Chapter 80.5 Noel – Part One

More and more people have been coming to Bit Village to help defend and take care of the miasma-infected lands..

Noel himself was originally an outsider too, and since he lives in the watermill outside the village, strictly speaking, perhaps he cannot really be called a villager. Even so, he has been accepted as their neighbor, and there is no doubt that he is one of them.

(Actually, I bet everyone thinks everything enclosed by Witch-sama’s thorns is basically part of the village anyway.)

And now even more newcomers have arrived in Bit Village. Adventurers, and merchants. Discrimination against beastfolk is more deeply rooted in the cities, which is precisely why beastfolk generally scatter throughout the countryside, forming settlements where they live together.

To adventurers coming from the cities, Noel is someone they are supposed to dislike, and naturally there are times when cruel words are thrown his way. Noel himself finds it unpleasant, but it does not bother him all that much. The problem is that the kind Witch who happens to hear those things ends up worrying about him.

(I’ve heard that there wasn’t this kind of discrimination in the old days. …Because there were lots of demonfolk back then.)

Demonfolk did not live among humans, but that did not mean they had nothing to do with them. Some wandered from place to place, others lived in remote regions conducting research, and their circumstances varied, but they would come down to human settlements to barter, and sometimes even help people.

Their overwhelming strength born of their immense magical power, the long years of wisdom accumulated within bodies that never aged, and despite all that, their lack of greed and their good nature made them beings far above ordinary people. Perhaps before such demonfolk, there simply was not much difference between humans and beastfolk.

But the demonfolk disappeared in the war against the dragons, leaving only humans and beastfolk behind. Gradually, the differences between the two became more pronounced, and before anyone realized it, discrimination had emerged and they had become completely divided.

Demonfolk had originally tended to live in remote places rather than cities, so interactions between beastfolk and humans had also been more common in the countryside. Perhaps because of that lingering influence, discrimination has actually become stronger in the cities, where there are fewer beastfolk.

(Witch-sama is someone who knew that era, so she must be sad about how things are now… Isn’t there something I can do?)

The Flower Witch’s ideal must surely be a peaceful world without conflict. Humans, beastfolk, demonfolk, and even harmless monsters like mandragoras, all of them living together in harmony.

That was only what Noel had imagined from the Witch he had seen until now, but it was easy enough to imagine what such a kind woman would wish for. She laughs and accepts Purple Plant and Ritter being close beyond simple friendship, and she watches over Daon and Miriya’s relationship with a smile as well.

(…If this village becomes more lively… and lots of beastfolk can just live here normally too… wouldn’t it be good if we could make it that kind of village?)

Right now, Bit Village has all kinds of specialty products, and apparently they sell as fast as they can be made, so Irai happily keeps suggesting ways to turn them into merchandise. Noel is involved in developing those products, but perhaps he should put even more effort into that.

If Noel, a beastman, is visibly doing well here, it should make it easier for other beastfolk to visit too. Prosperous villages naturally attract more people, so perhaps it could become a village where humans and beastfolk alike could live together.

(…I’ll do my best.)

Noel quietly made that resolution, only to be confronted with the reality that whenever new people arrive, problems inevitably come with them.

Having caught the scent of money, merchants who had nothing to do with Irai came to visit the village. Irai does not cause trouble for the village, brings profits to the villagers as well, gathers familiar and trustworthy merchants to open a market, and genuinely tries to help the village flourish, so he has fit in well and is quite well liked.

The merchants who arrived this time, however, looked dissatisfied even after being stopped from entering the village and told the rules they had to follow, so Noel had already thought they looked exactly like the sort who would cause trouble.

As usual, Noel was making his rounds through the village, and just as it was almost time to head home, the Witch suddenly stopped in an unnatural way and stared in a direction where there was seemingly nothing. Noel could not see anything at all, but knowing the Witch, she had probably sensed something unusual.

「What is it, Witch-sama? …Is there something over there?」

Noel pricked up his ears as well and searched for any sign of something. From around the village entrance, he could faintly hear what sounded like people making a commotion.

When he and the Witch rushed over together, incredibly, they found the merchants from earlier trapped by plants and unable to move.

(Plants attacking people… I see. They must’ve done something bad.)

He did not know exactly what had happened, but there was no way the Witch’s plants would attack people for no reason. The merchants were not injured either. They were simply being restrained.

They could not move, but they were undoubtedly bad people, and there was no telling what they might do. Noel asked a nearby village child to go fetch the knights, and in the meantime questioned another child about what had happened.

「Those guys are thieves! And Sora-kun beat them up!」

「…Sora? You mean the Water Plant?」

「Yeah! He climbed up over there and hit them in one shot!」

The Water Plant often plays with the village children, and apparently the children he had grown close to had given him the name 「Sora」. In the direction the boy was pointing stood the Water Plant, his cape fluttering behind him, the plant weapon in his hands looking incredibly cool.

Mandragoras are the Witch’s familiars and possess a fair degree of intelligence. That was precisely why they should not make mistaken judgments. Just as the boy said, these merchants must have tried to steal a mandragora.

「So these guys are mandragora thieves… How could they do something like that!」

The peaceful world of coexistence that the Witch wished for. Noel felt a powerful anger toward the ones who had shattered it. The Witch must have been deeply hurt as well. As though not wanting Noel to see her sorrow, she moved behind him, but out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of her gently covering her face.

「To make Witch-sama sad…! I can’t forgive them!」

They had made the gentle Witch, who always wore a smile, cry. Every hair on Noel’s body stood on end, and a low growl escaped him.

Yet the corrupt merchants paid no attention whatsoever to Noel’s anger. Perhaps seeing someone they discriminated against trembling with rage meant nothing to them.

(Is coexistence between different races really that difficult after all…?)

Mandragoras are harmless creatures that neither run around nor scream. There were any number of ways Noel could imagine turning them into money, and these merchants must have thought the same way and tried to carry one off.

The more prosperous this village became and the more people came here, the more people with every kind of belief and way of thinking would arrive as well. If that happened, incidents like this one might only become more common.

…Humans, beastfolk, demonfolk, and harmless monsters all living happily together. Was something like that nothing more than an ideal, a fairy tale?

(I want Witch-sama’s ideal to come true, though.)

But Noel was still only a child, and it seemed there was nothing he could do. That frustrated him terribly.