Berne’s journey II
… Then, I arrived at the territory of Count Monroe.
The moment I entered the place, I lost my words.
It was not lively … it was far apart from that.
It was a boulevard that the slums of the kingdom seem to be better.
A newly-grown road half finished with piles of trash and people lying on the sides.
The people lying there were only skin and bones… people who are not certain whether they are alive or dead already.
There was a rotten smell everywhere.
“what is this…”
There is no answer to the word I murmured.
The impulse of the sight I had in front left me running.
“Mr. Bern, please wait!”
The words of the escorts never entered my ears.
…… My head was full with sight in front of me.
I run through the road while shouting inside that this is a lie.
However, a similar sight spreads in front of me no matter where I run.
No … more extreme sights are reflected when I move further.
If there is hell, here is … and despair is all what fills my heart now.
“You … are you a lord?”
A lady who was staring at the air with her eyes without life and empty, was calling out to me.
“My lord … I only had muddy water for the last three days.”
She approached me, crawling slowly to my feet.
A thin body with empty dead eyes.
I got frightened at those eyes where nothing was reflected.
… That’s why I did not notice.
“Withdraw!”
The presence of a man approaching me and her.
He pushed her hard with all his strength and stood in front of me.
“Your grace … I’ll do whatever. If you bless me with some food, I will be your slave forever.”
Trying to get through to me who goes backwards when people approach, the people keep pushing each other.
The woman who first approached me had collapsed on the ground.
People step on her and reach for me.
“…ah ah ah ah ah!”
It is so dirty! I thought so.
The horror of the hands of that large number of people seems to be an invitation to death.
… I shouted within my head trying to reject that sight.
Two guards who seemed to answer to my inner voice … One person riding a horse at fast speed shouted…
“You guys, protect the lord!”
Looking at the escort, he took out a sword…
That’s when I came back on me.
“Don’t kill them!”
I shouted. My words, confused the escort this time.
“Mr. Bern … but …”
“Good! … you guys, do you want food?!”
At my words, Light dwells in the eyes of people.
“Pheng!”
The escort, whose name was called, was puzzled though.
“But Mr. Bern!”
“Oh good, throw all our food to them!”
He threw away the packet he was carrying on his back quite far.
“People!, that’s all the food we have”
At the moment I told them that, the people who were begging to me rushed to the wrapped packets that were thrown out.
And the two escorts and me rushed to the opposite direction.
Far away from the road, three people including Bern sat down on an empty area as he confirmed that there were no people around.
“Sorry to ask this but do we have some food and water left?” For them to be this desperate about it…
“We have some to eat for a day. Since the portable food is in the bosom, we’ll have to share it between us four people, sorry for having you Mr Bern drink together with us”
“It is okay, but that …” Signaling at the distance where the people desperately were fighting for the packets.
The facial expressions of the escorts turned dark uniformly.
Everyone, like me, saw the scene of that hell.
“… The disaster and the food shortage in the kingdom is probably the biggest cause of this case, but it’s not the only one, it is not only from the occurrence of the disaster that this happened, perhaps the food of the territory of Count Monroe has been emptied long ago. ”
I try hard to remain barely calm.
“Something like that! How could the food of this territory be emptied!”
“Depending on who is the lord, don’t you understand how a territory changes based on that …?”
I was chewing my lips.
Anger lies within my heart.
The Count Monroe who produced this hell, more than anything … my anger towards him is useless to solve anything but even then…
The more angry I get, the more my chest gets hot.