Poor Noble Nord’s Adventure

55. Evacuation

The quill danced lightly across the parchment. Sliding smoothly, elegantly, the ink held in the sharp, pointed tip transformed into characters. How many letters had he written already? Quickly yet surely, he wrote the ceremonial words he had repeated countless times. After adding his signature at the bottom of the parchment, he dusted the surface with fine sand to prevent any excess ink from bleeding. After a moment, he brushed the sand away, and the letter was complete.

“How many letters now?”

While waiting for the parchment to dry, Johann reached out for another one, asking the butler as he did so. However, the butler did not offer a new parchment but instead replied.

“This is the last letter, sir.”

“Hmm, I see.”

When considering all the letters to neighboring lords, cities, knights, and adventurer guilds, it was quite a large number. It had taken considerable effort to finish them in such a short time, but Johann had managed to complete them. He rolled the parchment neatly, dripped wax from a special candle, and pressed his ring into the still-hardening wax. When he removed the ring, the crest of the Obrielle family was clearly stamped.

“Well done, sir.”

“Mm… What is it?”

Johann nodded graciously at the butler’s words of praise when suddenly a loud noise reached his ears. It came from outside the manor.

“It seems to be outside… I will go check.”

The butler said as he turned to leave.

“No, that’s fine. I’ll go as well.”

With that, Johann, together with the butler, headed outside the manor.

“What is going on?!”

What Johann saw when he stepped outside was a swarm of bright red lights shining in the village still dominated by darkness. The source was immediately clear—torches.

“It’s the lord!”

“The lord!”

“Please, tell us what’s happening!”

“We don’t want to evacuate!”

The villagers were gathered at the foot of the hill where the manor stood, torches in hand. In contrast, Johann’s father-in-law was attempting to persuade them. When the villagers spotted Johann, they raised their voices. With everyone speaking at once, Johann decided to approach his father-in-law to understand the situation.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, Johann. Actually…”

The explanation from his father-in-law, the former Lord of Alba, was nearly identical to what Johann had expected upon seeing this scene.

While Johann had been writing letters, his father-in-law had gathered the villagers and instructed them to evacuate. However, when the sudden command came in the middle of the night to “abandon the village and flee,” it was difficult for them to simply accept such a command. The villagers reacted with confusion, doubt, and resistance, each expressing their emotions in different ways or in a mix of them. Stubbornly, his father-in-law continued to try to persuade the villagers to evacuate, but some of them, fiercely opposed, had come to the manor, torches in hand, demanding the evacuation order be rescinded. This was the current situation.

“How’s the evacuation progressing?”

“Not very well. Some villagers have already boarded wagons with traveling merchants and passengers…”

Upon hearing this, it seemed there had been some commotion even there. The villagers had been instructed to evacuate with only the essential belongings they could carry, but despite their willingness to evacuate, many insisted on taking their full household goods with them. Even those who weren’t that extreme were determined to bring as many belongings as they could, causing issues with the wagons, which were supposed to prioritize the elderly and children.

“What about the wagons?”

“We had no choice but to unload the goods and send the elderly and children alone.” Including those who attempted to evacuate on foot or in the wagons, about one-third of the villagers had agreed to evacuate. Upon hearing this report, Johann was stunned—there had been little progress, nearly nothing at all. But on the other hand, he couldn’t help but sympathize. Johann understood the villagers’ feelings. If he were in their shoes, he would have likely acted the same way. After all, he was no different. Johann had been born the second son. In noble families, second and third sons were primarily considered spare heirs, in case something happened to the eldest. Despite being poor, Johann had once envied and even resented his elder brother, Albireo, who could inherit the family estate. But when his parents had told him of the proposal to marry into the Obrielle family, he had been overwhelmingly happy. He believed he would finally have a future, a chance to live in a true sense. And for the villagers—most of whom were farmers—their land was as important to them as the Obrielle family was to Johann. The fields passed down from ancestors or cultivated by their own hands were more than just a means of sustenance; they were their reason for existence. Even if they were told to abandon it due to danger, it was a choice they could not emotionally accept, even if they understood it intellectually. This was why the situation had escalated to this point.

“Please, Lord, reconsider!”

“It’s going to snow soon! We can’t leave our homes!”

“How are we supposed to live if we abandon our homes and fields!?”

“All our livestock will be eaten by the beasts!”

“Calm down! Everyone, calm down!”

“Get away from the lord!”

“They’re just spiders. It’s nothing to worry about!”

“They might not even come!”

“Exactly, exactly!”

It was pure chaos. The villagers’ desperate pleas had transformed into a passionate display of emotion, now nearing the point of revolt. But no matter how much Johann or his father-in-law tried to reason with them, the idea of abandoning their land was, to the villagers, a choice as terrible as death.

(If things continue like this, we’ll run out of time…)

Johann, still trying to reason with the villagers alongside his father-in-law, pondered a way to resolve the situation. The core issue was that, for these farmers, leaving their land, even temporarily, was an instinctive rejection they couldn’t overcome. Whether they stayed in Alba Village or evacuated, they saw both options as losses. They clung to the hope that the reports of the monster horde were false, and that they could continue life as usual.

(Couldn’t I somehow interrupt their thinking, even for just a moment…?)

Anything would do. Something to make the villagers think, even for an instant, “It’s fine to leave the land.” As Johann thought this, he caught a voice from the villagers…

“Honestly, this year’s harvest was barely enough… If we don’t tend the fields, we won’t have enough to eat next year!”

“Yes, exactly!”

The voices grew louder, and gradually the villagers’ energy surged. What had begun as a request to cancel the evacuation had morphed into a justification for not wanting to leave, and now it seemed they were expressing their growing anxiety. In recent years, the harvests in Alba Village had not been disastrous, but they had been far from good. This year was no different, and after the Obrielle family collected taxes, the villagers had just enough to survive. The farmers of Alba Village had been trying to grow crops that could survive the winter, but it was still tight. Naturally, if they left the village now, the crops would either fail to grow or be ravaged by beasts, and they would face starvation next year.

The villagers’ complaints, filled with anxiety, desperation, and fear, mingled with their longstanding grievances, flaring up like a torch. The mood shifted dangerously close to riotous, and the villagers seemed to have forgotten their original purpose, raising their voices in protest.

“After all, we’re struggling because the taxes are too high!”

“And yet, you’re forcing us into this!”

“This is outrageous!”

“Exactly!”

“You…!”

It had escalated into the worst possible form. A riot. A direct petition. It was a peasant uprising. Seeing this, Johann noticed his father-in-law’s pale face out of the corner of his eye. Now that things had reached this point, it was only a matter of time before the situation turned into a full-blown riot. Normally docile, the peasants were now enraged, beyond reason, and uncontrollable. To the noble family that ruled the land, this was a nightmare. At this point, the only option was to suppress it immediately. Perhaps thinking that, his father-in-law subtly reached for the hilt of his sword.

Johann stopped him before the villagers could notice. His father-in-law looked at Johann in surprise. Johann deliberately ignored this, speaking calmly as if nothing had happened, addressing the villagers.

“Very well.”

His voice was steady but loud, reaching the ears of the villagers amidst their heated chatter. They had no idea what he was about to say. As the villagers’ attention shifted to Johann, he took advantage of the moment, speaking again in a clear voice.

“I will remove next year’s taxes.”

The effect was immediate. It was as if someone had overturned a water bucket onto a burning fire. The fiery voices from earlier quickly quieted, and the calm of the night returned.

The villagers struggled to comprehend what they had just heard. They desperately tried to recall the words they had just caught.

“Uh… Lord, did you just say—”

One of the villagers, timidly, asked Johann, as the others watched in rapt attention, unwilling to miss a single word.

(It looks like it worked.)

Johann suppressed a strange chuckle as he hid it beneath the mask of the Obrielle family crest. Then, he spoke again.

“I said, if you follow my orders to evacuate, next year will be tax-free.”

Even after hearing it again, the villagers still looked at each other in disbelief. Some even pinched themselves, wondering if they were dreaming.

Johann couldn’t help but expect this reaction. Even during years of poor harvests, nobles always collected their taxes without fail. Alba Village had been no exception. While some exceptions were made—postponing payments or offering labor in exchange for tax relief—nobles always made sure to collect their due. But now, for the noble lord of Alba Village to say he would not collect taxes? For the villagers, it felt like the world had turned upside down.

“Wait… Johann, are you sure it’s okay to say that?”

Of course, it wasn’t okay. But Johann saw this as just a matter of time, whether it was sooner or later. No matter how noble or lordly one might be, it was the commoners who paid the taxes. If the peasants of Alba Village were wiped out by monsters, the land would be left barren, with no one left to till it. Eventually, migrants would settle in, and the land would be revived, but until then, it would be impossible to collect taxes. Worse, Johann might lose his lands entirely if the area was deemed unmanageable. In that case, it would be better to let them go tax-free for a year and save the villagers than to risk everything.

Clap!

Johann clapped his hands, causing the villagers to jump.

“Well then, will you evacuate or not? I’ll say this now—I’m not so kind as to give a tax-free year to those who disobey my orders!”

The villagers looked at each other.

But this time, they knew what they needed to do.