Chapter 490: To the Bitter End
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 490: To the Bitter End
Gluta, an ox beastkin, was the head chef of Kitchen Gluta and a renowned businessman in Ende. His motto was diligence and integrity, and he was as strict with others as he was with himself. It was a good thing he wasn't strict with his customers; had he chosen a profession that didn't involve serving people, he would have become a nagging old man, spouting bitter truths at every turn.
Even so, he couldn't bring himself to be harsh with the old pig beastkin who was much his senior.
"Mrs. Mig. Would you please restrain yourself?"
"Restrain myself? Is that something you can eat?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Then go shove it! I've lived eighty years like this. I'll live the same way until I drop dead!"
She had already been middle-aged when he was a child. Gluta himself had been served by her a couple of times in his youth. It was difficult to apply his strict standards to an old woman past eighty.
The old pig-woman brandished a ladle wildly above her head and shouted.
"My only crime is feeding homeless, starving children! If that's a crime, why don't you go accuse your own mother first? Just like you're doing to me!"
"This is about more than just feeding people, isn't it?"
Gluta glanced around Mrs. Mig's dining area. A few seats were fashioned by placing a railing over a single household table. There were only about ten seats in total. It was a shabby setup for a shop, but far too many for an old woman living alone.
"You claim to serve Orc soul food, but it's clear that your house is a restaurant, Mrs. Mig. Beastkin come here, eat, and pay you for the meal, do they not?"
"They just give me a bit of food or some spare change after I feed them!"
"Right now, other restaurants that sell meat are struggling because they've been targeted by those Okma bastards. The only places still doing business are the dining tables of pig beastkin like you. I'm sure it's not your intention, but... it doesn't look good."
"You think I'm making a single coin off this? I can barely make it from one day to the next, so what profit could I possibly be turning?"
"Haven't groups of pig beastkin been coming in to eat recently?"
Clang. Mrs. Mig threw the ladle to the ground. The last dregs of thick stew splattered across the rug, leaving a long stain. Fuming, she jabbed a finger at Gluta.
"So what? I'm not allowed to run a business? Who's going to hire an eighty-year-old woman?"
"...That's..."
"I'm no good for meat anymore. I'm so old, there's nothing to chew but bone! And even that's tasteless since all the marrow's been sucked out. The decent thing for me to do is to die somewhere out of sight! Fine, since I'm going to die anyway, just kill me now! Grind my bones into animal feed!"
Knowing her situation all too well, Gluta couldn't say another word.
The chaos stirred up by the pig beastkin seemed to bypass their own kind. While other beastkin communities were being shaken, the pig beastkin community was only growing stronger. It was this suspicion that had brought Gluta to Mrs. Mig's table.
In other words, it was only a suspicion.
He had always known she ran a small eatery. He also knew that if she were to stop, she would have nothing left to do but die. Gluta wasn't heartless enough to tell her to do that.
But... he couldn't be the one to die, either.
"Then, at least try to talk some sense into your customers. I can't hold on much longer like this."
Mrs. Mig glared fiercely at Gluta before speaking.
"If I knew how to discipline someone properly, my own child wouldn't have died such a lonely death far from home."
Having endured all manner of hardships, Mrs. Mig was not one to be trifled with. Gluta left without another word. Things would remain difficult for a while, but... he would just have to endure a little longer.
After sending Gluta away, Mrs. Mig spat on the ground outside and slammed the door.
"Damn him. What does he want me to do...? Tsk. My only crime is not being dead yet."
Gluta's guess was half-right. Mrs. Mig was a collaborator with the Okma, albeit a lukewarm one. She kept telling herself that feeding them was something she had always done, but... she couldn't shake the feeling that she was getting involved in something dangerous.
"I should just die peacefully. Tsk, tsk."
"Come on. No matter how old you are, you don't really want to die."
The unfamiliar voice made Mrs. Mig jump. At the table where she had just been speaking with Gluta, a strange human was eating stew where no one should have been. He was boorishly shoveling the stew into his mouth as if he'd been starving, then blew on his tongue with a great fuss.
"Ah, hot. It's delicious, but it's hot."
"What rotten son of a bitch is stealing another man's food?"
She tried to sound calm as she shouted, but the human casually rolled the stew around in his mouth, savoring the taste.
"Huh, what's this flavor? It's pork, isn't it?"
"You're eating it without permission and you have the nerve to comment on the meat?"
"How curious. Serving pork in a place that supports the Okma? Do the Okma forget their principles when it's time to fill their own bellies, or are they being completely fooled by a kind-hearted old woman?"
Her ominous feeling became reality.
In the first place, it was strange for a human to come to a back-alley eatery like this. There was only one reason a human, with all their fussiness about hygiene and whatnot, would take an interest in her.
The troublemakers Mrs. Mig fed and sheltered: the Okma.
"Aha. Two pots? Pork for the other beastkin, and a different meat for the pig beastkin? Hoho. So that's the method. In that case... you could monopolize the sale of pork now that the other supply chains are blocked, couldn't you?"
"Is it the job of you young folk these days to just spout nonsense? I've been eating pork for eighty years! I don't care about such things!"
"I'm sure you don't. How much pork could a pig-woman living in a rundown house like this have eaten in her eighty years? It must be a recent development."
The human tossed his spoon aside and propped his feet up on the table. Feeling pressured by his relaxed demeanor, Mrs. Mig shrieked.
"My only crime is feeding the homeless! If that's a crime, then fine! I should just die!"
"Do you really wish to die?"
With a light flick of his arm, a card embedded itself in the wooden table. The edge of the trembling card was as sharp as a razor blade.
The human smiled at Mrs. Mig, who had gasped in shock.
"Don't worry. It makes no difference to me whether you're a respectable old woman, a pig beastkin who has suffered hardship, how pitiful your past is, or how shameless you are to deny the obvious truth right in front of you."
Mrs. Mig was a lukewarm collaborator. Naturally, she had backers. The ones who supplied the pork, provided funds, and had set up a communication network to be used when needed.
He was probably not the head of the Okma either, but... if I follow the trail from the fingertips, I'll eventually reach the head.
"Before me, you are nothing more than a single human being."
"Stop talking nonsense and get out! Before I report you..."
"Haha. Shouldn't the ones being reported be your Okma children, or perhaps the someone who implored you to keep their secret?"
Her denial meant there was something she wanted to protect. That was Mrs. Mig's only wish as she feigned ignorance, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge my words.
But I had already read her thoughts.
You can't hide anything from me. Forgetting things as often as a Regressor is about the only way to hide something from me. Though you'd probably forget what you were trying to hide in the first place.
"How did you...!"
I didn't answer, simply clapping my hands together. The steel cards scraped against each other, creating a brief spark. When Mrs. Mig, who had squeezed her eyes shut in fear, opened them again, I had already vanished into the chaos of Ende.
*
Around the same time.
The Piggy Bank. The most secretive place within the pig beastkin community.
Those who are penniless and persecuted are bound to become insular. They don't even trust the money in their own hands. At the bottom, it wouldn't be strange for someone to knock you over the head and steal your money.
Naturally, they gathered in blood-related clans, and any wealth that could be lost at a moment's notice was hidden away in their own secret caches. The most trustworthy clan member was tasked with guarding the vault.
This was the small bank of the pig beastkin, the Piggy Bank.
"Hmph. The 'Dining Table' was attacked?"
"The Matrons are trembling with anxiety. They say they have fits just thinking about that strange human."
Now that society had developed and knowledge of finance had spread, the Piggy Bank was not as insular as it once was. They had even learned how to make their money grow, turning a respectable profit.
It was just that their methods were a little dirty.
Shallok, the Vault Keeper, wrinkled his nose in displeasure.
"One? Just a single human?"
"So I've heard."
"Description?"
"Th-they said they couldn't get a good look..."
"An outsider? Could it be the one who just moved into that mansion?"
Ende may have been large, but rumors of the human who had bought a mansion with an enormous sum of cash had already spread far and wide. Whenever something strange happened, it was only natural to suspect the outsider who had made such a conspicuous entrance.
But his subordinate shook his head and replied.
"No, sir. The description doesn't match. Besides, he was in Obeli at that time."
"Grrr. Has he not been out and about? You have a description but you can't find him?"
A single strange human was throwing their community into disarray. Where he got his information, what abilities he possessed, they couldn't even find out his identity. It was suffocating, like being lost in a fog.
Above all, the attack was too swift and deadly to have been carried out by a single human. It seemed impossible even with an insider's help.
A nasty premonition prickled the Vault Keeper's nose, and he sniffed the air.
"Release the 'Eomni.' Pick the ones with the best noses and tell them to catch that bastard."
"Yes. I'll pass it on. Then, the funds..."
The Vault Keeper decided to open the vault to eliminate him. Taking out the key, Shallok inserted it into the lock and gave a firm order.
"I can't give you much. I'll see how the job progresses and decide whether to add more. Tell them that..."
Click. Feeling the lock catch, he turned the key and pulled.
The vault collapsed with a great crash.
When one is truly shocked, the body freezes. The vault door slid weakly to the ground in front of the petrified Vault Keeper. The steel vault, which had always reliably protected the pig-kin's money, now brazenly exposed its innards.
Spilling onto the floor with the door were hundreds of cards. It was as if the entire vault, save for a thin outer shell, had been replaced by cards; with its support gone, the whole structure came tumbling down.
The Vault Keeper's dumbfounded eyes stared inside. The vault, which should have been filled to the brim with Alchemic Gold, was instead piled high with pork.
And at the very top of the hill of pork, a single laughing card... seemed to mockingly greet the pig beastkin.
*
Whispers began to spread through Ende. The frightened murmurs of the beastkin overlapped, gradually creating a terror like something from a ghost story.
No one knew where he came from, how he knew what he knew, or how powerful he was. Wielding not great power but the unknown as his weapon, he tore through Ende, and no one could find him. They could only repeat the stories in a daze.
But all those who had experienced 'it' even once muttered the same thing, as if by prior agreement.
That a magician had appeared.