Chapter 132
Chapter 132
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 131
Chapter Title: Beggar Gritz (7) - The Dark Side of the Legend
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Even now, grains aren't quite like that, but back in the old days, they were food, currency, and power all in one.
Having plenty to eat meant you could gather and command more people, and having more people meant you could claim more land.
In that kind of world, what did it mean to ruin all your rivals' crops? Just how immense a power was that?
If their ancestor had been some powerless nobody, he might have been overwhelmed by his enemies' desperate assaults. But Kanilian was already one of the top families even then—not unrivaled, but prominent enough.
It meant they had the strength to weather their rivals' frantic struggles and turn the tables, devouring them instead.
No matter how much more land their rivals held, or how fertile it was, or how abundant their water sources and skilled farmers—no matter what, it meant nothing.
The rivals scattered or crumbled, unable to preserve their forces, and Kanilian absorbed them, growing ever larger.
By the time the first ancestor to wield its power entered eternal rest, and his successor took the helm as family head, no one could deny that Kanilian reigned supreme over these lands.
But the new head who succeeded his father felt it wasn't enough.
Not that he wanted more—no, he simply believed the power they already held would be impossible to maintain in its current state.
Isn't that right?
Even if it happened once or twice, people might chalk it up to coincidence, but every single person who challenged Kanilian saw their crops fail at just the right moment.
If no one grew suspicious about that, that would have been the real oddity.
Sure, Kanilian's prestige kept anyone from shouting it from the rooftops, but the lingering perception alone was poison.
What started as a small spark today could ignite a blaze to consume the entire Kanilian house tomorrow.
The head of that era's first thought was to borrow its power, just as his father had.
If it could dry up land and water, couldn't it do the opposite and make things bountiful?
And yes, when you weighed possibility against impossibility, it was feasible.
Using its power did increase crop yields, plain and simple.
But the head of that time soon shook his head, deeming it insufficient.
The key issue was that Bellaria's lands were already fertile enough.
A bumper crop in barren, parched soil would catch the eye immediately, but a slight improvement in already thriving fields wasn't all that impressive.
Of course, consistently harvesting twelve when others got ten would add up to real value over time. But in practice, its power had clear limits that made it impractical.
Devastating crops had been effortless, but directing that power toward bountiful harvests exhausted it almost immediately.
The reason was straightforward.
To create a poor harvest, you only needed to tap its ability briefly at a key moment in the long farming cycle.
But for a good harvest, you had to pour its power into multiple stages of that same cycle.
Destroying was always easier than fostering success, so in terms of efficiency, there was no comparison from the start.
That's when the head of that era changed his approach.
If poor harvests were easier than good ones, then lean into the easy path.
If the land's natural fertility diminished the value of bountiful yields, then make barrenness the new baseline.
...Y-yes, just as you said.
It was something that shouldn't have been done.
Something that never should have been attempted.
But the head of that era did it anyway.
Little by little, he dried out patches of what had been rich soil.
Little by little, he parched the once-abundant streams.
Just enough that people wouldn't despair and rise up in revolt en masse—like ink soaking into cloth, he lowered expectations for the land and its crops.
Then, as generations passed and those who remembered Bellaria's former abundance dwindled, the new head of a changed Bellaria put his predecessor's scheme into action.
He spread tales of the "Guardian God."
A god who brought bounty to barren, desolate lands.
And the Kanilian house, blessed by that god.
The proof was undeniable.
While other farmers reaped pitiful harvests, only Kanilian and its allies enjoyed bumper crops.
The "truths" whispered by the few remaining elders shrank into irrelevance before the pangs of hunger and Kanilian's handouts.
And so, the narrative flipped.
From a once-fertile land where only Kanilian's enemies faced famine.
To a once-barren land where only Kanilian's friends tasted plenty.
To bolster the Guardian God's authority, the stories grew more detailed.
Legends accumulated, and Kanilian evolved from mere recipients of divine favor to the god's own bloodline.
...If all had gone according to plan, it should have ended there.
But it didn't. It couldn't.
The first anomaly was that its behavior began to grow bizarre.
Originally, it had been like a docile simpleton.
It would sit blankly in place all day, only responding sporadically when the head approached and spoke to it.
But at some point, it started initiating conversations.
And demanding fruits, clothes, and such.
The heads didn't mind much.
What it asked for was usually trivial, and ignoring the requests brought no consequences.
-My descendant, why do you not honor me with proper rites?
But eventually, even that became untenable.
It began calling successive heads its "descendants."
No longer whining like a child, it spoke its demands with dignified tone and expression.
Its appearance was still a rotting, patchwork mess, but the golden dust-like glow it emitted had grown far more intense.
Yes.
It resembled the "Guardian God" from the legends.
The head who realized this fell into turmoil.
Others might not know, but Kanilian's successive heads were well aware the Guardian God tales were fabrications—illusions they'd crafted themselves.
They weren't the god's bloodline.
Their glory stemmed from their own cunning schemes.
So the head rebelled.
He denied the Guardian God and ignored its demands.
And the next year, every inch of Kanilian land withered as if struck by drought.
-How could I bestow blessings and protection upon a descendant who shows me no reverence?
Gazing at the laughing Guardian God, the head paled.
Only then did he grasp that something had gone hopelessly wrong—but it was far too late.
Suppressing the Guardian God by force was impossible.
The bedridden invalid who once could barely move had become a monster casually slaughtering dozens of threatening soldiers.
The head desperately begged forgiveness.
The territory was already rife with chaos.
He'd quelled it once with accumulated authority and power, but prolonged famines would surely topple even that.
-I require a shrine maiden. A true god demands as much. Indeed.
The Guardian God demanded a shrine maiden.
A accessory and sacrifice to revere it, serve it, and make it more "godlike"—do so, and it would grant bountiful harvests once more.
Considering the god's power's true nature, this was less "granting blessings" and more "withholding crop destruction." But daring to point that out was impossible.
Or perhaps, to the Guardian God, the two were one and the same.
After all, successive heads had spread those very rumors and shaped that perception.
The positions of Guardian God and heads reversed.
Now, the heads could no longer control the god to their whims.
Instead, the house strained to fulfill its demands and clean up its messes.
They knew selecting and offering maidens from the populace wasn't ideal governance, but they had no choice but to comply.
Because it was the Guardian God's will.
Because Kanilian were merely its descendants—and servants upholding its decrees.