In the pitch-black darkness, a group of people quietly gathered around the Count’s mansion.
Leading them was the village chief, Kyle.
His purpose was to deliberately break the law and get the villagers executed.
He believed this would push the people’s anger past its boiling point.
However, the naïve followers of Kyle didn’t know the evil truth hidden behind the scenes.
They were only moving to steal food because they were truly hungry.
They cared more about filling their empty stomachs now than the punishment they would face later.
“What do you think the Count has hidden here?”
“I’m guessing it’s something only nobles can eat, so it must be really valuable.”
“My mouth is already watering.”
“I don’t care about the taste, as long as there’s enough to eat.”
“Shh! We’re getting closer to the Count’s mansion. Let’s be quiet so we don’t get caught.”
The group, lined up in an orderly fashion, slowly advanced forward.
Soon, they reached the mansion.
A sign was planted in the large garden’s vegetable patch, warning them not to approach.
Kyle, the village chief, kicked the sign aside and shouted,
“Alright, everyone! How long are we going to live, always having everything taken by that young Countess? Let’s eat everything inside! We deserve it!”
“YAAAAAH!”
“Let’s eat! Let’s devour it all!”
“I’m so hungry I feel like I’m going to die!”
“I don’t care if we die later! As long as we can eat now!”
The villagers, like a horde of rats, began digging into the vegetable patch with their bare hands.
Almost as if someone had set it up for them, they quickly found something.
All they had to do was dust off the dirt, and they could immediately eat it.
Before long, the villagers were stuffing their mouths with crops they hadn’t tasted in ages.
“Mmm! Mmm! Delicious!”
“Food! I haven’t had food like this in so long!”
“Hah… hah… I’m so glad I listened to the chief.”
“That Count… keeping all this delicious food to themselves!”
“But… is it really that good? It seems pretty ordinary to me.”
“I guess I wasn’t hungry enough before!”
“Hunger is the best seasoning!”
Kyle stood in the back, watching the people celebrating their feast with their arms crossed.
Connected to the Empire, he had been receiving food supplies from the Duke, so he had secretly hoarded plenty of food for himself.
That’s why he wasn’t hungry like the villagers.
He had no reason to get excited over food covered in dirt.
His attention was entirely focused on the darkened mansion.
He was hoping that, at any moment, someone would come out of the mansion and capture the villagers who had committed crimes so that they could be executed—creating the spark of rebellion he was waiting for.
With that in mind, Kyle deliberately raised his voice loudly as if to make sure someone heard him.
“Eat up, everyone!!! But be careful!!! If the Lord of the mansion finds out, your heads will roll!!! So eat a lot, but be careful!!!”
“Oh, come on…”
A young villager, looking innocent, handed over what he had been eating to the chief and spoke,
“Stop saying such scary things and have a bite, Chief. You’re hungry too, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m…”
Kyle barely held back the words, “I don’t eat dirty food,” as he instinctively tried to push the words back.
But then, something struck him as odd.
The food the young man was holding was none other than a potato.
Kyle, startled, snatched the potato from the young man’s hand and brought it close to his face, examining it carefully.
No matter how he looked at it, it was a potato.
“What… What is this… Why… No… How…?”
The dazed chief couldn’t comprehend the situation and stood there, frozen.
‘Why is there a potato in the vegetable patch?’
‘Didn’t they say only nobles could eat such rare food?’
‘Potatoes are just a cheap crop fed to cows and pigs…’
‘Moreover, if you don’t cook it right, it’s a toxic plant that causes stomach pain.’
‘So I deliberately made the leaves poisonous to cause stomach pains, to worsen public opinion…’
‘But this… this is the tuber. The part without toxins…’
‘This is… this is…??’
‘A potato? A rare food for nobles?’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘This is… a trap.’
‘Scarlett, that foolish girl, didn’t come up with this plan.’
‘Victor.’
‘It’s him. It must be him.’
With a sharp snap, Kyle crushed the potato in his hand without even taking a bite.
“Everyone, stop!”
The village chief, Kyle, shouted.
However, the hungry people ignored him and continued to devour the potatoes.
“I said stop! Everyone, pay attention! This is poison, poison! You’re all eating poison! You’ve been tricked by Count Scarlett! Do you all want to die? Stop, stop it now!”
Chomp, chomp.
Chomp, chomp.
There was no rational thought left in the people who had been on the verge of starving to death just moments ago.
How could they not eat when food was right in front of them?
Moreover, the potatoes were plentiful, almost as if someone had set them out for them to eat.
The people were eating until they were full, and some even hid a few potatoes in their pockets to take home to their families.
It wasn’t until their stomachs were full that Kyle’s words began to reach their ears.
By then, Kyle’s rage had reached its peak, unlike the satisfied, content villagers.
“Ugh! You idiots! Why aren’t you listening to me?! I told you, this is poison! Poison! Don’t you see? You fools!”
Poison?
Now that he mentioned it, the potatoes did look similar to the poisonous ones they had eaten before, though it was dark and hard to see clearly.
But the taste was distinctly different, and there was no stomach pain.
The villagers, who had been satisfied with their meal, now felt uncomfortable with Kyle’s furious attitude, but no one dared to directly oppose him.
After all, Kyle held absolute power in the village.
“You’ve been tricked! Trick, you fools! You’ve eaten poison again!”
“But…”
A simple-looking young man muttered stupidly.
“My stomach is full…”
At that, others began to agree.
“Y-Yeah, I’m full too.”
“It’s better than starving to death, right?”
“Why are you so angry, Chief?”
“Do you understand why I’m angry?”
“No…”
“We’re all full, shouldn’t we be happy?”
Crunch, crunch.
What more could Kyle say to these ignorant fools?
He only ground his teeth.
At that moment, Rose, an orphaned girl who was somewhat disregarded in the village, spoke up thoughtfully.
“The chief said we’ve been tricked. To be tricked, there must be someone who is doing the tricking, right? In this case, it would be Count Balanchefort, right? So what is it that we’ve been tricked into?”
Rose was known for always overthinking things.
She continued, not missing a beat.
“The chief told us not to eat the hidden food in the garden. But what if that’s a lie? What if they actually wanted us to eat it? Come to think of it, earlier today, the foreigner Victor tried to make us eat this poison, saying it wasn’t poison… So, did they set up fake signs to make us steal this crop? In that case…”
“That’s enough, Rose. Stop it.”
Kyle gave her a sharp look, but Rose didn’t stop.
When she got lost in her thoughts, it was difficult for her to pull out of her own world.
“In that case, Count Balanchefort’s true intention was to share this crop with us? If that’s true… then the Count was doing us a favor. But why is the chief so angry, saying he was tricked by Balanchefort? It’s almost as if he’s dissatisfied that our bellies are full… It’s like…”
“Enough! I told you to stop! You, an orphan, what do you know?!”
“Agh!”
Kyle struck Rose’s head fiercely with the staff he was holding.
The atmosphere instantly cooled down.
The villagers murmured angrily.
“What’s going on… Why is he so mad?”
“Yeah, we’re full, aren’t we?”
“I don’t get why he’s angry, Chief.”
“Violence is a bit…”
“Why is the chief like this?”
<These damn pigs!>
Kyle cursed inwardly.
<You have to die for the spark of rebellion to ignite! Just die, you idiots!>
Words he could never say out loud.
He swallowed them back, gritting his teeth.
He muttered bitterly, almost as if casting a curse.
“Ugh… Anyway, we broke the taboo and stole the potatoes, so the Count’s family won’t let this slide. Some of you are going to lose your heads.”
“No.”
Rose contradicted him.
“The Count likely gave us the potatoes on purpose. There probably won’t be any punishment. In fact, I think they’ll openly distribute the potatoes starting tomorrow.”
“Rose, you talk too much.”
But Rose’s words were proven right the very next morning.
Scarlett didn’t get angry at the dug-up garden and instead,
Victor brought a large quantity of potatoes to the square, putting up a sign that said, “Anyone hungry can take some.”
Now that the villagers had no qualms about the potatoes, they all rushed to the square to grab their share.
No one in Rudin Village would starve to death anymore.
Everyone was loudly declaring that the credit for this went to “Victor.”
“Thanks to Victor, we can eat our fill.”
The mood in Rudin Village quickly turned in Victor’s favor.
Of course, the one who was dissatisfied with this was Village Chief Kyle.