Chapter 6: I Absolutely Won’t Allow You to Abandon It Halfway

After finishing my business with the Sapojira Family, I slipped casually out of their office, moved to an inn for merchants that I’d reserved in advance, and entered my subspace.

Inside the temporary shelter I’d created there, the children were running around happily and playing on various pieces of playground equipment.

Yes, yes.

Everyone had initially frozen in confusion, but they were remarkably resilient—or perhaps simply highly adaptable.

“You bastards, don’t fight! Hey, get along—”

“Boys! Go easy on the little ones—”

“I said magic is forbidden—”

Yes, yes.

I was glad they were enjoying themselves.

The orphans had appeared extremely confused at first.

We healed their injuries with alchemical potions made by Garnet, scrubbed away years of accumulated grime in the enormous bath, dressed them in comfortable new clothes, and allowed them to eat whatever they liked until they were full—

Then I told them they were free to play.

At that point, they displayed the mysterious determination of, “We don’t understand what’s happening, but let’s play as much as possible while we still can,” and forced their exhausted bodies to run around.

Um, you don’t have to live as though you’re racing toward death.

You can relax more.

Look. There are picture books, clay, and drawing sets. You can take naps too.

For some reason, no one paid those things any attention and simply kept running.

Why?

“…Crow. You’re doing whatever you please.”

The person grumbling beside me was Hyadal.

He’d left his individual cell and was currently helping care for the children. Naturally, a single person couldn’t look after fifty, so he’d apparently appointed Golji and the other older children as his subordinates and had them organize the rest.

In this short time, the children seemed to have grown remarkably fond of him.

Meanwhile, they watched me suspiciously from a distance.

How sad.

“Thank you for your hard work. It looks as though I can entrust the children to you, Hyadal. You mentioned before that you’d wanted to become a teacher. Asking you was the correct choice.”

“Even so, this was too sudden. At least explain things in advance. You suddenly dumped all these children on me. I was completely bewildered.”

Sorry about that.

Apparently, when Hyadal was young, he’d been deeply impressed by an elderly teacher who taught him at the temple, inspiring him to become a teacher himself. Until then, he’d been steeped in something resembling the Banksia family’s indoctrination. That teacher had given him the opportunity to reexamine himself.

However, a child of the yakuza couldn’t become a priest, so he’d apparently had no choice but to abandon the dream as nothing more than a dream.

“Hyadal, once this series of incidents is settled, I intend to make major changes to the system of private orphanages operated by the Cineraria Family. I’m developing a plan now.”

The current orphanages were overflowing with problems.

“As a first step, I’d like to rebuild the orphanage in this city in various ways. I want to place you in charge of operating it. What do you think?”

At that proposal, Hyadal’s eyes widened.

“…What? I’m a man awaiting punishment. I’ve been expelled from the Cineraria Family and banished from the Banksia family.”

“That’s right. And deciding how you’ll be treated is my responsibility. So I’m thinking of assigning you an extremely difficult job proportionate to your past crimes. This is punishment for those crimes, so I absolutely won’t allow you to abandon it halfway. I’ll make you work hard, properly prepared for what it requires.”

An orphanage wasn’t a charity in the first place.

Naturally, I wouldn’t permit the children to be worked mercilessly. At the same time, the Cineraria Family wouldn’t permit it to continue operating at a loss.

In other words, amid various restrictions, they would need to earn enough profit to continue as a business.

I had ideas, but reaching a stable footing would be extremely difficult…

Hyadal would have to work very hard.

“That’s too lenient. It doesn’t qualify as punishment.”

“Is that so? I think it will be rather difficult… For the moment, if you can’t belong to the Family, you can work as an ordinary civilian employed by me. This city’s orphanage will serve as an experimental site. We’ll try various approaches and determine whether a new form of orphanage can truly succeed as a business. If we gain useful knowledge here, I believe we’ll eventually reform orphanages throughout the western empire.”

Though producing results would probably take years.

He could continue working as an ordinary civilian. Or, if Hyadal wanted, perhaps he could return to the Cineraria Family on the strength of a major achievement.

The rest would depend on him.

“Besides, even if someone says my judgment concerning you was too lenient… I doubt the Cineraria Family will underestimate me by deciding that I’m a softhearted person.”

“What? How can you—”

“I will destroy the Sapojira Family. Completely. My excellent investigator confirmed the information… and it appears they’re involved in something even worse than we’d anticipated. Something so vicious that, if handled badly, the entire Cineraria Family could be expelled from the empire.”

I couldn’t help sighing.

I would need to think carefully about how to provide the information to the frontier count’s family. If we acted too carelessly, this matter could begin a war between nations.

I truly hadn’t expected the Sapojira Family to involve themselves in anything this vicious.

…Long-eared elves, beast-tailed Farly, and dragon-scaled Dragonewts.

They had imprisoned members of the people called minority races in this world—

—and were conducting human experiments on them.