In human society, the aversion to whistleblowers is a phenomenon that exists in almost all cultures. Most of the more ancient polytheistic beliefs in the Kingdom of the Moon and Rigal use the warning that informers will go to hell after death and undergo torture such as pulling out their tongues. Even children who don't know much will reject the person in the small group. A 'good boy' who always secretly reports to his parents.
People's "trust" emotion is limited. The older they grow, the thinner and stingier it becomes.
Telling a secret is equivalent to trusting the other party, and if the other party tells others, it constitutes the smallest but most common betrayal.
Betrayal of trust is something that almost everyone will experience in their lives. You may be able to forget it quickly as a child, but it becomes more difficult to forgive as you grow up. Because the world of adults is more complex but also more changeable, every trust given is a careful attempt by two scarred people.
Therefore, adults often have only one trust in the world. Even if they were good friends, they will lose contact because of one falling out.
People always yearn for eternal and flawless things, but the reality is that change is the real norm for humans with short life spans. Old friends will leave, companions who once firmly stood on the same side will one day go against each other, and the people you thought would always be by your side will become indifferent at some point, and the contact will become less and eventually no more.
Only change remains the same.
Only loss remains unchanged.
So they shouldn't be surprised or angry about this result.
Time passed to the last day of August. After a full day of heavy rain, the weather did not cool down for long. Then the group of people on the road spent another two days of the journey smoothly. On the morning of the third day, An accident happened.
Due to their previous contact with ghouls and minotaurs, they arranged for shifts of night watchmen, and this approach became an opportunity in the eyes of some people.
Among the samurai who mixed with A Yong, two of them happened to be on the same shift that night, and these two took advantage of the pre-dawn rotation to escape.
They did not notify Ayong and the others, who had obviously become more rebellious towards the Qingtian sergeants, and the rest of them, so the two conspired, stole part of the horses, rations, and most of the property and fled.
When the others who fell asleep woke up when they heard Mitya's neighing warning, the two people who hurriedly got on their horses had already rolled up their things and fled away quickly.
Unreserved trust was eventually betrayed.
Because the belongings are heavy, they have always been stacked together with weapons and equipment for easy transportation. This environment independent of the living tent provides excellent starting conditions.
After figuring out what happened, the most angry people were A Yong and the other samurai, but judging from their panicked expressions, there might be some people wanting to distance themselves from each other to avoid being accused.
After all, everyone in the team knew that they had been close before.
"Even the weapons and armor were abandoned." The night was slightly bright, and the great god held up a torch to shine a light and saw the weapons and armor piled on the ground. Perhaps it was because he was frightened by Medea's cry that he abandoned his burdens in order to escape, or perhaps it was more than that - "Here is a letter."
They saw a letter that was nailed to a tree with a short knife to show that it was deliberately visible, and the addressee on it was clearly stated to be the head of the Qingtian family, so Old Qiao went up to pick it off and handed it to Yajiro.
The young master opened it and started reading under the light of the torches of others nearby, and his brows became more and more frowning as he read.
Excluding those overly gorgeous rhetoric and honorifics, the general content of the entire letter is, "Times have changed. I have done my duty to the Qingtian family, so I took a sum of money and horses as compensation, and allowed myself to leave my job." Then. Later, he cited scriptures to explain that this approach followed the ancient traditions of Kazuto. He did not violate the samurai spirit. On the contrary, if the young master sent people to chase them or did not allow them to leave, it would be a violation of Kazuto's traditions.
"What nonsense." The Luoan girl on the side, who probably understood, scolded directly, but the surrounding Kazuto warriors just looked gloomy and said nothing.
This is what "civilized warriors" with thousands of years of culture do. Even if what they do is undoubtedly betrayal in the eyes of the "Southern Barbarians", they still try their best to leave a letter explaining their motives and reasons in detail. , blocking all other people’s doubts to achieve perfection.
——Self-deception.
This is the unique culture of the Moon Kingdom that the Rigal people may never understand. They will always find ways to justify some behaviors and use a lot of gorgeous rhetoric to vaguely avoid the center of the problem. A big thing has been reduced to a trivial matter - just like this letter downplayed the fact of his betrayal, describing the stolen property and horses as 'compensation', as if the Qingtian family had always been indebted to them; and he also boasted about his own achievements. and dedication, and then quoted scriptures and said, "This kind of behavior of warriors leaving the master they serve does not mean that we have become ronin. In the past, the sage royal families sent their warriors to explore the wilderness. This is a classic of great sages and great virtues." The higher good that man has only just come to know.”
It was as if they were leaving for some greater cause, and if Yajiro didn't accept it, he wouldn't be worthy of the title of 'a man of great virtue'.
A unilateral "just cause".
A self-justification that seems reasonable but is actually complete nonsense.
Even if these two people planned to steal things and escape overnight, they would still follow the traditional values accumulated by Crescent Continent for thousands of years and try to argue that they were still good people.
But the root cause is not mentioned at all.
The reason for their retreat may have been planted for a long time, but the situation in the past was not as desperate as it is now.
The reason is actually very simple, but everyone tacitly didn't mention it.
——The Qingtian family has been destroyed.
And these warriors work for the Qingtian family.
In the past, they had to consider what it would be like to return to the Qingtian family after this long trip. If the Qingtian family develops better in the future, their current status will also increase if they please the future head of the family. But now that the Qingtian family has died, the manpower and material resources that the only remaining Yajiro has are not very impressive in this era of fierce struggle.
The tree fell and the hozens scattered, and the master who followed him saw that he had no future.
What's worse is that the opponents encountered in successive battles are all monsters and monsters. They have experienced heavy casualties and divisions in the past and have also suffered losses in every subsequent battle. Now there are a large number of objects that need to be protected, such as the miko and his party.
Leaders like Narumi and the young master may agree to such a thing out of noble sentiments, and the shrine maidens have indeed played an important role in assisting the team's progress, but anyone with a discerning eye knows how strong the enemy is targeting them. .
To put it bluntly, it is difficult to protect themselves and it is a drag. In such a situation, it is actually good that they can maintain their loyalty for so long.
He just ran away, and if he just escaped by himself, even though they would despise him as a coward without a samurai spirit, they would still understand. They had to run away and take away a large amount of supplies and horses that were not enough in the first place. They even had to leave a letter to tell you that everything they did was legal and just. You can only do it if you denounce them. Is a bad person.
This is really a bit irritating.
"They fled back towards Jeju." The sage who inspected the horse's hoof prints said, "They may have taken a large amount of money to join the feudal army."
"Traitor! Traitor!" A Yong cursed loudly.
"Pursue." Narumi glanced at the surroundings. Now that these two people left, his already stretched combat power was even less. The non-combatant escorts included the Qingtian family members, the doctor ladies and pharmacists, as well as the missionaries, the witches and the ghosts who were seriously injured and unconscious. If they are dragging a carriage, they will definitely not be able to catch up with the deserters who are running at high speed on horseback. However, if they do not bring a carriage and only send out a part of the people to pursue them, their combat effectiveness will become even less. If they encounter the enemy, they will only be afraid of the targets of their protection. There will be heavy casualties.
Therefore, they could not pursue him, especially since the other party was fleeing in the direction of Jeju.
We don’t know whether these two people took these factors into consideration before making such a decision, but their departure and taking away the supplies did deal a serious blow to the group.
The economic factors are acceptable for the time being. Even though most of them were taken away, the belongings they brought out can barely support two or three months of expenses while saving money. Although considering the subsequent purchase of replacement equipment and various factors, I am afraid that this money will be very wasteful.
What is really serious is the blow to morale.
Just as A Yong and the other warrior's anger in their eagerness to distance themselves from each other are metaphorical, the two escapees may have been free themselves, but they left behind a mess that allowed the seeds of distrust to germinate.
Do your belongings still have to be left outside? Or send someone for special protection?
Then who will be sent to guard it?
A Yong and another warrior had been very close to these two people before, and no one knew whether they had any potential bad intentions. Full trust is obviously impossible in this situation, but excessive defensive behavior may actually force divisions within the team.
"If we obviously treat them as thieves, even if they are loyal at first, they will be forced to leave because of the cold heart." The sage's words of warning to the young master in a low voice undoubtedly reached his heart, causing the situation to arise. The hostile Qingtian family management members have calmed down more or less.
When there is a conflict between emotion and reason, many people tend to let anger take over them.
If you are betrayed, you want revenge; if you are unhappy, you want to vent your anger. Blindly following your emotions will indeed make you a beast, but blindly suppressing the so-called overall interests is not necessarily a good thing.
True calmness is not simply suppressing emotions and preventing them from exploding, but thinking.
Don't let your emotions control you, analyze the existing factors, and make a beneficial and correct decision - weigh the satisfaction you get from chasing them for revenge and the potential loss, and weigh the two on the scale. Make decisions based on what you think is more important.
Yajiro's final decision was not unexpected, and they finally gave up tracking these people. But the lack of punishment for betrayers will obviously encourage potential rebellious behavior, and what the young master did means that he has more or less enlightened himself.
"Please, sir, be the arbitrator." He said to Henry.
The so-called arbiter is a special existence among the Kazuto nobles - he can be thought of as a role that the Chinese accept their fate and can kill samurai.
They are like an extension of the Chinese will, with the authority to judge and execute rebellious lower-level warriors on their own. Although appointing a Nanman seems extremely deviant, the combat effectiveness of the sage is obvious to all within the team. Yajiro's words are actually equivalent to a warning to those with evil intentions:
"If you also want to betray, you will face his sword."
He was still gentle and gentle, full of harmonious style, and did not bring out the contradictions and start scolding. But it is enough to shock those who know its meaning.
This way of handling the situation made the senior warriors quite satisfied. The young master, who was still young and immature, showed the magnanimity that a head of a family should have: he would not forgive the betrayers, but he would not press hard on the loyal ones. Forgiveness and severity coexist, which is the beautiful vision for those in power in Kazuto society.
While he still has a long way to go, that's the good thing about being young.
Most people don't want to sleep after a bad accident. They sat and packed their things and waited for dawn, but it seemed that fate had not always refused to favor them.
Perhaps it was because the increase in magic power in the environment activated the life-saving runes, or perhaps the witches' careful care was effective, or more likely, both.
When the first ray of light fell in the morning, there was a slight murmur from the huge carriage.
The sleeping ghost warriors.
woke up.
