Chapter 287 Fear (6)
At that point in time, the numerous guards and soldiers semi-buried made that area of the town look like a scene of a horror movie. After so many people that looked like they had lost their heads, most soldiers lost the will to fight and began to flee from the city. That was a problem, but Billy could catch up with them later with his vehicle, but he probably won't have to. After such a daring incident, Jeannette won't stay still and probably will make some sort of big move. Besides, he had put some guards of his dungeon town in strategic points on the roads ahead to apprehend or kill the escapees. Still, hopefully, she will mess up, and Billy will have his chance to deal with her.
In the end, around six hundred guards and soldiers had been killed, while seven hundred had surrendered or been forced to surrender. For such a town that wasn't the largest in the state, they certainly had a large garrison. Nevertheless, now such problems had been dealt with, the inhabitants of that place began to leave in earnest. That town had originally eight thousand people, but now it had eleven thousand. It was supposed to have the double of that, but Jennette forced many people to begin the training to join the army. In any case, it took a while for many of those people to leave… However, not all of them actually wanted to do so. Those were the families and friends of those who died in the wars and couldn't realize that their previous and current leaders were the real culprits of that.
"We will never join sides with monsters…"
"We didn't even have the bones of our friends and family to bury when they faced you… You are a monster!"
"No… you guys didn't have bodies to bury because you weren't there to recover them and because your previous leaders abandoned them when they noticed that those wars couldn't be won," Billy said. "Naturally, you don't think of blaming them. That would be disloyal, right? Still, you need a target to vent your frustration, and I fit that role perfectly. Don't worry, you can keep complaining and keep saying your bullshit. I don't care. I won't kill any of you either, at least for now, that may change if you guys grab weapons and challenge us again."
Those people couldn't even see that Billy would have a lot fewer problems in the future if he had slaughtered all those that had pointed their arms at him. They also couldn't see how much time and money he was investing in helping the refugees. From their perspective, Jeannette still was reasonable while forcing women and children to join the army. Billy truly wished that he could just enjoy some adventurers with his wives and friends in dungeons now and then. Still, it seemed that his arrival in that world made things move in an unexpected way. His arrival and the arrival of others like him.
"What are the next steps?" Svan asked.
"I suppose this job will only get harder from now on… Being merciful sure is difficult when most of the people are so unreasonable with their grudges," Gilles said.
Gilles was complaining, but Billy was the one most troubled by all that. It has been two months since he left home, and he isn't planning to stay the rest of the year doing that kind of job. He will endure it only for three more months. After that, he will trash Jeannette and her castle. There is no way that he will stay away from his wives for any longer than that in such an important moment of their lives.
Regardless, Billy kept working alongside the new and the old barbarians on the tunnels after sealing the other entrances to that town. He made sure to reinforce the tunnels right in the areas below that place to make sure that no one would try to dig and reach it. Also, it took a full week for everyone to reach his dungeon town. Thanks to that, Pierre's workload increased considerably.
Thanks to the fact that Pierre called some of the students that were working on Billy's friend's territories, several more houses had been prepared for them, so Billy didn't have to waste time doing that. Still, the mood was quite heavy there because of the prisoners and because the immigrants were scared of what the future held.
"So… that is what war creates…" Rosalie said while she watched her dispirited people. "They escaped from an immediate problem, but…"
"Don't feel guilty over this, Rosalie," Gilles said. "None of this has happened thanks to you. If those people avoided the possibility of endangering their lives, it is thanks to you that convinced them to come."
Rosalie nodded at them, but she still couldn't erase all the guilt. Now that her uncle had died, someone had to carry the burden caused by his actions. Things didn't become better after his death, after all. While watching all that, Billy began to think. The conflict was really inhuman in nature. Humans can become better at something and work harder when they know that someone is doing better than them. That in itself wasn't a bad thing. The root of the problem was always the moment that they became obsessed with surpassing everyone and standing above all others.
Billy and his friends had a competition amongst themselves, but bad feelings never emerged between them. Probably because they didn't have any ambitions, they always tried harder because they knew that they could improve and that they each had their own weakness. They felt that it was fine if they just improved themselves daily… Still, it was hard to say if they would feel different if they were born in other situations. Perhaps they wouldn't since they knew Billy, and while they didn't know about his past life, they knew that he had the talent and the chance to rule over the other tribes, but he always found that more troublesome than it was worthy of his time.
