Chapter 94: Let This Place Become History

At those words, Garen’s first reaction was:

“What on earth?”

The question, though edged with rebuke, sounded to the frontier townsman like a flood and a beast of prey. He instantly began to tremble in terror.

“I-I’m sorry!”

“I didn’t mean to reveal your identity!”

Cold sweat broke out across his brow as he bowed again and again, like a pestle pounding garlic. “Please forgive me!”

Garen was still stunned by the information and had not quite processed it, but even more than that, he could not stand this thick, suffocating display of hierarchy. The other man’s constant kneeling and bowing, his repeated use of deferential language, made Garen feel as though he had somehow stepped into an imperial palace drama.

So, deeply uncomfortable as he was, Garen stopped him at once.

“That’s enough.”

“I’m not going to hold this against you.”

The frontier townsman let out such a heavy sigh of relief that he seemed to go limp on the spot.

Yet even in that state, he did not forget to thank Garen.

“Thank you, Lord Garen!”

“I never imagined I’d meet someone like you in a place like this. I was just too excited and lost my composure.”

As he spoke, the man’s face suddenly shifted to blank amazement, shock, and astonishment, and the same expressions appeared on the faces of his companions.

They had suddenly realized a terrifying fact:

A noble of the world, high and mighty beyond measure, was standing in the Kingdom of Goa’s filthiest, darkest, most shameful corner: the Gray Terminal.

“T-this...”

The leader of the frontier townsmen froze for a moment, then whirled around and roared at the gathered scavengers,

“What are you trash still doing here?!”

“Do you think people like you are fit to look at Lord Garen?”

“Get the hell out of here, all of you! Don’t pollute the air!”

His tone was vicious and overbearing, utterly different from the obsequious meekness he had shown before, as though he were an entirely different man.

The scavengers, outnumbered as they were, shrank their necks at the shout from a man from the city and unconsciously backed away, ready to obey and crawl as far as possible.

“Wait!”

Garen called out and stopped them.

In response, the scavengers stood frozen in place, their eyes filled with baffled fear.

Yet this “noble lord” did not trouble them further. Instead, he first turned to the frontier townsman and asked,

“In your eyes, are people divided into ranks?”

“Of course!”

The frontier townsman answered very seriously.

“Those lowborn people are filthy beyond belief. How could they possibly compare to us people from the royal city?”

“And someone like you, Lord...”

This time he held back from saying Garen’s “true identity” and only continued,

“...is even more exalted.”

“So,” Garen followed his logic, “if those of higher rank give an order, those of lower rank can only carry it out obediently and without complaint, is that it?”

“Exactly!”

The frontier townsman nodded emphatically, as though this were the most self-evident truth in the world.

“In that case...”

Garen cast a cold glance at the frontier townsmen and said in an ordering tone,

“Then you can all leave the city.”

“What?”

The frontier townsmen all stared.

“I said, from now on you will go out of the city and live as scavengers.”

“Your status as residents of the royal city has been stripped away by me!”

Garen’s voice was full of aggressive force, so unlike his usual manner that it felt almost out of character.

“This is an order from one of higher rank. You don’t mean to disobey it, do you?”

His meaning was unmistakably clear, and it struck the frontier townsmen like a bolt from the blue. Their faces changed from pale to ashen in an instant.

“You, you...”

They looked at Garen fearfully, their mouths opening and closing without sound.

Garen returned only an utterly indifferent gaze. What he wanted to see was precisely this: the sight of these self-styled superiors tasting the bitter fruit of their own making.

He was curious how such “higher beings” would react when faced with humiliation and oppression from those even higher than themselves.

But after a long struggle, the frontier townsmen still said nothing in the end.

Their eyes were dull, their faces gray and defeated, their features twisted by pain and conflict, yet not a trace of courage appeared in them to say no to Garen.

At last, the citizens cast down into the scavenger class could only answer him:

“Yes!”

That kind of deadened response, content to be beneath others and numb to everything, gave Garen a far deeper understanding of the chronic, rotten sickness festering within the Kingdom of Goa.

“Damn it...”

Garen let out a long, heavy sigh, his expression complicated, and no longer paid attention to the frontier townsmen who had already lost their souls.

He walked slowly to an elderly scavenger and asked bluntly,

“Being discriminated against, living beside garbage, snatching food like a wild dog... how can you endure a life like this?”

Compared with the city dwellers, who had been brainwashed into numbness by hierarchy, this old man surviving among the trash outside the city seemed, in his own way, slightly more worthy of respect.

Though the scavenger elder also feared Garen, a “great noble” dressed in splendid knightly armor, he was not as sycophantic or submissive as the frontier townsmen.

At Garen’s question, he was momentarily at a loss.

The old man had never imagined that a lofty noble would come to stand before him and ask such a question, one that hardly fit a noble’s exalted status.

After a brief hesitation, the old man finally said in a voice full of helplessness and bitterness,

“This is where our home is.”

“If we don’t pick through trash, we can’t survive.”

The surrounding scavengers, hearing this, all showed painful expressions of deep, shared hardship.

“Can’t survive?”

Once again, Garen felt a surge of inexplicable fury at this absurd reality.

“Why don’t you resist?”

“Even if you can’t resist the nobles, you could sail away from this country!”

“The East Sea is so vast. Where couldn’t you live?”

“Lord noble...”

The old man let out a deep sigh.

“It isn’t as simple as you think.”

“There are too many pirates at sea...”

“Not everyone has the ability to survive on the open ocean, or to leave this country alive.”

Garen did not fully understand the old man’s words, but from the explanation that followed he came to grasp a darker truth hidden beneath the Kingdom of Goa’s glorious facade:

The nobles of the Kingdom of Goa prided themselves on being civilized and cared very much about their reputation.

So when suppressing and controlling the scavengers at the bottom, they would never openly use the kingdom’s guard. Instead, they drove a few pieces of human scum from the sea to do their dirty work.

The Kingdom of Goa was a model civilized nation in the eyes of the world nobles, yet pirates could come and go openly through its lands.

Because these pirates were weapons in the nobles’ hands.

Years ago, when the Kingdom of Goa was preparing for an inspection by its superiors and was making a show of urban sanitation and civilization, even clearing away every hidden blemish in the city, it had ordered a band of pirates to burn down the Gray Terminal in a covert attack.

And in ordinary times, the pirates entrenched in the Kingdom of Goa bore another duty as well:

the moment they discovered a mass escape by the lower-class scavengers, they were to intercept and slaughter them.

Thus, ordinary people with no ability to resist had no way of escaping the Kingdom of Goa’s darkness and brutal oppression.

“Damn it!”

After hearing all this, the veins on Garen’s forehead bulged with rage.

Depriving people of dignity and of freedom alike, the darkness of the Kingdom of Goa stirred his anger instinctively.

The thick killing intent about Garen made Nami standing nearby feel somewhat frightened.

“Garen,” Nami said softly, trying to soothe him. “You have to stay calm. Vice Admiral Garp said...”

But Garen cut in with a low voice.

“I’ve had enough.”

“Today, I’m going to make this place history!”

“You!”

Nami’s eyes widened in shock, and she hurriedly caught hold of Garen’s arm.

“What are you trying to do? If you do that, then we’ll...”

But Garen’s expression remained unshakably firm.

He gently pulled his arm free from Nami’s restraining hand, then walked slowly up to a small hill of garbage in the distance and looked down from above at everyone present.

His splendid armor gleamed in the bright sunlight, casting light across this darkness smothered beneath refuse.

Unnoticed at first, a trace of hope quietly appeared in the eyes of the miserable, despairing scavengers.

Seeing Garen like this, Nami finally let out a breath of relief as well.

Even if the road ahead was endless and full of hardship, she was willing to face it alongside him.

Garen raised his greatsword high and shouted down at the scavengers below the mound of trash:

“I am Garen!”

“Today, I’m taking you all out of this life!”

The scavengers held their breath, and the whole scene fell so silent that even a pin drop could be heard.

In that absolute stillness, it seemed as if a volcano on the verge of eruption was quietly gathering its strength.

Then Garen cried out in a ringing voice:

“Demacia Logistics is hiring!”

“No gender restrictions, no age restrictions, no limit on headcount, no restriction on job type, meals and lodging provided, wages separate!”