Chapter 90 – The Great Crossing (5)

“Why can’t you answer? Or did I ask something too obvious?”

The one who came through the crowd was a woman standing while holding her daughter’s two hands tightly.

She continued to push me with a sarcastic tone.

The atmosphere, which was already cold, became even more chilling.

In the eyes of the people looking at me, any respect for the magic engineer had long vanished.

Because I had become an object of hatred due to my extremely efficient and inhumane command not to waste time and labor recovering the corpses.

Looking at the condescending tone, it was hard not to know.

‘It looks like I have become a complete villain.’

Before the matter of life and death, I could bear becoming a villain as much as needed.

Because humans always seek a target of blame in difficult situations.

That is precisely what citizens and the human collective are.

Still, it was not good news.

Because ultimately, the value of their existence to me was that they were my potential support force.

At this rate, even if I brought them back to the ember alive, it was obvious they would only harbor animosity.

However, I could not lower my tail and back down like this.

Once started, seeing it through to the end was precisely the attitude a leader must possess.

Without avoiding the gazes filled with hatred, I glared back intently and spoke.

“The injured who have difficulty moving will be placed in the empty seats of the off-roaders. Since they are six-seater and eight-seater off-roaders, excluding the two drivers and the single seat occupied by the core, up to eleven people can ride. If we strip the seats, even more will be possible.”

If the seats were stripped, a total of up to twenty people could board.

This was a fact verified in advance through conversations with Jenkins and Harley last night.

However, six elderly people who found even eating difficult were already occupying seats in the off-roaders, so the number of remaining available seats was fourteen.

Still, it was a number of seats that could accommodate all the injured that had occurred up to the present…

“What if there are more injured than that? Today alone, as many as eighteen people died or were injured overnight. It is only a matter of time before the seats become insufficient!”

Precisely that point was the problem.

The woman had brought forward a future problem that would occur later to attack me.

The clamor of the citizens who agreed with her was also not to be underestimated.

The lack of seats in the off-roaders was a problem even I could not resolve.

Because it was impossible to expand and modify the off-roaders or create new ones out of thin air.

It was a complete checkmate.

However, it was none of my business.

Because those words were only applicable when the cause of all these problems lay with ‘me.’

“Stop!”

I put mana into my voice and shouted loudly.

In an instant, the noise that about five hundred people were producing cut off abruptly.

“Do not argue as if all of these tragedies occurred due to my fault! The ones who decided to cross the snowfield were you, and for you, it was an unavoidable choice. I promised your leader Randolph that I would bring back even one more person alive, but my current choice is precisely the way to keep that promise best!”

“…!”

“…”

The people who were acting as if to devour me just a moment ago became mute and could say nothing.

They had realized that, just as I said, deciding on the crossing was their own will and an unavoidable choice, and this tragedy was a result that could not help but inevitably follow.

So the root cause of this tragedy did not lie with me, who had no choice but to make the decision as the expedition commander.

It lay with themselves, who chose to cross the Boundless Great Snow.

Furthermore, looking at it, I was their savior and helper.

If it weren’t for me, they would have been destined to meet death after suffering all kinds of filthy acts from the plunderers, or destined to freeze to death as the Eternal Embers stopped due to failing to secure magic stones.

Arguing with me like that was absurd from the very start.

I sensed that the time had come to drive in the wedge.

“Stop complaining weakly. If we cannot make it, everyone will simply die. That goes for the injured and for you alike. So do not cherish the illusion that you are alive now. This time, death merely avoided you by luck; you did not avoid death by your own strength.”

The clamoring citizens glared with wide eyes in anger, yet they did not refute.

Having had their eyes clouded by emotion, they finally regained reason and acknowledged that my words were not wrong.

‘The time poured into Last Embers was not in vain…’

In this desperate situation, I paradoxically felt a massive sense of satisfaction.

The satisfaction that my playtime in , piled up like a mountain, was not useless.

The sight of the eloquence and logic from the game being applicable in reality just as they were was such a strange and ecstatic experience.

Enjoying that thrilling sensation with my entire body, I shouted toward the people.

“Eat, sleep, wake up, and walk. While you are on the snowfield, do not think of anything else, and carry out those three processes like machines. If you promise to do so, I will also promise to do my best to ensure your ember is transferred intact.”

By that time, Randolph and his ember people, along with the expedition members who had finished tidying up, were all surrounding me in a circle.

“…”

“…”

Everyone remained motionless, letting the falling snow accumulate on their shoulders.

Their gazes, while still appearing to resent me, were dead black as if accepting the cruel reality.

However, even this despair would ultimately become the driving force to burn the will to survive.

Because the dead, while presenting despair to the living, also present a hope stronger than anything else.

For example, the price of a life.

“…Let us return.”

In that manner, the five hundred citizens headed to the pits without another word and began to try to sleep.

It was a wordless signal and submission to completely follow my command.

Since only about three to four hours remained until departure, it was also a matter of course.

The ones remaining until the end were our expedition members.

Their expressions were different, but the emotion contained within them was one.

The surprise and admiration at having resolved this complicated situation.

However, without even having the time to feel such pleasant gazes, I commanded.

“You all go inside quickly, too. Because we are the ones who must hoard physical strength more than anyone.”

We were guards and combatants.

Unlike the citizens who merely had to walk, we had many things to pay attention to.

“…Let us do so. Good work. See you tomorrow.”

“Natasha and I will finish up the injured, so you rest. The appearance of the expedition commander is a mess, so it does not save face.”

The expedition members seemed to have many things they wanted to say, but they nodded and returned to the pits.

Only after Jeremy and Natasha dug new pits for the injured and moved them one by one did they disappear to their own places.

It was precisely then, as I was about to return to my place on the snowfield where I had become alone.

“Aylen, will you have a conversation with me?”

There was Randolph, poking his head out of a pit.

Him looking around made it seem as if he had waited for everyone to return.

“Stay there. I will go over to you.”

Opening a good-natured smile, I headed straight to his pit.

It was not only because drawing Randolph to my side was the most certain way to make the five hundred citizens mine.

Whoosh—!

As soon as I entered the pit, I covered the entrance with a cloth to block the wind.

Still, as cold wind leaked through the flapping cloth and I was packing snow to seal it, he spoke.

“Thank you for caring.”

“I am doing this because it will be a headache for me if you get sick, Lord Randolph. You must recover even a bit faster.”

It was Randolph speaking comfortably in informal language.

When I told him to speak comfortably, he refused adamantly, but it was because I pushed strongly.

Although it was for the purpose of forming intimacy with him, hearing polite language from someone old enough to be my grandfather made me uncomfortable, so it was something I did for my own comfort.

It was awkward at first, but now it was natural.

It was then, after sealing the gaps meticulously and sitting face to face with him.

“Not that, but the matter from earlier. Taking the courage to be hated for our ember… I am truly grateful.”

“…”

In Randolph’s eyes that met mine, gratitude and guilt that could not be fully expressed in words were contained.

The magnitude of that emotion was burdensome.

Because me helping them was for an extremely calculating reason that it would benefit me.

Without replying, I turned the subject.

“How is your body?”

“Quite fine. Although I became ugly because I was hit on the face so much, my legs are perfectly fine, so there is no problem in walking. I feel like I could even run after taking a nap.”

Although he was a leader of a nameless ember, having lived for a long time, he skillfully shifted the conversation.

He had noticed that for whatever reason, I did not want to be thanked.

I asked with a smirk.

“If so, it is fortunate, but how about riding the off-roader even now? No one will say anything.”

Randolph was not in a good condition due to the harsh torture of the plunderers.

Since his body was already aged, the recovery speed was also slow.

However, he refused the proposal to board the off-roader until the very end.

Saying that he was not just Randolph but the leader, and if the leader made a fuss, the morale of the citizens would only drop.

However.

“The same goes for it being a fuss. Everyone saw your body become like that, so who would criticize it as a fuss?”

Who would rebuke Randolph for traveling comfortably just because he was the leader?

That was merely Randolph’s stubbornness to set an example as a leader.

A kind of sense of duty that could never be broken even until the moment of death, and would not break.

It was not merely paltry words. It was a noble belief proven by not yielding before the ruthless violence of the plunderers.

‘Is that willpower inherited from his deceased father? Amazing…’

It was said that Randolph’s deceased father was the founder and first leader who established the ember.

I thought it could be so, if it was a level of decisiveness to establish an ember in this barren land.

Was that thought correct? Randolph, his eyes shining intelligently, spoke firmly and also solemnly.

“A leader is someone who must not be weak, shaken, or hesitant at any time. A leader is like the Eternal Embers. Standing tall in the middle of the city twenty-four hours a day, warmly embracing people and reassuring them… it is something like that.”

“…”

I also thought I knew well what a leader was.

Even if it was in a game, there was more than one or two times I had raised my ember into a successfully eternal and immortal metropolis in .

I had been a leader possessing quite excellent leadership, political power, and execution ability all together.

But Randolph was not speaking of the abilities required of a leader.

He was speaking of the responsibility of a leader.

‘So this was the reason he was respected even after inheriting the ember.’

The reason Randolph received firm support from the citizens was precisely this.

He was a pro-citizen leader completely opposite to me, who wielded a dictatorship based on meritocracy.

This was also one of the easy methods to operate a city in the game.

Since managing the complaints of the citizens was the greatest challenge for most players who could not even dream of clearing the game.

Furthermore, hadn’t it been proven effective looking at the case of Randolph’s ember alone?

However.

‘If it were possible to clear the game in that way, there would have been no need to choose dictatorship.’

Things obtained easily have a low ceiling.

And that ceiling falls far short of the clear conditions demanded by this world.

Therefore, a perfect dictatorship that is impossible to achieve.

I only became more convinced that it was the sole answer of this world.