Ch.29NPC’s Ridiculously Huge Snowball (1)

On the evening when Ragni was enjoying a hot night alone, Ponia, which the mountain keeper had left.

“Your Majesty!! This is a false accusation!! Please understand!!”

“Please understand!!”

Three territories lost to the hands of monsters.

Among those territories, at the location with the thickest defenses and where the most battles had been fought so far, the King of Ponia, Grend Ponia, was wearing armor and looking with cold eyes at the nobles kneeling before him and shouting.

“Indeed. You claim it’s a false accusation? What kind of false accusation are you talking about? Is it a false accusation that you’ve been embezzling the taxes you’ve collected all this time, or is it a false accusation that you’ve been embezzling the compensation paid to the mountain keepers? Go ahead, speak up.”

With a voice mixed with bewilderment, incredulity, and even mockery, the king spoke, and the human tied up at the very front among them—a man called Count Tapun—opened his mouth with an expression that suggested he was the most wronged person in the world.

“Your Majesty!! All matters regarding taxes were entrusted to the tax management office! Of course, I deserve punishment for not personally verifying before this unfortunate situation occurred, but how could I possibly play games with the taxes that the people pay to Your Majesty and the country!! Please conduct proper procedures and investigations to confirm the actual circumstances once more!!”

“I see, so that’s what you’re saying. Then, was the fact that the mountain keeper in your territory was receiving a weekly salary of 3,000 cans also just due to the mischief of your underlings?”

“Of course it is!! What could I possibly have intended to do by embezzling a mere 7,000 cans!! This is a terrible act of terrorism where the mountain keepers have conspired together to raise swords against our country and nobles!!”

“Haha. The illiterate mountain keepers raised swords against you. Those who lived on a mere salary of 10,000 cans? What an interesting story.”

The king laughed genuinely. Mountain keepers conspiring.

How could that even be possible? The number of mountain keepers in this country was only around forty, properly counted.

This meant that only 40 people were responsible for the mountains across this vast land. They couldn’t have possibly gathered to conspire even if they wanted to leave their mountains, and if they had taken such action, traces of communication between them would inevitably remain, given the distances they lived apart.

According to the prime minister’s investigation, some mountain keepers didn’t even know which mountain keepers lived on which mountains, or if there were any mountain keepers outside their own areas. Yet they supposedly conspired. Forty illiterate commoners gathered to conspire to drive out forty nobles. The king simply laughed at this answer of such an incredible scale.

And then.

“Have them enter.”

As the king abruptly stopped laughing and called for someone, several people rushed in.

Their faces were covered in soot, like people living in a blacksmith’s forge. The clothes they wore resembled those of beggars living in back alleys.

Twenty such humans rushed in, immediately bowed their heads to the ground, and knelt.

And then.

“Prime Minister.”

“Yes.”

The prime minister, who would normally be handling administrative duties at the palace in the rear when the king was at the front lines.

He too was wearing light armor and opened his mouth, unfolding a long piece of paper at this location near the front lines.

“First, John from OO Mountain. Rise and answer the royal command.”

“Yes!!!”

A dirty man covered in soot rose and bowed his head as if embarrassed, and the prime minister immediately continued.

“Speak of your weekly salary, and how long you have been receiving it.”

“Yes. My weekly salary was 1,800 cans. I have received this compensation for seven years, and I was additionally paid 500 cans monthly for subjugating goblins and orcs.”

The face of one noble, the administrator of the territory that included that mountain, turned pale, and he shouted as if screaming that the man was lying, so the emperor gestured with his chin for the surrounding knights to trample him.

Although he was a noble, the merciless punishment made all the bound nobles turn pale, but the prime minister continued without paying attention.

“Did you not know the amount from selling magic stones obtained after subjugating monsters?”

“I did know.”

“Then why were you satisfied with such a salary as a mountain keeper?”

“…Because it was the law set by the country, and when I said my greed was bad for wanting to receive the same compensation as adventurers, I was told that they would forgive a foolish person’s mistake once, and told to get out… I had no choice to make a living.”

“Why didn’t you become an adventurer?”

“…Because I thought the villagers were at least showing me some affection.”

Looking at him, whose face turned bright red as if he were the criminal, confessing that he had been foolishly deceived because of his lack of education, the king sighed, and the prime minister closed his eyes as if in regret.

Yes. Even the villagers had conspired to use him, pretending to show affection to an uneducated man to exploit him.

And the scenes that followed were similar. Some mountain keepers were working without even receiving 1,000 cans, and when such facts were revealed, the lower-ranking noble administrators spoke as if going mad.

However, regardless of their protests, the emperor crushed their statements one by one with a gesture of his chin, and finally, the last mountain keeper opened his mouth.

“I… worked as a mountain keeper in Tapun territory for 14 years.”

“Yes. How much was your compensation?”

“…Breakfast and dinner, sir.”

“…Money? Did you not receive any money?”

“The only money I received was 3,000 cans once a year on Labor Day.”

The oldest mountain keeper among those who had entered, with white hair, explained.

Fourteen years ago, he received a weekly salary of 6,000 cans, and then the salary strangely decreased every year. And from a certain day, the money stopped coming altogether.

The fact that he got angry at the village head to dispute this and went to see the administrator. And then.

“At that time, he cut off my ring finger, and the count sitting right in front there personally spat on me and drove me away, saying never to make such absurd demands again.”

“……”

The prime minister, and everyone else in the space, were at a loss for words.

A situation where they literally only fed him meals for work. And when he asked for money, they caused him a disability.

Moreover, if it was 14 years ago, it meant that this abuse had continued since the time of the previous king.

In a situation where everyone—the prime minister, the mountain keeper himself, and the count of that territory—was silent, the king rose from his seat and approached the white-haired mountain keeper.

“Your name is?”

“Johnson, sir.”

“…Yes, Johnson. How old are you?”

“I am thirty-six this year, sir.”

“……”

How? How could this face, hair, and skin belong to a thirty-six-year-old? Even the king was over forty, but to anyone looking, this thirty-six-year-old mountain keeper appeared to be at least twice the king’s age.

In other words, his years of hardship, pain, suffering, and persecution had permeated and remained in his body.

“…I’m sorry.”

The king quietly murmured as he reached out to hold the area where the mountain keeper’s ring finger had been cut off.

And just as the mountain keeper was about to bow his head in awe, he saw it.

-Drip.

“…It is my fault, my father’s fault. For not caring for your hard work, your suffering…”

The king of a country, with tears in his eyes, held the mountain keeper’s hand with both of his hands and spoke as if sobbing.

“Resent us. You have the right to resent the country, to resent me.”

What could be returned now by compensating for their hard work, for the money they had lost? These people who guarded the mountains and fought even when they could barely avoid looking like beggars, even when the country was in this state.

Even though everywhere outside the front lines was now in chaos. The reason the country hadn’t collapsed was because of them.

The mountain keepers who could be called here were, due to scheduling and distance, only twenty people.

The other remaining mountain keepers were surely suffering the same fate.

There was nothing he could give back to those who were born and raised in the mountains, fighting monsters without education, and accumulating hardships while protecting the mountains. Moreover, now he had to borrow their strength again.

“…I am not thick-skinned or shameless enough to stand tall and commend your hard work only now.”

“””……”””

The mountain keepers, who had no learned manners, simply bowed their heads at the king’s words.

And seeing this, the king immediately continued.

“The administrators of the areas overseen by those who came here today, and the nobles of those territories, are to be immediately dressed in the armor of common soldiers and sent to the front lines right now, at this very moment. I don’t even have the right to punish you. You must reclaim with your own hands the land that these people, whom you looked down upon from your noble positions, have protected!! I forbid you to return to the country until then!!!”

“Y-Your Majesty!! That is?!!”

Effectively exile, and a death sentence.

Not just beheading, but saying he would give them as sexual relief objects or food for monsters—the faces of the nobles who had been beaten and who had been quietly listening turned pale, and they tried to open their mouths one by one, but.

“Henceforth. Anyone who opens their mouth here, throw them outside the castle walls without even giving them armor. And all the troops these people brought are to be directly incorporated into my army. Knight Commander!!”

“Yes!!”

“Remove these things from my sight immediately, and prepare for the territory reclamation battle in three days!!”

“I will obey your command!!”

The nobles’ wails echoed, but they soon quieted down. The steadfast knights trampled them with their feet and threatened them with swords, preventing them from making any sound as they dragged them away.

And then, the mountain keepers who remained blankly in the audience hall prepared for the king. The king opened his mouth once more toward them.

“I know that it is my duty, as a human being, to comfort you for your hard work, to resolve your grievances, and to restore your lost youth and time. But I believe that you understand better than I do that I am not in a position to give you that right now.”

The king, who did not return to the throne prepared for him but spoke at the same level as the mountain keepers, slowly drew his sword and placed it on the ground.

And then.

“So I ask this of you. In three days. Could you serve as Sherpas (guides) for the territory reclamation battle?”

The king, who had put down his sword and knelt with his head bowed. Seeing this, the mountain keepers were too surprised to speak properly or give an answer.

Who were they that the most distinguished person in the country would act like this toward them, who had lived being ignored for years, decades?

He could have just ordered them to go and guide, and they would have done it, or they would have done it if he had just given them a bit more money.

However. The king continued speaking.

“In this reclamation battle, surely some of you will be injured, and some may die. I am a shameless king who asks for such a favor again before even comforting you for your hard work and grievances. Even so, I ask. Would you lend your strength once more for the country, for the people?”

To the king’s sincerity, and to his actions and words. All the mountain keepers answered in their own voices, in their own colors.

The voices of these uneducated people, who had no manners to speak of, who were no different from neighborhood beggars, three days later.

“We have reclaimed Mount Kildes, sir!!”

They were responding to the king’s sincerity and apology.