The Cruelty of the Idle
Meanwhile, Aiden was spending his time wandering through the stalls, observing things he hadn't seen before.
"Buy some fruit! I'm selling them cheap!"
Perhaps because they had been brought in from other regions, these fruits were a rare sight for this time of year. Without thinking, Aiden handed over a coin and picked up an apple.
Crunch.
As he took a bite, the tart juice flooded his mouth.
'Not bad.'
His tongue, accustomed to sweet Fuji apples, was met with a pleasant, unexpected twist that made his face flush slightly.
"That looks delicious..."
"Whoa, an apple. I like apples too."
A group of children, who had been running around with wooden sticks, looked up at him, swallowing hard.
"Come here."
When he naturally called them over, the largest boy—presumably the leader—scurried toward him.
"Share it. If you eat it all by yourself, you're in trouble."
"Thank you! Hey guys! He said he's giving this to us!"
"Whoa-!"
Watching a whole group of children become so happy over a single basket of apples, Aiden thought it was a bargain. He crunched on his remaining apple and moved on.
'There are quite a few new stalls, more than I thought.'
He had already received reports that as the number of officials near the Lord's Castle increased and outsiders arrived for trade, many residents were jumping into commerce.
But as always, the numbers in a report and seeing it with your own eyes were worlds apart. He had heard that there were usually about twenty stalls, sometimes reaching fifty during markets or special events. He had simply thought, 'So, it's about the size of a small, well-stocked night market?' But facing it in person, while they lacked walls and ceilings, the area definitely felt like a bustling shopping district.
"Take a look at these bowls! Don't you need some cotton?"
"We have all kinds of well-dried meat. We also sell salt-cured ham!"
"Here are farm tools mixed with steel! They might be a bit pricey, but I'm telling you, once people use these, they never look for anything else."
Perhaps because people were becoming quite accustomed to business, just listening to their sales pitches made his hand instinctively reach for his wallet.
On the road at the end of the stall street, mail carriages and various carts were coming and going.
"Hm?"
Aiden, who had been walking aimlessly, tilted his head at the sight of bonfire smoke rising from far outside the village.
It wasn't just one or two fires.
"That area is definitely..."
At first, he thought they might be a group out hunting, but then he clapped his hands together.
'Right, they said the refugees had set up a camp nearby.'
As the nearby Lontes territory was engulfed in flames, a rush of people fleeing had begun in the spring. Whether it was the Viscount of Lontes or his retainers, they knew that whoever won the fight would hold everything, so they had tried their best to catch the commoners leaving the territory and force them to stay.
But just as there were people who crawled through the middle of the Korean Peninsula, even with barbed wire and landmines, to escape poverty and find freedom, the commoners of Lontes were no different.
No matter how high-ranking officials sent soldiers with spears and swords to lock the gates, countless "dog holes" were dug, blocked, and dug again, scattering people in every direction.
'Unfortunately, they said the number of refugees coming our way wasn't that high.'
One of the constants in the contracts signed with the businesses of Lontes' nobles was the hiring of Northern laborers. Since they lacked skills and experience, they were hired only as menial workers, and because their wages were lower than in other territories, the high-ranking officials had eagerly stamped their contracts.
Thanks to that, he knew exactly what was happening in Lontes, whether they locked their doors or not. Even if he thought it was impossible to get valuable information from menial laborers, once he pieced together the fragments of information circulating at the bottom, it was nothing more than solving a puzzle of less than a hundred pieces for a skilled administrative officer.
The fact that even a fraction of the refugees turned their steps toward the North was, in the end, the result of a series of events falling into place.
'Since I've come this far, should I go take a look?'
Aiden stared at the bonfire smoke and made up his mind. He would go.
He felt a little guilty about leaving his adjutants behind.
'Should I have paid for the beer and dumplings?'
Well. He could just tell them tomorrow, he thought, and slowly headed out of the village.
According to the reports, several groups of refugees had already found the North, and after successfully registering their family status, they had been assigned to villages with the capacity to support them, ready to start new lives.
'I plan to keep causing wolf incidents on the Great Plains, so I should review sending some refugees to the Helias village area as well.'
It was land with fertile black soil, something hard to find anywhere else in the North. Since he intended to keep tormenting the horse merchants who kept ruining the farming until they shed tears of blood, sending a few groups of refugees there would likely result in them settling down without much trouble.
'I should also manage the stalls I saw earlier. Maybe assign numbers to each stall and manage them like an agricultural and marine products market?'
His thoughts jumped to the stalls, then to other matters.
'I also received word that the "Pure-bloodism of Demi-humans" will be abolished soon... If we hold the wedding of that delivery driver and the waitress at the Lord's Castle and announce it here and there...'
His thoughts drifted to a couple beloved by the Northern people, then shifted again.
'Right. The hot springs. I received reports that the number of users is gradually increasing, but it's still a bit lacking. Wait. The timing of the increase in guests seems strangely linked to the rumors of my visit spreading...'
He even moved on to plans for revitalizing the hot springs.
It had been a long walk for the first time in a while. It was almost too much for Aiden, whose physical activity had plummeted to the extreme because every time he tried to go jogging after his leg injury from overexerting himself, watchful eyes would immediately follow him.
'Whether I disguise myself or dig a hole in the wall of the Lord's Castle, I have to find a way.'
He sighed at his own body, which got out of breath from walking on flat ground, even if it was unpaved, but he couldn't deny that getting some fresh air cleared his head.
"Almost there."
His legs were starting to feel heavy, and he worried about how he would make it back, but the refugee camp, which had only been visible as smoke from afar, was now close enough that he could hear voices if he focused.
"Tsk! You expect us to eat this?"
"This damn black bread. I'm sick of it, really."
"And over there in the village, they smelled like meat, XX. X-like bastards. They think we're just strangers, right? Tsk, I'm not eating this! XX."
Aiden had been somewhat excited, thinking about asking what hope they had that made them decide to come to this distant land, or if they had any inconveniences in their stay.
But contrary to his expectations, what reached his ears was endless complaining and dissatisfaction.
"Those barbarian bastards, of course they would, ugh, XX."
"Did you see those X-less bastards talking nonsense about welcoming us while giving us this crap?"
"Do they think we lived like beggars like them? Where do they get off? They don't even know their place, trying to act like our equals."
"My point exactly."
And mockery.
Aiden felt a stinging sensation in his head; it had been a long time since he had tasted the feeling of his blood running cold.
'Ah, right. Yes, this is normal, isn't it.'
Living with Northern people who knew how to accept goodwill as goodwill, he seemed to have forgotten for a while. The truth that there are too many people in this world who think goodwill is a right if it continues.
At lunch, he had met a self-serving, uncertain "official artist" who wanted to manipulate his affairs, and in the afternoon, he witnessed ungrateful beasts. What should he call it?
'No wonder the work finished early.'
Still, since he had come this far, he intended to look around.
"......?"
Because no one recognized the face of the Northern Administrative Officer, even when he stepped into their camp, they only glanced at him and turned their heads away; no one stopped him.
Because he didn't indulge in luxury, it seemed he was regarded as just one of the many officials who had been coming and going from this camp to distribute supplies, conduct various surveys, and prepare for support.
"Hey! What's happening with the house we talked about before? You're not seriously expecting us to build it, are you? XX, do you know how hard it was to get here? If you tell us to build our own houses, that makes no sense! I heard the Northerners here are strong, so please lend us some labor for your poor neighbors, okay?"
He was disgusted by the sight of a drunkard reeking of alcohol in broad daylight, giggling and picking a fight, as it was all too familiar.
'This damn PTSD.'
Aiden almost had the words "Shall I connect you to the Welfare Department?" slip out of his mouth.
"I told you begging isn't allowed!"
He ignored the drunkard and walked toward the outskirts of the camp, where he heard a young, yet firm voice.
"But brother-."
"Didn't you hear the officials? Begging isn't allowed here!"
"But I'm hungry!"
"If you're hungry, how many times do I have to tell you to come to me."
"...Brother is hungry too."
"I'm bigger than you, so I'm fine. Here, eat this for now."
He glanced at the direction of the voice and saw seven or eight children huddled in the shade behind a shabby makeshift tent.
"I decided to go help out at the ranch starting tomorrow. They said they'd pay me a daily wage, so I'll buy some bread on the way back. So if you're hungry tomorrow, come here around evening. Begging isn't allowed! You might get kicked out. Got it?"
"Yes!"
"Me too, I'll go too!"
"I can work too, brother!"
"I'll go with you!"
"Ron, no. Betty and Johan, let's try going together. They might let us do some menial work."
"Yes!"
The boy who looked the oldest—though still far from being a young man—was gathering the children, each a head shorter than him, and talking to them.
But something about the content was strange.
'Is the distribution not working properly? No, if something like that had happened, a report would have definitely come up.'
The Northern people were so accustomed to starving that once their lives improved, they changed their food culture first. He couldn't remember which day it was, but he remembered how surprised he was when a gardener he hadn't seen in a few days asked, "Oh, Administrative Officer! Have you eaten?" and he wondered if he had warped back to 21st-century South Korea.
- I don't know about other support, but whether it's emergency support or refugee support, we have to make sure they're full!
It was an extension of that sentiment that Jamie, a Northern native, was in charge of the Livelihood Support Department. Jamie, who said that if they lost money here, Kalisa, you lead the Commercial Development Department well to make a profit, and he couldn't give up on feeding people in difficult situations.
'A guy like that wouldn't have discriminated against refugees from other regions when it came to food.'
Then why were those children crying of hunger, begging when it was forbidden, and saying they would sell their labor?
The able-bodied adults were gathered in groups in the sunny land, throwing black bread on the ground saying they were sick of it, and even picking fights with strangers while drunk in broad daylight.
Shouldn't the adults be the ones selling their labor?
Why on earth was this happening?
'Why, you ask? Why indeed.'
Aiden's expression twisted like a demon's.