Chapter 51: Hey, how dare a lowly commoner pollute my eyes? (Patreon)

"That… that's Cavendish the Third—"

Someone cried out in alarm, but immediately clapped a hand over their mouth in terror and shrank back into the crowd, not daring to make a sound.

The Cavendish family was one of the kingdom's famous ducal houses. They hadn't been passed down for four hundred years, but they still had over two hundred years of history, far more than three generations, of course. Commoners didn't have that kind of learning and couldn't tell the generations apart, so they simply counted by the people of the present day.

The grandfather on the Council of Wise Men was Cavendish the First, the father was the Second, and this rampaging piece of filth was, naturally, the Third.

Once everyone recognized who had come to "clear out" the slums so brazenly, every face changed, tourists and merchants alike. Like refugees fleeing a famine, they scrambled with all their might to get as far from Cavendish the Third as they could.

Some of the customers and merchants were visiting from outside the capital for the first time. They'd only heard rumors, and this was their first sight of the legendary scum noble. Before they could even react, the locals swept them along and carried them backward.

In just a few seconds, an empty space at least several meters wide opened up around Cavendish the Third and his lackeys. Meanwhile, the terrified tourists, crammed together against their will, were miserable. They could only gasp for breath in the stale air, and some fell, were trampled, and got hurt.

"Heh heh. Looks like after all this time, the capital's lowborn rabble have finally developed at least a little awareness of their own lowliness. They know better than to pollute a high noble's air."

"Haah, how truly lowly they are. These commoners had to be punished in person by high nobles that many times, and that many of them had to die, before they learned even this much. I wish they'd known from the very beginning how to behave when they meet a high noble."

Cavendish the Third, feared to such a degree, burst into laughter, utterly delighted.

He was infatuated with this kind of superiority in status and power, and thrilled by it.

Sadly, these commoners were still too lowly, and their awareness still fell short. All they'd done was scatter and fall silent, not daring to defile the noble ears of a high noble like him with their lowly voices.

They hadn't even knelt down the instant he appeared. They hadn't groveled before him, respectfully, until he, the high noble, pardoned them, and until these commoners, shown such tolerance and charity, could stop kneeling one day after he left.

Heh heh. Of course, before that day was up, Cavendish the Third would appear in broad daylight again, surrounded by his guards, to teach the commoners what happens to those who show a high noble insufficient respect.

Let them kneel there until they die. Every time they think release is just around the corner, heh heh, the clock will reset, and Cavendish the Third will reappear and magnanimously announce that they may go free after one more day of kneeling.

Still, he'd tire of that eventually. No matter how fun a toy is, play with it enough and it stops being fun.

Fortunately, he had recently come up with a new plan.

He was already prepared. In a few days, he'd go to his grandfather and submit it: no commoner would be permitted to turn their back on a high noble of ducal rank. If any commoner dared to turn their back on a duke, the duke could stab that unruly wretch to death, no questions asked, for having no sense of rank whatsoever.

True, that madman Miklotov, the most powerful and most senior member of the Council of Wise Men, never argued from the standpoint of the high born. Whenever someone proposed to strengthen the status and power of the nobility on the existing basis, or to reduce the rights and freedoms of commoners, Miklotov would shoot it down, claiming it could never make the kingdom better, because the kingdom mattered more than the nobles.

But it didn't matter anymore.

His proposal, heh heh, had been designed with an old man who just. Won't. Die. like Miklotov already in mind. It limited the victim to a duke, and limited the offense to turning one's back. For the sake of social courtesy, Miklotov couldn't possibly veto a proposal that did the kingdom no harm.

After all, if he vetoed even a proposal with no side effects, he'd be slapping a fellow member of the Council of Wise Men in the face. Miklotov wasn't that lofty and aloof. He would certainly compromise and give his grandfather, a fellow Council member, some face.

And once the proposal passed, he could inherit his grandfather's dukedom. Then he'd have his guards use all sorts of methods to make sure the commoners he randomly picked on the street couldn't avoid turning their backs on him, and he'd run them through with a sword.

And he would never kill them with a single stroke. He'd take his time, working from light wounds to heavy ones. At first, the unlucky commoners he chose would mistakenly believe they had a chance to turn around and stop showing him their backs. Then they'd be stabbed again and again, bleeding slowly, and die screaming.

Heh heh, how thrilling that would be. Just thinking about it excited him so much he wanted to start right now.

After all, he had already tortured many commoners to death in private. But on a street in broad daylight, in full view of everyone, he needed a proper excuse. Even if the Sword Saint and his sort couldn't stop him from bullying commoners, if he tried to kill someone in public for no reason, that revolting Sword Saint would certainly stop him.

But once that proposal passed, heh heh, he'd love to see how those revolting creatures, who had no noble awareness at all, who actually treated commoners as people and styled themselves good men, could possibly stop him then.

He would humiliate and torment the commoners together with those fake nobles who didn't deserve to be nobles, those things that defiled noble rank and the noble name!

The thought of playing that game made Cavendish the Third tremble with frenzy. His mouth stretched into a nearly insane grin, like a leering clown.

But nobody dared to say a single word about it.

The whole place was deathly silent. If they could have managed it, everyone present would have stopped breathing altogether, lest their breath offend this most infamous piece of human filth among the high nobles.

"Oh? What's this? What's going on? I heard this was the most entertaining place in the capital right now, so I spared no effort, wasted my time, endured the agony of being defiled by you lowborn, and reluctantly set foot on this land polluted by the lowborn. So would someone tell me what's going on?"

"The rumors outside praised this place to the skies, so why did all the magic stop the moment I arrived?"

"I said…"

Cavendish the Third laughed madly, and the words that spilled from his mouth were as cold as knives. "Could it be that you filthy commoners are actually targeting me, a noble ducal house?"