Raising the Princess to Overcome Death Chapter 21

21. Beggar Siblings - Family

As the two men pointed their weapons, a tense silence filled the stable.

Leo carefully assessed his opponent. There was a significant difference in their weight classes, and while his opponent had a shield, Leo had no defensive gear at all.

The two-handed sword, while capable of powerful attacks, was disadvantageous for defense. Although Leo had learned some swordsmanship and had experience on the battlefield, the two-handed sword was the kind of weapon where you could get hit in the blink of an eye.

Therefore, Leo took the initiative.

Feigning an attack to the shield, he lured his opponent's sword and quickly spun around, aiming to slash his thigh.

However, he was blocked by the shield.

Leo sidestepped, moving away from his opponent's sword.

A skilled opponent would have pushed the shield forward to restrict Leo's movement, but Daol, his opponent, instead swung his sword down from a distance.

Then, he extended his sword.

"...I lost."

Leo's sword touched Daol's neck.

In a one-on-one fight, the person with superior swordsmanship had a decisive advantage.

Leo's body was too weak to withstand a group of three or four pushing with shields, but against a single opponent, especially one who left openings while attacking, his swordsmanship could shine.

The onlookers, thugs surrounding them, were speechless at the swift conclusion.

Quiet applause echoed from behind them.

"Wow. He didn't stand a chance, did he? Daol, good effort. You, come with me."

The leader of the thugs dispersed the group and brought Leo back to his room.

Only then did he introduce himself and extend his hand for a handshake. Uniquely, his palm had a tattoo of a dog being hanged.

He asked a few personal questions, but Leo answered vaguely, keeping anything related to Lena hidden.

"You'll be working outside the castle for a while. There's not much to do inside for someone good with a sword."

A lie. The inside of the castle was precisely where a few skilled individuals were valued, but they didn't trust Leo, so they assigned him outside.

But Leo didn't mind and followed the thug assigned to him. The thug, having watched the fight, acted friendly.

"Welcome. Our Corolla family is the best. You can buy drugs cheaply and even mess with slaves if you're lucky."

Leo listened to the thug. The Corolla family seemed to be primarily involved in drugs and slave trading.

The thug led Leo to a small lodging outside the castle.

A sign indicating that they were looking for people to sell was carved at the lodging entrance.

The innkeeper, reading the letter handed over by the thug, smiled and said,

"A new member, huh? Welcome."

He tore up the letter and offered a handshake to Leo. The same tattoo as the thug's was on his palm.

The tattoo on their palms would gradually fade over the years.

So, this tattoo was merely an indication that they were active members of the Corolla family, and the real tattoo was likely elsewhere. Or, it could be something temporarily given to those of a certain rank.

Leo shook his grotesque hand.

Lena woke up early.

It became a habit to sleep and wake up early since staying in the room all day was boring.

It wasn't too bad.

She naturally enjoyed lazing around and especially loved sleeping, so she didn't mind spending half the day in bed.

"Yawn~"

Stretching, she felt much healthier. Eating well had caused her to gain a bit of weight.

She waited until the sound of water outside stopped before going out.

Cassia always washed early in the morning. Lena decided to wake up early to match this time.

"Good morning."

"Good morning. I've finished, so you can use it now."

Lena took the water bucket and moved it to her room, closing the door to wash up as her brother had instructed.

Her brother had been hard to see lately. He found work outside the castle and had to stay there due to the distance.

She asked what kind of work it was, and after a long hesitation, he said he was guarding a lodging.

Apparently, there were guests arriving at night, so they needed to accept them even at night.

She knew it was all lies.

The first day they started living with Cassia, her brother returned drenched in blood. He hid it under a dirt-covered shirt, but his body was also stained with blood.

Lena was terrified and checked his body for injuries while he slept, discovering he had hidden two swords.

The next day, he left, saying he found a job. With his swords.

She asked Cassia what he did.

"What's he doing? He's a thug."

"What does that mean?"

"There are men who fight with swords to gain more. Doesn't seem as dangerous as I thought, though. From what I know..."

"Is it hard?"

"Is there any job that's not hard?"

She asked her teacher what a thug was.

"They are people who do very bad things. So bad that I don't even want to tell you. They break the law to fill their own pockets."

"Are all gangsters bad people?"

"Well... most of them are. They do bad things, after all. But it's not good to judge people too quickly. They might have their own personal reasons for doing such things."

"..."

Lena felt heartbroken knowing her brother did such things to earn money.

Although she didn't know exactly what he was doing, it seemed dangerous enough to require weapons.

'I want to help too...'

She was studying hard. It was the only thing she could do.

Even so, she felt sad thinking that her brother worked so hard just to support her studies.

'Why do I have to look like this... What is it about my appearance that makes both my brother and the teacher so cautious? Why do they say I'll be taken away?'

Lena quietly read a book in her room, feeling distressed. Cassia's soft snores could be heard from outside.

Leo was assigned a room in the thugs' lodging. They needed to stay in one place for emergencies.

His working hours were set, roughly from 5 PM to 5 AM in modern time.

The rest of the time was free, so he woke up early at noon and diligently visited the shoe store to see Lena.

His sister had learned to read in just a few weeks, earning constant praise from her teacher, and she had become much healthier during that time.

Her once gaunt cheeks had filled out, and he would occasionally pinch them.

Leo was satisfied with the current situation.

Though he had to work twelve hours a day, he was grateful just to see his sister growing up safely.

Fortunately, the job was boring rather than hard.

Leo's task was to patrol and guard several warehouses on the western outskirts of Orville.

Officially, he wasn't told what he was guarding, but through casual conversations with other thugs, he quickly learned that some places held slaves while others stored drugs.

There were no significant fights. There were a few skirmishes with the Berza family, who weren't on good terms, but they only escalated to showing off their weapons.

The Berza family mainly dealt in illegal arms.

However, they were also encroaching on the slave trade, causing friction with the Corolla family.

Naturally, the Corolla family growled and showed their teeth, but the Berza family pretended to back off while secretly continuing their slave supply.

The Berza family was good at covering their tracks, leaving no clear evidence, so a big fight hadn't erupted, but the relationship between the two families was deteriorating rapidly.

Whether or not it mattered, Leo, who felt no sense of belonging, mingled with the other thugs and gleaned information.

Through this, he also learned about the Rauno family, who dominated the Orville market and collected protection money.

Aside from that, most of the conversations were the thugs' crude jokes, complaints, boasting, and baseless rumors.

One day, while getting along well with the thugs, Leo came across some eye-opening information.

"A prince from the Kingdom of Astin is coming?"

"That's right. I heard it from a friend who works as a northern contact."

A thug, who had become quite friendly, said while drinking.

"No wonder the guards have been fixing the northern gate street every day... It's a big fuss. There are so many patrols at the northern gate that they moved some work sites back. Those guys will have a tough time. Haha."

Arnolf de Klaus, a prince Leo had met in the last scenario, had earned some favor through his achievements.

'Since abilities like {Swordsmanship} and [Achievements] carry over, maybe I can talk to Prince Arnolf if I meet him now?'

This was a significant {Event}.

It was rare for the legitimate heir of one kingdom to visit another kingdom.

He wondered if there was a way to use this, but he didn't know what was going to happen yet.

"Why is he coming, though?"

"Don't know. There's a rumor that he's coming to marry our princess... Damn, royalty must have it nice. They say Princess Chloe is really beautiful. Man, I wish I could marry someone like that. If I married a princess..."

The thug started making obscene remarks.

Tying her up, beating her, fondling her breasts, then using his club... all sorts of things. There was nothing they wouldn't say about their own princess.

Leo casually responded while thinking.

'Come to think of it, does the war event only appear in the engagement scenario? The engagement scenario starts in winter, while the other scenarios start in summer... Do they each start at different times?'

Endless questions arose.

Maybe this Beggar Siblings scenario was set a few years before the war broke out. Or perhaps the war had already ended.

While Leo knew the calendars of Orun, Bellita, and the Kingdom of Astin at the start of each scenario, each kingdom used a unique calendar like "Year 16 of Karoman de Tatalia," so he didn't know how they related to each other.

Fortunately, Leo easily found out by asking Lena's teacher.

'All scenarios start in the same year, but the childhood friend and beggar siblings scenarios start in summer, while only the engagement scenario starts in winter.'

So, if a war were to break out, it would be next spring, and it was now nearing the end of summer.

'Will the war break out?'

In the engagement scenario, war broke out twice at the same time, but it was still uncertain if it would break out in the beggar siblings scenario.

'And are the scenarios truly independent?'

Questions kept arising.

Given that they were all part of the same game, "Raising Lena," it made sense that the world and timeline of each scenario would match.

'If Leo and Lena are at both Avril Castle and in Demos Village...'

Leo had never considered that the scenarios might be connected. The environments were too different and the distances too vast, so he had thought of them as entirely separate stories.

Like starting a new game in Princess Maker, where each game starts fresh without relation to the previous ones...

However, seeing Arnolf de Klaus appear in another scenario made him rethink.

Maybe all scenarios were happening simultaneously.

'Is the Leo in Demos Village living with his complete mind, and the same for Leo Dexter in Avrille Castle? Am I the one mixed with Minseo?'

Leo shook off his complicated thoughts.

It was something he couldn't find out for now. Demos Village and Avril Castle were too far apart to confirm if other Lenas and Leos were there.

Communication in this world wasn't poor.

Priests used consecrated items to communicate, and since there were churches in both Demos Village and Avril Castle, he could find out quickly using them.

But it was a service for nobles who paid the church, and with each scenario being far apart and busy surviving, there was no need to find out.

Currently, even raising one sister was overwhelming for Leo.

'Let's wait until next spring to see if a war breaks out. If it doesn't, then the scenarios are separate...'

Leo set aside his rising questions. Meanwhile, the prince of the Kingdom of Astin arrived in Orville.