The Villain Changed the Ending

029 Goruka, the chief’s son

*****[Oscar, the main character]*****

it’s pitch dark

The whistling whistle of the wind came through the cracks in the thin, thread-like window.

He seems to have woken up to that sound.

I blinked my eyes silently without moving.

It’s still.

Only the sound of the wind roamed the room ominously.

Speaking of the royal palace, it must be the best building in the country, but is the wind still leaking?

In a different environment from the earth, the night feels strange today.

I felt oddly uncomfortable.

It feels like being caught in an invisible spider’s web.

I felt like a little bug that had landed on a strange alien land.

‘It falls.’

I suddenly thought about it, and my mind suddenly became nervous.

It seems to be placed alone in a dark space.

Am I really here?

Am I really lying on solid ground, on a bed with substance?

suddenly became suspicious.

but i can’t move

It seemed that his body was wrapped in a transparent thread.

I was still breathing, and my body was in a state of sleep, but I was afraid of the strange feeling that I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

It’s like I’m trapped inside a lying body.

What looked like a thin thread soon became something like transparent vinyl and covered me.

I’m breathing and I feel like I’m suffocating.

It was a time when I was soaked in fear without saying anything.

Suddenly the darkness shook.

“Master, did you have a nightmare?”

It was Benno.

He came next to me and quietly looked into my face.

The moment our eyes met, I suddenly let out my breath.

“… Benno.”

I murmured softly, and Benno pulled up the thin blanket from under my feet and covered my body.

April, the nights are not so cold now.

Still, Benno was worried, so my futon in the royal palace room was made up of many layers.

Raise thin blankets in two or three layers, adding more or less each time the temperature changes.

Benno covered me with a blanket up to my neck and started patting me lightly.

“It’s okay, master. I’m by your side. If you have nightmares, I’ll wake you up. Don’t worry, have a good night’s sleep. No one can harm you, master.”

“…”

Is it because her body has become smaller, or is it because the memories she regained are starting to adapt to her body? Even though she is not a child, she is relieved by Benno’s patting.

This person must be watching me, if I fall, if I go to a strange space, Benno will save me, I thought.

I move my lips to say thank you, but I think I fell asleep before I knew it.

Pat, Pat, Benno’s palm tapping at regular intervals calmed me down, and I remembered my mother’s face.

If Benno had been my father, it would have been nice if he had been like that, I thought.

*

In the morning, Martin came to the room.

In today’s meeting with the steppe people, he will be my interpreter.

Following Martin’s advice, I prepared a small gift.

Of course, I was just giving orders, but Benno actually moved.

The gift is wine produced in the duchy.

I can’t say it’s a hugely expensive or high-end product, but I heard that it’s a moderately good product.

In this country, drinks such as wine and beer are drunk like water, so both are produced in any territory.

Of course, it was also being made in the dukedom.

When I was young, I drank fruit water instead of wine, but it seems that many people drink it even in their early teens.

I really didn’t think so, but it seems that people here don’t even consider that level of alcohol.

Anyway, the wine I prepared was better than average, but not of the highest quality.

According to Martin, whoever receives a gift from the meadow must return something of a similar size.

If you present something that is too burdensome for your first meeting, it will be difficult for the grassland tribe to return it, so it is better to be appropriate.

The best thing is to put your heart into the gift.

So, out of many things, I dared to choose the product of the dukedom.

I don’t have much attachment to the dukedom yet, but it’s still the place that gives me the most heart in this world.

The space where my mother lives, where my home is.

where i have to keep

I hope that the grassland tribes will like the things of the dukedom even a little, and that will become a small sprout of goodwill.

I muttered to myself and moved on.

Martin took the lead, and Benno followed me about half a step behind me.

The wine was drunk by Benno.

We walked down a long hallway and came out.

Outside the doorway a roofless carriage was waiting.

weird.

Foreign envoys would usually have rooms in the main palace.

There were foreign envoys among those who attended the banquet a few days ago, but they all received rooms in the main palace.

The carriage clattered and ran.

After running for a while, I finally saw the shape of the building in the distance.

Most of the palace buildings are beautiful and elegant.

The atmosphere was different, but there was no place that was shabby.

No wonder.

But even in the midst of that, there are places that are more beautiful and places that are shabby, so to speak.

This building is arguably the last to be repaired and the most neglected.

Although it was antique and beautiful, it could not be compared with the original palace.

I looked at the building getting closer and looked at Martin.

“Is this really the place for the grassland tribes?”

“That’s right.”

“…”

Doesn’t the kingdom show even basic courtesy to foreign envoys?

“It’s a shame.”

I murmured nonchalantly, and Martin looked at me with a soft gaze.

*****[Goruka, Steppes]*****

The people of the steppe are the proud children of the earth.

The man shot an arrow to catch the demon and the beast, and killed the enemy.

protects and feeds the family;

If a man lived safely for a year without starving or killing anyone, that became the pride of the men of the tribe.

Goruka also grew up being protected by his father and tribe that way, and now, at the age of 16, he himself becomes a member of it and protects his mother, sister, and younger siblings.

Always proud of it.

However, when he went deep into the kingdom, he could not see any corner where his pride would work.

All the way to the kingdom, Goruka saw people in the fields.

Instead of holding bows and swords, the men of the kingdom held hoes.

Even those with swords or spears did not hunt or kill their enemies like the tribal warriors.

Just stand still or ride slowly on horseback.

It’s a completely different way of living.

At first, I thought the lives of the men in the kingdom were stupid, but the position was reversed before I knew it.

Goruka himself is miserable and shabby.

And he became ashamed of his own weakness for thinking that way.

“…”

The people of the kingdom laughed at Goruka’s clothes and laughed at her appearance.

You can feel it in your gaze.

And… not all, but Goruka could understand some of the kingdom’s language.

They called Goruka [barbarians].

Even if you haven’t learned what it means, you can get a rough idea by looking at his gaze and tone.

I knew that he was clearly disrespecting the people of our grasslands.

With the men of the tribe, whenever they caught a wolf or beast, they received a tooth according to their merits.

At the age of 15, when I became an adult, my mother gathered them all together and put them together to make a necklace.

It was Goruka’s pride that he always wore around his neck.

It was proof that he was great as a man.

The necklace she proudly wore around her neck as she headed for the kingdom is still there today, but hidden in the hem of her dress.

When I came to the kingdom, I dressed like everyone in the tribe, but now I receive their clothes from the people of the kingdom and wear them.

Because no one in the kingdom was naked.

The necklace, which was initially placed on the hem of the dress, was also hidden in it.

This is because he felt degraded as a savage in the eyes of those who saw the necklace.

The pride of tribal warriors, who always felt proud, gradually changed to something shabby and insignificant.

And when they arrived at the great place where their king lived, Goruka truly realized what a humble place his tribe had been living in.

‘What do we do.’

The reason why Goruka came to the kingdom was to claim a legitimate right.

However, with this mindset, he will not be able to play his role properly.

My heart became infinitely heavy.

The kingdom’s invitation this time is due to a battle with a tribe that has not been on good terms for a long time.

Our ‘Red Hawk’ tribe has had a bad relationship with the ‘Silver Moon’ tribe from before.

This time, the ‘Silver Moon’ invaded part of the kingdom’s territory and plundered women and food.

The ruler of the kingdom’s territory couldn’t stand the ‘Silver Moon’ and asked us for help.

My father, the chieftain, summoned the warriors and asked for their opinions, and in the end they agreed.

As we marched, the warriors of the Silver Moon became even more rampant, but the kingdom soldiers firmly defended the castle and could not withstand our interception, so they retreated.

According to the agreement, we would have returned to the meadow in exchange for food.

However, words have changed in the kingdom.

After giving only part of the food and delaying it for a while, the king invited the chief to personally express his gratitude.

Then I will give you food as promised.

There were several opinions in my tribe that we should raid and burn the territory of the one who broke the promise.

Everyone was outraged.

Goruka is also very angry, but can’t move as excitedly.

Food is scarce this year.

There was a concern that deaths from starvation might occur this winter.

The Silvermoon Tribe was probably the reason for the plunder.

Being shameless in the kingdom was probably because he roughly guessed the situation.

If so, let’s properly claim our legitimacy and get the promise fulfilled, and that’s the conclusion.

Besides, there is a sister married in the kingdom.

A man from the kingdom who lived among our tribe for a while.

Martin, who always taught me the language of the kingdom with a serious face.

After the man married his sister, he took her to the kingdom.

In other tribes it was said that a woman married to a man of the kingdom was abandoned and remained in the tribe, but Martin did not do such a thing.

took responsibility properly.

He thought it would be okay since he would be protecting his sister, but he was also worried that if a dispute broke out, it would harm his sister.

But sending a chieftain to a place that doesn’t keep his promise is nonsense.

In the end, after meeting after meeting, Goruka, the son of the chieftain and able to speak a little of the kingdom language, decided to go.

The father chief tried to send a few other warriors with him, but he refused.

Warriors are important in the grasslands.

If several people who feed and protect the family are missing, the tribe will be at risk.

And there was also a concern that he might try to kill him in the kingdom.

If so, the loss must end with the loss of one person.

His father and other warriors also accepted Goruka’s argument.

‘I was entrusted with such an important mission, but I…’

Feeling ashamed of himself, Goruka quietly bowed his head while sitting in the luxurious room.

Unlike in the meadow, the various kinds of food with various seasonings and the room full of luxurious objects seemed to laugh at him.

“…”

Today, I meet a person with the highest status in the kingdom after the king.

The kingdom’s interpreter said so and asked several times not to be rude.

Then, suddenly, he taught him various manners, and taught him the way of greeting the kingdom all day long.

At first, he said it was just a normal greeting, but when Goruka asked if the other person did the same to him, he couldn’t answer.

It was a way of greeting a lower person to a higher-ranking person.

Goruka gave strength to the fist on his knee.

*****[Oscar, the main character]*****

There are hardly any shadows of people in the quiet mansion.

How many servants and an interpreter are you supposed to have?

I heard that even the civil servants who entertain guests do not usually come.

It’s really embarrassing to leave a person who came as an official messenger like this unattended.

But Martin doesn’t seem angry.

He was just smiling softly.

I’m not sure if that’s a diplomat’s face or if it’s sincere.

I first met the interpreter and civil servant in charge of the grassland side.

Their eyes turned to Martin several times, and then they lowered their heads in bewilderment.

“Oh, welcome, Duke.”

“Th-that savage is not someone you would want to meet. They don’t know proper etiquette, so the duke will probably feel bad…”

I put my hand up to block it out.

“Aren’t you guys in charge of diplomacy? Be careful with your choice of words.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, Duke. That, that, I stopped without realizing it.”

Both of their faces went white.

“I am a busy man. I have no time to spend here. Please guide me.”

When I said that, the two of them hurriedly moved as if their buttocks were on fire.

Maybe Martin did something.

Tea, who was frightened, was clear.

Hmm, I don’t know what Martin said, but somehow it’s believable.

He said he had taken a woman from the meadow as his wife, so he worried that he might be too naive, but he doesn’t seem to be concerned about that.

I was shown to a room at the end of a long hallway.

“Hey, this is it.

When the civil servant opened the door, a solid-looking boy sat in the room and slowly got up.