Chapter 1: The Dark Thief and the Lonely Princess -Part 1

The first chapter: the thief of the dark

Only to this person perhaps, I can talk about it.
Something may change when I talk to this person.

It might be so because I thought so. Under the night sky full of twinkling stars, I slowly began to tell that woman who saved me about me. About me in the past. About my family I loved in the past.

How many months have passed since then?
It seems like a long time has passed.
But in reality, it has only been a few years since then.

I was not originally born and raised in the capital of Kyoto. I was originally a man who came to this capital from a local village. The village where I used to live had been completely ruined by the continuous famine, and the flooding had also destroyed it. It is no longer a place for people to live ever again.

My village died in that disaster.
Everyone I was close to and loved. And I myself died once then.

But that’s why I’m here now. I live in this capital. The village where I was born and raised is nowhere to be found. I have nowhere to go back to. So I have to live here. When I was in the village, I had heard that the city was less burdensome than the village and that it was a place where various goods could be gathered. So, I who had lost my place, found myself visiting the capital.

However, reality was not so sweet. Reality never smiled on me.

What awaited me there were days of hell itself.

Having come to the capital alone, without parents, relatives, or acquaintances, I first took refuge in the home of a wealthy nobleman and served him as a private servant called “bokurei”. However, once I became ill, I was considered unworthy of labor and was easily evicted from the house where I served.

“There are plenty of people who could take your place.”

They said those things to me and unilaterally kicked me out of the house and threw me mercilessly out onto the empty street.

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I…

In the pouring rain, I realized.

I am not a human?

I am…

I!

It’s not only me. There were many such people in the capital of Kyoto.
There were many such sick and poor people who were unilaterally thrown out onto the streets for the reason that “the filths would be caused in the house by their death.”

I am one of those people who, like them, was thrown out of the house and onto the streets without question, and lost the connection to live. So I was forced to live a terribly poor life in the capital. What actually awaited me in the capital was not rest. There is a never-ending hunger and loneliness that goes on forever. Darkness and despair without light.
I was living in them.

I knew it was bad. I knew that very well myself.
But I had no choice. I had to, in order to survive.

And then one day, after all that had happened.

The time has finally come for my misdeeds to pay off. Yes, that night when I snuck into a nobleman’s house. I was caught in a trap, and was slashed with a sword and shot with a bow by the skilled men who were waiting for me, and was badly wounded. But I still managed to escape with my life. I was able to escape, but I was still deeply wounded. Eventually, I collapsed on the dark street and finally ran out of strength.

I still recall it clearly. I knew then I was going to die here. People like me are going to die here in the field emptily. The time finally came. I thought so.

But it wasn’t. I was able to survive.
Because that person, that person helped me.

When I found myself at…, I was in a house. It was a small bush hermitage.

I was treated and laid on a mat. There lived a woman. She said that she found me lying on the street and somehow brought me here. She was a young girl about sixteen years old, wearing a white, dirty robe. I still remember how the woman looked so happy when she noticed I was awake.

I will never forget the smile on her face. I cannot forget it.
Maya, because that’s how I met her.

“To be continued to latter part”.

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Author

じゅうべい(Jubei)
Hello everyone. I am Jubei, an earthling whose energy does not stop today. What I like is playing (manga, movies, music (J-Rock, etc.) and visiting cafes). Thank you for your understanding.