The Master of the Brave - Chapter 81
Chapter 81 – The reality of the world
“We’ve been here long enough, haven’t we?”
“I’m glad to hear that Lina is well.”
“Let’s meet again.”
“Please invite me too if you do.”
After leaving Laura’s house, Wynn, Leticia and Cornelia walked along a small path that stretched between a pasture and the farm. In the distance, between the mountain ranges, they could see the sun setting.
“But then again, the people who were abducted from the slums were also the ones who could use magic.”
The victims of the slum disappearance cases Laura had heard about were still mostly people who could use magic. There were only a few cases that seemed to be different, but they still occurred frequently.
Mages who lived in the slums lived in seclusion or could no longer live in the city. They may not have had jobs in the city, but they had skills that could be used to earn them something to eat. Practices of magical medicine, astrology, and sometimes jobs as guards for someone with more money. Some of them, in exchange for a small amount of money, taught letters, arithmetic and simple magic, such as “Ignition” and “Light”, which anyone could use.
Mages could use magic, so even in the slums they inspired a certain respect and fear. If they were to be kidnapped, rumors would undoubtedly be born based on that, even if it was the slums, where disappearances were common. Besides the fact that Laura was easy to hear rumors because she traveled in and out of the capital on business, she was especially sensitive to them, since her daughter, Ifelina, belonged to the Avian race, and could be a target if the wrong people found out about her. Thanks to this, Wynn and the others were able to get a lot of information from Laura. Of course, not all of it would be correct, so they would have to ask around in the slums to get confirmation, although clearly the difficulty of the investigation would be different if they had no prior information.
“Should I tell Locke-san about this and visit the person Laura-san told us about?”
Laura seemed to know someone close to one of the missing magicians and drew a map of where that person lived. Wynn nodded at Leticia’s question.
“That’s right. A mage living in the slums would be a conspicuous existence, for better or worse, and if they disappeared, the rumors would probably start. But…”
When Wynn said that, he looked at Leticia and Cornelia. He had never lived in the slums but had come here often when he was still a boy working as an adventurer. It was a village in itself full of jobless people, many of whom lived in simple shacks made of wood that was no longer good for anything. They all went about their day with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Wynn and Locke would be fine here. They were both commoners, so if they wore simple clothes, they would not be suspected as long as they were dressed as servants or adventurers who had come to buy something. However, Leticia and Cornelia… Both were true nobles. They both stood out even on the streets of the imperial capital. Even dressed in humbler clothes than Wynn and Locke could not go unnoticed.
“Do you think the slums are too dangerous for Cornelia-sama?”
“Is it dangerous?”
Cornelia looked at Wynn.
“The slums are a lawless area where you can be robbed, murdered, kidnapped, raped, etc. if you go off the beaten path and into the back streets, even guards and knights couldn’t go there alone.”
Leticia would be fine, though. Those who tried to act insolently towards her would learn a painful lesson in return.
“To walk around there, you must always be aware of your surroundings. You must never let the inhabitants get to you. Even if they are children, you must be on guard.”
“Even children…?”
Wynn nodded. In many rural areas, when harvests were low, children were sold to reduce food rations and get money for the time being, and the elderly were also abandoned. They too could be seen in the slums, wandering around dressed in rags with sunken eyes. They too spent their days desperate to survive. To get what little food and money they could, they resorted to criminal activities such as pickpocketing and shoplifting, and sometimes even formed gangs of children to commit robberies.
Children, powerless in the slums, became the perfect outlet for adult violence. They scavenged for scraps and stole, earning the hatred of the townspeople, with most of them dying before reaching adulthood. Of the few who survived, all but a few who made a name for themselves as adventurers and the like went on to live as criminals.
“Not everyone is born a criminal. But you can’t live without committing a crime.”
Wynn laughed lightly and said, “If my fate had been twisted a little, I might have become one too.”
“Still, could you show me around?”
“Cornelia-sama?”
Sensing a somewhat serious sound in Cornelia’s tone, Wynn paused and looked at her again.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. When I turn eighteen, I will serve in public functions. I’ll be involved in political affairs. If that happens, I probably won’t be able to be as free as I am now. No one will be able to show me this kind of darkness…”
Cornelia stared at Wynn.
“It’s now or never. A chance to see the shadows. I need to see it as a person involved in the political affairs of the Empire… It is because of us, the rulers of the Empire, who turn a blind eye to the shadows, that our subjects are experiencing such deprivations and can only live in poor places.”
To survive the war against the demons, the Empire once concentrated power in the hands of the royal family, nobles and knights. They had no choice but to choose a system of central unification. However, overly concentrated power soon became something that only exploited the subjects. With the exception of a few nobles, they had forced their subjects to make sacrifices just to line their own pockets. So that this situation would no longer continue to occur, Cornelia had to analyze the current situation.
“Not only that…”
Leticia, who was in front, stopped and said in a calm tone.
“Not only that. The disparity between the areas that have been damaged by demons and those that haven’t is incredibly large.”
Even in the Lemmrousell Empire near the northern border, many of the cities had been burned to the ground due to demon attacks. Fields were lost and many villages disappeared. At the same time, a few years ago, there was a bad harvest due to bad weather, and famine hit the people.
Ironically, however, it was the army that saved the townsfolk. People who were forced to leave their homes were able to obtain food by volunteering for the army. As mentioned earlier, the country had to stake its survival on the battle against the demons, so the army stocked up on supplies as a matter of the highest priority. Thus, even if you ate your fill, as long as you belonged to the army, you would not go in need of food.
Of course, many people lost their lives in battles against the demons. But if the fate of starving to death was inescapable, and the army could survive if luck was on their side, then there was only one option.
However…
“With the demon king defeated, the demon command collapsed, and the army of the Continental Anti-Demon Alliance lost its need to exist. But that doesn’t mean that the military power we have now will soon disappear. The country, which still maintains enormous war power, began to look for a new place to bear the brunt of it. It is also true that merchants grew rich from the war. But with the end of the war came the loss of a huge consumer base, lack of sales, stagnation and a large number of people losing their jobs… and the chaos shows no signs of abating.”
Leticia turned her face in the direction of the setting sun. Her golden hair, illuminated by the light, shone reddish and the wind that gently crossed the meadow made it flutter as if playing with it.
Her appearance was so splendorous that Wynn and Cornelia were surprised, though it gave an impression of sadness.
“The northern land that the demon king ruled is still a land that has become barren with its miasma. The army, which was its great enemy, has no room for new people, and those who were forced to leave their homes and those who lost their jobs are drifting to the southern countries, clinging to what little hope they have.”
Leticia spoke in a calm tone.
“Hey, Onii-chan. People all over the world call me The Brave and praise me as their savior, but I’m also the source of the current chaos in this world.”
Leticia turned around. As the setting sun shone down, her expression was hidden, looking like a shadow to Wynn and Cornelia.
There were many people who were saved when she defeated the Demon King. Many people were glad that they were still alive and that such an enemy had been annihilated.
On the other hand, the very supply that created so much demand on the battlefield also created a large number of unemployed. If we think of any country not directly confronting the demon king, the military power it would have had would have been accumulating without attrition, leaving the feeling of being adrift in many places, with refugees occurring in large numbers, exceeding the capacity of acceptance of each country.
There was no doubt that one aspect of this social upheaval was created by Leticia, The Brave.
However…
Those who have lost their homes. Those who lost their jobs. Those who will die in the next war.
The weak, they didn’t even realize that the source of their situation was The Brave, and they just kept giving words of sincere thanks to Leticia.
“Was I really able to save the world? Have I really done something to be thanked? Am I not just like the Demon King, increasing the misery of the world?”
“That’s not true, Leticia-sama.”
Cornelia said forcefully, replying to Leticia.
“In fact, the world is in turmoil due to the post-war transformation. The unemployed and refugees flood the streets, security worsens, and countries exhausted by fighting demons become the target of the military power of better-off countries. The same goes for the empire: our country has also lost a lot of human resources, and Petersia is attentive to invade our country.”
Cornelia’s eyes fell at that moment, but then she gently hugged Leticia.
“But these are not the problems that Leticia-sama should be responsible for. Leticia-sama has eliminated a great difficulty that we could not handle. It was a problem that could never be solved, no matter how hard the politicians tried. But the situation is different now. Yes, the turmoil in the world is very great. But these problems can be solved by us, no, we have to.”
“Hey, Letty.”
Leticia looked at Wynn as Cornelia hugged her.
“Remember when Paul-san said, ‘Our children are now in a world where they can have hope for the future’?”
“Yes.”
“You say that the Demon King’s defeat has caused social chaos and created many new misfortunes, but I believe that Paul-san’s words are all that matters. The confusion in the world must be corrected little by little. We can move toward a world where everyone is happy. It is a very difficult thing to do, and I know it is not a thing that can be achieved right away. But when the Demon King was around, people were in a situation where they couldn’t even think about those things. There were people who could not see tomorrow. There were also people who were ruled by despair…”
One of those people was Sarah Ferrule. A woman who lost sight of her faith and tried to end the world once and for all by summoning the God of Destruction.
“But that is not the case now. The Demon King has been defeated, and people have more time. Even if difficult problems cannot be solved by the current generation, they can be entrusted to the next one. You yourself gave that opportunity to people all over the world.”
?????
‘There are too many things I don’t know.’
In her mind, Cornelia said to herself. It was curiosity that drove her to go along with Wynn and the others. She wanted to see the market she had heard so much about, which was so vibrant and bustling. She wanted to walk outside the imperial capital on her own two feet and experience the air and the size of it.
Locke was on a case, and Wynn and Leticia went to the adventurer’s guild to help him, ending with Seri introducing them to Laura. The only reason she went was because Wynn was her servant and they could get around better that way, but she really wanted to satisfy her curiosity.
Cornelia cast a silent glance at Leticia, who was walking in front of her.
Leticia’s words.
She wondered how many things she could see, having been considered The Brave during her years of sensitivity and having seen the world. She was two years younger than Cornelia, but what she carried on her small back was far heavier than herself as princess of the empire. Even though she defeated the Demon King and saved the world – a feat no one had ever accomplished – she was still troubled by the turmoil in the world that devolved from something she herself provoked.
‘I don’t know anything.’
She entered a Knight’s School as her brother Alfred told her. There were many knights, nobles and wealthy students who wanted to become knights and mages, and even commoners like Wynn. It was the first time that Cornelia, carefully raised in the innermost recesses of the imperial palace, came into contact with the outside world outside the palace. She began going into the city to visit her friend, Wynn. The world Cornelia knew seemed to expand little by little, but it still seemed small to her.
The slums where crime occurred frequently.
Those who were forced to leave their homes due to battles with demons, those who lost their jobs and came to the city in search of work. There, hunger, disease and violence were rampant, and helpless children and the elderly were trampled and died every day. Even under Cornelia’s feet, such a world was spreading nearby. The people who lived in the empire, those who lived in the slums, were the same. As one of the leaders of the empire, she had a duty to protect them. Cornelia made her resolution as she looked at the back of Wynn and Leticia walking beside him.
This was not something she had been told by her father, Alexei, or her brother, Alfred, as she had been so far, but her own free will. On the day that was to come, would she be able to accomplish anything by being the Imperial Princess?
…She was going to see the world with her own eyes.