Chapter 32

When Nodon was exiled, there was a chance that his followers might rise in rebellion.

Marks and Iiria seemed to be seriously wary of that, but in the end there were hardly even any people there to see him off.

Those who attended Nodon’s departure by ship were the priests and other church people, looking reluctant about it, and as for anyone from the company, I was the only one there.

Nothing had ever made me feel more keenly just how fleeting power could be.

Stuffed into pilgrim’s clothes that did not suit his grossly overweight body in the slightest, boarding the ship with nothing but a single beggar’s sack, Nodon looked exactly like a man cast down from prosperity.

Just before that former tyrant boarded the ship, perhaps feeling reluctant to leave behind the land he had once ruled, he suddenly turned to look back toward the harbor.

When our eyes met, I braced myself for him to start shouting abuse at me, but Nodon merely gave a light shrug.

-What of it? I can just start over again.

It felt like I could almost hear him say that, and in the end I still could not bring myself to hate Nodon from the bottom of my heart.

The ship departed safely, and the bishops also headed back with weary looks of relief.

For all his many personal failings, Nodon had honestly recognized my abilities. I wanted to stay and watch until the ship disappeared, but I had too much to do now. Just as Nodon had been driven from the position that had seemed unshakable, we could not afford to relax either.

And besides, this uprising had originally begun from my own deeply personal desire that I could not die until I made my dream of game development come true.

Now that I had dragged in the people of this land, including Iiria, the least I could do was fulfill my responsibility to them.

And to do that, there was a mountain of things that needed doing.

I shook off the sentimentality and turned to head back toward the former Nodon Company, when—

Perhaps because I had been looking down, I bumped shoulders with someone.

“Ah, sorry—”

My apology cut off halfway because someone grabbed me by the chest.

Startled, I looked up, and the one standing there was Kururu.

A girl carrying beastfolk blood, who had surely been made to suffer more than enough bitter humiliation at Nodon’s hands.

Thinking she might snap at me for coming to see off her sworn enemy Nodon, I hunched my neck and shut my eyes.

But nothing happened no matter how long I waited, and before long, the grip on my shirtfront loosened.

“You are as soft-hearted as ever.”

“?”

When I cautiously opened my eyes, Kururu, wearing an annoyed expression, lightly smacked me on the head.

“He was our enemy, was he not? There is no reason for you to look like that.”

She glared at me with sharp eyes, but strangely enough, I was not afraid.

And little by little, I had come to understand that even this fierce look of Kururu’s carried all sorts of different emotions.

Seeing how dejected I looked, she was probably trying in her own clumsy way to comfort me.

“…This is just what my face looks like.”

When I gave her a tired smile, Kururu narrowed her eyes even further, then let out the breath she had been holding.

“Whatever. We are going to eat.”

“Huh? Wha—?”

Kururu had already started walking.

Her silver-white hair, like silk dusted with ash, was braided today. At the ends of those braids, bright red ribbons stood out beautifully.

“Eat? …But we already had breakfast earlier.”

And that breakfast had been something Kururu had gone out of her way to bring to the company herself.

Apparently she was deeply grateful that Kengo and I had driven Nodon out of Jirenu Territory and helped restore power to Lord Iiria. Ever since that uproar, Kururu had been bringing breakfast every morning.

But Kururu stopped dead at my words, turned back over her shoulder, and said this.

“This is when you eat. Shut up and follow me.”

Her green eyes glared at me irritably.

If she kept quiet, she was a slender beauty, but her eyes were sharp and her mouth was sharp too. And in the past few days I had also learned that Kururu had a habit of trying to feed people at every opportunity. I had known that every guest who visited Iiria’s mansion was always treated to a meal, but I had assumed that was simply a custom, since nobles were expected to entertain visitors. Apparently, though, it was actually a sort of personal philosophy of Kururu’s.

That if you ate, most things would somehow work out.

In that sense, she was even more of an athletics-type than Kengo.

That said, it was not as though I was unhappy that Kururu was showing concern for me.

“I still have work to do, so no alcohol.”

I quickened my pace a little and came up to walk beside Kururu.

Seen like this, she was a delicate girl, a full head shorter than me.

But when you looked at her from the front, her sheer forcefulness made her seem twice as large.

“You are more ascetic than the church people.”

“Huh?”

I thought it was perfectly normal not to drink while working, but then I noticed the sulky, disappointed look on Kururu’s profile. She had come all this way to cheer me up, and I had gone and shown no enthusiasm at all.

This was another world, and there was that saying: when in Rome, do as the Romans do. I told myself as much.

“If it is just one mug of ale.”

All beastfolk were heavy drinkers, and Kururu, who carried half their blood, was quite strong as well.

At my concession, Kururu’s green eyes widened at once, and then her lips curled into a grin.

“Yorinobu, it seems you are finally starting to understand this world.”

“…I am humbled.”

Kururu was more than a full round younger than me, and yet somehow I could never hold my head high around her.

“Good! Meat it is! You look kind of frail!”

Kururu grabbed my shoulder and tugged me hard enough to make me stumble.

Still, when Nodon had been at the height of his power, Kururu had always worn one of only two expressions—either resenting the world or enduring her suffering—so if she was this cheerful now, then I figured that was all that mattered.

And in the end, Kururu made me drink three mugs of ale.

When I staggered back to the company on unsteady legs, Yoshu, the boy who came from the orphanage to work there, gave me an intensely disgusted look, and all I could do was apologize profusely in shame.

Now then, about Nodon.

He had been the very image of a villainous mastermind, hoarding wealth and using his power to indulge his desires however he pleased, but there was no denying that he had been extremely capable as a merchant.

And since the Nodon Company had quite literally been ruled by Nodon himself, I had feared that the moment it lost its master, everything would descend into chaos… but fortunately, that did not happen.

To say that was thanks to Nodon’s management policy would be a little misleading, but broadly speaking, that was the case.

Nodon’s management style had been rooted in the narrow-minded principle that he absolutely would not tolerate anyone besides himself acting important. But it was also different from the usual sort of dictatorship.

In fact, he left the work itself quite freely in his subordinates’ hands and did not care what they did so long as they produced results. Thanks to that, I, who could read and write and had a better grasp of numbers than anyone else, was immediately promoted into an important position handling the account books.

And yet Nodon was genuinely narrow-hearted, to the point that he could not stand the sight of anyone besides himself acting important.

For example, even when veteran workers tried to throw their seniority around in front of new hires, he hated it.

Every last person in the company was equally his slave, and it was as if he were saying that they were to worship only him, work with all their might for his profit, and do absolutely nothing else.

What was more, he was extremely sensitive to anything that interfered with profit. If a senior worker failed to teach a junior how to do the job, he would start shouting, Teach him right now! Teach him everything! And all of you, every last one, work equally hard for me and make money! Likewise, if he found someone ignoring another worker who was falling behind just because their job category was different, he would furiously berate them, saying, You are not working for yourself, you are working for this company’s profit!

As a result, regardless of age or job type, the people in the company all helped each other with their work, and it had become an astonishingly comfortable workplace.

And in this world, where everything was rough and brutal, such a workplace was apparently rare. Everywhere else, newcomers were bullied by the old hands, and turf wars over work were harsh and openly hostile.

Everyone said the same thing: even with Nodon around, this workplace was still better than anywhere else.

As a result, rather than me, the sudden makeshift company master, having to persuade them to stay, they were the ones begging me not to fire them.

Of course, if they were willing to keep working, that was reassuring, and by sheer chance I had no intention of changing the atmosphere Nodon had created.

The only thing I did change was their pay: regardless of age or job, I added ten copper coins per person to the daily wage.

So the changes within the former Nodon Company were limited to about that much, but matters outside the company were another story.

With desires no less immense than his giant body, Nodon had kept the people of Jirenu Territory pressed down from all sides.

And the moment that great evil disappeared, the resentment that had built up for so long came pouring out.