The Villain Dreams Of World Peace

Episode 44: The Second Piece (1)

 

By the time Muriel arrived at her destination, the sun had risen and the world had turned red.  Muriel was anxious to get there quickly, and had been urging Jaron since before dawn, but he’d been dragging his feet and delaying time since they’d entered Eklum’s territory.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Jaron flinched. After obviously stiffening his neck at Muriel’s question, he looked at her as if asking ‘what?’

 

“Just now, you picked up another rock.”

 

From the moment they entered Eklum, whenever he saw something shiny, Jaron ran to pick up the stone, and his bag was now bulging with them.

 

As it was around dawn, the stones were all a sparkling red, so Jaron scurried around like an excited puppy.

 

Not only Muriel but also Fen, who carried her on his back and rushed to catch up with Jaron, looked at him with pity.

 

Their relationship wasn’t great to begin with, but when Muriel set off with Jaron earlier than scheduled this morning, Fen seemed to sense her unease and carried her on his back. (Well, it was more like grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and dragging her forcefully rather than carrying her gently.)

 

Jaron, amazed by how lightly Fen ran, naturally tried to take a seat behind Muriel, but was chased away.

 

Fen laughed when he saw Jaron, who had injured his buttocks while trying to climb onto its back, and Jaron was furious for a good while, saying it was only natural to get angry when a familiar laughed at you.

 

Anyway, thanks to Fen carrying Muriel on its back, the two of them were able to reach their destination quickly. Jaron ran without showing any signs of fatigue. Muriel thought it would be nice to borrow a horse, but Jaron said it would be more difficult to return it, so he would make do with his own body.

 

“You can drink this since it’s dew, right?”

 

Muriel asked, carefully tapping the neck of the troubled Fen. As Kaiton said, Fen ate nothing, but sometimes it would happily lick its tongue when it found clean dew.

 

Wanting to express her gratitude to Pen, Muriel collected some dew on a fairly large leaf and brought it to Fen’s mouth. The creature, with white fur and eyes the color of old ice, glanced at Muriel and licked the dew with care.

 

It was the first time Muriel saw him eat food. If dew could be called food, that is.

 

“Good job, Fen.”

 

It was Muriel’s anxiety that held her to go on a journey early in the morning, even while embarking on Fen.

 

Early in the morning, Muriel woke up from a nightmare as usual. She had thought that the cause of the nightmare was the ice-cold Fen in her arms that penetrated her chest like ice, so she was momentarily embarrassed to wake up in a room akin to a furnace.

 

The firewood she had put in before going to bed was creating a massive blaze, burning fiercely. The fire was so intense that it seemed like the flames would crawl out of the fireplace.

 

The room was hot, and Muriel was sweating profusely. Even when Fen, who had a cold body temperature, was next to her.

 

“I thought you’d turned off the fireplace.. Was it not that?”

 

Muriel pressed her flushed cheek against Fen’s fur. It was definitely hot, but strangely, her chest felt cold and empty.

 

She felt like she had a strange dream, something she had forgotten but was important. If she concentrated a little more, she felt like she could grasp the hazy memory that wagged its tail at her. It was then that Jaron entered the shabby inn room, looking surprised as he swung open the door.

 

“What’s going on?”

“W-What…?”

 

Startled by the sudden visit, Muriel asked in confusion, while Jaron, with a dismayed expression, looked around the room and shrugged, clicking his tongue.

 

“You screamed. Did you have another nightmare?”

 

He muttered, visibly displeased at Fen’s appearance, then took out firewood from the blazing fireplace and adjusted the flames. Although he appeared casually dressed, as if he had rushed out upon hearing the scream, two swords were firmly strapped to his waist. Muriel nodded at the sight, swallowing a bitter smile.

 

“It seems so.”

“Again… who’s Kaiton, anyway?”

“…What?”

 

When Muriel asked back sharply in surprise, Jaron looked bewildered. He seemed taken aback by the unexpectedly sharp response.

 

“You definitely called out like that. Kaiton! And so desperately, too… you called out like that.”

 

As Muriel’s face grew paler with each word, Jaron seemed to realize that something was wrong. His voice gradually faded, and eventually, he furrowed his brow and fell silent.

 

“You don’t remember?”

“Yes… not at all. I called out for Kaiton?”

 

“Yeah. I heard that anc came running. No doubt about it. I thought someone was attacking again.”

 

“…”

 

“What’s wrong? Who is that?”

 

Jaron anxiously watched Muriel, who seemed deeply lost in thought, without receiving a response. Muriel forced herself to sit up despite her exhaustion from sweating profusely.

 

“Jaron, we have to go right now.”

“…Where?”

“To get the piece of Ur. We need to hurry.”

 

Even so, it was still dawn when Jaron finally came after being rushed. Kaiton was absent from Muriel’s nightmare. In fact, she only had a vivid sense of having a very sad, melancholic, and painful dream, but she couldn’t be sure exactly what dream it was. There was no memory of Kaiton appearing in Muriel’s memory.

 

But for her to call out Kaiton in such a manner that Jaron, in the adjacent room, was startled… Muriel couldn’t help but feel uneasy. After all, she hadn’t called him Crawford, but Kaiton.

 

She had never even uttered the name she’d only thought about. She couldn’t even guess what the hell she was dreaming about.

“There are no beggars in Eklum.”

 

As Muriel neatly wiped the dew off Fen and mounted it again, Jaron leaned closer and spoke. He tapped his swollen pocket contentedly, thanks to the stones he had picked up so far, and spoke in a nonchalant yet shy voice.

 

“Isn’t that because Eklum is rich in gemstones?”

 

“So… don’t tell me the reason you keep diligently picking up gemstones is because you think they’re all gems, do you?”

 

“You never know. There are quite a few knights who came to Eklum to subdue demons and ended up selling the gems they found on the roadside.”

 

“Do you really believe such rumors?”

 

Like a fool. Muriel didn’t say anything back, but it seemed like her inner thoughts were conveyed nonetheless. Jaron’s face turned red, and he shouted in frustration. In the meantime, as if knowing Muriel was going to tell him to throw away all the useless stones, he tucked his bag under his arms.

 

“What nonsense. You think there are no beggars in Eklum for no reason? It’s because gemstones are scattered like rocks, so there’s no need to worry about starving. There’s no damn problem.”

 

“…I thought you were smart. Do you really think there are no beggars in Eklum because there are gemstones on the street? It’s because the master of Elkum and the lords there make efforts to help the needy.”

 

Jaron scoffed, saying that nobles wouldn’t understand and that commoners like him could only hope for such luck if they wanted to strike it rich. Muriel let his complaints go in one ear and out the other, thinking of a familiar face that came to mind at the moment.

 

How was August doing?

 

He looked very surprised when Muriel said she would cover for the sin of burning down Sharan’s mountain. He looked like he was about to collapse under his guilt at any moment.

 

I wonder if he’s still worried.

 

It would have been nice to let August know that she was safe and sound, but Muriel had hurriedly left without even conveying a word of how she was doing to him.

 

Since her search for the fragments of Ur with Jaron was a secret, officially Muriel was still considered a convict awaiting Sharan’s judgment.

 

Since she had met Rovelia while getting Dachini’s sword, Muriel wondered if August might have heard news about her if he had also met Rovelia afterwards.

 

She did wish he had a better person in his heart than someone like Rovelia.

 

As Muriel was contemplating sending a letter to inquire about August’s well-being, a beggar appeared in front of her, despite the saying that they did not exist in Eklum.

 

“What are all those people doing gathered over there?”

 

“What are those people over there doing, gathering like that?”

 

No, that must be a sinner. Even beggars don’t get pelted with stones by the villagers. Jaron, upon noticing the people gathering and expressing their anger, hardened his face and muttered under his breath. Seeing him adjust the belt holding his sword, and frowning without hiding his contempt, it seemed as if he wanted to draw his sword and rush towards them immediately.

 

In front of a girl with sharp eyes, there were several people whose relationship with her was difficult to gauge. There were about eight or nine of them, including a young man who didn’t seem like he would fall into this kind of trouble, an elderly man who appeared to have read quite a bit, and a kind-looking lady who seemed generous. Normally, these people would belong to different groups and not mix or speak to each other, but now they had gathered together and were hurling abusive words at the helpless child who had collapsed on the ground.

 

“Your house has put the whole village in danger, and you still insist on being stubborn?”

 

“If you’re the daughter of the Demon King’s follower, it’s your natural responsibility to deal with that filthy ghost. Why on earth are you being so stubborn?”

 

“Do you not care if the whole village turns into ghosts? Stop being distracted and fix it quickly!”

 

“Yeah! How much longer do we have to wait? You’re not trying to let these ominous beings increase by postponing it day after day, are you?!”

 

The people swung around the arm of the skinny child who looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. It seemed like they were trying to drag her into the house she was sitting in front of. The child didn’t appear to be more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and it was unclear why they were raising their voices and demanding responsibility from such a young child.

 

“Ah…. Please… I can’t… I can’t do it… Please don’t make me…”

 

“Hurry up and go in!”

 

The child shed tears and used all her strength to resist going into the house. However, she didn’t run away. She guarded the entrance with all her might as if she couldn’t leave the house.

 

“What’s going on?”

“There’s probably a demon inside that house. Most likely one of her family members.”

 

Jaron spat on the ground in the direction where they were and made a disgusted expression as if he had seen something unpleasant.

 

“In small towns like this, they’re inexperienced in dealing with demons and are much too hostile. When a demon appears, they make the family members handle it.”

 

“Handle it… You mean kill the demon? The family members?”

 

If they killed a demon without the help of the divine treasures, they would be cursed and lose their lives. When one couldn’t wait for the guardians who could handle the demons, the best option was to confine the demon and wait for it to naturally disappear after exhausting all its vitality.

 

The demon was a being that became a living ghost after its pacio ran out, with its life force still intact but its physical body worn out. Once the demon exhausted all its remaining life force, it naturally disappeared.

 

“Yeah. It’s because they can’t stand a demon being nearby. They can’t bear the anxiety that it might escape and increase the number of demons in the vicinity.”

 

The demon had a nickname of being a ghost that absorbed happiness and spread unhappiness. It was because they took away pacio and increased the number of demons in the area. It was said that when a demon was actually present, rational thinking stopped, and one felt a creepy fear and unhappiness.

 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand the fear of a being that they couldn’t get close to or kill, but to make the family members handle it directly.

 

It was no different from telling them to die.

 

“We did well to bring Dachini’s sword. Let’s go quickly.”

“…Do you want me to help them?”

 

Jaron asked in surprise, as if he hadn’t even thought of it.

 

“Then do we just go? How long will it take for you to help? I can’t go as far as giving them a full-fledged funeral, but I can’t just let that child stab her demon-turned-family with her own hands.”

As Muriel stepped down from Fen, seemingly indignant, and approached the angry crowd with determined steps, Jaron looked at her with a dazed expression before soon following her with a bright smile.