The Price of Kindness

After leaving the Adventurers’ Guild, Tang Wenxu didn’t feel the usual lightness that came with finishing work. Instead, a heavy weight settled upon him, making every step feel as though he was trudging through thick mud.

Some people feel superior when witnessing the misery of others, while others suffer even more deeply from the poverty they encounter. Tang Wenxu was clearly one of the latter.

He recalled the old woman’s bloodshot eyes, filled with hatred for goblins, but more profoundly, perhaps, with the helplessness of her life.

The memory of those eyes, coupled with the dire poverty of the village, lingered, refusing to leave his mind.

He had initially planned to use his first earnings to connect with the children, perhaps by buying them toys from the shopping district, as the ones at the church were already worn and broken.

Now, however, he had a different plan.

He hurried to a bakery, bought two crates of hardtack, then proceeded to the stable to call for the same carriage he had used earlier.

“To that village we went to before,” Tang Wenxu instructed the coachman who had driven them that morning.

“Hop in.”

“How much?”

“Didn’t that gentleman tell you?” The coachman paused, surprised. “The noble lord from this morning already paid. He told me you’d surely return.”

‘Had Karamanda seen through me?’ Tang Wenxu offered an awkward smile. Though Karamanda claimed he wouldn’t do anything superfluous, he must have been a kind and gentle soul deep down.

Night had deepened by the time they reached the impoverished village. Here, not even rats could be found, for dried rats were a local delicacy.

Everywhere stood structures cobbled together from wooden planks. Could these truly be called houses? They were likely just small spaces formed by stacked boards. This was a world unseen by the upper echelons of society.

These villagers didn’t resemble people; they were more like the skeletons of the undead. Yet, who would willingly starve? Tang Wenxu yearned to help them.

He rushed to the old woman’s house, but the dilapidated wooden shack was empty. Even after her granddaughter had endured such a terrible ordeal, they should have been embracing each other—but neither the old woman nor the poor girl was there. Even the old dairy cow had vanished without a trace.

He had intended to return the remuneration they had paid to hire him. This money was a lifeline for the old woman and her granddaughter, and he couldn’t stand by and watch them suffer.

He searched everywhere, calling out the old woman’s name, but passing villagers stared at him as if he were a fool.

“Quiet down!” a drunken man, sleeping beside the old woman’s haystack, slurred. “There’s no one by that name here.”

“You don’t know?” Tang Wenxu asked, somewhat astonished. “You’re neighbors, aren’t you?”

“Neighbors?” The drunkard laughed as if he’d heard a hilarious joke. “Names aren’t important here. Everyone in this village has only one name: corpse. And even in death, we’re just nameless corpses. We don’t even know the meaning of our existence, only to cling to life here.”

Observing the somewhat deranged drunkard, Tang Wenxu took out a loaf of bread.

“Sir, please eat something first.”

“Oh, thank you, my friend,” the drunkard said, devoid of joy or sorrow. “Thank you for letting me live another day in this cursed world.”

With that, he ravenously devoured the bread.

“By the way, a word of advice,” the drunkard said, seeing Tang Wenxu about to leave. “Get out of here soon.”

Along the way, Tang Wenxu met many people. He offered bread to everyone he saw. There were all sorts: women who shed their clothes upon receiving bread, nervous individuals afraid the bread was poisoned, and ruffians who tried to rob him but were chased away by his drawn sword.

Upon hearing that someone was giving out bread, the villagers swarmed over. The food quickly ran out, and those who didn’t receive any immediately began cursing Tang Wenxu, as if he had stolen their most precious possessions.

They called him a vile thief, a blasphemer of the Goddess. Some even threw stones at him, and greedy individuals who had already eaten their bread joined the chorus of condemnation, demanding more.

Humans are creatures of blind conformity, and this mob denouncing Tang Wenxu steadily grew.

Some say money is the devil. So, do the wealthy become devils, or the poor? Or are humans merely pathetic beings constantly swaying on the pendulum between devil and humanity?

“I’m sorry,” Tang Wenxu lowered his head. He feared the angry faces of humanity. The earlier gratitude had been like a mask; now they had removed it, revealing their true, fanged countenances.

Though he held a sword, he felt powerless to resist. He was truly exhausted.

Who could have imagined two crates of hardtack would incite such a riot? He gave a bitter smile, then ran towards the coachman.

“Back to Saint Lan Church.” All he wanted at that moment was to go home.

The coachman gave him a meaningful glance, then swiftly drove the carriage away.

Having quickly outpaced the rioting villagers, Tang Wenxu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He gazed out the window, feeling a surge of tears, yet unable to cry. As they reached the distant outskirts, not far from the village, he suddenly saw something hanging from a tree outside the window.

“Stop the carriage.”

He recognized a familiar figure: his mission client, the old woman.

The old woman appeared to have hanged herself. She had said she couldn’t live anymore, and so she had truly died, ending her own life. ‘She must not have wanted to burden her granddaughter,’ Tang Wenxu thought.

He finally broke down, weeping bitterly.

Her granddaughter’s whereabouts were unknown, and Tang Wenxu sincerely hoped she would never learn that her grandmother had so abruptly ended her life for her sake. Otherwise, the girl would surely be heartbroken.

Looking at the old woman hanging from the tree, Tang Wenxu was filled with profound emotion. Believing in the peace of burial, Tang Wenxu personally interred the old woman on a nearby hillside, burying the 800 silver coins of remuneration with her, and using a wooden stake as a grave marker.

“Merciful angel, may you return to the side of the Goddess,” Tang Wenxu prayed softly.

However, in his kindness, he would rack his brain and never discover the truth.

Firstly, the old woman had a selfish motive for using the remuneration to save her granddaughter.

Secondly, the old woman died by murder, and Tang Wenxu would never guess who the culprit was.

In the distance, a handsome youth in a black suit hid behind a tree, quietly watching him weep. He, too, was crying.

That person was Karamanda.

Watching the weeping Tang Wenxu, Karamanda clutched his chest in apparent agony.

‘My dear Master, all this is to make you understand the price of kindness. Forgive me… forgive me… for not protecting you in time when those lowly ants threw stones at you. Please forgive me.’

He seemed deeply remorseful, his sharp nails digging into his flesh, blood dripping from the wounds. Yet, he appeared oblivious to the pain, his eyes fixed solely on Tang Wenxu.

Once his emotions stabilized, he looked towards the distant village.

‘Anything that harms my Master has no right to exist.’

Karamanda’s eyes were slightly red as he revealed a horrifying smile, slowly walking step by step towards the village.

Under the moonlight, Tang Wenxu in the carriage and Karamanda sped off in two different directions. Tang Wenxu had once thought Karamanda and Kuroki Nao were frighteningly rational people. In reality, the opposite was true: Karamanda and Kuroki Nao were terrifyingly emotional, even monstrous in their sentimentality.

Years later, when Tang Wenxu returned to this place, he heard that the village had vanished many years ago due to unknown reasons.

However, there was no official historical record of this event. Far too many villages disappeared each year for various reasons.