“Would you be so kind as to get down from there, king of Eyland?” Karen pointed her sword at him. “This is my message to you, king who so cowardly fled alone from your fallen country: you must be punished.”
“Punished? You’re going to punish me?” the king said, unable to believe his ears. “Tell me, what have I done?! I tried to fight Farune, the enemy of the entire world! I was right, I had justice on my side! You villains are the ones who should be punished!” He pointed a finger at Karen, but she reacted with neither fear nor anger; she merely scoffed.
“Hmph. Justice is strength. And strength is justice. That’s the one, simple truth, but you’re making complicated excuses. It’s comical, and pathetic. So, what will you do?” she asked. “If you don’t come down from there, we’ll hack the whole wagon apart. Not that we would mind that whatsoever, of course.”
The king of Eyland slumped his shoulders. It was the truth. There was no such thing as justice in conflicts between nations. Ultimately, he had seen Farune as a threat and tried to eliminate them, only to fail—that was all.
“All right,” he relented. “I’ll come down.” The king slowly got out of the cart, along with the family he had brought with him. He tried his hardest to act brave, so as not to lose his dignity as king. His wife and his young son and daughter embraced each other protectively.
“So, what do you mean to do with us?” the king asked. “Will you kill us?”
“That’s not up to us,” Karen replied, sheathing her sword. “It’s up to the people you once ruled.”
Then she and the other members of the Hundred stepped aside. The villagers stepped forward in their place—monster meat in hand.
“Because of you, Your Majesty, we were forced to eat this disgusting meat,” one of the villagers said. He had a blank look in his eyes.
“If only you hadn’t robbed us of our food, this never would’ve happened,” another villager said, voice full of regret.
“Hold on, I only ordered for food to be confiscated from the south and the east. I didn’t do anything like that in the west!” the king said, desperately attempting to defend himself.
“That doesn’t matter!” another villager shouted. “Monster meat came here from the south and the east! They said, ‘Are you friend, or foe?’ Now that Eyland’s lost, we all have to eat this stuff! And it’s your fault!”
“What?!” The king gasped. He had been frightened of monster meat consumption spreading, and it seemed that it had happened even more quickly than he had expected.
“But this village was one of the lucky ones,” an old lady said, smiling faintly. “The saint came, and graciously said, ‘Please, eat while I’m still here. If you feel at all ill, I shall heal you.’ How truly fortunate. Without her, who knows what would have happened…”
“The saint?! You mean Maria? Did Maria do this?!” the king pressed, enraged.
“What are you saying, my king?” one of the villagers said. “She’s the one who’s traveling around and healing people to clean up your mess.”
The villagers’ eyes flashed with hatred.
“You’re wrong! Maria is in cahoots with Farune! She’s the one who’s making you eat monster meat!”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” one well-built villager said. “There’s no avoiding eating monster meat in this country anymore. If you don’t eat it, your fellow villagers will see you as an enemy.” He smirked. “And by the way, it isn’t all bad. They say that when you eat it, you get stronger. I hear that in the south, where they started eating it first, farmwork is a breeze now.”
“That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard! Would you eat that awful meat just because it makes farming easier?!”
The plump middle-aged man the knight had first called out to spoke. “Yes, we peasants are idiots, unlike you royals and nobles,” he said. “After all, we’re doing all we can just to survive day in and day out. We don’t give a damn which government rules over us.” He looked coldly at the king. “Well, none of that matters. You want food, right? Well, I brought some for you. It’s monster meat.” He took a chunk of cooked meat off the wooden board and pushed it in the king’s face. “Eat it. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Who the hell would eat this trash?! I’m the king of this country!” The king of Eyland swiped the board away with his hand, and the meat fell to the ground.
“We’re the ones who eat that ‘trash.’ And it’s because of you.” The man picked the meat up from the ground. “Also, you’re not king of anything anymore.”
The other villagers grabbed the king, holding him in a full nelson.
“Stop it, I’m telling you, stop!” the king shouted.
“I’m sure the southerners thought the same thing. ‘Please, don’t take our food.’ But you didn’t listen to them, did you?”
The villagers began to forcibly cram pieces of monster meat into the mouths of the king and his family.
“Shouldn’t I heal them?” Maria asked with pity as she watched the spectacle from afar.
“It’s all right, Lady Maria,” Karen said, having returned to Maria’s side. “These are his just desserts. What sort of king steals food from his subjects, only to run away by himself?” She spoke with unconcealed anger. Like Maria, Karen had been born to poor commoners, and she had never liked royalty or nobles who did as they pleased. Needless to say, Mars was the one exception.
“But…at this rate, their lives will be in danger… At the very least, I want to help the children…” Maria’s expression was tinged with melancholy.
“You’re too kind, Lady Maria. But if we let Eylish royalty survive, they’re bound to become an obstacle to His Majesty’s rule,” one of the other members of the Hundred said chidingly. “We must not take pity on them.”
“I see…yes, you’re right. But that’s just too sad. Lord Mauve is surely lamenting the foolishness of man.” Maria hung her hooded head.
Karen placed a hand on her back, and urged her to leave. “Let’s return to His Majesty,” she said. “No doubt this outcome is all part of Lord Mars’s grand plan. Otherwise, he never would have deployed us all the way out here. Good grief, his intricate designs are beyond me.”