Kamisama Shop de Cheat no Kaori

Chapter 182. The Bumpy Family And The Zebra Gang

I wanted to deepen my friendship with the mischievous brat, Stod, whom I ran into again by chance in the East Slum,

but he didn’t seem to feel the same way.

“You bastard! You think you can just stroll into our turf and leave unscathed!?”

“Come on. I told you my name already—just call me Akira.”

“You don’t call me by my name either, do you!?”

“Is the ‘Zebra’ in Zebra Gang supposed to be a joke?”

I don’t know if it’s an organization name or what. But Running Zebras Under the New Moon is awful.

Also, zebra stripes are kinda funny when you think about it.

“Don’t mess with me! Nobody disrespects us and gets away with it! And you—I’m gonna beat the crap out of you! No doubt about it!”

“Hey, Yaralai, is that guy we’re looking for part of this group?”

“Probably.”

“Don’t you dare ignore me, you piece of trash!!!”

“Surprisingly big group, huh?”

“Not sure. Crush ‘em?”

“How’d you get to that conclusion?”

“Stop ignoring meeeeeeee!!!”

For some reason, Stod was seething with rage the whole time. I don’t get it.

“Well, I just wanted to observe today, but…”

Yaralai and I narrowed our eyes.

“Hey, are you even listening to m—?”

That’s when Stod finally noticed the change around him. Took him long enough.

“Hey, Stod, who are these guys?”

“Kyralis-san…”

One of the men surrounding us called out to Stod. He was a rough-looking guy with a scruffy beard.

That’s right—we’re now surrounded by slum dwellers. Stod shouting without realizing they were slowly closing in on us was pretty amusing.

“These guys are merchants who drifted into the western slums.”

“Oh? The ones with that elf you mentioned? …It’s a male elf, though.”

“No! I don’t know about him, but the one I saw was a female elf!”

“…Hmph. Whatever. You two know what kind of place this is, right?”

He leaned in menacingly, but he really needs to stop. His breath was terrible.

“No, we’re just sightseeing. We were wandering around and ended up here.”

“Sightseeing… huh?”

The bearded guy glared at me suspiciously. Well, it’s a lie, after all.

“Ah, just merchant curiosity, you know?”

“Hmph. Ever heard the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’?”

“Kyralis-san, what’s that mean?”

Stod, apparently genuinely clueless, cut in.

Yeah. Not being able to read the room is terrifying.

Kyralis glared at him and took two steps back, then turned his glare on me. …Why am I involved here?

“Whatever. For now, leave all your belongings behind.”

“Hmm. Sorry, I’m not into stripping for men.”

“You bastard… you know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Shouldn’t you be saying that to the elf standing next to me?”

Yaralai, who had left everything up to me so far, shot me a glance.

Why do I have to handle all the negotiations?

“Hah! A spirit-user can’t do anything at this range! Idiot!”

Ah, so they’re treating spirit art as spirit-user abilities.

The distinction from magic is tricky when it’s never called that.

“Hmm. I may be ignorant, but you guys must have terrible eyesight.”

“What was that!?”

No matter how you look at it, this elf decked out in Native American-style gear is clearly a close-combat type…

“Yaralai, what do you think? They’re saying some interesting stuff.”

“Sometimes… exercise is… good.”

The blond, dreadlocked elf tossed me the giant estoc, Black Needle, from his back.

“Don’t kill them, alright?”

“I’ll… do my best.”

“No, I mean, protect me.”

Our light banter seemed to set the Zebra guys off. They all gathered up and started an all-out attack on Yaralai.

“Die, you bastard!!”

“Go to hell!!”

“I’ll make sure you never stand again!”

“You damn handsome bastard! Go explode!!”

“Oooh, nice man.”

“I’ll let it slide if you give me those arms!!”

“His face! Go for his face!!”

I could’ve sworn one guy was blushing, but maybe that was just my imagination.

I grabbed Stod by the collar as he tried to charge Yaralai with a wooden stick and pulled him back.

I also made my way to the edge of the fight.

“Hey! What are you doing!?”

“Idiot, you’ll get hurt.”

“Huh!? What the hell are you saying!? Once we’re done with him, next up is—”

Stod trailed off as his gaze shifted to Yaralai.

“…Huh?”

Six men were already sprawled out on the ground.

Can’t blame him for being shocked. Yaralai could’ve wiped them all out by now, but he seemed to only be targeting those who came at him.

I lit a cigarette, watching Yaralai from a safe spot. Before I knew it, Yaralai was standing right in front of me.

“I’ll take that.”

“Hey.”

Snatching my freshly lit cigarette, Yaralai casually strolled back into the center of the fight. …How’d he even get out of there?

I grabbed another cigarette, leaned back, and watched the spectacle unfold. Keeping Stod in check was tough.

At any given time, three to six guys could attack Yaralai simultaneously,

but his knife-hand strikes cut them down with speed that was hard to follow. He wasn’t moving at all except for the occasional spin in place.

Well, except when he came to steal my cigarette.

You’d think they’d lose their fighting spirit by now, but they were so used to violence that their hostility only intensified.

Wave after wave came at Yaralai, and he systematically took them all out.

When enough unconscious bodies piled up to get in the way, he’d simply shift positions, completely toying with them.

Ten minutes in, nearly a hundred guys were sprawled out, and it looked like a scene from hell.

The Zebra gang finally decided to retreat.

“We’ll remember this, you long-eared bastard!!”

“I’ll rip your arms off next time!!”

“I wanted to nibble those ears…”

“They’re devils, I tell you!!”

“The boss is gonna kill us…”

“Just run already!!”

“What about those guys!?”

“Leave ‘em!”

“Watch your back on moonless nights!”

Spewing wonderfully cliché lines, the Zebra gang fled into the nearby buildings.

“A… ah…”

Stod, trembling like a leaf, could barely speak.

“Oh, right. Do you know what happened to that big mirror the Zebras stole?”

“…Huh? A… mirror?”

“You know, that reflective surface that shows your image.”

“That’s…”

Thud!

Before Kyralis could respond, Yaralai drove Black Needle through the nearest stone wall.

He deliberately picked the hardest-looking part. The clean, circular hole sent Kyralis into a fit of shivers.

“Th-there! It’s in there! But it’s already broken…!”

“Eh, I don’t care about that.”

The mirror, cracked diagonally, was propped up inside a small room.

I tossed it into a container without a second thought. Rotten can have it later.

“Alright, let’s head out.”

“Yeah.”

And so, Yaralai and I left the East Slum without further incident.

Huh? Something like this doesn’t even count as trouble.

A peaceful moment would be nice for a change.

The sun had already set.