Chapter Two Hundred and Two: The Stage for Assertion 2
“You actually came instead of running away, Karen.”
Karen climbed onto the stage set up in the plaza in front of the Merchants’ Guild. Marian, who was already standing on the stage, smirked as if looking down on Karen.
During this past week, all sorts of rumors and gossip about Karen had flown around town. It was probably information Marian had spread. False rumors and misinformation had circulated, but the fact was that Karen was demanding an apology from the Gubert Trading Company on behalf of her person with low magical power.
And a fabrication had been added that her softness might have triggered the dungeon anomaly. Marian of the Gubert Trading Company, who had lost her brother after being caught up in that softness, would condemn Karen’s sins—because Marian had spread this around, a huge crowd of spectators had gathered.
Marian pressed a voice-amplifying magical tool to her throat.
“Karen, I do think I did something wrong to you. But there aren’t many people like you around. People born as F-rank live their whole lives as F-rank. That’s normal, and there’s an appropriate way to treat such people, and your way of thinking—insisting that even such people should be treated equally—is abnormal, Karen.”
Normally, people didn’t climb the ranks. So most people’s lives were determined by their innate magical power.
Karen and the residents of the adventurers’ district were unusual, having grown up watching people suffer magical intoxication as they climbed the ranks; ordinary people, upon realizing their low magical power, half-gave up on life. Almost no one tried to change their life by risking it in battle. And even among those who tried, most had died.
Having abandoned hope, they took jobs that matched their magical power. Even if they worked at jobs that didn’t require magical power, hierarchies formed within organizations based on magical power, and they were driven to the very bottom. No matter how much a job seemed unrelated to magic, it always ended up entangled in systems that required it somewhere along the line. The work deemed suitable for someone born with F-rank magical power was, unsurprisingly, also F-rank. Even if someone had slightly more magical power than F-rank, if they could only do F-rank work, they were judged to have an F-rank capacity as a person. The world’s treatment of people deemed F-rank was terribly harsh.
The harsh treatment Karen had once faced was also due to this world’s system. She understood that people who produced better results were given preferential treatment. But that didn’t mean F-ranks should be despised. Before parting ways with Lyos, she herself had been exactly F-rank. So she had been treated that way.
“Haven’t you had more than enough of tasting how abnormal you are during this past week?”
“True enough—it was my first time having raw eggs thrown at my house.”
As Karen’s beliefs spread, the hostile stares directed at her steadily increased. Some of the rumors were lies, but the reasons people harbored hostility toward Karen were genuine. The culprit was quickly apprehended by the knights of the Ehlertt Earldom, who were guarding Karen. It was a neighbor with whom she had thought she’d built good relationships, and Karen was more than a little shocked.
“If you regret it, I’ll forgive you if you correct that ridiculous thinking even now. If you admit your mistake, I won’t blame you more than necessary. After all, you’re a C-rank senior alchemist.”
“I won’t correct it—because you’re the ones who are wrong.”
She knew this world had its logic.
Karen also understood that in a world where even living was difficult unless the strong risked their lives, harsh gazes would be directed at the weak.
Marian laughed at Karen mockingly and said:
“What exactly is wrong? Explain it in a way I can understand, to everyone gathered here, and try to convince them!”
Saying that, Marian tossed the voice-amplifying magical tool to Karen. Karen caught it, pressed it to her throat, and looked out at the audience.
The wary gazes of people living in the royal capital of the Kingdom of Earthfill, who believed the rumors about Karen. The curious gazes of the many people who had gathered from the suburbs of the capital for the grand market.
Mixed among them, the gazes filled with both hope and anxiety from the very people about to be oppressed.
Everyone looked up at Karen on the stage, waiting to hear what she would say.
Karen drew in a breath.
“Even I know how difficult it is to join the Royal Knight Order.”
“—Huh?”
Marian made a dubious face as if she couldn’t understand the intent of the words.
Most of the audience looked up at Karen with expressions wondering what on earth she was saying.
“If you become a Royal Knight, you’re elite! But just because you became elite, just because that’s impressive, just because the fiancée who supported you until then isn’t as impressive as you, just because she’s low-rank, just because she doesn’t have much magical power—that doesn’t mean you can throw her away like a dirty rag, does it!?”
This was completely different from when she had stirred up the adventurers in the Ehlertt’s territory.
There was no response from the crowd at all—nothing came back.
The cold atmosphere pressed in on her intensely. The feeling of being in hostile territory was overwhelming.
Despite that, Karen ramped herself up all on her own.
“Sure, we’ve reconciled in the end! Because my ex-fiancé apologized to me! But that was because I had the power to heal the Bloodline Blessing, right!? He apologized because he realized I had the ability, didn’t he? But the time I devoted, these feelings—they have nothing to do with ability, you know? Even if I had no ability at all, would my ex-fiancé have reflected on his actions!? He wouldn’t, would he!? I think that’s wrong!”
“Wait, your principles and assertions come from that!?”
Marian let out a scream-like voice and held her head in her hands.
“You’ve been making such a big scene for such a trivial reason!?”
“It’s not trivial. What’s wrong is this world!”
Karen pointed sharply at Marian.
“So I’ll change the world.”
“Are you an IDIOT!?”
In the end, that’s what it came down to.
She could spout any number of platitudes, but if she was trying to persuade people, the words had to come from inside herself.
It was a truth she found difficult to tell Julius, but this was where everything had begun. Incidentally, she had asked Julius not to come here with an appropriate excuse like it would be better to make this a dispute between commoners. It would be terrible if he thought she still had lingering feelings for Lyos.
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