Dawn came quietly over Swansea.
Not gently, because there was little gentleness in a house that let the wind slip through its walls. But thankfully, it was quietly, at the very least.
Alaric woke before the light fully reached the room, lying still beneath a thin blanket that smelled faintly of smoke, hay, and damp wool. For a few moments, he stared at the low ceiling above him and listened.
The house had its own language at that hour.
Old wood creaked as it settled. A draft whispered through a gap near the wall. Somewhere outside, a goat bleated once, offended by the existence of morning. From the common room came the muted scrape of a chair.
Leonard was awake.
Alaric rubbed his eyes and sat up on the edge of his makeshift bed. The hay beneath the burlap had flattened in places from months of use, leaving hard knots that pressed into his back no matter how he slept. He had grown used to it, which bothered him more than the discomfort itself.
People could grow used to almost anything if they had no choice.
That was not the same as accepting it.
He flexed his small fingers, watching them curl and uncurl in the dimness.
One hundred and three reales short.
The number had followed him into sleep and waited for him when he woke.
His parents needed food. His mother needed medicine. His father needed help he would never ask for. And Alaric needed chakra, because without power he was only a five-year-old boy with an adult man's memories and no proper way to act on them.
He hated the calculation.
He hated that it still felt correct.
With a quiet breath, he stood and left the room.
The common area was dim, warmed more by habit than fire. Leonard sat at the poorly made kitchen table, cleaning a chipped mug with a cloth that was not much cleaner than the mug itself. His shoulders were broad beneath his worn shirt, but even strength looked tired when poverty had enough years to lean on it.
Near the doorway, Eleanor folded clothes that had been mended so often the patches seemed to have patches of their own. She hummed softly under her breath, trying to make the morning feel ordinary.
Then she coughed.
She turned her head away quickly, as if that might make the sound less real.
Alaric noticed.
Leonard noticed too, but neither of them said anything. That was how fear lived in poor houses. Not as screams, but as things everyone heard and no one named.
"Morning, 'Laric," Leonard greeted, glancing up with a small smile. "Sleep well?"
"As well as one can with hay and a cold breeze," Alaric replied.
Leonard huffed. "That mouth of yours is going to earn you trouble one day."
"Sorry, pops... but it's already earned me character."
Eleanor gave him a tired look, though her lips curved despite herself. "Come help me set the table, lad. A good day starts with breakfast."
Alaric looked toward the pot.
Breakfast was porridge again. Thin, pale, and stretched with enough water to make honesty uncomfortable.
He picked up a clean bowl and set it beside hers.
In his old life, he would have complained about food like this. He had complained about delivery arriving late, noodles being too soft, coffee tasting burnt, and a hundred other stupid things that now seemed like insults committed by a man who had never understood hunger properly.
He understood it now.
Or at least, this body did.
His stomach tightened at the smell of porridge, plain as it was.
They ate with the quiet rhythm of people preserving strength. Leonard took small spoonfuls. Eleanor pretended not to watch whether Alaric had enough. Alaric pretended not to notice Leonard's bowl was shallower than his.
The lie passed around the table as naturally as bread.
"Any plans for today, son?" Leonard asked.
The question was casual, but Leonard's eyes were not. He had always watched more than he spoke. Perhaps that was where Alaric had inherited the habit in this life.
Alaric stirred his porridge once.
"I might head into town," he said. "See if there's work to be done. Maybe carry water, sweep a stall, mend something small."
Leonard frowned slightly. "You're five."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Alaric looked up. For a second, the table went still.
Then Eleanor gently placed a folded shirt aside. "Your father only means the town can be busy. Not everyone there is kind to children."
Especially children who watched too closely.
Alaric lowered his gaze before his expression could give too much away.
"I'll be careful."
Leonard leaned back and studied him.
The scrutiny was not suspicion exactly. Not yet. It was the uneasy attention of a father whose child sometimes spoke too sharply, listened too deeply, and seemed to carry thoughts no child should have.
"Keep your head about you," Leonard said at last. "And don't go near drunk men looking for sport."
"I won't."
That, at least, was mostly true.
Eleanor reached across and smoothed a stubborn bit of Alaric's hair with her fingers.
"And be careful with strangers."
Her touch was warm.
The guilt in his chest answered before he did.
"I know," he said quietly.
After breakfast, he helped around the house. He swept the floor, carried water to the small garden behind the house, and stacked kindling near the wall. The bucket was awkward in his hands. The handle bit into his palms. Every trip reminded him that determination did not make a child's arms longer or stronger.
While he worked, Leonard and Eleanor spoke in fragments.
Weather. Crops. The goat. The cost of cloth. Whether Bernard had sold any of the family's latest harvest. Whether Linette's last visit had seemed more tired than usual.
Ordinary things...
Desperate things dressed in ordinary clothes.
When Alaric finished his chores, he glanced at the low-quality heirloom pocket watch they used as a clock. It had once belonged to someone with enough money to own things that lasted. Now it sat on a shelf in a house that could barely protect it from damp air.
'Time to go.'
He pulled on patched trousers and a worn shirt, then stepped outside.
The morning air cut through him immediately.
He tucked his hands beneath his arms and started toward town.
His plan was simple in the way desperate plans often were.
Look for work. Watch for opportunities. Avoid taking from anyone who looked as hungry as his own family. Avoid being seen. Avoid being caught.
And if he found someone who deserved less mercy than others, he would decide what kind of person he was becoming when the moment arrived.
The town center was already awake by the time he reached it.
Swansea's streets were muddy, loud, and alive with the motion of people trying to turn labor into survival. Merchants called out their wares with voices sharpened by competition. Children darted between adults with the careless confidence of those too young to understand how easily a hand could close around their collar. Old men gathered near a corner, speaking in low tones about taxes, weather, and the failures of men with more power than sense.
Alaric moved slowly through the crowd.
He did not rush as rushing drew attention. So did hesitation.
A child alone was easy to overlook if he looked like he belonged somewhere nearby. That was his advantage. Adults saw what they expected: a poor boy running an errand, a farmer's son waiting for his father, another thin child underfoot in a town full of them.
It was useful, but it was also dangerous.
If someone grabbed him, his size became a prison. He could not overpower a grown man. He could not outrun everyone. He had no chakra yet, no weapon worth naming, and no strength beyond what hunger and stubbornness had carved into him.
So he watched.
His eyes moved from belts to hands, from boots to purses, from faces to the way men guarded their pockets when they thought no one noticed.
He rejected most targets immediately.
A woman buying flour with counted coins. 'No...'
An old man with patched sleeves and trembling hands. 'No...'
A tired dockhand paying for cheap bread. 'No...'
A merchant with two assistants watching the crowd. 'Too risky...'
A drunk sleeping beneath an awning. Possible, but not worth drawing attention in daylight.
Alaric exhaled slowly. 'Maybe I should find honest work after all.'
Then he saw the man near the fountain.
He was in his twenties, with neatly cut brown hair and fine clothes that did not belong to the mud around him. His coat was pressed, his boots polished, and his smile had the easy arrogance of someone who had never wondered whether breakfast meant less supper.
He leaned near a group of women, speaking too loudly, laughing too freely. His cheeks were flushed. Not drunk enough to stumble, but enough to forget caution.
Alaric slowed as he saw that the man's pockets were heavy.
Too heavy.
More importantly, he kept touching the inside of his jacket whenever the conversation shifted, a small unconscious gesture toward something he wanted hidden.
Not just coin, then.
Maybe it was a letter, a document, or something private.
Alaric's pulse steadied rather than quickened.
That old part of him returned, the part trained to observe patterns before movement, to read arrogance as weakness and carelessness as invitation.
'He's new here,' he thought. 'Or stupid enough to act like it.'
The man laughed again. One of the women smiled politely while leaning half a step away.
Alaric's gaze sharpened.
There were men who carried wealth because they had earned it, and there were men who carried wealth because someone poorer had paid for it.
He did not know which this man was, but he knew enough to be suspicious.
And suspicion was easier to live with than stealing from another hungry family.
He moved closer.
Not directly. Never directly.
He drifted first toward a stall, then around a woman carrying a basket, then stopped as if distracted by a pair of boys arguing over a wooden hoop. Each pause brought him nearer. Each movement made him part of the noise.
His heart beat faster now.
His hand was small... that helped. However, his reach was short... that did not.
The man turned slightly, still laughing, one arm lifting as he gestured grandly toward the fountain.
Alaric stepped in with the motion of the crowd.
For one breath, he was beneath the man's notice.
His fingers slipped inside the jacket pocket.
Cloth brushed his knuckles.
Leather.
Paper.
His hand closed around both.
A child bumped into his shoulder from behind, nearly ruining everything.
Alaric's breath caught.
The man shifted.
Alaric withdrew his hand and let himself stumble with the bump, turning the motion into childish clumsiness.
"Watch it," someone muttered.
"Sorry," Alaric said, pitching his voice smaller than usual.
No one looked twice.
He did not run.
Running confessed guilt.
He walked away with his prize tucked against his palm, then turned down a side street, crossed behind a cart, slipped through a narrow passage between two buildings, and only then allowed his pace to quicken.
A few blocks later, he found a quieter alley where the smell of damp stone and old refuse kept most people away.
He stopped beside a low wall and listened.
There were no shouting, no footsteps chasing him, nor were there a furious rich man demanding someone seize the strange little boy.
Only the distant noise of the square.
Alaric sat on the wall and opened his hand.
A small leather pouch.
A folded letter.
He looked at the pouch first, then the letter.
"..."
He unfolded the letter.
The handwriting was sharp and hurried, the message short enough to suggest the writer trusted secrecy more than detail.
'To Mr. Dorris Wilson,
I trust ye have readied the amount we agreed upon. We have been accommodated by Mr. David Powell at the Powell Manor, to which will be our rendezvous. Let us meet at midnight. Burn this letter once ye have read it.
— Howard Vaughan'
Alaric read it once.
Then again.
The alley seemed to grow quieter around him.
Dorris Wilson.
Howard Vaughan.
David Powell.
Powell Manor.
Midnight.
A prepared amount, and a letter that needed to be burned.
None of that sounded like honest business.
He had lived long enough, across two lives now, to know that innocent men did not usually arrange midnight meetings at manors through letters that came with disposal instructions.
He checked the pouch and there were seventy reales.
His mouth went dry.
'Damn... seventy.'
He stared at the coins in his palm, small silver shapes catching weak light from the alley mouth.
This was not a sack from his family's barn.
This was not cloth from a poor woman's line or food from a hungry man's table.
This was money carried by a careless stranger tied to a secret midnight meeting.
That made it easier.
It wasn't clean... just easier.
Alaric called up the blue screen.
For a moment, his fingers did not move.
He could take the money home. Hide it. Use it for food, medicine, a coat, goat feed, repairs. He could hand some of it to Leonard and lie badly about finding work, and Leonard would know it was a lie, and Eleanor would look at him with fear hidden behind gratitude.
Or he could buy chakra.
Not yet. Not with this alone. But soon.
Food would delay the winter.
Chakra might let him break it.
He hated that the argument still sounded true.
"Every coin," he whispered. "I'll pay it back..."
Then he fed the money into the system.
[+70 R]
[Current Balance: 467 R]
The number appeared in clean blue text, indifferent to morality.
Thirty-three reales short.
Alaric let out a quiet breath.
He was close now... too close to stop.
His eyes returned to the letter.
"Dorris Wilson," he murmured. "I don't remember that name from the game."
Then again, he was in Swansea. He had no reason to expect every rat in the walls of history to have been introduced by a game's main story.
"Powell Manor at midnight..."
It could be a smuggling deal. A bribe. A theft. A trap. A meeting between fools with more money than caution. Whatever it was, it involved enough coin for someone to carry seventy reales casually in his pocket while waiting for nightfall.
That meant there might be more.
It also meant danger.
Real danger.
Not the childish danger of being scolded for wandering too far. Men who wrote letters like this did not laugh when secrets went missing. If he was caught following them, he would not be treated like a mischievous boy.
He would be silenced.
Alaric folded the letter carefully.
The smart choice was to go home.
Help with chores. Eat thin soup. Sleep badly. Pretend the world would offer him another chance before winter tightened its fist.
The desperate choice was to return to the square, find the man again, and follow him long enough to learn whether Powell Manor held the remaining thirty-three reales he needed.
Alaric tucked the letter away.
He stood from the low wall.
"I'm not robbing the poor," he muttered, though the alley did not care enough to believe him. "I'm robbing trouble before trouble gets to charge interest."
It was a joke, and a weak one at that.
But his hands had stopped shaking.
He stepped back toward the noise of town, small enough to be overlooked, old enough to know better, and desperate enough to continue anyway.