284 – Side Story – Where is a life without regrets? (1)
The scenery of a rural village catches my eye.
Walls that are so tilted that it would not be surprising if they fall down at any time, a roof that has holes and leaks, and a twisted door made of cracked wood.
All the houses you see look like this.
The darkness has descended so deeply that not even any hope can be seen, let alone appearing on people’s faces.
“Mom, I’m hungry. Mom…”
“Let’s go to sleep. “If you sleep, you won’t be hungry.”
“It’s only been a month since harvest, but the warehouse is already empty…”
Even though young children whine to their parents that they are hungry, they do not get even a single bean, let alone a bowl of porridge.
A mother comforts her whining child and tells her that she will not be hungry tomorrow, but she will not be able to give her child a meal to satisfy his hunger even if tomorrow comes.
Looking at such a wife and her children, the husband, the head of the household, quietly weeps because no matter how hard he works, he cannot get his hands on the harvested grain.
That’s right. This was the first appearance of Windheim, which Ciel von Kreutel, or Kim Do-yoon, received as territory when he was first reincarnated.
So, this current scene is nothing more than a dream in which my brain replays the scenes I saw back then.
At this time, a thin young woman holding a child made a sound and said, ‘Ah.’
“Jack’s not breathing anymore.”
It was not enough to cry out in sorrow over the death of my child.
The young woman sheds only a few tears, as if this were a common occurrence, and wraps her dead child in a piece of old cloth and quietly carries him to the village cemetery.
Due to the exploitation of Bayleaf Mars, starvation to death, both children and adults, is very common in this village.
It is said that wailing sounds are only heard when the husband, the head of the family, dies and the young widow and her children have to be sold into slavery.
It is not that they cry out of sadness because of the fact that the dead person is leaving, but because of the pain of the young woman not knowing what will happen to her as a s*x slave and the children as slaves.
People who don’t know the situation of these people might call those who don’t cry for the dead an emotionally barren psychopath, but I didn’t think so.
Because when a person is too tired and suffering, he becomes insensitive to the pain of those around him and even his family.
“Everyone, Master Ciel made porridge for the villagers! “Come and eat porridge!”
“From now on, Master Ciel von Kreutel will protect you! He will let you live. So quickly, bring your family and come here!”
Ella looked and sounded like she did when she was only 12 years old, and although she called me master, she actually looked and sounded like a spoiled little sister to her.
The Balt guy is not a grandfather with long white hair and a bent back, but a young knight wearing only shabby armor.
Even though I was in a dream, I could clearly feel the fragrant smell of wheat and barley in my nose.
The skinny people, who looked like they had only skin on their bones, heard those words and came running.
“Really, Master, have you prepared something to eat for us?”
“Can we eat it? “I couldn’t even pay all my taxes this year.”
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“Is it okay to no longer lie to your children and say you will give them food tomorrow?”
At those words, Ella was heartbroken to see people who were in a similar situation to her a few days ago, and Balt was shedding tears under her helmet.
At that time, Balt was my exclusive driver, so his situation wasn’t difficult, but he had lost his family due to famine when he was young.
“Yes! Master, please come quickly and eat. “Please bring your family and come quickly.”
“Who told you to reveal what that Mars guy did and kill him by throwing stones at him? Isn’t it because he cares about you so much? “Bring them all quickly.”
After that, people who didn’t know how starving they were came running in with their babies in their arms, and for the first time in a long time, they ate proper porridge deliciously.
In fact, the porridge distributed to the villagers was ambiguous as to whether it was porridge or water, with the salt seasoned to a minimum as people who had been starving for a long time could die from indigestion if they ate too much at once.
“I thought the only thing left to do was die because I had eaten all the bark off the tree…”
“Thank you, thank you…”
“Thank you so much, Master…”
The people who received the porridge ate the porridge with gratitude, shedding tears, even though they were so dry that they seemed to have no tears left to shed.
I, Kim Do-yoon, was extremely shocked when I saw that scene, but he was also relieved inside.
Because now he has come… The heir of the baron who has the power to save 3,000 poor people from starvation.
He thought that he could somehow make this place a better place for people to live by using the knowledge he had studied while attending graduate school.
“Philip, Philip. Here’s the porridge. Open your eyes and see. Really. Let’s eat quickly and get energized. My precious lord has made sure that I no longer feel hungry. Come on, eat it, come on.”
However, the child could not eat his portion of porridge.
Instead of eating, when the porridge went into his mouth, he just felt nauseous, as if his body was rejecting the food. I told him to bring me water with a little salt to calm his body.
The boy named Philip, who in Korea is about the age of a freshman in college, turned to his mother and me and spoke in a voice that only people nearby could hear because his body was so weak.
“I love you mom. And thank you, master. Thank you so much for allowing my older brother and younger siblings to eat their fill. I also want to eat porridge, but it’s too much for my throat to eat. I will rest a bit and then eat. Sorry…”
It was a small voice from the beginning, but it got louder as it went on, and it ended without even finishing the last word.
When I heard that, I really hoped that this was a hidden camera.
How could I have brought enough food to save so many starving people?
When I saw that the child was so weak that he couldn’t even eat porridge, I told him to boil salt water so that he could regain the minimum amount of energy.
Is it even possible to die here like this?
A tear or two began to fall from the eyes of Kim Do-yoon, who was possessed by Ciel von Kreutel.
Her mother had been exposed to so many deaths, so even though her child died, she did not show much sadness.
I, who had never imagined people starving to death while living as a Korean, cried out loud when I saw a child starving to death with my own eyes.
“Why the f*ck! I brought as much food as I could eat, but a child like this has to starve to death right before my eyes!? f*ck!! “You’re not even sick, you’re starving to death!”
At that time, the residents of Windheim had a hard time understanding that the lord’s son personally brought porridge for them.
It is said that they were deeply moved to see a mere child of a serf dying miserably, crying out in pain over something they had just given up on and accepted as an everyday tragedy.
At the time, I had just become possessed by Ciel, so I was not accustomed to the dignity and etiquette that a noble should observe, and I was a very emotional person.
Otherwise, why would he have done such a crazy thing that could have been beyond his authority by beating Bayleef to death without getting permission from his father?
So, he grabbed the woman and said, who was more surprised to see the master of the baron family, who was as high as the sky, crying over the death of his own son than to see him crying over his son’s death.
“I’m really, really sorry. I’m too late. “That’s why your son and so many others suffered such misery.”
If I think about my actions at that time, it was tantamount to disqualification as a noble.
However, using that incident as an opportunity, I subdued Schwein, who was in the back of my mind, and stabilized the territory to a certain extent. Then, I became like the main character in any other reincarnation anime.
I gave up the immature idea of living comfortably with the money I earned and having fun with beautiful women, and decided to live like I do now, doing my best for the people I have to protect.
The dream progressed up to this point, and then the scene before my eyes blurred and disappeared.
When I opened her eyes, I saw my grandmother Ella, her hair graying but still pretty, fidgeting and wiping the sweat from my face.
“Your Majesty, your Majesty? Did you have a nightmare? Calm down, I am here next to Your Majesty, and Irina is also in the next room. “Don’t worry, it’s safe.”
If I say this, I am now over 80, so it may seem like I have dementia, but dementia is a mess.
As I get older, I have become physically disabled and can only use a cane to walk to the restaurant and bathroom, but my head still works well.
I even got 1st grade in Korean on the mock exam for the academy entrance exam that I took to kill time a few days ago. Neither Ella nor Irina suffered from dementia.
My father passed away in his sleep about 10 years ago, on a night when we were bragging about winning three games in a row while playing card games late into the night.
Balt suddenly asked me to go see the site of the old Windheim village two years ago, and after looking around the place, he quietly left.
Both of them lived for over 80 years and were respected by all people, so they were noble people.
Ella also stays next to me and looks after me since I started having trouble moving a few years ago, so even though we live in the same room, she is not sick.
I’m only doing this because my concern is a bit extreme.
So, I stroked Ella’s head like before and said,
“It’s okay. I was just having a dream from before. Yes, I miss William, Martin, and Victoria for the first time in a while. “Tell everyone to come here.”
“I understand. “Then when should I tell you to come?”
When I heard the word ‘when’, I had a hunch.
The time remaining in my body will stop right around the time they arrive.
I lived a long life without any regrets.
I have no regrets because I have seen the development of this neighborhood, which is like my heart’s hometown.
As someone who was once the emperor of an empire, don’t you have something to say?
“Tell him to come as soon as possible. “I think it’s time for me to go to where my father and Balt are.”