Chapter 5

Ha! What a lucky brat. You were almost keelin' over from yer fever yesterday...We were gonna toss you out if you were still sleepin' today,"said the giant man who had been referred to asboss;

he sounded impressed.

"...Yes somehow" Rio replied, holding back a frown.

These men were a group of Jack of all trade here in the slums.They had a large circle of influence and earned their money working asoutlaws for hire and by taking requests for all kinds evil activities.Human traffickingillegal trading, robbery, swindling,extortion, transportation and disposal of stolen goods... even hit jobs. The list of crimes they were willing to get their hands dirty for was endless.

To these men, an orphan in the slums was like a convenient disposable pawn. Easy yo obtain use and throw away — which they often did. Rio was one such pawn that these men had pick up of the streets of the slums.

Before though he lived in a shack with his mother. Because of his distinctive black hair Rio and his mother was avoided by the other people, except for one man.(story for another time)

Two years ago Rio's mother was murdered right infront if him and he was powerless to do anything

But these guys picked him up and he became the slave, but his whole survival depended on them. In fact he survived this long by obediently following there orders and putting up there crap.

"Hey its cold in here. Let's get to celebrating and warm ourselves up!"said the other underling.

He walked to the shabby wooden table in the middle of the room and placed some food and alcohol down with a thud.

"Good idea. Hey— leave that in the corner S' been drugged to sleep, so Don't Jo waking it up." ordered the leader of the group of men.

One the underling moved to a place a sack with their spoils on the floor. Then, in high spirits, the men had the sole woman in the group poor their drinks, and they began to eat.

"But ten gold coins was a great haul... right, boss?" One of the underlings cackled.

"Hmph. It's ten gold coins for a cargo transport. Can't be anything good... I doubt its just a slave inside. Probably some nobles kid or something."

"Wait,what? You lot better no be doing anything dangerous again," the woman pouring the drinks said with disapproving expression.

"Well... yeah."

The giant yanked her the woman closer to him and snorted with a smug smirk on his face.

"But ten gold coins for a side-job like that? It's freaking amazing."

"Yeah"

The leader took a a large a gulp of his alcohol and a ferocious bite of his chunk of meat. Roi watched on from the side, swallowing his saliva hungrily. The topic of their conversation was ominous, But he was far more interested in the food in their hands. While it was evident they weren't doing any decent work... If Rio had helped even a little, he would have been given something to eat. But this time around, Rio had been sleeping because of his fever, so the chance of them feeding him was extremely low. It wouldn't happen unless they were in a good mood...

The relationship between Rio and these men was simple: the strong and the weak, the exploiters and the exploited.

They'd shelter him as long as they could exploit

him,thenvmercilessly throw him out once he was done. Rio had seen them do that to many other children already.But even so he persevered, all because he is an avenger. While he didn't intend to keep their relationship forever, he was just a seven year old child. Only the fittest could survive on the streets of the slums and he doubted he could live very long on the streets without them. But at the moment the smell of the food was unbearable fo his stomach.

I'm hungry...

it was he could think about at the moment. He was too fatigue for anything else. Rio let the men conversation wash over him, only half listening as he sat in in the corner, resting his body, when suddenly —

"Heey,Rio,Rio!" One of the underling called out to Rio.

"Yes?"

"Your fever sweat stinks like crap, Go wash yourself up — you're running the food and the drinks."

"...Okay."

He'd hope that the would give him food, but that was just his wishful thinking. The underling pinched his nose and made a shooing gesture with his hand. Apparently, the sweat made Rio's body odor a lot stronger than he realized.

"I'm sorry."

Rio bowed his head once and staggered on his feet. Although Amakawa Haruto didn't know the man at all, Rio knew the underling very well. It was a mysterious feeling. Stumbling over his feet, Rio hobbed towards the door of the shack.