Copy Skills with Affinity! - Chapter 52

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈

Chapter 52: Uproar

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Anyone surrounded by people like that would naturally keep calm and assess the situation.

“Don’t try to play hero! Stay down!”

Calm enough to notice something strange about the men shouting at the top of their lungs.

‘...Their voices are young?’

The thought briefly brushed through his mind.

They were not merely high-pitched. Their voices were thin enough to make him certain they had not even reached adulthood.

And when he gave them a quick look, most of them had frail builds. Their exposed arms and legs were skinny, and they all seemed unsteady on their feet.

...They did not look anything like professional criminals.

‘Huh.’

An unpleasant feeling slowly crawled up his spine.

His eyes then lingered on the guns they held.

Old revolvers. They did not look new in any way. They had clearly gone unused for a long time. He would have believed they had picked them up off the street.

Aiden inspected them carefully.

...It did not take long to find what he was looking for.

“...”

Aiden squeezed his eyes shut.

Now that he had noticed, he could not just pretend he had not.

Especially not when one of the robbers was approaching Katia.

“What are you doing? Get down!”

“...Hmm.”

Katia slowly looked at the robber saying that, twirling her fork around in her hand.

“What if I refuse?”

“...”

“Will you shoot?”

The robber gave a hollow laugh at her bold answer.

“If you want to die, I won’t stop you.”

“Hmm.”

“Get down. Last warning.”

“Mm-hm.”

“...”

Katia continued twirling her fork as she answered casually, leaving the robber at a complete loss for words.

“...Big brother, is something wrong over there?”

One of the men who had been keeping the customers down while waving his gun spoke up.

His voice trembled. He was trying to hide it, but Aiden noticed immediately.

Despite being the criminals here, they were the frightened ones.

“No. Nothing.”

The robber who was clearly acting as their leader cocked the hammer of his gun and brought it closer to Katia’s forehead.

It was a hair-trigger situation, but Katia’s smile showed no sign of fading.

“Are you not going to shoot?”

Then her gaze sank deep.

Divine Power gathered around her body. The air around them grew scorching hot.

“...Your Highness?”

Noel spoke from behind them, sounding dumbfounded.

“What are you doing here?”

“...Is that really important right now?”

Boiling Divine Power streamed from Katia’s body.

“If you’re not going to shoot, then I’ll go first-”

The moment he heard that, Aiden drew a deep breath and stood.

His decision came quickly. His action came even faster.

Katia flinched without realizing it and stopped just as she was about to unleash her Divine Power.

“...Point that at me.”

Aiden stepped in front of Katia as he spoke. His fingertip pointed directly at the robber’s gun.

“...?”

Katia glared at him as if asking what he thought he was doing, but Aiden ignored her and met the masked robber’s eyes.

While the robber stood there blankly, Aiden forcibly grabbed the gun and pressed its muzzle against his own forehead.

Noel and Katia sprang up at once.

The expressions on their faces, which had been so relaxed just moments earlier, now held unmistakable fear.

“What are you doing...?!”

“Mr. Aiden, are you out of your mind?!”

Their abilities erupted at the same time.

The force they released was on an entirely different level from before. It was enough to make not only the robbers, but even the customers who had barely managed to stay standing, collapse as their legs gave out.

“Ghh, ghh!”

One of the robbers made a terrified noise and turned his gun toward Noel and Katia.

Aiden’s voice tore through the room.

“Point the gun at me!”

“W-What...?!”

“Point it at me if you want to live!”

“...”

Even Noel and Katia, who had been releasing their abilities, flinched at his firm tone.

As their force subsided, Aiden continued calmly.

“Lady Noel, Your Highness, you can see the gun is pointed at me right now, can’t you? If something goes wrong, I could die. Please withdraw your abilities.”

“What are you even...”

“Please. I’m asking you.”

His voice was polite and low, which made the weight behind it all the more apparent.

Noel and Katia both flinched as they met his eyes. Aiden’s eyes usually looked heavy with exhaustion, but at this moment they were exceptionally clear.

“...”

As Noel and Katia silently eased off their abilities, Aiden slowly reached into his coat.

He moved very slowly, as if to make it clear he had no intention of threatening anyone. Soon, he pulled out a leather wallet.

It was fairly thick, thanks to all the things Noel had given him recently.

Aiden slowly held it out to the robber.

“Take it.”

“...”

“Hurry. Take it. And don’t touch anyone else’s money.”

With the muzzle still pressed to his forehead, Aiden practically forced the wallet into the robber’s hands.

As the robber hesitantly accepted it, Aiden spoke again in an even tone.

“If you go straight down Fourth Street, there should be a Poor Relief District. You can still find work there. Live honestly, if you want to keep feeding those depending on you.”

“...”

“You’ll die young if you keep living like this. Listen to me if you don’t want to feel sorry toward your family.”

“...”

“Go. Quickly.”

“...”

“I said go!”

The robber flinched at Aiden’s shout, then clutched the wallet and backed away.

He gathered the others, who were still standing around in a daze, and quickly left the restaurant.

Only an empty stillness remained in the restaurant, as though a storm had swept through it.

Everyone could only stare blankly between Aiden and the robbers.

“...Haaah.”

Aiden let out a deep sigh and slumped back into his seat.

‘...I really hate standing out.’

There had been plenty of times when he had thrown himself into danger because he needed a chance to copy a skill, but every time he stepped into the spotlight this forcefully, he ended up exhausted. There was a limit to doing things that did not suit him...

“What was that just now?”

Katia asked, propping her chin on her hand.

Her face was perfectly blank.

...Considering her usual temperament, that meant she was angry.

She was clearly unhappy with what Aiden had just done.

“What were you thinking when you-”

“...They weren’t robbers to begin with.”

But Aiden had not suddenly gone mad and done it for no reason.

He rubbed his face and spoke in a tired voice.

“The cylinders were empty.”

“What?”

“The guns were empty. They probably picked up broken junk and fixed it up to make it look real somehow.”

They had used fake guns to fool people into thinking they were real, all for a quick score.

Instead of targeting a large place like a bank to make serious money, they were small-time nobodies who only went after the cash register of a restaurant like this.

“...It was a method often used in the slums.”

Aiden remembered all of it.

“Since one wrong move could get you killed, only people truly on the verge of starving to death did it. They probably didn’t do it because they wanted to.”

The way they had looked desperate and terrified throughout the robbery only made it more obvious.

The one the others had called big brother was probably the eldest among a group of boys and girls with no parents or guardians.

People who lived one day at a time, slept without a roof over their heads, and barely kept from freezing to death by sharing each other’s warmth.

“Crime is still wrong. I’m not trying to defend them. But...”

He scratched his head and spoke bluntly.

“...You can give someone who’s desperately trying to feed the people depending on him one last chance, can’t you? He’s trying to feed his family.”

“...”

“They only took mine, so they won’t have anyone else holding a grudge against them.”

Katia listened silently, then tilted her head.

“How do you know all that?”

“...”

After a moment of silence, Aiden narrowed his eyes as he answered.

“Because I nearly ended up doing something similar myself.”

Katia frowned as if she did not understand what he meant.

But Noel, who had quietly listened to those words, opened her eyes slightly wider.

“Those two, Aiden and Sissela... They are actually children I picked up from the streets. I have never pried into their pasts. I think that is why we get along so well.”

“N-No, it is all because of me. They both have no choice but to do those things because of me...”

...Not long ago.

Noel remembered hearing those words from Aiden’s family.

This man had been a war orphan who had begged on the streets.

No one knew where or how he had lived before then.

‘...It really hits me now.’

She knew nothing about this man.

Nothing about what he had gone through, what he had experienced, or how he had become the man he was today.

She truly knew nothing.

“...”

Noel quietly bit her lip as she turned that over in her mind.

‘This man...’

...Where had he been, and what had he done?

She was curious about the origins of that “ability” which let him handle her Ki so casually, wield Divine Power, and use the techniques of someone as legendary as the Dawn Knight without hesitation. But beyond that...

Noel was just as curious about this man’s true past, hidden beneath those dazzling abilities.

‘What kind of person are you, Mr. Aiden?’

As she mulled over that thought, Aiden was still looking around with narrowed eyes.

“...Still, it is strange.”

“What is?”

“No matter how desperate they were, there’s no reason for them to come all the way to an upscale commercial district like this. Usually, they’d be robbing small hole-in-the-wall shops.”

As Aiden said that, someone came walking over and pulled out a chair across from him.

Aiden looked at the person sitting down and spat out his next words.

“Unless someone forced them to do it.”

“An interesting interpretation.”

It was an older gentleman.

Broad shoulders, a scar running across his entire face, and countless medals pinned to the suit he wore.

Noel straightened at once when she recognized him. Katia’s eyes also widened slightly.

That was probably proof that he was quite famous.

Aiden had not yet been introduced to the man, but he knew who he was.

Not because the other man was famous.

-System Message

▶ Target “Grand Duke Aslan”’s Affinity has increased.