The six of them appeared to have been thieves. Since there was a common pattern on the rings that each of them wore, it would seem that they belonged to the same organization and that this organization may have a large number of members.
Well, this really had nothing to do with me, so I decided to leave it here for now.
None of their equipment was worth collecting, so I just dissolved all of their worthless possessions with my acidic body fluids, clearing the site completely of the death of these six people.
Walking around the back ally a while, expecting more thugs to try and jump me, I saw a boy violently arguing with five men.
Those men had a hardy and tough aura, and their average age was around the late twenties. Having knives on their chests, I suspected that bloodshed is an ordinary subject for these individuals.
At the same time, the young boy in the center of the men was about thirteen or fourteen years old.
His blonde hair reflected the dim light in the alley; he actually had a very pretty face the way it was shining. No doubt, he would grow up to be a very handsome figure of a man in the future. He was wearing silvery-white light armor, a cape and a red cloak. He might be the apprentice of a knight, judging from the sword strapped to his hip. From the looks of him, I would guess that he comes from a high-standing noble family of a high breed.
While I was hiding, I decided to eavesdrop. Apparently, the situation was something about a kidnapping.
The Boy Knight seemed to be pressing the thugs to get information. As he continued, he slowly made ready to unsheathe his blade at a moment's notice. I wasn't very interested in getting involved. In fact, I actually thought about going back, but then... then I noticed that these thugs had the same rings on their fingers as the ones I ate earlier had.
Just when I thought I had convinced myself not to watch any further for risk of involving myself, as expected, a fight broke out.
Though the thugs outnumbered him, but the boy had better equipment by far. The difference in number, however, was not that easy to overcome. In the end, the boy ended up overwhelmed by the five thugs and captured.
One of the men lowered his knife to the boy's chest while the rest of the thugs held him down. That one man put enough power into his swing to cut through a horse as he went to pierce the defenseless boy's chest. At that point, I jumped in and knocked out all five of the thugs. I decided to leave them all alive, for now. Using my [Parasite] ability on them, I planned to investigate the location of the thug's hiding place, just in case.
I carried the worn-out boy and left the place. Since it's troublesome, not to mention easy to be caught leaving the scene as I was with several fainted men behind me, I made sure to stash the thugs so they would not be discovered.
Once we had arrived at a remote location, I saw to curing the Boy's injuries, for a fee of course. The boy was quite livid at me for letting the thugs live, I passed him a lie saying that I had already killed them and I was responsible for saving his life. It was only a partial lie; I probably will end up killing them once they serve their purpose. When asked who I was, I gave him a vague answer, stating that "I'm just an ordinary mercenary", without revealing who I actually was.