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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Top Dog
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Haira gaped.
A green light erupted before her eyes.
Of all the ‘Kia’ Haira had ever seen, this light was more brilliant than any other.
“I was threatened, so… this is self-defense, right?”
And a broom was floating in mid-air.
The men who had been grabbing her hair were forcefully slammed to the ground.
“Lord, for beating these prisoners, please send my broom to heaven.”
As the woman spoke those strange words, the broom began to move on its own, beating the men.
“Your Honor, it was my broom that did it.”
“Gah, argh!”
“Wh-what is this! Aack, agh! H-help me!”
“Uh-huh. Make sure to sue me later. You can file a complaint through the prison guards. I hear the road to hell is a number that’s the same forwards and backward.”
The larger of the two men, apparently unable to use Kia, was beaten mercilessly.
But the smaller one, cloaked in a faint golden light, shot to his feet and lunged at the woman, throwing a punch.
A light extended from the man like a vine, wrapping around the woman's arm.
The small man felt a thrill of triumph.
*That bitch! Is she a long-range Kia user? If I can just get a hold of her…!*
But the woman calmly caught his fist with one hand.
A light tap to the ankle. It was just a gentle tap, but the result was anything but gentle.
*CRASH!*
The small man plummeted to the ground. As he lay there, having landed on his head, the woman muttered piously.
“Another one for you, Lord.”
She made the sign of Lumen, the one true god of the Empire.
As if on cue, the broom descended upon the smaller man.
Splatters of blood flew. The woman, who had been cleaning, casually wiped the blood away.
“Tsk, now the floor's a mess.”
At the same time, she swept her hair back.
“You can't go to heaven if you don't clean up, you sons of bitches.”
Just the slight arch of her eyebrows was enough to erase any trace of the pitiful air she'd had moments before.
In her place stood a woman with a completely different aura, an annoyed expression on her face.
The moment the woman turned her head slightly, Haira noticed the other prisoners exhaling, furtively averting their eyes.
Someone came running from a distance.
“Dammit, Mint!!”
It was a man in a different colored uniform from the guard next to her. His chest was adorned with what looked like a cluster of medals.
The guard beside her snapped to attention, puffed out his chest, and gave a sharp salute.
“Master Sergeant, sir!”
“Yeah, yeah, at ease. Hey, Mint!!”
The newly arrived guard ran right past Haira and stopped in front of the cleaning woman called Mint.
“Are you crazy? Causing trouble while you're being punished?!”
“I’m innocent, guard.”
“Don't make me laugh!”
“My broom moved on its own.”
“Your broom! You think it's not assault just because you didn't use your hands?!”
“It wasn't?”
The woman called Mint grinned slyly.
She was beautiful no matter how she smiled, but a smile like that made her look like a back-alley thug.
“I couldn't help it. Don't you know what self-defense is? My Amy and Angel were in danger.”
“Amy and Angel?”
Mint grinned foolishly and grabbed her hair with both hands, parting it.
She shook her right hand.
“This one's ‘Amy’.”
The hair in her right hand swayed like a puppy's tail.
“And this one's ‘Angel’.”
This time, the hair in her left hand swayed.
“They got an ouchie.”
“Grr…!”
The master sergeant’s face turned red. Of course it did. He knew Mint was messing with him.
“I've told you time and again, don't mess with the new blood! And don't use your Kia! When you get involved, people die. I know this place is full of mindless sons of bitches, but we guards can only move so many bodies. You think we get paid to clean up corpses?!”
“Oh, we don't?”
“That's right! No—what? You wanna die?”
Instead of provoking the sergeant further, Mint surrendered meekly.
“I didn't lay a hand on them. My dear Mr. Broom—”
“Broom, hands, what's the difference!”
“Oh? If I'd used my hands, they'd be on their way to hell. Isn't this better than having to see you after sending them there?”
“…”
“I'm trying to live a good life. I've reined in my temper a lo~t.”
The guard flinched for a moment, then grumbled.
“Good life, my ass. It was only three days ago you said you'd live by common sense! You have no common sense, none!”
“Ah, please understand. Twelve years old. Came in here as the youngest inmate ever, so my brain's a little fried, sir.”
“Are you talking back to me?”
The master sergeant rubbed his face as if he were getting a fever, then looked up.
“Come with me. The Warden wants to see you.”
“Yessir.”
The woman waved her hand as if she'd lost interest. The green light vanished, and the broom clattered to the floor.
She turned and walked away without a second glance, abandoning the tool she'd just used as a shield.
As Mint passed by, she skillfully stepped hard on the fallen man's fingers.
It was the hand that had grabbed her hair.
“Hmph. Revenge for my Amy.”
Haira could only hold her breath as she watched the woman disappear.
A power used by roughly half the world's population.
‘Kia’.
There were many powerful people, but she had never seen such a brilliant light.
“Excuse me, Guard. Who… who is that woman?”
A frail appearance and incredible fighting prowess. But her speech and actions were like she had a screw loose.
She was like a naive child with no sense of decorum.
And yet, the way she broke someone's fingers with a straight face felt like pure evil.
“Who else? She's the apex of this prison, the top dog. And the only top-class prisoner.”
A vicious bitch who clawed her way to the top on her own.
The guard spat the words out with a sneer, but he unknowingly seemed to be acknowledging her greatness.
There was even a hint of fear.
Haira watched Mint's retreating back for a long time.
Until she had completely vanished from sight. For a long, long time.
***
*Well, I'm royally fucked.*
That was my simple impression as I looked around the smoke-filled room.
“I thought you were going to live by common sense.”
I stood at parade rest, looking at the man sitting before me.
He was a middle-aged man with a shiny bald spot on top and some straggly, curly hair remaining on the sides.
The general manager of this place, ‘Niflheim.’ The man who was as good as an emperor within these walls, Warden Ralph Gaman.
“Is 'common sense' beating someone to a pulp?”
I thought for a moment before answering.
“A little spit will fix it right up.”
“When you use your power, the damage is permanent, isn't it?”
I stared silently at the warden, whom I secretly called the Bald Eagle, or ‘Baldy’ for short.
I thought hard.
What did I do again?
“You can live just fine without the last joint of your pinky finger moving, can't you?”
“Mint. If you keep this up, how are you going to survive after you're released?”
*Is that something you say to someone with a life sentence?*
“For a prisoner who's never getting out, just hearing the word 'release' is torture.”
“But you said you wanted to get out, didn't you?”
“I do. When I get out, I'm thinking of meeting a rabbit of a husband and having a wolf of a child.”
“…Not the other way around?”
“It's a harsh world. You have to raise your child like a wolf.”
“…And the husband?”
“I'll be the one protecting him.”
I prattled on like this, even though I had no intention of ever getting a husband or having a child.
It was because, at the very least, the warden liked getting answers.
A full ten years had passed since I was locked up.
And I had become the prison's top dog.
They called me by some grand name like ‘Top Dog’ or whatever.
Cut the crap, I'd just climbed to the top of the tower and become the leader of all the prisoners.
It happened somehow, but it hadn't been an easy task.
*Right, it wasn't easy.*
“It's been exactly three days since you said you wanted to live by common sense, Mint.”
My name is Mint. My full name is Minte Limnades.
But that name is no longer used.
To the Limnades family, I'm as good as dead.
At some point, people started calling me ‘Mint’ after my hair color.
I accepted it. It wasn't bad.
“Bakha!”
Bakha. Because that was my name, too.
“Why'd you let a newbie grab your hair? Now we have to protect the new inmates again because of you.”
The warden threw down his pen.
That old geezer was just annoyed by the hassle.
“Are the bastard prisoners under you a little extreme? Huh?”
“I'll at least pretend to calm them down.”
“Don't pretend, just do it!”
*What can I do if those guys and gals don't listen to me?*
I was their leader in name only.
In reality, I just had the strongest fists, so I beat everyone down.
The people here weren't the type to listen quietly just because you knocked them around.
*If they were that sociable, they wouldn't be in this prison in the first place.*
In this prison, there is a hierarchy determined by the strict logic of power.
A ranking decided by the tower's brawls—what the guards call a 'grading system' and the prisoners call a 'dogfight'.
This ranking had nothing to do with physique, gender, or age. Only power.
It was decided by ‘Kia’.
