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–––Freya’s viewpoint

There were next to no personal effects in the house they used as base. All people always have at least some items they carry in their lives, but there was no trace of anything resembling that in the rubble, not even cutlery or cooking utensils. Just how did they live? I could not find anything like that there.

(Or maybe… no, that can’t be.)

Just thinking that people with such crystals did not need food or sustenance sent chills down my spine. Someone who did not eat or have any sort of distractions, living purely to hurt others, was scarier than monsters. They could infiltrate anywhere without looking out of place, and then one day launch a surprise attack. There was no way to defend against that.

All the noise and smoke had alerted guards that came, so I asked for their help in searching through the rubble. The only thing we could find were weapons, armor, and multiple pieces of parchment. The writing on the parchment pieces seemed to be encrypted though, so I could not read their contents.

There were no clues as to what the key was either, so the only option was to take the time to manually decipher it. I returned to my room in the temple and spent days working on that, but Meria’s group sprang to action faster than I had anticipated.

Many posters were placed all over the city from one day to another, and countless merchants and influential people were killed mercilessly. The posters read:

‘We’re delivering punishment to all those who hoard riches meant for everybody, monopolizing our world’s produce.’

Below was a list with the names of everyone they had already killed. If they had listed people like the pope who always organized charity events no one would have taken the group seriously, but Meria knew better than that. Their targets had all been people with bad reputation, who seemed to act in the gray zones of the law, clearly having bad business practices, while concealing any evidence to avoid legal action. Those were the first victims of Meria’s group.

That was enough to split the populace in two. Lumielle was a religious country, but it was still structured like other countries, some people being rich, and others being poor. This incident caused the rich ones to publicly demand action against the group, being afraid they would be the next victims, while many from the poor side began to support Meria’s group.

Convincing the poor that their life conditions were directly caused by the rich taking away their wealth would accomplish the group’s goal. Trying to search for their hideouts became much harder now, since many of the people who could have information no longer wanted to help me, even if they did not exactly oppose me either. With no way to get more leads, I had no choice but to slowly continue decoding the parchments. It did not take long for the second incident to occur.

This time the victim was a really kind merchant who always made large donations, as well as two priests that helped him. They would offer bedding, food, find jobs for people, and many other things. But they still were targeted.

They claimed those people were ‘kidnapping young boys and girls to torture them for their depraved enjoyment.’ Those were complete fabrications, and anyone who knew them denied those claims, but the public did not believe them.

The main reason for that was that remains of young bodies were found in their mansions. Knights investigated that in depth, determining that those bodies were old and dug out from graves. But the poor populace was too riled up to pay any attention to those findings.

There were multiple riots after that, chaos sparking up all over the city, making knights have a lot more work to do, which also put them in a worse mood as well.

“Meria… your plan is working flawlessly. I didn’t think you were this sly…”

This was probably one step away from being the worst situation possible. Everyone was complaining about all sorts of things, but at least there was no wide-spread violence yet. There was still a very faint and brittle sense of unity.

“The question is how long that will last…”

I tried to go around, telling people about Meria’s plan and trying to solve the situation, but it only had the opposite effect. At first they would insult me and reject me, and eventually it reached the point of them throwing stones at me, which was a rather shocking experience. I still tried my best to make the country a better place, but the people just shunned me and pushed me away more than ever before.

“I see… This is how everyone in Meria’s group felt their entire lives.”

I felt like I finally understood their emotions a little. Everyone they trusted turned their backs on them, plunging them to the extremes of desperation. Eventually that turned to hatred and resentment against all those who never helped them. Such emotions had taken root and grown throughout their lives.

Still, I could not forgive their actions. They killed people without making sure they had committed crimes, based purely on suspicions, and then fanned the flames by needlessly sullying the names of innocent people. I could not forgive that ever, not as a person, and not as a hero.

And then after centuries since its founding, the darkest day this country had ever seen arrived.