Thud—
Klad calmly extended one arm and caught the child rushing toward him.
He had already noticed the child lingering nearby. It just wasn’t a threat, so he hadn’t paid it any mind.
“Huk!”
But unlike the composed Klad, the child’s appearance was abrupt for Jake.
Because Klad moved his body to catch the child, Jake, who had been clinging to his back, lost his balance and swayed. As he was about to fall, Klad wrapped his other free arm around Jake’s waist and held him.
“Th-that was close.”
Jake let out a sigh of relief with a pale face.
It wasn’t just an expression—the situation moments ago had truly been dangerous. If weak Jake had accidentally fallen off alone, a sandworm might have come charging.
Klad pulled Jake toward him so he wouldn’t fall far away.
“I told you not to get separated from me.”
“It wasn’t a situation I could control with my own will.”
Klad released the child he’d been holding with his other arm and stood up. However, Jake was still held in place.
Touching a noble’s body carelessly and showing no intention of letting go was a serious crime, but this situation was as urgent as having one’s body catch fire. Since Jake had permitted touching when Klad caught fire, it was proper to let this pass without penalty as well.
“Is… is this child yours?”
“As if it were my child.”
It was just something he blurted out in confusion—Jake didn’t truly think this child was Klad’s blood relative either.
The child trembled as it looked back and forth between Klad and Jake.
“It seems they knew I was trying to catch the sandworm and tried to stop me.”
“Why? Wouldn’t the sandworm’s disappearance be good news for the village too?”
“From their perspective, while the sandworm is a threat, it also takes care of demons, so wasn’t it a coexistence relationship?”
Even if they didn’t consider the sandworm an ally or friend, they must have thought it was an absolutely necessary existence to survive here. At least the sandworm didn’t attack while staying in a specific area, and without the sandworm, the village would have suffered greater damage from demons.
The villagers must be especially sensitive since they arrived right after the Duke’s knights came and devastated the village. If they eliminated the sandworm without any explanation, these people would have to live in fear.
“From now on, no monsters will appear in this village. Can you tell the adults about this?”
Klad comforted the child and gave them one of the breads he’d brought. The child glanced around nervously for a while, then ran away with the bread.
“They won’t believe my words right now, but as time passes, they’ll realize the village’s threat has disappeared. Until then, the Duke… Why? What are you dissatisfied with?”
“……”
Jake was glaring at the path where the child had disappeared with a face full of discontent.
Now that he thought about it, Jake had been displeased even about sharing a piece of bread with the child.
“What’s wrong with giving a kid just one piece of bread?”
“If the one piece of bread I hand over could change their lives, I would do so. But will anything change just because they fill their stomachs today?”
“They’ll be full for today at least.”
“Look at that, Klad.”
Jake turned his body and pointed in the direction where the child had disappeared.
Perhaps they’d heard news that an outsider giving out bread had arrived, as grimy children covered in dirt were cautiously approaching while watching them.
“Are you worried because more kids are gathering? The population here isn’t large, and we can take care of this many.”
“Isn’t it strange that the only children coming to ask for bread are the thin, young, and pitiful-looking ones?”
Today, and even when they’d visited the village before, the only ones who came out of their houses at Klad and Jake’s visit were young children. Every single one of them had gaunt limbs and wore tattered clothes.
“Could the others be enduring so they could yield to the hungrier children? Not at all. From the moment we give these children something, they become prey.”
Hearing those words, Klad examined the children’s condition once more. The children were trembling in fear while watching nervously. It was a slightly different atmosphere from being scared of outsiders but mustering courage to approach.
“No matter how small a village, it’s a single group where a certain number of people live together. Just because the village is poor and suffering doesn’t mean everyone is in the same position. If there are those who are hungrier, there are naturally those who are less hungry.”
Thinking about it again after hearing that, it was definitely strange that the only ones visible were frail children.
“There must certainly be a group that uses violence against children or the weak to steal what they have.”
“That’s…”
Klad couldn’t easily say no. This was something that commonly happened in cities or villages with slums.
The others weren’t afraid of outsiders’ visits, nor were they refusing to come beg out of pride. They were simply putting forward children who had a higher chance of succeeding at begging by showing their wretchedness, planning to extort whatever they brought back.
“Even if the children are hungry, they probably delivered the bread to whoever is the boss figure. If they ate the bread because they were hungry, or if they failed to beg properly, they would have to pay the price with their whole bodies.”
Even when outsiders don’t normally visit, the children have probably been exploited like this. If this were a harmonious village where people cared for and shared with each other, it would be different, but it wasn’t easy to maintain harmony while suffering from the fear of not knowing when they might die and struggling with scarce resources.
Especially considering that some of the village’s members were fugitives—in other words, escaped criminals—it wouldn’t be strange if there were people who controlled others with force and acted tyrannically.
“Even if we prepare enough bread for everyone here to eat their fill, nothing will change. Even if we brought so much bread that it would rot before they could eat it all, they would steal all of it.”
“How can you be so certain of something that hasn’t even happened?”
“Because that’s power.”
“……”
“Power without responsibility is a frightening thing, Klad.”
Jake could assert that this was the current situation of this village. Because this was a place his father created.
His father must have specifically chosen someone who would wield their fists as weapons to grasp power and pushed them into this place along with the powerless and weak. Expecting them to become helpless against violence, to learn to give up, and to maintain this village needed for his plans for a long time.
The child who received bread from Klad might be praised instead of beaten, and if lucky, might get to eat a small scrap of bread. But what about the other children? Rather, someone might receive greater punishment for not bringing back what others managed to bring.
If you truly pity these children, it’s better not to act in ways you can’t take responsibility for. That’s why Jake chose not to act in a way that would only fill the village boss’s stomach.
“The best kindness I can offer them isn’t a piece of bread that won’t even bring momentary joy. It’s helping them escape from the grip of the boss who wields power, and furthermore, from my father’s hands.”
Jake’s face as he said this was tinged with bitterness. Even saying this, how could it be pleasant to watch children not even ten years old starve and suffer?
“Striving to place the right person in the Duke’s seat. That’s the only thing I can do now besides that. Instead, I will secure their future…”
“Why wouldn’t there be anything?”
Klad, who had been listening to Jake’s story all along, interrupted and walked to the middle of the village, then suddenly pulled out a pillar from a half-collapsed house with his bare hands.
Thud, thunk.
Then he folded it in half like folding paper.
“From today, this is my territory! Come out if you have complaints.”
The thick wooden pillar in Klad’s hand turned to ash in an instant, burned by fire.
“If there’s anyone in my territory who extorts from others, I won’t let them off!”
The gazes that had been secretly watching them instantly disappeared.
Klad, who until just moments ago had been shouting loudly enough to make the whole forest ring, whispered softly to Jake, who was flustered by the sudden development.
“Their so-called power is just forced power created through strength. No matter how scary power wielded without responsibility is, just crush it with greater power.”
“That…”
Jake’s blue eyes sparkled briefly before quickly dying down. Jake, who had been marveling at Klad’s judgment and decisiveness, immediately became filled with worry and objected to the earlier opinion.
“When you leave the village, won’t everything return to square one? Are you going to eliminate all the village bosses before leaving?”
“If we did that, it would become harder for those remaining to survive, so that won’t work. There’s a better method.”
“A better method?”
Klad beckoned to the children who were trembling in the distance, unable to either run away or approach. The children approached with faces that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment, as if they thought Klad would beat them.
Klad distributed bread and food to these children, earnestly pleading with them to share it with their families. He even added that he was now the boss of this place, so they didn’t need to listen to anyone else’s orders.
“……”
Jake watched the scene from beginning to end without saying a word.
“Did you want to help the children that much?”
“No. You looked like you wanted to help.”
“…Huh?”
Klad, who had distributed all the bread, walked toward Jake. He looked much more relieved than usual.
“I just reminded you because you seemed to forget that I can give you more options.”
“Ah.”
Why was it—Jake suddenly felt breathless.
Being breathless should mean feeling dizzy and stuffy in the chest, yet somehow it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
“I’ll distribute their present happiness, so you take responsibility for their future.”
“……”
With those final words, Klad turned and walked away to handle the remaining tasks.
Jake couldn’t say anything until Klad, who had been walking away, urged him to hurry and follow.
