“You forfeited the match?!” my lady asked in disbelief, and I started at the empty packets of bread on Garlan’s table. The graduation dinner was fun as long as it lasted, but my craving for bread had intensified the next day. Did Melon add narcotics to the bread? I didn’t quite know, but then again, didn’t bread have narcotic substances in them? How else could I get addicted to the simplest of wheat of the simplest of the world?

“Yes,” Beth grinned. “I was busy making out with Casey that I forgot about the match.”

Casey blushed furiously and playfully punched Beth’s arms. I didn’t know if it was half true, but my lady must have unearthed the mystery, for she didn’t ask any more questions.

“Wait,” Garlan closed the flap on the booth and swirled on his stool to face us. “Why are you in my booth, anyway?”

“Your booth?” Beth smirked. “It’s the Academy property, pervert. And you better change that dingy tunic. It stinks!”

“What?!” Garlan sniffed his frayed blue tunic that covered his vest underneath. “Well, it’s just been a week since I last washed it. How can it stink?”

“This mutt needs some serious trashing,” my lady rolled her eyes.

“Ignore him, Leti,” Casey said, but she cast [Spark] on his hair. “He has always been a dirty pervert, so our rebuke would do little good. But,” she turned to him, “you will never find a wife at this rate.”

“Wife?” Garlan laughed. “I got enough wives in the brothel of the capital, so you can rest assured, lady Casey. My legends attract all beautiful women, much to my dismay, and how can a man, that I am, send them back untouched? My little friend–“

“Garlan, let’s not go there,” I sighed. “They are kids.”

“Huh?!” Beth snarled, and Casey and Letitia didn’t forgive me any stares. “Kids? Should I show your manhood how much kids we are?”

‘How much kids’ didn’t really make sense, but well, I knew better than to point that out.

“I meant young, lady Beth,” I smiled. “But do you want to listen to his legends on how he satisfied every woman in the brothel?”

The noble villainesses exchanged stares before Beth grunted.

“See?” my smile widened as I leaned against the wall behind me. “I was just trying to help my lady out.”

Letitia touched her ear lobe before tucking the free strands of hair behind her ears. Was she embarrassed? I had never seen her caress her ears before. Or was she reassuring herself that she wasn’t blushing?

I glanced at the dangling mana lamp on the ceiling adorned with cobwebs of spiders unknown. They weren’t here, or Garlan might have chased them away, but the cobwebs remained, and so did the dirt on the ceiling and the pale yellow walls. The scribbled papers on his table lay crumbled beside the empty bread packers, right below the frontal opening of the booth veiled with an embroidered dirty rag. The inscriptions on his guild card glowed in red, and he used the card as a paperweight. There was a single stool in the cramped place, so Garlan sat relaxed while we stood opposite him, the door to the booth flanking our left.

“We aren’t here for idle chatter,” Beth said, her authoritative voice befitting a noble. “Yura should resign by the end of this term, or rather, we need to force the hand of Mage Congregation by giving them a good slap.”

“You don’t want us to stop her?” Garlan asked in evident astonishment. “It’s a post that entails status, lady Beth.“

“And throw her back to the lair of the fiends?” Beth snickered. “I wanted her to quit a long time ago. She is stubborn. Like me. So I could understand why she bore with the discrimination for long. However, she doesn’t deserve the insults and abuses from the bastard mages anymore. Three miscarriages were already too much burden for her. Adding to that, people who didn’t give a damn about her judged her every damn day. What did she do to deserve all this? And my pathetic brother has no nerves to go up against the Mage Congregation.”

“But quitting is equivalent to giving up, Beth,” my lady said, and Beth’s face changed.

Silence lingered in the room, and Beth’s horse breathing along with the shouts of commuters in the distance assuaged the noiseless ambiance. No one deserved anything, but it was just how things worked. The ruler didn’t deserve the rule, the commoners didn’t deserve to serve, the soldiers didn’t deserve to fight, and the undead didn’t deserve to eat bread. Everything just happened, and people who claimed all ensued for a reason, let the poor demons in hell help them. They were just filling up false hope in the ears of the downtrodden.

Fate and all other obscure terms exist merely to pacify the unrest of mortals. When things go awry, they need to reassure themselves and get back on track. The play of life isn’t eternal for mortals, so they try to make do with whatever frayed strings their hands could grip. Pitiful indeed, but the absolute ignorance that lies within every mortal doesn’t let them acknowledge the facts. Seers and prophets among mortals are a bunch of nonsense spewed by those who weren’t satisfied with the short life. And so is crap like fate.

In short, mortals are the most helpless creatures to walk in any realm. Precisely because they have intelligence and conscience. So, they need more than food to satisfy themselves. In unique cases like mine, it could become a blessing, but in most others, it was just a curse.

“Not always, my lady,” I pitched in. “The mo­r– Academ is just choosing a better life for herself. That’s a kind of victory of its own.” It didn’t make me the least bit happy to help a mortal garner contentment.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked again when everyone stared at me blatantly. Did I sound too humane?

“How about we hold a fair for commoners on the Academy grounds to show our respect toward the Academ?” Beth asked, and I glanced at my lady, who shrugged. Even she didn’t know anything about this. “It would be a slap on the faces of the mages who belittled her, and the backlash wouldn’t let Yura escape responsibilities. After all, a prince just died. But, her service won’t earn her severe punishment. Dismissal might be the highest, or she might get grounded for a few days.”

“Where would we get the funds, Beth?” my lady asked.

“We can threaten the Academians to cough up the money,” Beth grinned in reply. “Haven’t we already mastered the art of bullying? But the Academy is closed for the next few days.”

“If you got money,” Garlan pitched in, “the mercery guild can help you out with erecting the stalls and decorating the campus. But putting up everything in a night is hardly feasible.”

“In a night?” I asked, watching Casey’s thoughtful face. Everybody had already acquiesced to the idea, except me. Of course, if they were free loaves of bread, then even I wouldn’t hesitate to offer my two cents.

“Do you think the Academy would let us hold a fair in their backyard without any resistance?” Garlan rolled his eyes. “Even my flirtations are useless against the old mages of the Congregation. They are crafty and malignant.”

“I am sorry for the funds,” Casey said, dejected while Beth kissed her cheek with a smile.

“They didn’t help your family without expecting anything in return, baby,” Beth said, glaring at Garlan and me. My bread lad whistled while I checked my nails that had been trimmed recently. “These bastards are trying to make some money off your family’s plight. So, don’t ever feel guilty.”

“The finals of the tournament will be held tomorrow at sunset,” my lady said. She was acting all innocent, but she had readily accepted the investment plan when I have suggested it. “So, we can start with menial tasks early and start putting up the stalls later in the night. But money is the problem, and we have almost a day to gather the funds.”

“Are we really doing this?” Beth asked in surprise. “I mean, I was just suggesting–“

“She is our Academ, Beth,” Casey smiled. “This is the least we could do for her. After all, she never expelled us despite all our atrocities. And we villains always repay bad favors.”

“Yura is a good bitch,” my lady nodded, which earned her a few chuckles.

“About the money,” Garlan said with a crafty smile, “how about I ask Gladiata?”

“That bitch?!” Beth and my lady asked in unison.

“Calm down, noble ladies,” Garlan sighed. “I can always nudge a duo of troupers from the guild to earn a few shins from her. Sick daughter, dying mother, crippled father, we have everyone in our guild. They are pretty good when it comes to making up stories.”

We exchanged looks and nodded with smiles. This bastard always came up with unique and quaint ideas. “How many shins do we need, anyway?” I asked.

“Six thousand shins would do,” Garlan said. “But I need to place the quest request privately and fast. Even the merchant guild needs an invite. They are the best when it comes to selling goods. They can earn enough with our fair, so we can manage a portion of the payment by collecting a percentage of the profits from those greedy bastards. But inviting folks for a surprisingly fair is going to be hard.”

“How about we create pamphlets?” my lady asked. “Around twenty to thirty would do, and the hired mercenaries could start distributing them early in the morning.”

“And how would you create those few hundred posters, lady Letitia?” Garlan asked. “Mercenaries would rather kill than stain their hands with ink.”

“I can ask my sisters,” Casey said. “They have close-knit friends and talented maids who didn’t betray them even when they were in prison. But I’m not sure how many they can procure within a day. Leti is good at art, so we don’t have to worry about the original poster. But don’t underestimate other noble girls and maids either. We are trained in many skills, and art is just one of them. Copying a few sheets won’t give us much trouble.”

My lady nodded. She was really great at painting. I never understood abstract art, but she drew portraits and fishes, so it was easy to ascertain her skill with the ink.

Don’t ask me to judge her on Picasso’s standard. Abstract art is no different from scribbling for me. A worthless pointless deed.

“Can they manage closer to fifty posters?” I asked, touching my chin thoughtfully.

“Not a few hundred,” Casey said, “but fifty should not be a problem. The Academ’s Splendor can be the title of the fair.”

“That should do,” Beth said, holding Casey’s hand. “Word spreads faster from mouth to mouth, so once we get a few blabbering commoners to spread our mischief, we won’t have any problem attracting the masses.”

“Then we will split up and meet here at sunset to discuss the logistics,” Beth continued twirling the strands of her short hair. “Leti and Casey will go to the Hesroeder manor, and you both handle the task with the mercenary and the merchant guild. Even with that bitch. Get some more people for the gathering at sunset so that the hired commoners will have a clear picture of what to expect. Leave the merchants out. They are only interested in profits. I will go to Yura and steal her official seal before dropping by the merchant guild.”

“Sounds good, lady Beth,” Garlan said, getting off the stool. The girls walked out in succession, and my lady waved at me as she followed her mates outside the booth. This was the first time she was walking the streets of the capital alone since she needed that independence too. She had her villain friends with her, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

“Now then,” Garlan wrapped his hand around my neck. “Since it’s just you and me, how about we visit a brothel first?”

The door burst open, and I saw my lady glaring at Garlan furiously.

“I’ll be good, my lady,” I smiled at her. “So, carry on.”

Garlan tried hiding behind my body, which made little difference, for my girth was almost half as much as his.

“Don’t take my mongrel to a brothel. If I smell women on him, you are losing your head first, mutt,” she said and slammed the door shut in annoyance.

Garlan heaved a sigh of relief and pushed me away. “Getting involved with you is messy, bread lad.”

“I can’t refute that, Garlan,” I laughed, and he tossed me a bread packet from the drawer of his table.

“Mercenary or Merchant?” he asked, ripping the paper bag open.

“Your call, Garlan,” I shrugged and fished out bread from the packet.

“Brothel it is,” he grinned.

“Mercenary guild first, so that we can wait for lady Beth leisurely,” I sighed and patted his shoulder. “Also, do you even know that brothels have been banned in the capital since the death of the prince?”

“O-of course,” he coughed, patting his chest hard because the bread might have hated his lie. “I have visited many outside the capital.”

“Sure, sure,” I shook my head. Cair was probably the only woman he had ever slept with. As frivolous as he looked, I doubt discriminatory stares ever let him become the lady’s man. They laughed around him because he was funny, and they laughed behind him because he was overweight. That was probably the reason he had an inkling to help Yura. If not, he wouldn’t have agreed to assist the girls without looking at his own gains.

My bread lad was Garlan for a reason. And yes, that was because he was an outcast. Heartless I was, but one with brains. But well, for now, he shared untold friendship with me, and it would last as long as he remained an outcast.