It's a hot day when the sun is shining brightly.
　White clouds float in the blue sky, and on the lush grass-covered hills, sheep are grazing on the hills for their wool.
　Time flows slowly and peacefully.
　It is true that there are threats such as bandits and monsters in this land world. However, they rarely attack a village surrounded by moats and fences.
　The probability of an attack is only once every few years or so, at best.
　No matter how war-torn the world is, it does not mean that there are no moments of peace at all.
　However, such peace can easily be broken by the slightest malice.
　Rather, the threat to the tiny village, which has no strategically important base nearby, is its own people, such as lords and officials dispatched by the kingdom, who are supposed to be its allies rather than its enemies.　
　And now, in the small village in the countryside of the Kingdom of Roselia, where it was having such a peaceful time, an angry voice, unbecoming of the peaceful scenery, resounds.　　
　A square set up in the center of the village. There, a circle of villagers with mixed expressions of anxiety and trepidation was forming.　Their gaze, of course, is drawn to a certain group in the center of the circle.
　To be more precise, it was a man standing in front of that group.

'Forgive me. No more of this ... in this we will live.

　The middle-aged man's desperate plea was cut off by the sound of a dull blow.
　A large fist wrapped in a small metal hand crushed the man's back teeth with ease.
　The taste of rusty iron filled his mouth. The drool mixed with bright red blood spilled out of the man's crouched mouth, creating a red-black stain on the earth.

Father..........

　Eyes mixed with anxiety and fear. A young girl filled with tears shook off her mother's hand and ran out of the circle of villagers.
　The girl is still a young girl, an expression that suits her. She herself was well aware that she could not do anything by jumping out. But even so, the girl couldn't ignore her father's squatting figure.
　In order to calm her beloved daughter, she gently restrains her daughter's shoulder with her blood-stained hand.
　If the truth be told, this is a scene I didn't want my still young daughter to see.
(Why ... why is this happening?)
　Many thoughts came and went in the man's head.
　Indeed, when Lupis Roselianus had come to the throne, everyone had felt a new wave of change. For from the time she was the head of the Order, her friendly personality and fairness to the common people had been on the people's lips.
　The time when he and his friends cheered in the tavern that this would make their lives easier is still vividly burned into the man's mind.
　No, change has certainly come. However, it may just be that the change was not a good one for the man.

'I ask you again. When will you pay the tax you were ordered to pay?

　With the back of the knight who had beaten the man, the tax collector threw cold words at the man who was crouching with a lowly smile.
　A man who takes it for granted that he is overwhelmingly superior and feels no pain in trampling on others.
　To a tax collector, a man's value is only one thing: paying taxes.
　It's like a hunter who has no empathy for his prey.

Of course we would be happy to pay it if we could. But really, I don't want to take it any further...''

　Impossible. The man's words to say so are cut off again with a dull thud.
　The man's breathing stops for a moment as his diaphragm is hit hard. The knight from before has bared his fangs again.

It's hard to be a commoner. Finally, they are stupid. I asked you when you will pay. "I have no interest in your availability.　

　At the tax collector's merciless words, the man curses in his head as he holds his hand to his stomach.
(d*mn it, d*mn it ... say whatever you want.)
　A dark murderous intent welling up. The man must have beaten this disgusting tax collector to death in his mind.
　There is no way he could have paid the tax ordered by the tax collector. Even if he was a very wealthy man in this village.
　It's not that I don't want to deny that I pay taxes, per se.
　You'll be able to get a good idea of what the queen says about the crisis of the Roserian kingdom, because the man who saw the world as a traveling peddler was able to imagine it in his own way.
　That's why the man drained his savings from his hard life.　　
　Cash income in this small village is a meagre amount to begin with.
　It is based on self-sufficiency, and what it lacks in cash it makes up for by bartering with neighboring villages.
　The only time they use cash is when adventurers and mercenaries stop by, or when peddlers visit.
　If you just wanted to live within this small rural village, you didn't need much money. That is, until this lowly smiling tax collector showed up in the village.
(He's taken most of my savings and still wants me to pay...)
　It started out with the usual theme of pain to rebuild the country.
　Of course, at first, everyone was willing to help with those words. Because of their expectations of Princess Lupis and their love of their country.
　But it didn't end at once. Once is twice, twice is three times, with no end in sight to the endlessly repeated additional tax collection. At first it's a small sum that doesn't affect our lives that much, but gradually the demands escalate.
　A sticky pressure, as if they were tightening their necks with cotton.
　The anger that rises from the bottom of his heart runs through the man's body.
　To be precise, it wasn't that he couldn't pay one or two more times. However, that would leave the man with nothing in the true sense of the word. The path left is either a family suicide or selling off a family member to a slave. Otherwise, you have no choice but to abandon your village and go into exile. The last real savings.
(If I had the ability to make more money I would lose it all again...)
　Regret and fear coursed through the man's body.
　As a merchant, the man was not a good merchant.
　But he was a man of good faith and caring nature, who earned little money for the beggars who sat in the back alleys, and he was kind and helpful to his business partners. His friendship was extensive and many people loved him.
　A good man. If a man had been born in modern society, and that was in a country called the developed world, he would have received the respect and admiration of those around him. But his humanity, which should have been considered a virtue, was purely a weakness in this earthly world.
　One day, a merchant of his old acquaintance asked him to lend him some money for a few days, as he suddenly needed cash.
　At the same time, a man who had just stepped away from being a peddler to set up his own shop in town had quite a bit of cash on hand. Money to spend on the biggest deal a man with a stake in his future has ever experienced in his life.
　But the man rubs his forehead against the earth and gives the money to the acquaintance who pleads with him. He trusts his word that he will return the money by the deadline.
　When the deadline arrives, however, the man visits his friend's house and sees a horde of creditors. The acquaintance's ship, which had been in the trading business, had been turned into seaweed with its expensive cargo in a storm.
　The acquaintance disappeared with the money the man had lent him. He threw everything away.
　As a result, the man loses everything.
　The great deal on which he had staked his future flowed as a matter of course, and the abrupt cancellation of the deal severely damaged the man's credibility.
　And more than anything else, the fact that he was deceived by an acquaintance he trusted cast a question mark over the man's competence as a merchant, who should have been the victim. He said he was a man with no sense of humanity.
　The fact that it was a verbal agreement was also tilted against the man.
　As far as I'm concerned, there is no effective way for a country lord to strike against someone who has already disappeared.
　In the so-called information society of the earth, the power of the security mechanism is strong, but in this land world, it's all you can do to deal with the obstacles that are in progress right before your eyes.
　There was no room to send a man out to investigate other territories.
　A man who had lost everything after having his good intentions trampled on. There is no one odd enough to reach out to him at such a low point. That's right, including the business partner he had been taking such good care of.......
　Brokenheartedly, he had to leave the town where he was based and wander. He has no choice but to abandon the town where he was based and wander around, just a tattered figure of a moving corpse.
　However, his fate changes again when he meets a girl who happens to stop by the village. The love that blossomed between him and the girl has rekindled the flames of life in the dead man.
　And a new, loving life is born between him and her.
(No.) I must absolutely protect my daughter and my wife.
　What you see in the eyes of this disgusting tax collector is not a man crouching on the earth. He sees his daughter squatting and trembling on his back. And after taking his daughter, he will try to take the man's wife.
　They are both immaculate for a small rural villager. Combined with a cheerful temperament, they may not be beautiful, but they have more than enough looks to win people's hearts.
　I'm sure there are some people who would prefer a look like them to an immensely beautiful woman if they wanted to have a casual relationship.
　It's not that difficult to exchange their bodies for money.
　They could be beaten to a whorehouse, or they would be in more than enough demand as slaves, including for a night of fun.
　And of the money from the sale of the two men, a portion will be paid as a tax and the rest will be used as a commission to enrich the pockets of the tax collector.
　No, this lowly tax collector could even think of selling them out after first giving them a taste and letting their own lowly desires dissipate to the fullest.
　The problem is that he knows this, but there's no way to stop him.
(Wasn't His Majesty supposed to be changing our lives?)
　Spitting his bloody saliva into the earth, the man slowly stood up.
　A fist clenched tightly. A dark, angry fire in his eyes.

''You won't understand if you stay silent. In the first place, this tax collection was strictly ordered by Her Majesty the Queen to the Lord. To rebuild this country and to protect the safety of our people.

　With a sticky smile, the tax collector walks up to the man.
　The two men stared at each other as close as their breath could reach.
　The smell of cheap cigarettes in the tax collector's warm, raw breath caught the man's nose.

'A tax that His Majesty Lupus Roselianus needs to protect and nurture his country. It's not only the Lord's Lordship who can't afford to pay it. His Majesty. And defying our country is the same as defying our fatherland, Roserian. You are a traitor. A traitor.

Rebel...

Yes, and if that happens, of course your family will have to get theirs for free. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do. One way or the other.

　The tax collector raises his lips and gives a high smile.
　If he is stigmatized as a traitor, he will be put to death and his family will be sold off as slaves.
　Whether you sell your family here and now to the slavers and pay the tax, or whether you are willing to commit treason to the point of death, the end result is not much different.
　It was the man who averted his gaze first.
　The anger that had previously dominated his body, which seemed to reach to the heavens, was instantly drowned out by a single word from the man who turned his lowly eyes in front of him.
　It wasn't the man's patriotism that made him feel guilty.
　What I felt was fear. Fear of the overwhelming power of the huge system that is the state.
　Struck down by the tax collector's merciless words, the man stared helplessly at the earth.
　He never imagined that a mere commoner living in a small village would defy the king of a country.
　He may have voiced the small grievances of his daily life among the villagers, but he had never even thought of defying them in the true sense of the word.
(What to do?)　How can I protect my family ... my village?
　The man is desperately searching for a solution. This is the most exhausting time in the life of this man who was born as a commoner.
　For his village, for his family, for his happiness. The man works his head hard for his family and his happiness.
　A long silence dominates the square.
　But the time will come when the silence, which seemed to be eternal, will be broken at some point.
　And finally, the time had come. In a way that no one could have predicted.