Viktor realized with clinical detachment that he had seen those eyes before, in a past life when he was killing those soldiers by setting up the trap in the final battle between his kingdom and the empire.

Several soldiers did that because the empire was holding their families hostage. Some of them even fed strange kinds of insects to confirm their loyalty. Those eyes.

People who don't have the courage to kill themselves but have the courage to provoke someone into doing it for them.

"You're supposed to help us," the man said, his voice rising as his courage built on itself.

He'd seen Viktor distribute bread rather than wield a whip, seen him heal the old woman instead of demanding taxes.

And in his starving, desperate mind, he'd decided this was his moment.

If he couldn't find the strength to end his own life, perhaps he could provoke this nobleman into doing it for him. "Give us food. Give us hope!"

His voice climbed toward a shout, his hands clenching tighter as he recalled every moment of suffering, every night his children had cried from hunger, every time he'd felt too weak to even stand.

"But you won't, will you?" The man's eyes turned frantic, years of suppressed rage and grief spilling out in a torrent. "You'll just take what little we have left, like all the others!"

Another voice joined in from the crowd. "Just kill us already!"

"We're dying anyway!"

"Why bother? Let us die!"

The voices overlapped, a chorus of despair, anger, and hopelessness.

More people emerged from the shadows, adding their voices to the outcry.

Years of suffering found expression in accusations, curses, and bitter laughter.

"What nostalgia..." For Viktor, who in those villagers' eyes saw those soldiers, those troops, those children who were used in that battle by the empire—the ruthless means by which they were forced to participate in a battle they were going to die in, not having the courage to retaliate against the emperor but having the courage to self-sacrifice in fear.

He sighed. Viktor let out a sigh, shaking his head, clearly boosting the motivation of those looking at him, thinking he was getting angry—as if, for the first time, their words were able to attack someone.

It was the same human psychology where a boss yells at his employee, that employee yells at a street vendor, and that street vendor yells at a dog.

Everyone tries to pour out their frustration on something they think is weaker than themselves, unaware that this cycle continues while the ones to blame are themselves—for blaming others for their own misery.

"Y-young lord—" Mira stepped forward, her face flushing with sudden anger.

Seeing all these villagers surrounding Viktor while he just stood there blank, lost in thought—it triggered her protective instincts.

She moved quickly, arriving in front of him, standing between him and the crowd as she glared at the bitter-eyed man. "How dare you! He just gave you food—"

"Food?" The man spat the word like a curse. "Moldy scraps! That's not food—that's an insult! That's what you feed to dogs, not people!"

Helena moved beside Mira, fists clenched as her maternal protective instincts flared hot in her chest. She glared at the crowd, her voice firm and loud. "He's trying to help—"

"Help?" Another voice laughed bitterly from the back. "He's a nobleman. They don't help. They 'take.' That's all they know how to do."

"Every lord who's ever come here has promised help," someone else called out. "They all leave with full pockets, and we're left with less than we started."

"He's just here to play hero so he can feel good about himself!"

"Shut up, you fucking bastards... let me think."

Viktor stood silent behind his two defenders, head bowed, appearing to listen to the accusations and curses.

But internally, he was still chasing the fragments of his dream, trying to piece together the crucial information about Millbrook and the plague demon while these idiots wasted his time with their victim mentality.

These people were idiots. Complete and utter idiots.

Viktor even considered himself a fool in his past life, where for his people, for the servants, for the commoners of his Redwood Kingdom, he had sacrificed himself.

But he had seen—even though they knew they were going to be crushed by the empire—those people, even holding shovels, were prepared to die alongside him.

The courage to die was much better than the weakness to blame others. They did not blame him but rather participated in an already inevitable failed battle.

So, naturally, he had become much more immune and able to distinguish between the fake tantrums of those soldiers from the empire blaming the emperor, blaming their destiny for being forced into war.

And he had also seen the courage of his dying soldiers who were not even soldiers—rather commoners, people with families prepared to die.

"Motherfuckers..." Viktor's mouth twitched at seeing the hypocrisy of humanity—not all, since he had seen the courage of the dying ones—but of these people blaming others.

If they were living in this village rather than fleeing somewhere more hospitable, that was their first mistake.

For excuses, they could say they had land here, property here, but in truth, they could just migrate, use their bodies to beg or earn some money, and then start new lives elsewhere rather than making fake excuses.

Like the employees of those companies who yell and show frustration at their boss while knowing that the company they are in gave them a much better lifestyle than any other option, keeping them from leaving.

They stay and at the same time curse their bosses, who curse the government, and the government curses people for taxes, creating an endless hypocrisy cycle.

An obvious pattern that humans don't want to see simply because their ego will not allow them to realize they are at fault.

For these villagers?

If they had the energy to yell accusations at him, they had the energy to pull the poisonous weeds growing around their homes, to clean their wells, to maintain their roads.

If they unified—even weakened as they were—they could fight off bandits, organize crop rotations, establish basic hygiene protocols.

Mira had survived here. A single woman with a child had managed to stay alive in this place through sheer stubborn will and a refusal to play victim.

If she could do it, these men—these healthy-enough-to-shout men—could do far better.

But instead, they blamed. They blamed nobles, blamed circumstances, blamed fate, blamed gods. Everyone except themselves.

It reminded him too much of his past life. People blaming governments while making no effort to participate in civic processes.

Blaming colonization for problems they perpetuated through their own laziness and corruption. Sitting at home eating junk food while screaming about how the world owed them something.

Leaving them with all the survival instinct of moths flying into flames.

"SILENCE!"

Viktor's voice cracked across the square like a whip.

He moved from behind Mira and Helena, his expression transforming from blank contemplation to cold fury in an instant.

His eyes blazed as they swept across the crowd, and something in his gaze—something dark and dangerous—made several people take involuntary steps backward.

"BE QUIET," he continued, his voice dropping to a low growl that somehow carried further than his shout, "shut the hell up, you fucking WHINY BITCHES!"

"HEH—?"

"WH—WHAA—WHAT—!?"

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