Methodology To Recycle The Trash! (1)

By the thirtieth day of the Monster Wave, reports of damage began arriving one after another.

First, the flow of logistics faltered. When logistics slowed, ordinary continentals—common people—suffered the most.

As the prices of daily necessities rose, their losses mounted.

To make matters worse, the representatives guarding the east and west walls began forcibly requisitioning food and anything that could be turned into a weapon from the commoners.

Those with nowhere else to go headed for the plaza by the Garden of Gods; the fountained meeting place instantly transformed into a refugee camp.

Was this a problem only for the continentals?

Of course not.

Even representatives staying in inns found it burdensome to pay for every meal.

Logistics were being supplied through teleportation magic circles, but operating those circles was neither cheap nor easy.

Representatives ended up paying two to four times previous prices for the same goods.

Scolding them for scarcity wouldn’t fix anything. They had already gone too far oppressing continentals and had even destroyed the inn next to the plaza.

Their funds would gradually dry up.

Then their attention would inevitably turn to the places defending against the Monster Wave. At least the four directional walls provided food and shelter under the pretense of supplies.

They’d be forced to open the eyes they’d kept shut while ignoring the Monster Wave until now.

They’re probably worrying about it now.

I had firsthand experience with price inflation.

In my previous life, at the nadir of my pathetic existence, I naturally didn’t participate in the Monster Wave.

As prices rose, even training became difficult; I ended up living off Jimnas.

Those months with Jimnas ultimately broke my lazy habits, but the price increases during the Monster Wave were enormous.

“Kim Han.”

White Tower Lord Albm approached and spoke, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Why?”

“…Other representatives have come.”

“Already? That’s faster than I thought…”

It was about the time prices would start to rise. Compared to my previous life, their movement now was definitely quick.

Given that prices had only just begun to climb, I expected capable representatives to stir themselves around day forty.

It’s day thirty today—already? Are these guys quick to act?

When I stepped out of the guard captain’s building—closed because monsters hadn’t attacked for ten days—there weren’t one or two representatives waiting as I’d expected. Over four hundred stood before me at a glance.

“What is this?”

The representatives flinched at my cold words. Their actions and reactions revealed their true colors.

“W-we also…”

“Get lost.”

“W-we do too! We have the right to participate in the Monster Wave!”

The man who stammered at first gained courage from the supportive voices around him and finally raised his voice.

I realized I had been too complacent. Human society inevitably includes those who love freebies and cling to others; logical explanations don’t move them.

If people donate to disaster victims out of pity, these ones would whine they’re worse off and demand the money for themselves.

“Fair enough. Then do it.”

“…Really?”

He asked with a face full of hope, and the representatives behind him looked pleased.

“Why ask me that? You said you wanted to participate in the Monster Wave. Then participate.”

“B-but! You have to promise to provide supplies or combat support…”

Their greed was obvious.

“Why would I?”

“…Because you’re the north gate’s defense captain…”

“I’ll feed and lodge the 1,800 people here, mages included, at my own expense. Supplies? There are supplies—the Exorsus chief of guards entrusted them when he asked us to hold the north gate. You say you have rights. Use that right to go fight monsters anywhere. Want to man a section of the wall here? Fine, I’ll give you a little space. After all, we’ve accumulated a lot of contribution.”

Only then did the man and the representatives behind him realize the situation; their faces twisted miserably.

If they participated on a section of the north wall, I had no reason to stop them. I could simply cede the wall’s edge and make them arrange their own supplies.

“Go.”

“…Ugh!”

I looked indifferently at the man who had more to say but couldn’t continue, waving him away like an annoying fly.

“…But we’re, fellow representatives…”

This time a woman from the back stepped forward.

“…Ha!”

Having gotten an inch, they now blathered without restraint.

Annoyance aside, I had much to prepare for tomorrow’s battle. The longer I dealt with this beggar swarm wasting my time, the angrier I grew.

Kwak kwak kwak kwaa―!!

With the sound of a dam breaking, I unfurled the divine power I had stored and packed it into ferocious killing intent.

“Kyaa!!”

“Ugh!”

“Hah! Guh!”

Representatives fell forward in rows, trembling and collapsing. The collapse of more than four hundred people was shockingly swift and instantaneous, as if they’d never felt killing intent before.

“What the—?”

Confirm.

“Huh?! What is this. Now I see—you’re trash? You’re bystanders?”

Bystanders. There are groups who call themselves recluses and whom the gods call power thieves. In my previous life, Lee Hyo-ju estimated that among the initial 100,000 representatives in the Battlefield of the Gods, about two to four thousand were “bystanders.”

There are no representatives who are truly completely neutral by disposition. No one passively accepts everything and complacently stays in reality.

They are selfish beings, each with their own desires.

Hazel had desires and used others to achieve them. Naruan was the same, and Lee Hyo-ju also—though I don’t know to what end, she certainly had desires.

I, too, have vengeance—a goal and a greed.

The difference is only in degree; representatives, me included, are selfish.

The only real divide is whether that selfishness extends to include comrades or remains limited to oneself.

But those representatives called bystanders are thoroughly selfish and lazy—concerned solely with their own safety and gain. They expect no effort from themselves and only desire benefits.

Even Benialis or Violentia put effort into serving their gods and aims; these ones do not. They endure their gods’ oppression or mockery, stop by the Garden of Gods each year to receive powers, and hide across the Battlefield of the Gods to live.

Ironically, they never surrender. If survival were their goal, they’d surrender, but they don’t. I later learned it’s because surrendering forfeits the ability to receive powers annually from the Garden of Gods.

In short, they’re scum who take as much as they can while refusing to lift a finger.

Among other representatives are heinous villains, and there are ones I dislike too, like Violentia and Benialis. But I hate these trash more than those.

They make no effort and only hope for benefits, yet they’re meticulous about what they believe they deserve. No, they’re trash.

If they could remain hidden and live quietly, fine. But in my previous life, in year fourteen, they ambushed a mid-ranking legion and “absorbed” the entire unit.

The mid-ranking legion had faults, but the bystanders’ behavior drew outrage from other representatives.

At that time, the bystander group had swelled to six thousand and executed a rear attack on a legion of fewer than three hundred, relying entirely on ranged powers. From then on they rose as a force and became a subject of controversy.

The legion that later dealt with that trash was our Rebound.

“Ah, you call yourselves recluses rather than bystanders? Think that makes you look important?”

“…Guh! S-save me…!!”

They clawed the ground, begging for mercy.

Seeing them like that, I noticed something odd.

These people hadn’t typically moved like this during Monster Wave periods. If they had, rumors would surely have spread.

Why had such people suddenly appeared here, of all places—where I was?

It must have spread that I had deliberately revealed my strength early on and selected representatives.

The reason became clear soon enough.

“…Ch-chivalrous Giver. Pl-please.”

A frail woman’s voice broke as she called me by the title “Chivalrous Giver.”

“Honestly… if these trash were going to beg, they’d at least get on their knees and beg for dog food—why pretend to exist?”

I still had things to handle today. I didn’t have time to waste on these pieces of trash.

When I drew my divine power inward, some panted on the ground and some had even wet their pants.

“So you want to participate in the Monster Wave? Heh.”

“Ah, no.”

“We’re fine.”

They waved their hands vigorously, eyes filled with fear, shaking their heads at me.

“Fine, you do have the right to participate in the Monster Wave. Good, I’ll let you participate. Lee Hyo-ju.”

I called Lee Hyo-ju through the communication crystal; she replied instantly.

“Bring fifty warrior-type representatives to the guard captain’s building.”

—Yes!

After ending the call and watching the trembling bystanders for a while, a group of representatives came running in less than five minutes.

“Mr. Kim Han!”

Lee Hyo-ju hurried up, asking what was going on.

“These trash claim they have the right to participate in the Monster Wave? I’ll have them participate soon. Since they desperately want it, keep them from running away. Also, I rifled their waists and took magic pouches and the like. Leave not a single coin.”

Lee Hyo-ju’s gaze went fierce. From my brief instruction she inferred what had happened; her words were as harsh as her expression.

“Get up, trash. Do you know where you are?”

For the first time, Lee Hyo-ju spoke informally at our first meeting. Her face was frost-laden.

We dealt with the trash and climbed the prepared carriage.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes!”

The carriage driven by White Magic Tower Lord Albm left the north gate, passed the northern residential area, and arrived at Exorsus’s only library.

The library looked the same as always.

With Shio’s abilities it could easily be kept immaculate, but whether intentionally neglected or not, when you open the door you’re greeted first by the smell of old paper and musty air.

“Oh? You’re here?”

“How have you been?”

Shio wore his usual smiling face, peering over his spectacles with a grin.

I smiled back as he pulled a chair from elsewhere and we sat across a counter facing each other.

“How’s it going? I heard you’ve been flaunting yourself lately?”

“Flaunting? I’m about to die from stress.”

“Where are you talking about dying? Don’t you know who I am? I’m a War Mage.”

“Yes yes, Jemma.”

“Not Jemma! War Mage!!”

“Yes, Jemma.”

“Man, this bastard. Hey! Want to spar disregarding the training time?”

“I’ll stop joking now. You said it’s urgent, right?”

The reason I visited the library during the Monster Wave was that Shio, when we discussed taking Merus into the legion, had given me a communication crystal and asked me to stop by as soon as possible for an urgent matter.

“I told you why the Monster Wave occurs.”

“Right.”

“The Exorsus walls form an almost exact square. But the Monster Belt? It’s distorted, but roughly circular. Yet monsters gather toward the Exorsus walls from all directions as if guided, and they come in roughly similar strength from the four directions.”

“Yes.”

It’s one of the puzzling points for me as well.

You might accept it in some game, but this is the Battlefield of the Gods.

Of course Exorsus citizens and continentals are treated worse than NPCs, but even so, continentals think and act proactively. Wouldn’t monsters be the same?

“And you noticed it too, right? Odd species. Like a White Ogre with one giant head or a Selov wearing a crown—bizarre ones like that.”

“Yes. Weren’t those things originally there?”

Shio snorted at my remark and scoffed.

“Where would such things already exist? If those were so numerous, the Monster Belt would have been in a warring-states period already. The trade guilds wouldn’t be able to pass because of monsters fighting over territory.”

“Then what are those?”

“What else—they’re created.”

“…Created…?”