Kitchen Gluta's head chef and a famous businessman in Ende, the pig beastman Gluta. With sincerity and trust as his motto, he is as strict with others as he is with himself. It's fortunate that at least he doesn't treat customers strictly. If he hadn't chosen a profession that serves customers, he would have become a grumpy old man spouting bitter words everywhere.
Even so, he couldn't treat an old pig beastman who was much older than him carelessly.
"Mrs. Mig. Could you please exercise restraint."
"Restraint? Is that something to eat?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Then go exchange it for candy! I've lived 80 years this way. I'll live that way until I drop dead!"
When he was young, she was already middle-aged. Gluta himself had been treated by her a couple of times. Strictness is difficult to apply to an elderly woman over 80.
The old piggy waved her ladle violently above her head and shouted.
"My only crime is feeding homeless and hungry children! If that's a crime, why don't you question your mothers first? Like you do to me!"
"Isn't this going beyond simply feeding them?"
Gluta looked around Mrs. Mig's dining table. One household table with seats arranged along a railing. Just over 10 seats. Too shabby to be called a shop, but too many for an old woman living alone.
"You say you serve Orc soul food, but it's clear that Mrs. Mig's house is a restaurant. In fact, beastmen come to eat and pay money in return, don't they?"
"They just eat a meal and give a little pocket money for the food!"
"Now that other restaurants selling meat are struggling as they've become targets of the Orkma bastards, the only places doing business are the tables of pig beastmen like you. I know it's not your intention... but it doesn't look good."
"You think I'm earning even a single penny! I can barely live day to day, what would I have left over?"
"Haven't pig beastmen been coming in groups lately and eating without paying?"
Clang. Mrs. Mig threw her ladle to the ground. The remaining thick stew left a long trail on the carpet. Mrs. Mig glared furiously and pointed her finger at Gluta.
"So what. I can't even do business? Where would they use an 80-year-old hag?"
"...That's..."
"I can't even be used as meat now. I'm so old there's nothing left to chew but bones! And even that's been sucked dry of marrow so it's tasteless. Dying somewhere out of sight is a virtue! Fine, I'm going to die anyway so just kill me now! Make feed out of my bones!"
Gluta, who knew the situation all too well, couldn't continue speaking.
The riots stirred up by the pig beastmen have bypassed the pig beastmen themselves. Unlike other beastmen communities that are being shaken, the pig beastmen's community is growing more solid. Gluta found this suspicious and came to Mrs. Mig's table.
In other words, it's only suspicious.
He already knew Mrs. Mig ran a meal house. He also knew that if Mrs. Mig stopped running the meal house, she would have nothing to do but die. Gluta wasn't cruel enough to tell Mrs. Mig to die.
But... that didn't mean Gluta could die either.
"Then, talk some sense into your customers. I can't endure this any longer either."
Mrs. Mig glared fiercely at Gluta before speaking.
"If I had known how to properly talk sense into someone, my child wouldn't have died like that."
Mrs. Mig, who had endured all kinds of adversity, was not easily swayed. Gluta couldn't say more and left the table. It would still be difficult for a while... but he had to endure a little longer.
Mrs. Mig, having sent Gluta out, spat outside and closed the door.
"Rotten bastard. What does he expect me to do... Hah. Not dying is a crime, isn't it."
Gluta's prediction was half right. Mrs. Mig was a collaborator of Orkma. But a lukewarm collaborator. She kept telling herself that feeding them was something she had always done... but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being implicated in something dangerous.
"I should die gracefully. Hah, tsk tsk."
"Come on. No matter your age, you don't want to die, do you?"
At the unfamiliar voice, Mrs. Mig startled. The table where she had just conversed with Gluta. Where there should clearly be no one, a strange human was eating stew. Starving, he was sloppily scooping the stew, blowing on it and making a fuss.
"Ah, hot. It's delicious but hot."
"What rotten bastard steals someone else's food?"
She shouted trying hard to feign composure, but the human calmly rolled the stew around in his mouth, savoring the taste.
"Huh, what's this taste? It's pork?"
"You eat whatever you want and what about the meat?"
"How curious. A base supporting Orkma is serving pork? Does Orkma forget their beliefs when filling their bellies, or are they unwittingly deceived by a generous grandmother?"
The ominous feeling became reality.
In the first place, it was strange for a human to visit such an alley restaurant. There was only one reason a finicky human who fusses about hygiene and such would be interested in her.
The troublemakers Mrs. Mig fed and sheltered—Orkma.
"Aha. Two pots? Pork to other beastmen, and different meat to pig beastmen? Oh ho. So there was this method. Then... you could monopolize and sell the pork that's blocked from other distributors?"
"Is it your business to spout nonsense as you please? I've eaten pork for 80 years! I don't care about such things!"
"I suppose you wouldn't care. A piggy living in such a shabby house, how much meat could you have eaten in your 80 years of life. It must have been recently."
The human who had tossed his spoon put his feet up on the table. Feeling pressured by those leisurely movements, Mrs. Mig shrieked.
"My only crime is cooking for the homeless! If that's a crime, fine! Then I should just die!"
"Do you really wish to die?"
As he lightly swiped his arm, a card embedded itself into the wooden table. The trembling edge of the card was as cold as a blade.
The human smiled at Mrs. Mig, who had gasped involuntarily.
"Don't worry. Whether you're an elderly grandmother, a pig beastman who has endured adversity, have a pitiful past, or are shameless enough to deny an obvious truth right in front of you—it makes no difference to me."
Mrs. Mig is a lukewarm collaborator. Naturally, there are those who sponsor her. Those who supply pork, provide funds, and set up a contact network for emergencies.
Probably even that isn't the head of Orkma... but if I trace it back fumbling from the fingers like this, I'll arrive eventually.
"Because in front of me, you too are just one human."
"Don't spout nonsense and get out! Before I report..."
"What you'd report to would be your Orkma children or someone who earnestly asked you to keep their secret, wouldn't it."
Denying means wanting to protect at least them. Mrs. Mig denied things only hoping for that. She consistently played dumb to my words.
But I had already read her thoughts.
You can't hide in front of me. Forgetting things as often as a regressor is the only way to hide something. Though you'd end up forgetting what you're trying to hide in the first place.
"How did you know that...!"
I didn't answer and clapped my hands. The iron cards rubbed against each other, briefly sparking. When Mrs. Mig, who had squeezed her eyes shut in fear, opened them again, I had already hidden myself in the chaos of Ende.
Around the same time.
The Pig Vault. The most secretive place among the pig beastmen's communities.
Those without money who are persecuted tend to gradually become closed off. They can't even trust the money in their own hands. At the bottom, it wouldn't be strange for someone to whack you from behind and steal your money.
Naturally, blood-related clans gather together, and property that can be lost at any time is hidden tightly in their own hideouts. They have the most trustworthy clan member guard the vault.
This was the pig beastmen's small bank, the Pig Vault.
"Sniff. The 'Table' was attacked?"
"The matriarchs are trembling with anxiety. They have fits just recalling that strange human."
Now that society has somewhat developed and financial knowledge has spread, the Pig Vault wasn't as closed off as before. Not only that, they had even learned how to circulate money and were making their own profits.
It's just that those methods were a little dirty.
The vault keeper Sharlok wrinkled his nose in displeasure.
"One? Just one human?"
"I heard so."
"His appearance and attire?"
"Th-that, I'm not sure..."
"An outsider? Perhaps the one who recently moved into that mansion?"
Even if Ende is large, rumors of the human who bought a mansion with an enormous amount of cash had already spread widely. When something strange happens, it's inevitable to suspect the outsider who appeared differently from others.
However, the subordinate shook his head and answered.
"No. The appearance and attire are different from his. Most importantly, he was in Obellie at that time."
"Hmm. Haven't you looked outside? You know the appearance but can't find him?"
One strange human is disrupting the community. Where they got the information, what abilities they have. At the very least, we can't even find out their personal details. It's suffocating, as if lost in fog.
Above all, it was too swift and fatal to say that just one human accomplished it. To the extent that it would seem impossible even with help from an insider.
The vault keeper, who had a bad premonition, sniffed.
"Release the 'Mothers'. Pick the ones with good noses and tell them to catch that guy."
"Yes. I'll convey that. Then the funds..."
The vault keeper decided to open the vault to get rid of him. Sharlok took out the key, inserted it into the vault lock, and firmly warned.
"I can't give much. I'll consider whether to add more after seeing how the work progresses. Pass that on..."
Click. The moment he turned and pulled the key at the resistance.
The vault collapsed with a crash.
When you're too shocked, your body freezes. The vault door slid helplessly in front of him who had stiffened. The steel vault that had always safely protected the piggies' money now showed its insides defenselessly.
What spilled onto the floor along with the vault door were hundreds of cards. As if the vault had been changed into cards leaving only a shell of leather, when the support disappeared, the entire vault collapsed.
The vault keeper's desperate eyes turned toward the inside of the vault. Instead of being filled with money, the vault that should have been full of coins was instead piled high with pork.
And at the top of the pork mountain, one smiling card... greeted the pig beastmen as if mocking them.
Voices gradually spread through Ende. The murmurs of frightened beastmen overlapped, gradually creating a terror like a ghost story.
Where he appeared from, how he knew, how powerful he is—none can be known. Not with powerful strength, but using the unknown as a weapon, no one could find him as he stirred up Ende. They could only mutter blankly.
However, those who had experienced 'that' even once murmured this as if they had made a promise.
That a magician had appeared.