A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Chapter 57

Episode 57. For the People (1)

Chapter 12. For the People

Wilhelm Evernaton had begun to sense something wrong in the rapidly swelling numbers of vagrants. In recent years, never once had so many arrived at a single time.
Suspecting there must be a cause, he set about investigating them.
As a result, he discovered that every vagrant had come from the great city of Gotheim, and simultaneously learned of rumors circulating among them.
‘They say there is an evil spirit that abducts lone wanderers alive, flays them, and devours them….’
A horror tale.
Yet judging it might be more than mere rumor, Wilhelm dispatched men to the capital and surrounding territories to gather information and verify the story’s truth.
The man now standing before him was one of those investigators.
The one kneeling before Wilhelm spoke.
“According to our investigation, conditions in the capital are grave. In the name of preventing the Judgment, they are imposing excessive taxes on the citizenry. Moreover, confiscation of property on all manner of pretexts has become rampant, so the number of vagrants continues to swell even now.”
“And what of the rumors mentioned?”
“They have proven true. Far more disappearances appear to be occurring than have come to light. The peculiar thing is that His Majesty the King shows no sign of attempting to resolve this.”
Wilhelm spoke quietly.
“……Offerings, then.”
“Yes. Based on multiple eyewitness accounts, I suspect this too is an act of the Artemis Church, carried out to prevent the Goddess’s Judgment.”
The Goddess’s Judgment.
A place where the sins of humanity’s past might be set right. One need only enter that space and correct history along the proper path for the judgment to conclude.
Yet the Sung Kingdom refuses to undertake it.
In their view, the act of exposing their past sins means the Goddess will lay bare their wickedness and claim the world as payment. This is what they believe.
The method they chose instead of confronting it was offerings.
The blood and flesh of sinful humanity, sacrificed. By paying the price of their guilt, they seek to appease the Goddess’s wrath.
Of course, no such thing could possibly work.
“They truly believe this will stop the Judgment?”
Wilhelm’s clenched fists trembled visibly.
“Several days ago, a large-scale disappearance of children occurred.”
The timing roughly coincided with when the flood of vagrants struck the Evernaton Territory.
“They sensed an enormous Judgment approaching.”
“Most of the other nobles arrived at the same conclusion. ……And they say the current Sung Kingdom will find it difficult to prevent such a massive Judgment.”
As if grasping at the intent behind those words, Wilhelm closed his eyes briefly, then opened them.
“Count Mitelfer has requested an advance on Gotheim.”
“……Pretend you did not speak. You are dismissed.”
“I obey, my lord!”
Wilhelm shook his head firmly.
“No matter that I am an exile, I swore upon this name that I would live for the Sung Kingdom. I cannot now dare commit treason. Go. You are dismissed, Kalos.”

* * *

Footstep, footstep.
Along the path crossing the Garden toward the Inner Castle.
Dezir Armang was lost in thought.
Thanks to Romantica, the immediate food shortage had been resolved.
But this was hardly a complete solution. The provisions would run out in time, and a plan for what came after was necessary.
‘Only one day remains now.’
The breathing room they’d gained did not buy them additional time to devise a proper strategy.
If a perfect solution to the vagrant problem did not exist, the Evernaton Territory would have had no need to trade with the Romantica Trading Company at all.
Still, thanks to Romantica, a more long-term solution had become possible to consider—such as cultivating the vagrants according to individual talent and employing them.
‘Honestly, it’s the most obvious approach to come to mind.’
But as his anxiety eased, Dezir found he could think more clearly, and soon doubts crept in about whether this method would truly work.
‘Wilhelm Evernaton is a sharp man. There is no way such a person wouldn’t have thought of this.’
In fact, this approach alone could not solve everything. The Evernaton Territory’s finances were not abundant. Raising so many vagrants and providing them such extensive work was quite difficult.
Suddenly Dezir’s footsteps halted. Someone was humming softly while building a snowman.
It was Lirika. After the food shortage had been resolved, Lirika was able to work in the castle again.
Looking around, Dezir saw numerous snowmen scattered throughout the Garden. He approached Lirika, who had been crafting snowmen for quite some time.
“Won’t you catch a cold if you keep making snowmen like that?”
“Oh, Dezir!”
Dezir’s gaze shifted to the snowman she was working on.
“It seems like every time I see you, you’re making snowmen.”
“Yeah, the snowmen are my friends.”
…….
“What? Don’t look at me like that—like you feel sorry for me! These are real friends, you know. I made friends with them back home before I came to Evernaton Territory.”
“So these snowmen aren’t just imaginary friends of yours?”
“How rude!”
Lirika pointed to a snowman off to the side and spoke.
“Do you remember that one I asked you to look after before?”
“Yes. You called him Carlos, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. He was my closest friend.”
“You must have felt terrible when you parted ways.”
Mm…….
Lirika spoke in a melancholy tone.
“We didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“Were you busy?”
“No, he vanished. Just disappeared one day. People said some kind of evil spirit took him away.”
Just then, a voice suddenly came from behind.
“You mean that malevolent ghost—the one that snatches people wandering alone, skins them alive, and devours them?”
A gentle breeze swept past. When Dezir turned around, Romantica was there.
“Wow, the wealthy lady.”
As Romantica drew near, Lirika asked with curiosity.
“How did you know about that?”
“The rumors haven’t spread this far out in the borderlands of the Sung Kingdom, but I came from a place closer to the capital. Are you from the capital too, Lirika?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Everyone in the Vagrant Settlement except me came from the capital.”
Dezir felt a sense of unease. No matter how he thought about it, it was strange that so many people had all come from the capital.
“Everyone in the Vagrant Settlement came from the capital?”
“Haven’t I told you this before?”
Romantica let out a sigh as she spoke.
“You really don’t know anything about what’s happening in the capital.”
Dezir knew almost nothing about the capital except for fragments he’d heard from Jepran. He’d been so overwhelmed with urgent matters demanding his attention that he hadn’t even had the leisure to think beyond Evernaton Territory.
‘How foolish—how could I have overlooked that?’
He hadn’t even considered the root cause of why vagrants were appearing. He’d been so focused on solving only the immediate, visible problems.
‘Of course, to solve a problem properly, you have to address its fundamental cause.’
Only now did Dezir understand why the Shadow World had deemed Wilhelm’s expulsion of the vagrants a misguided choice in that alternate history.
Simply driving out the vagrants had merely postponed the immediate problem; it was a solution that resolved nothing.
If the problems unfolding in the capital went unresolved, the condition of the Sung Kingdom would continue to deteriorate, and eventually that calamity would reach even the Evernaton Territory.
“Romantica, tell me the detailed story you know.”

* * *

Morning, with even the dawn mist refusing to lift.
The atmosphere within the Office Hall was so cold that even the warmth radiating from the blazing fireplace felt distant. There gathered Dezir’s company and the officials who decided the major and minor affairs of the Territory.
“Everyone is here.”
Two days.
The promised time had elapsed. Success and failure would be determined in this very moment.
Wilhelm opened his mouth to speak.
“Before we begin in earnest, I wish to express my gratitude to the head of the Romantica Trading Company. Thanks to the trading company you lead, the food situation in the Territory has improved smoothly. I thank you.”
“It is an honor, my lord.”
Romantica made a brief curtsey in response to his words. It was an elegant acknowledgment.
The conversation seemed to be beginning gently with Wilhelm’s expression of thanks.
“There remains, however, a grave flaw—the matter of public security, my lord.”
Eyuran poured cold water on the atmosphere that had begun to soften.
Wilhelm drew in a light breath before speaking to Dezir.
“So, Dezir, have you devised a method?”
Dezir gave a slight bow and stepped forward.
“Even if the Territory’s situation has improved, there remain countless unresolved issues. As Eyuran pointed out, the security problem is one of them. Beyond that, we have dozens of matters still pending—from determining their lodgings onwards. And in our current circumstances, we cannot address each one individually.”
Those listening to Dezir’s words nodded in agreement.
“Even if those problems were resolved, such measures would only be temporary—limited to this year alone. Vagrants will continue to pour in endlessly, and we cannot possibly accept all of them. Take the food shortage we’ve just resolved. Even with the Trading Company’s support, our provisions will eventually run dry again.”
It was not merely a matter of this year. If the capital’s problems persisted, vagrants would be born anew each year, and if they truly wished to shelter them, they would have to accept them all.
“Expelling the vagrants could serve as one solution. If we refuse to accept any more, we bear no responsibility for them. That would solve the Territory’s immediate problems. In fact, most domains handle it exactly this way.”
This was what Romantica had told them. Because most territories refused to accept vagrants, all those displaced from the capital poured instead into the Evernaton Territory.
“But vagrants will continue to be born. And those with nowhere to go will simply die. In the end, that is no solution at all. Expelling them is merely turning away from their deaths—a retreat into willful ignorance.”
Dezir glanced sideways at Eyuran. Her fists were clenched tight, indignation etched across her face, but in Wilhelm’s presence she dared show no further reaction.
He offered her the faintest smile, then broached the heart of the matter.
“I wish to present a fundamental solution to the vagrant problem.”
Wilhelm was a man who cared for the people more than any other in the Sung Kingdom. Dezir had not spent years with him, yet even those few days were enough to make this plain.
“Do you know the root cause of why vagrants arise, my lord?”
“It must be the conditions in the capital.”
“Precisely. Most vagrants come from the capital, and they suffer greatly. Flight is their only recourse. In time, that suffering will only increase, and more will flee. This is not their problem alone. The tyranny will spread, and one day it will reach here as well.”
The heart of the kingdom was falling into ruin—and yet it was being left to fester due to religious concerns, even as the Shadow World posed a mortal threat on their doorstep. It was a rot consuming the Sung Kingdom itself.
And that rot’s end was inevitable.
‘Annihilation.’
Dezir knew how the Sung Kingdom would fall.
By a Grade One Shadow World, the nation’s entire territory had been consumed and brought to ruin.
Only a handful of survivors banded together to preserve the Artemis Church, and what remained of that once-great power now barely persisted as a member of the Western Kingdom Alliance.
Priscilla, his comrade from that past life, was among the Artemis Church’s faithful. Recalling the collapse of what had once been the greatest empire, she had worn her bitterness openly.
Therefore, Dezir could speak with certainty.
He could declare that the Sung Kingdom’s present course was wrong, that reform was necessary.
Vagrants born without end. They were a signal that something was broken in the Sung Kingdom. And to fix what was broken in the kingdom itself—that was the fundamental solution to the vagrant problem.
Dezir laid out that fundamental remedy.
“If the current Sung Kingdom continues as it is, you will be unable to prevent the calamities that lie ahead. The cause of the endless stream of vagrants—change the Sung Kingdom that enforces only twisted falsehoods.”

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