Chapter 55

It's been a while... I heard there's an author whose last post was in February, but I can't even place them in the same category as me...

Honestly, I want to give them a piece of my mind!

So, here's Chapter 31.

Quill pen danced lightly over the parchment.

It glided smoothly, the ink stored in the sharp tip transforming into words.

How many letters had he written now? He quickly and surely wrote the ritualistic phrases he had repeated many times. He signed his name at the end of the parchment, sprinkled fine sand to prevent the excess ink from bleeding, and after a moment, brushed off the sand to complete the letter.

"How many have you written now?"

While waiting for the parchment to dry, Johan thought he should try to make a start on the next letter. He asked the butler while reaching for the next parchment.

However, the butler, who was standing by, did not provide a new parchment but replied, "This is the last letter, sir."

"Hm, is that so?"

The total number of letters to be sent to neighboring lords, cities, knight orders, and adventurer guilds was quite substantial.

It was a daunting task to write them all in a short time, but it seemed he had managed to complete them.

He rolled up the parchment, dripped wax from a special candle, and pressed the ring on his right hand into the wax before it hardened.

When he removed the ring, the crest of the Aubiere family was clearly imprinted.

"Good work, sir."

"Hmm... What is it?"

Johan nodded in response to the butler's words of encouragement, but suddenly a loud noise reached his ears. It came from outside the manor.

"It seems to be outside... I will go and check, please wait here."

"No, it's fine. I'll go too."

Saying this, Johan headed outside the manor with the butler.

"What's going on!"

When Johan stepped outside, he saw a cluster of bright red lights in the village, still shrouded in darkness.

He immediately recognized them as torches.

"It's the lord, the lord! What's going on, explain to us! We don't want to evacuate!"

The villagers had gathered at the foot of the hill where the manor stood, holding torches. His stepfather was trying to persuade them to evacuate.

The villagers, recognizing Johan, called out to him. Each one raised their voice, so Johan approached his stepfather to understand the situation.

"What's happening here?"

"Oh, Johan. Actually..."

The content of what his stepfather, the former Lord Aubiere, said was almost as he had expected.

While Johan was writing letters, his stepfather, the former lord of Alba, had gathered the villagers and instructed them to evacuate. However, it was difficult for the villagers to accept the sudden order to "abandon the village and flee" in the middle of the night.

The villagers showed a mix of confusion, questions, and resistance.

His stepfather tried to persuade the villagers to evacuate, but some of them, who strongly opposed the evacuation, came to the manor with torches, demanding the cancellation of the evacuation order. That was the current situation.

"How is the evacuation progressing?"

"It's not going well. Some villagers have already boarded the wagons with merchants and travelers... but..."

It seemed there had been some trouble even with those who had agreed to evacuate.

The villagers were instructed to evacuate with only what they could carry, but many of them tried to take as much of their belongings as possible. Some even tried to load their furniture onto the wagons, which were meant for the elderly and children, causing problems.

"What about those wagons?"

"There was no choice, so we had to unload the belongings and send the elderly and children first."

Including those who tried to evacuate on foot or with carts, only about a third of the villagers had agreed to evacuate.

Johan was shocked at the lack of progress, but he also understood their reluctance.

He looked at the villagers' faces.

Their faces, illuminated by the red light of the torches, were covered in dirt and sunburned. Their hands, holding the torches, were calloused and rough. They were dressed in shabby, worn-out clothes, the appearance of farmers who lived with the earth.

They were all born and raised in this land. It was impossible for them to easily abandon their homes and the land where they had lived all their lives.

Johan understood their feelings, even though he was from a different background. If he were in their position, he would have done the same.

Because he was the same.

Johan was born as a second son. As a second or third son in a noble family, he was only valuable as a spare in case something happened to the eldest son.

There was a time when he envied and resented his brother Albiore, who could inherit the family, even though they were poor. That's why when his parents told him about the marriage proposal to the Aubiere family, he was incredibly happy. He felt that light had shone on his future, and he could truly live.

For the villagers of Alba, most of whom were farmers, the fields were their Aubiere family.

The fields they had inherited from their ancestors or cultivated themselves were not just a means of livelihood but their very reason for existence.

Even if they understood intellectually, emotionally they could not accept the idea of abandoning them just because of a threat. That's why there was so much conflict.

"Lord, please reconsider! We don't want to leave our homes in the snow! How will we survive without our homes and fields? Our livestock will be eaten by beasts!"

"Calm down! Everyone, calm down! Step back from the lord!"

"Spiders can't be that bad. They might not even come. That's right!"

The situation was chaotic. While the villagers' requests were earnest, they could not be allowed in the face of the threat of the giant spiders.

However, no matter how much Johan and his stepfather tried to reason with them, the idea of abandoning their land was like a death sentence to the villagers, and they could not accept it.

(If this continues, we'll run out of time...)

Johan, along with his stepfather, tried to persuade the villagers while thinking of a way to resolve the situation.

The core of the problem was that for the farmers, even temporarily leaving their land was instinctively unacceptable.

Whether they evacuated from Alba or stayed, they saw it as a loss. That's why they clung to the hope that the threat was a false alarm and they could continue their lives as usual.

(Can I interrupt this line of thinking, even temporarily...?)

Anything would do. Was there something that could make the villagers think, even for a moment, that it was okay to leave their land?

Johan's ears did not miss the words of one of the villagers.

"Besides, this year's harvest was barely enough... If we don't take care of the fields, we won't have enough to eat next year!"

"Right, right!"

As the loud exchanges continued, the villagers' excitement seemed to rise. Their initial demand to cancel the evacuation order had turned into reasons why they didn't want to evacuate, and now it had become a way to vent their anxieties.

For several years, the harvest in Alba had not been good, though not a complete failure.

This year's harvest was the same as usual, and after the Aubiere family, as the lords, collected their taxes, there was barely enough left for the villagers to survive.

The farmers of Alba tried to grow crops that could survive the winter to increase their food supply, but even with that, it was a close call.

Of course, if they left the village now, the crops would not grow or would be destroyed by animals, leading to starvation next year.

The villagers' petitions, filled with anxiety, frustration, and fear, mixed with their long-standing grievances and burned like torches. The situation was almost at the point of a riot, and the villagers seemed to have forgotten their original purpose, shouting out their complaints.

"Basically, we're struggling because the taxes are too high! And now you're forcing us to do this! It's unfair! Right, right! You... you..."

It was the worst-case scenario.

A peasant uprising, a direct appeal, a riot. The situation was dire.

His stepfather's face, pale with fear, caught Johan's eye. Once it reached this point, it was only a matter of time before the riot broke out. Even the usually docile peasants would become like beasts, and the situation would be uncontrollable. For a noble who governed the land, this was a nightmare.

The only option was to suppress the situation now. His stepfather's hand moved to the hilt of the sword at his waist.

Johan stopped him, making sure the villagers didn't notice.

The former Lord Aubiere looked at Johan in surprise.

Johan ignored him and spoke to the villagers in a calm, clear voice.

"Alright."

It was a calm but loud and clear voice.

It reached the ears of the agitated villagers, but they didn't understand what he meant.

Their attention focused on Johan, and he seized the moment to continue in a clear voice.

"I'll waive the taxes for next year."

The effect was immediate.

It was like pouring a bucket of water over a burning bonfire.

The excitement that had been building up suddenly subsided, and the night's silence returned.

What had they just been told? The villagers tried to understand the meaning of the words they had heard, desperately recalling the moment before.

"Um... Lord? What did you just say?"

One of the gathered villagers, looking hesitant, asked Johan. The others, holding their breath, watched him intently, not wanting to miss a word.

(It seems to have worked.)

Johan, trying to suppress a strange laugh that threatened to rise from the contrast with the previous situation, spoke again in a calm voice as the head of the Aubiere family.

"So, if you follow my instructions and evacuate, I'll waive the taxes for next year."

Even after hearing it a second time, the villagers looked disbelieving. Some looked at each other, and a few pinched their cheeks to see if they were dreaming.

Of course, they would react this way, thought Johan. Even in times of poor harvest, lords would still collect taxes, and this was no exception in Alba. While they would sometimes delay tax collection or accept labor in lieu of taxes to prevent the peasants from starving, the fundamental fact was that lords, or rather, nobles, did not hesitate to exploit the commoners.

Yet, the lord of Alba, a noble, had just said he would not collect taxes. For the villagers, this was like the world turning upside down.

"Hey... Johan, is it really okay to say that?"

Of course, it wasn't okay.

But Johan thought it was only a matter of time.

No matter how noble or lord one was, the ones who paid the taxes were the commoners. If the commoners, the farmers of Alba, were killed by the monster horde, all that would be left was uncultivated land.

Eventually, immigrants might settle and the land would be rebuilt, but until then, there would be no tax revenue. Worse, the land might be taken away due to poor management.

It was better to waive the taxes for a year and save the villagers.

Bang!

When Johan clapped his hands, the villagers, who had been frozen in place, jumped.

"Well, are you evacuating or not? Let me make it clear, I'm not that kind to waive taxes for those who don't follow my orders!"

The villagers looked at each other.

But unlike before, they now knew what they should do.

As I mentioned in my activity report, my work, "The Adventures of the Poor Noble Node," has been adapted into a manga. You can read it on the Comic Earth Star website.

The manga is illustrated by U Seta, who has brought the story to life with charming artwork.

For more details (the content is largely the same), please see the activity report article titled "Manga Adaptation!"