Objection (1)
Life had been peaceful for a while.
I met countless people—Chairman Demison, Kairen, Priest Leonick, Manager Piaget, and more.
I expressed my gratitude to my teammates and our generous sponsor, and even received a few small gifts.
And I prepared a gift for myself as well.
Cold brew coffee.
I had been secretly brewing coffee at the lakeside villa without anyone knowing.
The villa had been deliberately chosen in a region where coffee beans grew abundantly.
A place with a mild climate, adequate rainfall, and mineral-rich volcanic soil.
That way, even if there were many coffee trees, no one would find it suspicious.
Actually, the villa had been built in an area already full of coffee trees from the start.
There, I harvested the beans, roasted them, ground them, steeped them in water, and drank the result.
Turkish-style coffee, so to speak.
But it still wasn’t enough.
I craved the flavor of milk or fruit.
I tried every method I could think of, but they all failed.
After all, I had only ever bought and drunk coffee—I had never paid attention to how it was made.
If I had known it would come to this, I should have read a book about coffee while I was still on Earth.
“I want to drink it with a different flavor… something fresher and more refreshing. The kind of taste that washes away that greasy feeling after one long sip…”
One day, the impulse struck me suddenly.
That’s it!
Cold brew.
Not the hot version—something slightly rich yet clean.
I started moving right away.
I found a wooden bowl of suitable size.
I poured water into it and added finely ground coffee.
Then I sealed the lid and waited twenty-four hours.
From here on, it was a test of patience.
Opening it wouldn’t change anything.
All I had to do was wait.
The only thing I did was open and close the door repeatedly to maintain the temperature.
“Done!”
When the twenty-four hours were up, I jumped to my feet, opened the lid, and strained out the grounds.
I dropped two large chunks of ice into my favorite cup.
Then I poured the coffee and took a sip…
“Ugh… it smells like dirt.”
It wasn’t the cold brew flavor I had been hoping for.
Still, compared to hot water extraction, the acidity was reduced and the bitterness was noticeably milder.
I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but it seemed to carry a hint of chocolate aroma as well.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was satisfying enough.
I could improve the rest little by little.
I poured the extracted cold brew into a bottle I had brought and headed to the office.
Today was one of those days when no one else would be there.
I could enjoy a peaceful cup of the coffee I had made.
While reminiscing about my days on Earth.
“Good morning.”
Marian suddenly showed up for work.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Your subordinate came to work—why are you asking why?”
“You’re on vacation.”
“Even if I come in to work, what’s the problem?”
Marian had returned after taking a few days off following the dungeon incident.
She looked far more haggard than she had during the dungeon expedition.
“You’re asking because you’re curious, aren’t you?”
“About what?”
Marian rolled her eyes as she asked.
I was hurriedly pouring coffee into my mouth so she wouldn’t notice.
I couldn’t afford to waste it.
“Why I came back early.”
“Not really.”
Marian’s eyes narrowed into triangles.
“I suddenly took the day off and couldn’t come in for several days.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not even going to ask why?”
“It was legal vacation time.”
“Don’t you ever get curious about other people, Senior?”
“Not really.”
“……”
Come to think of it, something about her seemed different.
A subtle shift in atmosphere that was hard to put into words.
It wasn’t just because she looked exhausted.
Maybe actually fighting in the dungeon had changed her way of thinking.
Or perhaps she had been shocked by the horrific display of corpses.
Or maybe she had started to doubt her own profession as a prosecutor…
Marian came from one of the wealthiest families in the Gilorian Empire.
Her father was the chairman of a massive arms manufacturer.
In other words, she was the daughter of a defense-industry tycoon—she didn’t need to work in dangerous conditions to make a living.
She was also a high elf, even if her language was a bit rough.
“I took care of the backlog of work and visited my family home. I also strengthened my contract with the spirits.”
She let out a sigh and dragged a chair over to sit beside me, as if trying to steer the conversation into a one-sided monologue.
I held my breath, worried the smell of coffee might reach her.
“And I was briefly confined at the family estate. That’s why I couldn’t come.”
That sounded strange.
Confined at home?
“What do you mean?”
The question slipped out before I realized it.
“Hmm… what’s that smell?”
“Smell?”
“Something nutty and fragrant?”
“I don’t know.”
“You ate chocolate by yourself, didn’t you?”
If she wanted to misunderstand it that way, I was more than grateful.
“Senior, someone who drinks this well shouldn’t be so stingy. Share a little. Why are you so petty?”
Marian scolded me to her heart’s content.
Go ahead, scold me.
That was better than the alternative.
Still, lecturing the daughter of an arms-manufacturing conglomerate about earning money didn’t seem like the smartest move…
I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“Senior, there’s going to be a protest soon. For the most ridiculous reason.”
The very next day, I understood exactly what Marian had meant.
* * *
[Elves cannot go on living like this.]
[Guarantee the elves’ right to survive.]
[Weeping elves. We want to live in a world without discrimination.]
I encountered banners hung by elves while passing through Clovan’s weapons shop district on my way to inspect equipment.
A bald elf at the front would chant a slogan, and the rest of the elves—headbands tied around their foreheads—would echo it in unison.
The Gilorian Empire was a strict class society, but it strictly prohibited discrimination based on social status.
Here, “social status” included race.
In other words, while it was a class-based society, racial discrimination was forbidden.
Nobles could employ slaves, but they had to strictly observe the three basic labor rights, and they could not violate fundamental rights such as the life or physical safety of workers.
However, society was a system in which a gap inevitably formed between ideals and reality.
Because of this, implicit discrimination rooted in the class system existed, and conversely, there were groups that benefited from it.
Among them, those who sat at the top of the food chain and sucked up the sweetest honey with the least effort were the elves.
Even as elven goods enjoyed popularity in the market, the reason they could avoid the hardships of labor was thanks to the cheap wages of goblins.
Most elven factories employed goblins to produce goods and maintain price competitiveness in the market.
People were delighted to purchase affordable elven products and gladly opened their wallets, turning a blind eye to those suffering behind the scenes.
And now those very elves were protesting, claiming their right to survive.
The Gilorian Empire truly had many strange and mysterious aspects.
“Please listen to the voices of the elves.”
An elf with a pointed ear covered in elaborate tattoos on his scalp handed me a flyer.
It described an incident that had been making headlines in the news a few days earlier.
The title read: [A Small Essay on the Injustice Suffered by a Shop Owner Mentally Traumatized by Goblin Violence in the City].
I stuffed the flyer into my pocket and continued toward my destination.
The Immortal Weapons Shop.
[Closed for the time being.]
A crudely written notice hung limply from the door.
“Ah, their employee is a goblin too, right?”
“Something must have happened.”
“Looks like they’re keeping their heads down.”
Since this was a street specializing in weapons shops, numerous dungeon hunters passed by and each offered their own commentary on the closed sign.
“Hmm.”
Master Barley had apparently chosen to forgo profit rather than get caught up in the noisy incident.
After all, his employee was a goblin.
With no other choice, I placed the armor melted by the queen spider’s acid back into my extradimensional storage and headed home.
On the way back, I saw numerous shops with [Closed] signs hanging in their windows.
* * *
“It’s a massive blow to our pride.”
The silver-haired man, his long hair neatly braided, spoke while looking down at a passing woman with a cowering posture.
“There has never been a more shameful situation since the founding of the Gilorian Empire. From the very beginning, there was not a single day when the sun set on the Gilorian Empire without war. We have witnessed countless times our homes burning to ashes through war and genocide. Yet we protected the Gilorian Empire from monsters, and now we work day and night for the prosperity of its citizens.”
The man paused for a moment and looked around.
A woman behind him stood up and began clapping, prompting the crowd to rise and cheer in response.
Reporters pushed through the gathered masses, trying to get their microphones closer to the man.
The silver-haired man raised both hands high toward the people.
Instantly, the noise of the crowd died down.
“The Empire must not forget the sacrifices of us elves. This prosperity is maintained thanks to the elves. Of course, we never asked for compensation for those sacrifices.”
A resolute light shone in the man’s eyes.
“But we have been betrayed! Those who contributed nothing are sleeping and eating in the same land as us. The leaders of society turn a blind eye to this.
Now, they have even gone so far as to slander the elves and put us in this shameful position!”
The silver-haired man turned around.
Before him stood a massive statue of the Goddess of Justice holding the scales of judgment, looking down upon all.
This was the courthouse of the Gilorian Empire.
“That’s right. People no longer respect elves.”
“What is this world coming to?”
“Such vulgar people.”
Sighs of disappointment rippled through the crowd.
“Today, I will show you. Justice will always prevail! We cannot accept falsehoods as truth. No matter how much society has changed, and even if someone powerful tries to exert pressure, I will not turn away from the truth. I will not stop at clearing one individual’s injustice—I will become a stepping stone so that elves can stand tall once more. That is the duty, the destiny, and the mission that we elves must fulfill. Justice will always prevail!”
“Waaaaah!!!”
“Elves! Elves!”
“Respect the rights of elves!”
Thunderous cheers erupted for the silver-haired man, his fists clenched tightly.
Camera flashes went off everywhere, and countless microphones followed his every step.
“Aah!”
“Don’t push!”
A small woman stumbled as she was pushed by the crowd.
They pressed their bodies together like penguins huddling against the cold, doing everything they could to avoid being swept away by the angry mob.
Each of the small-statured people held a photograph the size of their own body.
The photos showed a goblin lying in a hospital bed, covered in blood and connected to various tubes.
“Please clear my husband’s name.”
One of the haggard women cried out in a small voice.
But her words were drowned out by the crowd’s cheers for the silver-haired man.
Only two or three microphones and cameras were directed at these small people.
“Prosecutor… sir… we… my husband… he didn’t… didn’t do anything wrong. Gyak…”
The haggard woman spoke to me.
“Gya. Gyagyak. My… my children… they didn’t do anything wrong either… but they… they can’t go to school. Gyagyak.”
The goblin lying unconscious had two wives and eight children.
One of the wives—a goblin with neatly combed long hair—had tears welling in her eyes that now fell down her cheeks.