A month later, in the morning of the slum district since Juri moved into Kars' mansion, the slum boss had finally decided to start a big renovation and reconstruction of his slum that is currently in full swing as Kars's indentured workers and the other construction crews that he hired are now working overtime to demolish the shacks, the abandoned buildings, and the sewage system as well as clean up the trash inside the slum while Kars' homunculus soldiers patrol the streets and evict the stubborn slum people from their homes and whatever holes they call home to clear up a space for a new district layout.
Some of the slum people put up resistance and rebelled, of course, but the indifferent homunculus soldiers just brutally crushed them with extreme violence, leaving broken limbs and agonized screams in their wake as the subdued people were then dragged away and dumped together outside the slum with some gold coins as compensation that the homunculi threw at them like spare change.
It might have looked humiliating or even pitiful if it were not for how the victims scrambled to pick up the coins without any shred of dignity afterward, and then they all just ended up fighting each other in a free-for-all brawl over the coins like a bunch of rabid animals, and the non-slum people even joined in the fight for gold coins. It was so chaotic that the city guards had to step in and beat the people up to disperse the frenzied crowd.
Kars was surely going to earn even more infamy points after this incident...
While the big brawl was happening outside the slum district, the air in the slum was filled with sawdust and actual dust as Juri could be seen making her way through the newly paved road that led to Kars' mansion while she avoided bumping into the busy workers and Kars' homunculi, who were moving around all over the place.
Today the girl had gone out of the mansion to look around the slum because of boredom and to get away from Kars, who always liked to make fun of her or annoy her for whatever reason, and now she was heading back from a bakery shop she visited outside of the slum while she was carrying a small paper bag of sweets she bought herself with the allowance that Sophia gave her.
"Hmph, what's with that baker's stupid look anyway... so annoying..." Juri grumbled with a huff and a puff as she kicked a loose pebble away while she walked on the road, sending it skittering into the gutter with a frown on her face as she recalled the baker who had given her that pity look for some reason when she brought the sweets from his shop.
And as for why the baker gave her that pity look, it is because quite a lot of people knew about her pitiful circumstances from the rumors and gossip circulating in Jinkai, so she would always receive those kinds of gazes from the people who saw her, which annoyed the girl quite a lot.
While Juri was walking back to the mansion with the pastries still warm in her hands, she suddenly felt the gaze on her. She glanced at where the gaze was coming from, half-expecting to see Kars there with that infuriating smirk on his face or something, but she only saw a crow perched on the withering tree branch that was staring at her for some reason with unnerving stillness.
"What are you looking at, huh?" Juri pursed her lips at the crow, fingers tightening around the pastry bag as she scanned the street and saw nothing unusual besides the usual chaos of the slum reconstruction: hammering, shouted orders, and the occasional yelp as someone was dragged off by homunculi.
"Haa, whatever..." She sighed and then continued toward the mansion, ignoring the weird bird she saw, as she still had to find a place to hide her snacks from Kars, who would definitely shemelessly steal them, after all.
÷×÷×÷×÷×÷
At the same time Juri got back to the mansion, Sophia was currently dealing with a headache from her family, just as she expected.
"As I said so many times already, Kars has no interest in cooperation with more people at the moment." Sophia said dispassionately as she gave a man with slicked-back short silver hair and pale blue eyes an annoyed glare from behind her wooden desk inside the manager's office on the second floor of the Blood Fund store building, where she usually works.
"Come now, big sister. Surely there is a—" The man, dressed in an immaculate white suit with the Silverveil family crest of four ornate coins embroidered on his lapel, sighed dramatically and adjusted his cufflinks while trying to negotiate with her despite the clear rejection.
"Don't 'big sister' me, Aldric; you came here for the third time this week already, and the answer isn't going to change," Sophia sternly said to her illegitimate younger half-brother as she was drumming her fingers on her desk impatiently. "Do you think I have too much spare time to entertain this kind of nonsense?"
"Big sister, must we be strangers? I'm not here as a petitioner, but I'm here as family..." Aldric's smile faltered for half a second after Sophia gave him a negative response, but he smoothed it back into a flatter one he always wore, his elbows placed on the armrest of his chair as he leaned forward and continued to speak. "Right now our esteemed father's getting very restless. You know how he is when he smells opportunity. If you could help me out here and just arrange something—"
"Enough, Aldric. I'm no longer associating myself with Silverveil. That man made sure I was aware of that when he sold me off, after all..." Sophia raised her hand to stop him from running his mouth anymore, her expression colder than usual when she heard about her father as her patience finally ran out. "I advise you to stop wasting both of our time."
"Well..." Aldric's flatter smile vanishes, revealing a second of helplessness on his face as he also doesn't want to be so persistent, but his family has always left this kind of thankless and humiliating job of groveling for favor to him, and he has to keep doing it; otherwise he will lose his standing in the family and might get abandoned to fend for himself unlike his legitimate siblings. Oh, how much he envies them...
"Look, Sophia," he said, still trying but his voice straining with exhaustion, "you can't seriously expect Father to ignore your existence now that you and Mei Mei managed to hold the position with power and influence through that man. The Kolosseum—"
"It's none of his business," Sophia cut in, her eyes suddenly glowing with eerie green light as Aldric flinched at the feeling of something invisible gripping his entire body before he ended up staring at Sophia with wide eyes in surprise from seeing her using magic that she shouldn't be capable of. "Tell that man that if he ever sends one more envoy... just once more... I'll have Kars personally visit him, and he better pray that he comes out of it alive."
"What...?!" Aldric's chair screeched backward as he stood abruptly while still feeling the invisible grip on his body, his face filled with disbelief at Sophia's threat to harm their family. "You're willing to turn on your own family?!"
"Well, I'm Kars' concubine, not Silverveil anymore; you better remember that," Sophia said with a snort as she released her loose telekinetic hold on her half-brother, making him visibly relieved, as Sophia really doesn't want to hurt him, before she leaned forward behind her desk, her voice dropping to a whisper but still threatening. "And if that man remembers what I endured under his care, he'll know exactly how little sentimentality I have left for that house, so don't force my hand..."
"Very well..." Aldric exhaled through his nose as he decided to give up since Sophia is looking like she might be showing her displeasure to him directly if he still persists. He straightened his cuffs with a tug, the fabric taut over his wrists, as he smoothed his suit jacket, ready to leave.
"I'll convey your... message... to Father, but I hope you reconsider, big sister, since blood is thicker than water, after all." Sophia didn't rise from her chair to see him out as Aldric turned on his heel after he was done, his polished shoes clicking against the hardwood floor as he left.
When the door finally shut behind him with a soft click and not a rude slam, since Aldric was too refined for that, Sophia released an exhausted sigh as she leaned back on her chair.
"How troublesome," Sophia muttered, pressing her fingertips to her temples, as Aldric's visits were quite a test of her patience. "I hope that man will take the hint already..."
÷×÷×÷×÷×÷
Meanwhile, at the tavern somewhere in the outer district of Jinkai, Saruda and Ghislaine could be seen sitting at the far corner table, their drinks untouched, as the feline woman held a tankard in her hand and the dim candlelight flickered across Saruda's exhausted face, his usual joviality replaced by a frown and worried expression.
"There is this bounty," Saruda said, leaning in as he began to speak, his fingers tapping restlessly against the poster with a woman's face on it against the wooden table. "An assassin, a very infamous one from what I heard..."
"High pay and high risk. Maybe too high, honestly..." His eyes darted to the tavern's entrance for a quick second, a habit now as the deadline for his debt payment draws near, before he continued. "I think it's not something we should meddle in normally, but our circumstance is... not normal, so..."
"Mmm..." Ghislaine's ears twitched beneath her hood, her one eye narrowing as she studied the bounty poster on top of the table. Even if she can't read most of the text, she still can see a large amount of reward under the sketch of the wanted female assassin.
As the silence stretched between them and the laughter of the people around them felt distant, muffled by the weight of Saruda's seriousness, Ghislaine then looked up into Saruda's eyes.
"Are we going after this woman?" she questioned, her tail flicking with some excitement at the prospect of fighting a powerful enemy. "If it's got you this serious, then the assassin must be strong, right?"
"Yeah..." Saruda sighed with resignation, his fingers curling into fists before he forced them to lie flat against the table. Given how much the assassin's bounty is, it is obvious that she should be a troublesome opponent to fight.
"She's a very infamous assassin, the Bowel Hunter," he muttered. "The one who's been gutting people like fish on the western continent. The bounty on her head is ten thousand gold for her dead and twenty thousand for her capture."
"More than enough to get rid of your debt, huh?" Ghislaine hums, her fingers gripping the tankard's handle as she drinks from it before she leans back, arms crossed over her large chest as she looks at the ape-faced man seriously. "You think it's worth it to go chase this bounty?"
"..." Saruda's fingers twitched toward his drink but hesitated slightly with a complicated expression until he seemingly made a decision as he picked it up and gulped down all of the ale inside the tankard in one go and slammed the tankard back down on the table.
"Worth it? Probably not. Necessary? Maybe..." he answered Ghislaine's question with a frustrated tone as he dragged a hand down his face, the stubble rough against his palm.
"The Juju Gang might be fucked, but the Blood Fund is still fucking stuck on me... and if I don't clear this debt soon, I can kiss my freedom goodbye." Saruda's laugh was brittle and humorless as he still remembered how his argument with those clerks on the Blood Fund about his forced debt went after he heard about the Ghost Debt Purge incident and felt hopeful that he could get out of his debt with just talking it out, but oh how wrong he was...
"Well, good." Ghislaine stretched her arms behind her head, her muscles flexing beneath her cloak as she grinned ferally.
"But when do we start hunting?" She asks with the grin still on her face; her reddish-brown eyes glint with anticipation.
"Haha... very soon, just give me a couple of days to find out more about this bowel hunter we're going to hunt." Saruda replied as he rolled up the wanted poster on the table while chuckling nervously.
This hunt is going to be very tough for sure; he just knows it...