I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 376 War and Peace (Part Two)
War is like a greedy wolf that devours life and wealth, bringing death and decay.

Even after leaving the battlefield, Monokuma could still smell the rust and burnt odors in the air, and the dying howls and the shrill clashes of swords still lingered in his ears.

Monokuma had just finished a brief but bloody tug-of-war with the Retalians. Although he had won, the joy of victory did not come as expected. Instead, it weighed heavily on his heart like a lead weight.

He sat in his simple barracks, with the scene outside the window a mix of hustle and bustle and exhaustion typical of post-war camps.

Monokuma held a whetstone in his hand, slowly and mechanically polishing the sword that had accompanied him across the battlefield.

The cold blade reflected the dim light from the window, illuminating his face, deeply etched with the marks of time and gunpowder, his eyes filled with an unusual emptiness and an indescribable weariness.

The sheer number of people he had killed meant that combat no longer brought him the exhilarating thrill of battle, but rather endless exhaustion and the foreseeability of further devastation.

So when Old Li pushed open his door and found Black Bear wiping his sword, and told him he had a mission, the latter's first thought was to refuse.

However, the former still convinced Monokuma, and there was only one reason... "This time, the main mission is for players to lead people to rescue people, not to kill people... You can get war aftereffects in the game, you're quite a talent."

Don't get too caught up in the drama!

After a moment of silence, Monokuma realized that the leader of the battle group was right; he had indeed made a mistake.

However, Monokuma doesn't want to change himself. Some people enjoy fighting and killing in games and relish the thrill of killing, while others have more to pursue... Monokuma thinks he is the latter, and his situation is more complicated.

How many people can I bring?

"Bring as many as you want, there's no limit to the number of people... This is a main quest, all players can participate."

"Hmm... then I'm fine on my own."

……

Hot winds swirled dust across Jacob's chapped cheeks.

He stood at the village entrance, leaning on a gleaming oak stick, before the ruins that had been burned down to just a few charred wooden stakes.

The smell in the air was so complex it was nauseating.

The charred wood, the faint smell of blood, and the raw, bitter scent of freshly broken crops in the distant fields blended with a deeper, more despairing atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, the iron hooves of Reteria swept in like a black storm.

Jacob's village, called Oak Stump, didn't even have a proper fence, making it a fragile leaf in the storm.

He remembered the deafening sound of horses' hooves, like the urgent beat of a death knell.

I remember those cavalrymen in gleaming armor and menacing helmets, brandishing their longswords like demons crawling out of hell.

I remember the white flag the village chief tried to raise was pierced by an arrow, which went through his hunched body along with it.

I remember the towering flames when the barn was set ablaze and the desperate cries from inside... those were women and children who couldn't escape.

wealth?

The village's meager savings, a few fairly fat livestock, and even a decent iron pot were all looted.

Jacob was lucky. He had broken his leg when he was young and couldn't run fast. He was hiding in a secluded cellar deep in his own cellar, listening to the commotion, screams, and crackling sounds of flames engulfing everything above, and spent the longest and darkest day and night of his life.

When he climbed out, the "oak stump" had turned into the scorched earth before him, emitting wisps of smoke and exuding an aura of death.

His cloudy old eyes gazed at the distant horizon.

There, the outline of White Rock City is faintly visible in the sweltering summer heat.

It is said that the Retalians did not venture there. The towering city walls, the well-equipped garrison, and the mountains of wealth and intricate interests of the lords within the city all led the iron cavalry to choose a detour.

The disaster struck precisely at these unprotected villages and towns.

Jacob, dragging his lame leg, stumbled toward the field he considered his life.

At this time of year, the fields would normally be a reassuring, hopeful green.

The wheat seedlings are striving to produce ears, the bean vines are climbing the trellises, and the zucchini vines are spreading across the furrows. Although there are still some days until harvest, seeing their vigorous growth fills me with peace of mind.

But now...

The sight before him made Jacob feel as if his heart was being gripped by an icy hand.

The fields were a mess.

Not the kind of destruction caused by being trampled by horses' hooves... The Retalians seem to have little interest in unripe crops; they are more concerned with ready-made food and valuables.

Hunger is what's ruining this verdant landscape.

Vast fields of wheat were brutally cut down, leaving behind not neat stubble, but jagged, haphazardly torn and broken stalks.

The unripe, underdeveloped wheat ears were cut off head to head, leaving only bare, pitiful stalks, like plucked chickens.

The bean field was in even worse shape; the bean pods had been forcibly ripped off, and the vines had been torn to pieces, revealing the cracked soil underneath.

This is not a natural disaster, it is a man-made disaster.

It was done by those who, like him, survived the Raetarian plunder but lost all their food supplies, their homes, and were driven mad by hunger.

Like locusts, they swarm under the cover of night or in the chaos, attacking anything still edible, regardless of its ripeness or who it belongs to.

"Old Man Jacob..."

A weak voice came from the ridge beside the field. It was the widow Martha, who was holding a child who was too weak to even cry from hunger, her eyes red and swollen.

“My family… my two acres of beans… all gone! Last night, I saw Old Tom’s sons, and a few people who had fled from River Bend Village… they… they were like madmen…”

Jacob didn't speak, but gripped the oak stick in his hand tightly, his knuckles turning white.

He looked at his own wheat field, which was also in a terrible state.

That place should have been the winter food supply for him, his wife, and their grandson who was an apprentice in the city; now, only a mess remains.

Anger, a cold and desperate anger, replaced the previous sadness and numbness.

He had worked hard all his life, tending to this land, but now his hopes were being torn apart like wild dogs by his equally suffering neighbors!

Just then, he saw a furtive figure crouching at the other end of his field, frantically cutting down the few remaining, still relatively intact ears of green wheat with a rusty sickle.

It was Pierre from River Bend Village, a craftsman who was usually quite honest.

"Pierre!!!"

Jacob roared, his voice hoarse and unlike his own.

He forgot his leg pain and charged forward like an enraged bull, brandishing his oak club.

"Get out of my land, you damned robber!"

Pierre was startled. He looked up, his face covered in mud and panic, but his eyes held a madness and recklessness born of hunger.

He clutched a few handfuls of green wheat ears tightly in his arms, as if they were his lifeline.

"Jacob, I...I have no choice, the child is starving, there's just a little...just a little wheat!"

He tried to explain, but his body instinctively recoiled, protecting what he was holding. "A little?! You ruined my entire season's harvest!"

Jacob's eyes were bloodshot, and he swung the oak stick with a whooshing sound.

It's not for those few ears of green wheat, but for the trampled land, for the destroyed order, for this damned world that turns people into beasts!

Pierre hurriedly raised his scythe to block, the wooden stick and iron object clashing together with a piercing sound.

Two men, driven to desperation by war and famine, fought like wild beasts in this field that should have been teeming with life but was now ravaged by devastation.

The surviving villagers watched numbly, no one stepping forward to stop them. Hunger and fear had drained the last bit of their strength and compassion.

The lush green wheat seedlings were mercilessly trampled and crushed under their feet, oozing sap and releasing an even stronger, heartbreaking scent of grass.

The smell, a mixture of the burnt stench of ruins and the acrid odor of earth, constituted the most pungent summer on this land, ravaged by the Reteria cavalry and torn apart by the despair of its own people.

Jacob eventually knocked Pierre's scythe away with a stick and snatched back the few pitiful ears of green wheat.

Pierre, clutching his bleeding forehead, fled like a wounded wild dog.

Jacob, panting heavily, stood in the middle of the field, leaning on his cane. Looking at the few unripe ears of wheat in his arms, covered in mud and sweat, and then at the land around him that had been ravaged beyond recognition and trampled even more by his own "protection," a huge, indescribable sorrow instantly overwhelmed him.

The Retalians destroyed their home.

And famine is destroying them.

This land is no longer a home, but a no-man's-land awaiting death.

He hunched over, slowly squatted down, buried his face in his rough palms, and his turbid tears dripped silently into the trampled soil at his feet.

He clutched the few ears of green wheat he had snatched back tightly in his other hand, which were covered in mud and bloodstains between his fingers.

The surroundings were deathly silent, with only the occasional acrid smell of burning from the distant ruins and the mournful howl of the wind sweeping across the bare ridges of the fields.

Someone had appeared in the shadows of the paddy field ridge at some point.

The black and white bear stood there, its tall figure wrapped in deliberately aged linen clothes, like a silent rock.

His face was expressionless. He had seen everything along the way: the fight in the field, Jacob's desperate crouching, and the lifeless numbness in the eyes of the surrounding villagers.

The air was no longer filled with the pure smoke and blood of the battlefield, but with a more complex and slower-acting smell... scorched earth, despair, and the madness driven by hunger.

He looked at the old man's hunched back, like a bow that could be broken by the wind at any moment.

Monokuma recognized this utter exhaustion and despair as the same as the heavy lead weight in his heart when he wiped his knife; they were only different in form.

As the storm of war swept through, those left behind became like ants struggling in this desolate land, devouring each other's remaining life force.

Monokuma didn't speak immediately, but stood quietly for a moment. His gaze swept over the ravaged fields, over the ruins, and over the empty faces of the survivors who stared blankly at him.

Old Li's words echoed in his mind... "Saving people is not killing them."

Are these the people in front of us who need to be "saved"?
Or rather, it is the half-dead remnant left behind by the wolf of war.

He took a step, his boots making almost no sound on the soft, compacted earth, until he stopped a few steps away from Jacob.

Jacob seemed to sense the approaching shadow. He lifted his cloudy, tearful eyes from between his fingers and looked blankly at the stranger who had suddenly appeared.

There was no hostility on his face, only a deeper bewilderment, as if he didn't understand what was worth disturbing his sorrow.

Monokuma spoke, his voice low, hoarse from years of battle and strangely calm, as if stating a simple fact, neither warm nor cold.

"Don't linger here."

Jacob stared at him blankly, not understanding.

Monokuma raised his hand and pointed eastward, across the charred ruins and barren fields.

"Head south."

He paused, seemingly considering the most direct way to put it.

Go to that area.

"That area?"

Jacob murmured the word repeatedly, like a pebble thrown into stagnant water, stirring a faint ripple in his numb heart.

"What kind of place is that over there?"

"The place occupied by the Bagnians."

"Huh? Where can people get food?"

"Ah."

Monokuma nodded.

"The 'Blue Flag Army' over there is recruiting people to reclaim wasteland and farm. They are short of manpower. As long as farmers are strong and willing to work, they can become tenant farmers. They will have land to cultivate and grain to share. It will be hard work, but no one will starve to death."

He tried his best to explain things in a simple way so that even farmers who could barely read could understand.

He added another sentence, his gaze sweeping over the other villagers who had quietly gathered around.

"Or, find those Bagnian veterans who moved over there. They got land and need help; they can work as farm laborers and at least get some food, so they won't starve."

His words were like rough but real stones, striking the lifeless hearts of Jacob and the villagers.

There were no promises of paradise, no glimpses of a bright future; only two practical paths to survival were offered: farm for the government or work as a long-term laborer for demobilized soldiers.

It was not an order to kill, nor a call to plunder; it was the possibility of survival.

"Do the Bagnians feed us Minieses?"

“They have few people but lots of land, and they need more people to work, so they will definitely provide meals.”

Jacob lowered his head upon hearing this, looking at the few unripe ears of wheat in his hand, covered in mud and tears.

They are too small and too few to feed anyone.

What will be the outcome of staying here, guarding this scorched earth and hopeless fields that have been burned, looted, and ravaged by our own people?
Will he become a thief and robber like Pierre?
Or will they starve to death silently in this cemetery that was once called "Oak Stump"?

He slowly stood up, his limp leg stinging from squatting for too long.

He didn't look at the black and white bear; his cloudy eyes gazed eastward, where the black and white bear was pointing.

There, besides the smell of burning and despair, there seemed to be a faint, almost imperceptible breath of "a way out".

He gripped the few green wheat ears tightly, his knuckles turning white again, but this time, it wasn't out of anger, but rather a difficult yet surging determination.

The surrounding villagers exchanged glances, and a faint glimmer of light finally appeared in their numb eyes as they struggled to stay afloat.

Is Bagnia an enemy?
Hungry and desperate, they didn't care about anything else. Besides, fighting was the business of noble lords; all they knew how to do was swing their hoes.

(End of this chapter)