Chapter 88
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: Porter's Diary - 1
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Lugeron Village had a custom of abandoning people in the Dark Forest once they reached a certain age.
This was to lure the monsters that appeared from the Dark Forest in other directions. Men were abandoned at an advanced age when they could no longer work the fields, while women were discarded much earlier, once they could no longer bear children.
Because of this difference, the birth of a baby boy turned the house into a festival of celebration, but the birth of a girl brought an atmosphere of mourning, as if someone had died.
Of course, this custom hadn't existed in Lugeron Village from the beginning.
When the village was first settled, there were people who banded together to fight the monsters. But after able-bodied young men started dying to monsters far stronger than those in other regions, the will to fight dwindled away.
"Eram, you'll need to abandon her in the midsection of the Dark Forest today."
"Yes."
And so Lugeron Village had no hunters—only porters.
They had to memorize the geography of the Dark Forest and the monsters' migration patterns, then safely abandon the village's elderly and return.
"It's extremely dangerous, so be extra careful."
"Don't worry, Father. I've already memorized the route all the way there."
"Good, I trust you since you have such a good memory. But Vivi's still putting up a fuss, so don't get overconfident."
"Still?"
"Yeah."
Eram sighed at his father's words.
No one liked being abandoned in the Dark Forest. Everyone wanted to live out their natural lifespan and die peacefully.
But for the village's safety, in the end...
That was the fate of everyone living in Lugeron Village.
The men, who knew this well, accepted their abandonment without resistance. But the women, discarded at a relatively young age, fought back fiercely.
"I can still work! I can still work!"
"Vivi, please stop resisting."
"That's right. Your daughters are worried sick about you."
"Shut up!"
But this time, her resistance was particularly intense.
Why? Eram pondered and turned his gaze to her young daughters.
'It's because they're all girls.'
Auntie Vivi had given birth only to three daughters, and she'd lost her husband to the monster raid on the village last year.
Of course, to feed her daughters, she had to keep working.
But unfortunately, it was her turn to be abandoned this year.
"I can work more than Old Man John—why am I the one being thrown out?!"
"Now, now, calm down."
"If you're worried about your daughters, don't be. The Village Chief has already picked out good husband candidates for them."
"Don't give me that crap! You think I don't know what kind of treatment my daughters will get?! Beaten, abused! And when monsters raid the village, they'll be offered up as mountain sacrifices!"
"......"
A mountain sacrifice was a way to fill the bellies of invading monsters before they could turn the village into rubble, sending them back into the forest.
Two years ago last winter, Eram's little sister Elis had been offered as a mountain sacrifice.
The adorable sister who always held her big brother's hand while playing—pushed out by their father's hand and devoured by a War Bear.
Eram could never forget the sight of his terrified sister thrashing about.
"If that's how you feel, should we fill the next mountain sacrifice slots with just your daughters?"
"W-what?!"
"Give it up already. It's what everyone does. We can't give you special treatment."
"Urgh..."
Vivi's face flushed beet red with rage at the words of the village men.
As she tried to resist to the bitter end,
Thud!
Eram knocked her out with a rock.
"Eram? You're too late. Is this how a porter should be, dawdling like that?"
"Sorry."
"Alright, everyone, we're done here. Let's head back."
"Yes..."
With the situation resolved by Eram's surprise attack, the village men began to leave, and Eram loaded the unconscious Auntie Vivi onto the sedan chair to carry her into the Dark Forest.
"N-no... My daughters will starve without me."
"The Village Chief will take good care of them. So don't worry."
"I don't want to die yet... I don't want to be abandoned... I can still work. What about my daughters?"
"......"
As a porter, the hardest part was the moment of abandonment.
"But what can we do?"
Eram knew better than anyone.
This village couldn't survive unless someone was abandoned.
Just as his father had abandoned his mother and sister, he too would one day abandon his father, his wife, and ultimately himself.
It was an endless chain of despair.
"If we don't do this, everyone dies."
There were only two ways to escape Lugeron Village's despair: break through the monster- and beast-infested paths to leave, or die.
As a porter, Eram meticulously recorded where and when he abandoned people, and today he logged the moment he abandoned Auntie Vivi.
Eram married Vivi's youngest daughter, Mavelli.
No man wanted her—unusually plain among her sisters—and she had been slated for the next mountain sacrifice.
Was it guilt from abandoning her mother with his own hands? Or the lingering image of Auntie Vivi's final moments?
Eram stepped up himself, married her, and saved her.
Through that, he gained a son and a daughter so precious it hurt to even look at them.
For the first time after starting a family, he felt happiness in being alive.
Of course, it wasn't all that meaningful.
"Is this where you abandoned my mother?"
After all, neither his life nor his wife's would change in the end.
The only problem was that it came sooner than expected.
"Cough, cough... What was my mother like at the end?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Just curious."
Seeing his wife smiling even as she was being abandoned, Eram felt an indescribable emotion.
But unlike him, their son Parell was displeased with his father's actions.
"Father, what about Mother?"
"I abandoned her."
"Why?!"
"Once the plague starts spreading, it's endless. It was unavoidable, for everyone's sake."
"There could be another way!"
"There never was."
"You don't know that!"
Parell had a strong will, unlike Eram, and that worried him greatly.
People like that died the earliest.
Eram hoped his son wouldn't do anything foolish.
But contrary to his earnest wish, a wind began to blow through the quiet village.
"Hah... Damn it, if only I could use mana, none of this mess would have happened."
Like hope blooming in despair, a hero arrived in Lugeron Village—a village that had survived by abandoning others.
...
"Who might you be?"
Visitors to Lugeron Village were rare.
No traveling merchants came to such a remote backwater, and reaching it required passing through a forest teeming with monsters and beasts.
Yet a refined, handsome young man with an air of nobility had arrived.
"I'm... an adventurer named Ian."
A sturdy, well-built man.
A longsword hanging at his waist.
Anyone could see he looked like a knight, but he claimed to be an adventurer.
No one believed him.
Because his face bore the scars—evidence of his crimes.
And the charges were beyond imagination.
"Blasphemy against the divine?"
A thousand years had passed since the age of myths ended and the emperor's era began.
Faith in the gods had faded among people, but reverence for them lingered even now.
"What did you do to commit blasphemy?"
"It'd be a long story."
Ian dodged the question with a smile, and Eram, seeing that bitter grin, didn't pry further.
Having lost interest in the outsider, Eram tossed him a sack of leftover food and said,
"I'll share some food with you, so leave now."
"Haha, can't you at least let me stay one night?"
"No."
"That's harsh. If you chase out adventurers like me, where am I supposed to sleep?"
"Figure it out yourself. Sleep by the roadside or in the forest. Oh, and if you're sleeping in the Dark Forest, go deeper in."
Normally, villages welcomed outsiders as guests, but Lugeron Village was too harsh an environment to uphold such customs.
Consideration required a certain level of surplus, after all. Even sharing food made Eram one of the more generous folks in the village.
Of course, the outsider Ian had no way of knowing that.
"Tsk tsk, what a weird village. No hospitality at all."
"Good grief... A criminal like you expects too much."
"You think anyone chooses to become a criminal?"
"Isn't it because of the crimes you committed?"
"That's for trash like them."
"So you were framed unjustly?"
"Exactly. I became a criminal for sticking to my principles."
"......"
In that short exchange, Eram had already gauged Ian's personality.
As evident from his refined looks and casual speech, he was a ne'er-do-well.
The type who lived—and died—in the moment, not for the future. The exact kind of person Eram despised most.
Maybe even that blasphemy charge came from hitting on a church nun...
'I wish he'd just leave already.'
As a rare outsider in Lugeron Village, everyone was interested in him.
Eram hoped this stranger wouldn't stir up unnecessary trouble in the village.