Chapter 90: “Tide”

Chapter 90: “Tide”

Early in the morning, Earl Hall woke at his most habitual time and took a walk through his garden and across the lawn.

After he finished looking at his beloved pure-blooded horses and returned to the third floor of the villa, changing into clothes for going out, his wife, Caitlyn, had also risen and was instructing her personal maid to pass along arrangements she had just thought of.

“It is time for breakfast,” Earl Hall said with a smile, standing beside the coat rack.

Just then, he heard a commotion outside. It grew closer and closer, without subsiding.

His brows furrowed almost imperceptibly. Earl Hall turned his head and glanced at his personal valet.

Without the great noble having to speak, the valet immediately walked to the window and pulled open the remaining gauze curtain.

With a swish, more light poured into the bedroom, clear and bright.

The valet cast his gaze outside, sweeping left and right. His expression abruptly grew grave.

He turned back, glanced at the Countess, who was still speaking with the maid, and hurried to Earl Hall’s side. Lowering his voice, he said, “A march! Many people are marching!”

A march? Earl Hall was not unfamiliar with the term. As a Loen great noble and the second-largest shareholder of the Constant Coal and Steel Consortium, he had seen workers gather and march many times, demanding higher weekly wages and maximum working hours. In the past month or two, Backlund had also seen several marches and protests erupt for various reasons, but they had all been calmed quickly, without causing much impact.

His gaze moved back and forth over his valet’s face for several seconds. Earl Hall narrowed his eyes slightly, keenly sensing that today’s march might differ from what he imagined.

Without revealing anything, he stepped forward and arrived beside the window.

With a single glance, Earl Hall’s eyes froze.

Taking advantage of his position on the third floor, he saw that the distant road was covered in black masses of people. They gathered together, surging in this direction like a massive dark cloud about to cover all of Backlund.

“Bread!”

“We want bread!”

The shouts of thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even more people gathered into one, gradually turning loud and distinct, making Earl Hall’s scalp tingle.

During Masses and other events at Memorial Day Square, it was not as though he had never seen so many people, nor heard so many layered voices. But at those times, he had barely counted as one of the crowd, part of that whole. Today, however, he was one of the targets of that surging “tide.”

Earl Hall could not help glancing toward the rear of the marching crowd, only to discover that there was no end in sight. Still, with his rich experience handling affairs, he could make certain judgments from the details he observed.

He could see that the police officers and soldiers positioned along the two sides of the march were extremely few in number. Compared with the huge crowd, they were like tiny sprays of foam stirred up by a sea tide—insignificant.

Earl Hall was certain that a march directed at Queens Borough would receive the strongest possible control, and that large numbers of soldiers and police officers would not go undeployed. The current situation could only indicate one thing:

There were simply too many people participating in the march!

So many that the soldiers and police officers were spread too thin!

A march of over a hundred thousand? Perhaps even more… A march born from food shortages may transform into riot and looting at any time… Right now it still appears very orderly… Is that because there are many organizers and leaders? Damn it. Did MI9 and the major Churches fail to notice any signs at all? How could a march of this scale be organized overnight? Even if Backlund has already become a powder keg, to light it, one still has to strike quite a few matches! Thought after thought flashed through Earl Hall’s mind, his expression growing more and more solemn.

“Bread!”

“We want bread!”

The shouting grew increasingly orderly, increasingly enormous, as though a tsunami had risen inside the city.

At that moment, the male servants and maidservants inside Earl Hall’s residence all noticed the disturbance. One after another, they arrived beside windows and looked toward the area beyond the gate.

Their faces immediately turned pale, as though they had encountered a broken dam and were unable to avoid the flood.

“Bread!”

“We want bread!”

Countless voices merged together, and the dark mass of heads brought an extremely powerful sense of oppression.

Earl Hall abruptly came to himself. Instinctively, he wanted to have someone telegraph the royal family and ask them to organize troops for suppression.

But as he observed further, he discovered that many people in the march wore military uniforms and had physical disabilities.

“Bread!”

“We want bread!”

The soldiers maintaining order watched the marching crowd with both vigilance and sympathy, their gun barrels pointed toward the sky.

Among those people were their former comrades, their parents, wives, and children, their friends and neighbors, and a great many living, breathing people like themselves, who merely wanted not to starve to death. How could they not feel pity? How could they not be filled with sympathy?

Perhaps, at first, that emotion arose in the hearts of only five or six soldiers and police officers. But it soon spread to almost everyone.

In the past, under the supervision of officers’ revolvers, they would certainly have numbly accepted any order. But now, what many of them thought was:

Whichever son of a bitch dares order me to fire—I’ll shoot him dead first!

“Bread!”

“We want bread!”

Amid shout after shout, amid the impact brought by a massive crowd gathering together, Earl Hall’s face paled slightly.

He could not help withdrawing his gaze and looking toward the guards and bodyguards gathered outside the house, then toward the Church of Evernight Beyonders responsible for protecting his family. He discovered that the two groups reacted differently.

The guards and bodyguards were filled with fear. Among them, some Beyonders he had hired wore exceptionally grave expressions. As for the Evernight Church protectors, their eyes mostly held sympathy and compassion.

To the Church, perhaps my house is equivalent to a thousand believers, while outside are tens of thousands, a hundred thousand, perhaps even more… Earl Hall instantly reached this realization. He gained a clear understanding of what consequences his planned actions would bring.

Even armed to the teeth, relying on such a small guard force, there was absolutely no way to resist that many marchers. Once conflict broke out, the Evernight Church’s Beyonders could not be counted upon at all. If his family could escape Queens Borough under the protection of the hired bodyguards, that would already count as the Goddess’s favor!

For the first time, Earl Hall experienced the power of numbers. He experienced the terror created when so many people gathered together.

As thoughts flashed, he immediately turned to his personal valet and ordered, “Send a telegram to the Prime Minister. Send a telegram to the other nobles. Say that I am willing to take the lead and donate the vast majority of our grain!

“Ask them, whatever happens, to remain calm!”

As radio waves flew and messages were exchanged, the nobles living in Queens Borough all learned Earl Hall’s stance.

The current Duke Negan looked gravely out the window. After a period of silence, he breathed out and said to the male secretary beside him, “Protect the residence. Abandon any hardline posture. Follow Earl Hall’s lead.

“Also, make examples first of those merchants hoarding grain.”

Once the upper class reached preliminary consensus and had a response plan, Earl Hall’s heart finally settled back into place. He had enough mental energy to head to the dining room and join his family.

As he passed through the dining room door, he subconsciously swept his eyes over the room.

His wife stood beside the window, looking outside in worry. His eldest son paced back and forth, appearing furious and anxious. His daughter stood beside his wife, watching with great quiet as the marching crowd moved forward like a tide.

…

Fog Sea, aboard the Future.

Cattleya stepped across a brilliant long bridge condensed from starlight and returned to the deck.

“Captain, you absolutely have to deal with Frank this time!” Boatswain Nina was the first to rush over, shouting loudly.

Cattleya’s melancholy and sorrow were instantly shattered. Frowning faintly, she asked, “What did he do this time?”

Nina’s face was full of anger.

“He asked me whether I can give birth. He wants to study how life is conceived and how souls are produced!”

“…Did you hit him?” Cattleya was silent for one second before asking.

“I did!” Nina made no attempt to conceal it.

Cattleya immediately looked toward Frank nearby, ignoring his bruised and swollen face.

“You should begin by studying fish reproduction first.”

“All right.” Frank scratched his head and obeyed the captain’s order.

Cattleya then nodded toward the Bloodless, Heath Doyle, whose pale face had emerged from the shadows inside the cabin.

“It is all right now.”

Heath Doyle visibly relaxed.

“Yes, Captain.”

After being interrupted by her crew in this way, Cattleya finally returned to the real world. While no one was paying attention, she rubbed her forehead and flew into the captain’s cabin.

Then she sealed the place using magic and took out the Wishing Lamp, which ranked among the very top even among Grade 0 sealed artifacts.

Once prepared, Cattleya sat behind the desk, lowered her head, and began reciting Mr. Fool’s honorific name in Jotun, reporting the matter concerning the Queen of Mysteries to Him.

Klein, who was currently carrying a lantern and surveying the terrain around the northern city-state ruins, tilted his head slightly and listened for several seconds. Then, following the usual procedure, he entered above the gray fog.

He immediately sat in the high-backed chair belonging to The Fool at the very end of the mottled long table and extended his spirituality toward the crimson star representing The Hermit.

“The Queen of Mysteries has obtained initial clues regarding that primitive island and plans to leave the safe sea routes for a wide, long-term search…

“That primitive island was accidentally discovered by Emperor Roselle. One of his nine secret mausoleums is very likely hidden there… It is the only one that has not yet been discovered or destroyed, and is the hope for the Emperor’s resurrection and return…

“However, the living beings on that primitive island seem to worship an unknown power originating from the starry sky—the starry sky that brings pollution by mere understanding… I need to remind Madam Hermit and have her write a letter to warn the Queen of Mysteries…

“The Wishing Lamp… the Wishing Lamp? So this Grade 0 sealed artifact was in the Queen of Mysteries’ hands… It was formed from a Miracle Invoker Beyonder characteristic combined with some characteristic of mysterious origin. Even true gods cannot shatter it…”

No sooner had Klein heard about 0-05 than he adjusted his viewing angle, magnifying the image of the kettle-shaped golden lamp.

Suddenly, the wick protruding from the Wishing Lamp’s mouth ignited on its own!