Dungeon Defense (WN)

* * *

I immediately went to the village without changing out of my traveling attire.

Parsi welcomed me.

“Welcome, Your Highness.”

“You look much older than your actual age as usual.”

“Oh, hush! If Your Highness is not going to take responsibility for my farsightedness, then do not bring it up.”

Parsi stuck his lips out and pouted. It was funny since a man who looked like a boar was doing it.

He had aged considerably since the last time I saw him a few months ago. In actuality, not only was Parsi the substitute ruler of the area, but he also had the role of leading and consoling the villagers from Daisy’s slash-and-burn village. From what I was told, he went through a lot of trouble trying to mediate the discord caused between the villagers.

We entered the village chief’s house and had a direct conversation.

Parsi furrowed his brows as if he were troubled.

“But, Your Highness, she does not understand human physiology.”

“She does not understand physiology?”

“She has her head in the clouds and only says idealistic things.”

Parsi blew his nose. He had caught a cold.

“For example?”

“Well, Miss Farnese, what did she call it again? She said that the village chiefs and landowners should manage the villages, the laws should be personally created by Your Highness and your vassals, and additional people should be hired to execute those laws.”

Parsi smeared his snot-covered hand on the ground. What a dirty bastard!

Parsi continued casually.

“That is easy to say, but what about actually carrying it out? Think about it. From the villagers’ perspectives, they would be getting judged by some outsider who is unrelated to Your Highness and the village chief.”

“Mm.”

What Laura had declared was a division of powers.

A legislation that establishes abstract rules about how a territory should be managed. A justice system that applies those rules concretely. An administration that follows those laws and rules faithfully while also ruling over the people.

This is an idea that tears authority into multiple parts by dividing it beforehand so that the ruler cannot obtain too much power. ……However, it wasn’t surprising that normal villagers like Parsi would complain about this being needlessly complicated.

The judicial power was especially an issue.

In this era, legal disputes were basically daily occurrences. Multiple households would usually get involved when fields are cultivated. In this situation, who lends their farming equipment? Who does the labor to cultivate the land? How much of the cultivated field is given to each household?

How much is each person’s share within the granaries that the villages manage together? If the head of a household abruptly dies of a disease, then who should support the family……? The list goes on.

The villages had a simple solution for situations like this.

By gathering rich and competent farmers like the village chief and landowners and making them decide!

I spoke up.

“Couldn’t you leave the judicial power to reliable landowners?”

“Hm. Then would there be a group of landowners who manage the villages and another group in charge of making judgments? Those people always marry each other and are no different from being a single household, so that would be quite the fair and equal group.”

“Kuh.”

I groaned.

“They would naturally have a close relationship. Is that the issue?”

“At that point, it would be better to make all the landowners handle judicial matters, you know? If they scheme together, then it would be very obvious. They wouldn’t be able to since the watchful eyes of the other villagers would be terrifying. But, if they make it seem fair on the surface……hm.”

Parsi trailed off.

It would look fair on the surface, but the landowners would cohere closely together through things like marriages and money. Even if it is obvious how things will progress, if they do not make it obvious, then it would become more difficult for villagers to complain…….

“How about appointing an inspector so that the landowners do not form alliances?”

“Where will you hire that inspector from? Inside the villages? Or outside?”

Parsi let out a snort.

“If you hire them from the inside, then they would also give favors to the people they have connections with. If you hire them from the outside, then they would not understand the inner workings of the villages and end up making partial decisions after hearing only one side of the story. Or they will get bribed by the landowners. No, all of this won’t even matter if the landowners simply spread a rumor that ‘those who leak information to outsiders will be considered an enemy of the village’.”

“Haa…….”

In the end, we were back to the starting point.

There were two policies spread out before me.

First, handing over all of the authority to the villages. Second, carry out Laura’s suggestion and thoroughly divide the power within the villages.

Let’s examine the first policy.

In order for things to be handled fairly within the villages, all of the authority has to be given to the landowners. If a decision turns out to be wrong or outrageous, then the responsibility will fall entirely onto ‘all of the landowners’. It would be a joint responsibility. The villagers would simply have to denounce the landowners. This would make it clear who was responsible.

However, the landowners aren’t stupid. Why would they let themselves be bound and imprisoned? If they take a risk and things go wrong during a trial, then only they would incur losses.

Thus, they only had to follow ‘customary laws’.

Why did you make this decision? Because it is our custom. Why is that person taking more land? Because it is our custom. Why is the well allowed for certain people but forbidden for other people? Because it is our custom. Everything would solely be because of customary reasons…….

“In the end, would customary laws not become established laws as well as a religious belief?”

“What’s so bad about that?”

Parsi furrowed his brows.

If they pursue customary laws, then any sort of responsibility would vanish into thin air. The landowners wouldn’t be at fault even if things went bad. They would say that things had gone bad because they were ‘unlucky’. In short, fatalism……common folk beliefs will take root over everything.

If things go well, then it was because they were lucky. If things go bad, then it was because they were unlucky.

There would be no need to change customary laws and it wouldn’t be necessary to appoint more judges aside from the landowners. They would simply pray to some local myth so that they could have good luck…….

A village community = a joint trial and kangaroo court = evaporation of responsibility = fatalism = folk beliefs.

Things that seemed separate at a glance were actually bound together firmly by a chain and if you wanted to change even one of these things, you would have to change the system entirely. It was easy to imagine how difficult and time-consuming it would be to do that.

―Therefore, this society known as a village will become extremely conservative. 

I smiled bitterly.

‘It’d be fine if they were conservative simply because they were uncivilized and brainless.’

They were far from being uncivilized.

If anything, the farming village’s conservativeness was extremely rational. Rational conservativeness was probably the perfect term for this. It was the result of the painstaking effort the farmers had to go through in order to create their own kind of fair society.

However.

“What will happen to my position as the lord?”

“……Well, to be honest.”

Parsi answered bitterly.

If the village communities manage themselves and hold trials on their own, then my duty as the ruler would disappear completely. What could the ruler possibly say if they want to keep acting according to their customs?

“Mmm, we’ve been paying you taxes, so how about being satisfied with that?”

“What kind of son of a bitch are you? It doesn’t matter whether you guys pay your taxes or not since that money is as insignificant as a piece of booger to me anyway. Why would I be satisfied by taking the pocket change from a bunch of children?”

“Kekeke.”

Parsi laughed like an old man.

“This is why Your Highness is the most ideal lord for our villages. You prevent monsters from attacking us, you barely demand any taxes from us, and you don’t particularly try to get involved with our authority. Glory to His Highness Dantalian!”

Parsi raised his arms to the air and cheered. I punched him in the stomach out of anger. He fell over and groaned saying something like “Oh dear, I’m dying!”. He was quite good at exaggerating. I had hit him jokingly, so it shouldn’t have hurt at all.

“Then how about this? Hold trials using the elders from other villages.”

“Hm?”

The young and clever village chief who happened to look rugged tilted his head.

“The elders from other villages? What do you mean?”

“Parsi. How many villages are under my rule?”

“Uh……give me a second. 3 villages that have existed from the start.”

Parsi folded his fingers.

“2 villages that the second and third sons of multiple families went off and made together. And, including the slash-and-burn villagers that Your Highness had irresponsibly handed over to us, that makes 6.”

“That is more than enough. Consider this idea: if an incident happens in a single village, then wouldn’t it be fine to send the concerning party to another village and have their trials held there?”

“…….”

Parsi’s expression turned stern. I continued.

“They would be at a different village, so they should be more impartial than anyone else. They are a part of the same territory and you guys make exchanges with one another, so they are not outsiders. They are not exactly insiders, but they are not complete outsiders either. What do you think? Do you not think this is a good idea?”

“……Certainly. Sniff.”

Parsi blew his nose.

“Certainly, that does seem like a decent idea. But this might end up causing villages to harbor grudges with one another. This would create internal conflict within Your Highness’ territory. Are you okay with that?”

“Tsk tsk. That is why they will carry out the trials more carefully.”

I raised my index finger and waved it side to side.

“They could start an internal conflict if they make the wrong choice, so they will have to be as fair as possible……. Would the elders from every village not assume this?”

“Hm. Hm. Hmm.”

Parsi rubbed his hands together as he thought it over. There was snot between his palm, so he was slowly creating a green sandwich.

“If you believe that the trial has still not been carried out properly, then you are allowed to raise an objection once. At that time, as the territorial lord, I will leave the decision to the vassals I have personally appointed.”

“……A trial on top of a trial?”

“Well, you could call it the Supreme Court.”

The wrinkles on Parsi’s forehead deepened.

In this era, the principle of ‘an issue that happens within a class should be resolved within that class’ was like an unwritten law. If someone goes running to the lord and asks them to solve an issue for them, then that person would basically get treated like an outcast by the people of the same standing as them.

So going against this unwritten law by not accepting the first trial and appealing to a higher court……. In other words, it was highly unlikely that it would ever go this far as long as it wasn’t a crucial trial. It would be hard for people to appeal to a higher court simply because they didn’t like how their trial ended.

This meant that the first trial wouldn’t be nominal.

“It might be due to this humble one’s ignorance, but that sounds like a rather good system.”

“Of course. Who do you think thought of it?”

“……Did you know, Your Highness? You are sometimes very, very annoying.”

I punched him again. This time I was serious. I had struck him exactly in the center of his abdomen, but he didn’t budge. Damn muscular farmers!

“I will also make it illegal for landowners from one village to marry landowners from other villages just in case. This should be effective in preventing them from creating close relationships.”

“Ho. You are being quite thorough.”

Parsi was in awe.

With this, I was able to find a point of compromise between the division of powers that my vassal, Laura, wanted and the village community policy represented by Parsi, my substitute ruler. Judicial power was stripped from every village, but not from the villages as a whole. It was a solution that anyone should be able to understand.

“But Your Highness, there is still a problem. The villagers have been living fine up to this point. If we suddenly tell them that they should live in a different way, then would the people really follow obediently? This is what I’m worried about.”

“That is a good point.”

I nodded.

“If it benefits them, then they would agree without any hesitation.”

“Benefit? The new method doesn’t sound like it has anything particularly beneficial.”

Parsi tilted his head.

Even if I were to say that dividing the authority would make the community stronger……that was still vague and abstract. We can’t persuade the people with a gain that is ‘not visible’. If we want to push forward a new policy, then they need an immediate benefit.

I smiled.

“It’s simple. If there are no gains, then make one.”

The next day, I ordered Jeremi to go to the nearest and biggest city. I then had her put in a request with a massive bounty.

The request was simple.

『4,000 gold will be awarded to whoever brings Demon Lord Dantalian.』

『This is an urgent request. The deadline is until the end of this month.』

『Dead or alive.』

This request riled up the mercenaries and adventurers who happened to be within the city.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. As usual, Dant ends up talking about politics when he meets up with Parsi. On a more important note, I’m getting my second vaccine shot tomorrow. If the next chapter takes longer than usual to come out, then know it was because I’m suffering from my second shot. Maybe I’ll be one of those people who don’t get much of a reaction from the second shot. I guess we’ll have to see.

I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.

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