Chapter 42. Slums of Vespera

“Alice! How long are you two going to keep on sleeping?”

“Ugh. My sister is so annoying. She needs to go find herself another man and leave us alone.”

“Isn’t she still married to that Thomas guy though? Can she be with another man?”

“I mean technically they are married and if there is an important event, he would send a servant to come and grab her. But the two are obviously not a couple and as long as she doesn't make the relationship public, no one would bat an eye. That’s just how arranged relationships work a lot of the time, so you better stay away from her!”

“Not like you will leave my sight long enough anyways.”

After the two got dressed and got ready, they greeted a servant who told them Ava got tired of waiting and went to the dining room already.

Unlike the day before, after getting scolded by Ken and no more excuses for giving him a welcome party, the breakfast was fancy and extravagant but not excessive and Ken was more than happy to chow down on the great food while chatting happily with the girls.

“What do you want to do today Ken? Want to head to Darrumburgh? It’s a few days trip at least if you want to explore the city. It’s way bigger and has way more to do than here.”

“We can go to Darrumburgh tomorrow. I want to go to the slums today.”

“Why do you want to go to the slums?”

“You don’t have to come. I have seen the rich and luxurious side of Yelwraek and now here, but I want to see the other side as well so I don’t end up ignoring them and pretend everything is good and well just because it’s not affecting me.”

“Ugh. Stef, go find me some clothes that are getting thrown out so I can blend in better and not get harassed too badly. I guess your old commoner clothes should let you blend in well enough since you kept refusing to let me buy you better clothes!”

“Get some for me as well Stef.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Stef the servant girl walked away shortly to look for clothes for Alice and Ava so they wouldn't stand out while at the slum district.

“Ava, are you really coming as well? We are going to the slums!”

“While I am spending most of my time at home doing nothing, I do care about the people of this city. Normally I am too scared to go with all the crimes in the slum, but with the three of us together, we can watch out for each other’s backs.”

“Don’t you nobles have some high level protection artifacts you wear when going somewhere dangerous?”

“Protection spells don’t prevent me from getting kidnapped! While I have reached at least master level on many many subjects, they are all from book learning. I was terrible at practical stuff and barely passed beginner level on both elemental and physical enhancement so I am super weak!”

“Ava is typical for a vampire, most of our race have low overall potential and that’s why I am the best and you are one lucky man!”

“Better start trying at school Alice. Now I have caught up and surpassed you, don’t waste your potential like Genesis and start training up.”

“I spent almost two entire years helping you daily so you could get to where you are at! The least you could do for me is support me for the rest of my life!”

“I mean, you have more wealth than I could ever imagine so I doubt you would need my support. However, if you are alright with a simple lifestyle then sure, I think I will have the ability to support you for life.”

“You will eventually be one of the top ten heroes Ken, I doubt you will only be able to let me live a simple lifestyle but that promise is good enough for now!”

While the three chatted for a while longer, Stef returned with some much simpler clothes than what Alice normally wears that seemed to belong to a servant.

Taking the clothes, the sisters returned to their bedrooms to get changed as Ken waited in the dining hall chatting with Stef and a few other servants.

“Why do they even need this extravagant dining hall when they don’t even eat?”

“We have important guests from Darrumburgh and all over the world that need to eat like you do.” Ava replied out of nowhere.

“Wow, that was quick. you two are already dressed?”

Looking back at the two sisters that had returned, while the clothes were plain, it did little to hide the beauty of the two sisters.

“Yea, you two are getting robbed looking like that.”

“Obviously we aren't going out like this. It’s too cold outside!”

Throwing on some oversized coat that seemed to belong to some male servants, the two managed to cover their entire body from head to toe with only their faces showing.

“Okay, maybe we can move around now without getting robbed.”

“Now you are the one standing out Ken, your fur coat is quite nice and definitely worth some money. where did you even buy it?”

“Oh! Do you like it? Lovetta’s mom made it for me when I stayed with them! I need to visit them again, I bet I can kick Zeev’s ass now!”

“It’s definitely high quality fur, leave it here. Stef, go grab Ken a coat like the ones we are wearing.”

Not arguing with Alice’s logic, the trio chatted while waiting and Stef returned shortly with a servant’s coat for Ken and the three finally left the castle and down the mountain to visit the slum area of the city.

On the far end of the city, even though from the high mountain castle view it didn’t look that far, it took the horse carriage more than 2 hours to eventually reach the slums and Ken decided to have an early lunch inside the carriage while Alice and Ava also had their meal before the trio got out near the end of the street that divided the white stone buildings and the roughly built slum.

With the carriage stopping behind a large building away from the view, the three got out as discreetly as possible and with the busy streets full of people rushing back and forth, they blended in seamlessly and soon, reached the street that divided the city.

While to the trio, the view between the two sides were too drastic for them to comprehend, the ongoing crowd that lives here are too desensitized to the scene to know any difference.

While the white stone buildings on one side were not nearly as fancy or elegant as those at the main district, they were still built with quality and style. Comparatively, the slum side lacked any structure that could be called a proper building.

Tents, wooden planks boarded together stacked three to four layers tall that looked like it could tip over with a tiny bit of force, people simply sleeping on the road on top of some dirty rags, what Ken is now witnessing is much worse than he could have imagined even for someone who grew up extremely poor and always underfed.

Walking through the slums between the narrow spaces where he was forced to turn his shoulder or he won’t fit in between many of the alleyways, the people Ken saw looked like they had lost their will to live and simply existed for another day until their eventual death.

“KEN! Stop him! He just stole my purse!” Ava shouted.

Watching a young boy dash past him at great speed, Ken was shocked that the boy was able to slip by him even when he was fully enhanced.

Not going to lose to some kid, Ken rushed to follow the kid while shouting at the girls to follow him quickly.

Dashing through the crammed slum like a giant maze, while Ken was definitely faster in terms of pure speed, the boy was much better at getting around as the two played a game of cat and mouse through the slum ground.

After more than five minutes of chasing, the boy finally stopped in a dead end open space, out of breath and breathing heavily with Ken blocking the only way out.

“Good job kid, you were impressively fast even for a vampire. Now just hand over the money and we can call it a good day worth of exercise.”

“You think I am trapped in here with you?” The boy sneered.

Dirty messy short brunette hair, deep purple eyes that reminded Ken of Cecilla. The boy was extremely skinny even more so than Ken was before he got accepted by the academy and even in the dead of winter, a dirty oversized coat full of holes is all the warmth the boy could manage.

“I will buy you some food and some warm clothes. Just hand over the money so you don’t get into any more trouble.”

“You people are here to tear down our homes so you can build more fancy houses and drive us out of the city aren’t you! Don’t think you can dress like a commoner and we won’t know. No one around here could ever eat enough to get as big as you!”

“Well, I am glad to finally be called big after all my years of starving for food. But you are definitely wrong about me not being a commoner.”

Before Ken could say anything else, a wooden board behind the boy cracked and turned and emerged from behind was a whole group of young teens all looking like they were all on the verge of both starving to death and freezing to death.

“Finally! Ava! You are so slow!”

“I can’t help it! I have no stamina and my enhancement is nowhere near your level!”

“Watch me back Alice. Now, I am not here to do anything to your home. I am a visitor simply trying to see how people lived here. Just hand the money back and we will let you off the hook.”

“They are not getting off the hook!”

“Alice! I am trying to resolve the issue calmly, stop trying to escalate things like we are in school.”

“Don’t think just because you are big, you could take all of us down.”

“One on one, you versus me. If you win, keep the gold. If you lose, be my guide and show me around.”

“You are like three times bigger! I am not an idiot to fight you!”

“I said you versus me, not fighting me. Any competition of your choice. Deal?”

After thinking over the offer, the boy huddled together with his friends to discuss what they should do while Ken scolded Alice some more for trying to escalate the situation while they were in an unfamiliar place surrendered by opposition.

“Ken, if worse comes to worst, we can just blow this place up.”

“Alice! The whole point is to resolve the situation without blowing the place up!”

“We will take your deal. We will hang onto the money and once you lose to me, just get out of our home and never return.”

“Let’s hear it, how do you want to compete?”

“Follow us to the field. We will have a speed contest.”

Leading the way, the young speedster and his friends walked through a maze of tight and small alleyways where Ken saw what true poverty looked like. Dirty, crammed, with the smell of raw sewage due to the lack of proper drainage or sanitation.

“Glad it’s the dead of winter and not summer, I bet the smell would be ten times worse.”

“Worst decision ever. Why are we even here? Let’s just grab the kids, send them to jail and go home.”

“I told you to stay home Alice. Don’t follow me willingly and then complain.”

Ignoring Ken, Alice kept on complaining until the group finally got through all of the alleyways into a large open garbage dump piled high with trash and waste.

“We are leaving NOW!”

“We will race from here to the end of the dump and back. First back is the winner.”

“Sounds good to me.” Ken replied, ignoring Alice’s complaining.

As the two got ready, the boy dashed out at incredible speed the moment the contest started while Ken followed closely behind.

Knowing that vampires are born twice the physical abilities of a normal human, Ken knew the young boy was close to intermediate level in enhancement as he could barely keep up going 80% out with his advanced level of mastery.

Following the boy closely, Ken was impressed at the boy’s stamina as well with how he managed to not slow down at all even after the long chase they had earlier.

After making the turn and heading back towards the start line, with half the distance left, the boy suddenly went into another gear and increased his speed even more instead of slowing down.

Shocked that the boy had another gear and was pulling ahead of him, Ken had to go all out to pull out a close victory.

“Kid, if I were you. I would stop doing that.”

“Alice! What did he do? How was he able to go so fast!”

“Let’s get away from this stink pile and I might be calm enough to explain.”

“Hand me back the money bag. I will keep my word as well and pay you all to be our guide.”

Absolutely exhausted and barely able to stand, the boys kept their promise and returned the bag of coins as the group walked into the maze of the slum.

Shocked to see that the coin pouch was mostly filled with gold coins and a few silver where most of the kids had never even seen a silver coin before, the realization quickly settled in that they aren’t just dealing with average people.

“So seven of you total. How about one silver coin each as payment for guiding us and one extra for the runner boy.”

Too frightened to know what they should do, Ken handed one coin to each of the boys while giving two to the thief boy before handing Ava her coin pouch back.

As the group walked away from the garbage dump and the odor in the air slightly improved, Ken turned to Alice to see if she was not in as foul a mood.

“So Alice, what did he do and why haven’t I learned about it.”

“He was burning his stamina for a boost but if he overdoes it, he could very well die.”

“Explain? How much of a boost? How to do it? And once again, why haven’t I learned about it?”

“You haven’t learned it because they don’t teach it at the academy until master level so I just know the very basics from reading about it.

To explain it as simply as I could. If you fully enhance and your stamina will last you 100 seconds. With boost, you could double your power and now go for 50 seconds or double boost and 4 times your power but only last 12 seconds. I don’t think I heard anyone doing triple boost but in theory it would drain your energy 64 times faster for 8 times the power boost.

All I know is the more you boost, the greater the drain on your stamina and if you over do it or don’t know your limit, you could just kill yourself from draining all of your stamina so that’s why it’s not taught until at least master level at the academy.”

“You are telling me, someone could literally boost from master level to holy or even greater? Hey kid! Your name, age and who taught you how to enhance and use boost?”

“Ryo, Ryo Eilvyre is my name. I’m 12, no one taught me anything. No idea what enhance or boost or whatever means.”

“Wow, I know they taught us that all basic magic begins with visualization and imagination. But to be self-taught, that is crazy.”

“I have heard that some of the greatest mages and fighters in all of history developed their abilities from circumstances that forced them to grow and some were even able to imagine and conjure higher level magic without knowing the specifics like how we are taught at school.” Alice added, also impressed that the young boy was able to have such high levels of abilities without ever going to school.

“Sheesh, you have kids this strong without ever being taught while I couldn’t do anything until I had the best of teachers. Take us to a shop, I will buy you all some food and maybe some clothes as well.”

“Who are you people and why are you here in the slums? What do you want from us?”

“UGHHH! We don’t care about you, we don’t want anything from you. We are only here because my stupid lover is curious about anything and everything and wants to see how you poor people live because he was once a poor skinny boy himself. So either satisfy his curiosity and maybe get some free food and clothes or if I get more irritated, we are leaving and you can go back to starving to death.”

“You used to live in the slums?”

“Nope! I am not a vampire. Thankfully the small village I was born in had plenty of farmland and forests where we could at least grow some food and catch some animals now and then but I do know how it feels to be hungry all the time.”

As the boys chatted, their guard slowly dropped as they navigated through the narrow alleyways and pointed to different things and showed Ken just how terrible of a life they lived.

All seven of the boys had lost their parents due to different reasons and with the slum dwellers not having much of a job opportunity when they are so young and have no physical strength to work in the mines, they banded together after realizing Ryo’s abilities and have depended on the 12 year old to steal from what little naive outsiders they get and had somehow survived for the past two years as a group.

“Granny! You have any blood in today?”

“One of those days, you thieving kids will get it coming to you. Just make sure to stay away from my shop when you get in trouble.”

While cursing at the kids, a elderly woman walking slowly with a cane appeared from behind the doors.

“I have nothing to do with them thieving kids! I only sell to them because they would be dead if I didn’t!”

“It’s alright granny, we aren’t here to arrest anyone or anything. Just want to treat the kids to some food and maybe buy them some clothes if you have any.”

Staring suspiciously at Ken and the girls, the old woman slowly walked over to her enchanted cooler that’s kept cold with an artifact enchanted with ice magic and reached in for some blood for the kids.

“Stupid thing is almost out of magic again! That greedy mage better not have been ripping me off!”

“What artifact of level is that?”

“What do you think, boy? Do you think an old lady from the slums can have anything above advanced level?”

“The two of us can easily fill it up for you then. For free of course.”

Getting Alice to unwillingly agree, the pair imbued the artifact with their ice magic and since both were above advanced level, it only took a few minutes for them to fill the artifact completely until it was leaking magic.

“How much blood you buying for the brats? You not getting a discount just because you filled my artifact.”

“As much as the boys want to drink. I’m not a vampire so I don’t know how it all works but just let them have a fulfilling meal.”

As Ken and the girls watched the starving boys chunking down blood like it’s the greatest thing ever, Ken couldn’t help but feel like the older brother figure with all of the young siblings he has.

“Ava, can you at least give them a small monthly allowance so they get enough money for food after we leave? Hey granny, how much is the blood here anyways.”

“One bronze coin a cup. Maybe ask the price first next time so you don’t get ripped off.”

“Ryo, how much blood do you need a day?”

“We manage to get about half a cup a day if we are lucky. But to get full, we probably need at least a cup a day.”

“Wow, that’s way more than what Alice needs.”

“Ken, this disgusting blood they drink is the lowest of quality from probably dead animals all combined and filtered out. How are you gonna compare that with your blood?”

“Are you her blood servant or lover?” Ryo asked after hearing the two.

“He is my soulmate and lover! Ken! Can we go now? I am tired of this stinky place and the stinky brats.”

Squinting her eyes, the old lady peeked closely at Ken and the two girls.

“Lady Ava and Alice? And you the boy I saw from the tournament!”

“You know them granny?”

“Ryo! Those two are the daughters of the duke! The king’s brother! And this boy is a student at Dragonspire!”

Shocked that the duke’s two daughters are in the slum and impressed that Ken is going to the academy and more so that he is the lover of Alice, the boys suddenly saw Ken in a whole new light.

“Hey boys, I will be around town for a little bit longer, I will come visit again and check in with you all before I leave. The coins I gave you should last a while longer so don’t go stealing alright? We will be leaving for today, Alice here is about to explode if we don’t.”

Saying goodbye to the kids, Ryo offered to guide the three back out of the maze and onto the mainstreet where he walked them back to the carriage where the butler waited nervously for their return.

“Thank goodness you three are back! I was about to call the royal guards to go tear that place down!”

“Come on! I am with them! I won’t have let anything happen to them. Besides, Alice could have blown up the place herself if she wanted to. Ryo! I’m really happy that I ran into you today. I am almost positive you will be selected once you are 15. I will try to get you the help you need before then so you don’t end up losing out on this opportunity.”

As the trio got into the carriage and left the slum, Ryo waved goodbye happily, still couldn’t believe if the experience was real.

“Before you complain Alice, you decided to come, you know we were going to the slum. Don’t blame me!”

“Ken, I will complain all I want! We are never going there ever again!”

“Don’t you at least feel bad for the kids? They were so skinny and freezing to death!”

“Sure, I know there are a lot of people suffering in this world but I can only do so much and they annoy me so I don’t like them! Especially that Ryo kid. Don’t pretend you don’t feel the same with what we went through with what happened with Indra and those people.”

“I won’t deny that my sympathy is limited and biased but I guess I really liked Ryo and just want to help them at least a little.”

As the trio returned back to the castle, Alice demanded them to burn the clothes and go take a shower right away. Not going to make Alice any angrier, Ken placated to all of her demands for the rest of the evening before the pair eventually headed for bed.

“How long does it take to get to Darrumburgh city?”

“It’s about a day’s trip. We will leave after breakfast and should arrive sometime late afternoon.”

“We can’t teleport into the city because of the security, but why can’t we teleport to the outskirts?”

“If it was a smaller city than sure, but for Darrumburg, Yelwraek and some others. Their detection range isn’t just within the city. It’s a large radius around the city to prevent any invasion or unexpected entry. To teleport outside of that radius and having to walk the rest of the way, it’s faster for us to just go by carriage.”

“Learn something new everyday! Thanks Alice, for always teaching me without ever getting frustrated.”

“I’m not going to do anything with you tonight just because you are suddenly complimenting me!”

“I’m too tired to do anything anyways. goodnight.”

Hugging Alice tightly from behind, the pair quickly fell asleep from the exhausting day.