd lost count of how many kids her age she'd watched die in forgotten corners of these streets.