Chapter 728: Date with Xier Jiejie, But the Topic Is the Elf

"Broly, if you want to understand Liu, you need to know about certain things. Have you ever heard of the Dark Age?"

Leaving the Hostess of Fertility, the two of them went together to a dessert shop; the poster girl, having removed her white apron, sat opposite in a plain green dress, ordered a fruit parfait for two, and then asked the Saiyan boy across from her.

"Never heard of it. What is it?"

Naturally, Broly, who had only come to this world thirty-three days ago, could not possibly know what the Dark Age was.

"Villains in power, black and white reversed, order in chaos, violence met with violence, children weeping like rain, the wounded lying everywhere, evil men strutting and roaring — that worst of eras is the Dark Age.

It is also the state Orario was in seven years ago, after the joint subjugation of the Black Dragon failed and it lost its two Strongest Familia as guardians."

Xier picked up a wafer cookie from the parfait cup, bit the cream-coated end, tasted it, and then began to explain.

"What does this have to do with Miss Liu?"

"Of course it's related. In that dark period, there was a Familia named Astraea that upheld justice, defied the era, and tried to peel back the dark clouds named darkness."

"Astraea — is that Miss Liu's Familia?"

"Mm. Liu and her Familia companions were the most dazzling, active justice stars in that dark era.

【Subdue the strong, aid the weak, occasionally chastise both sides, refuse differential treatment, pursue freedom and equality, let all be measured by the Justice Scale; our wish is order, our thoughts are smiles, emblazoned on our backs are the Justice Sword and Wings — we are the Astraea Familia!】

Thanks to a captain who always recited that kind of self-introduction catchphrase upon arrival, many people in Orario knew which Familia those girls came from, and knew the justice ideals they advocated……"

Under Xier's narration, Broly gradually came to understand the various heroic deeds of the elf girl, who was then a fourteen-year-old girl, and her companions during the Dark Age.

Facing Dark Faction members who far outnumbered them and killed like hemp, they fought bravely for innocent civilians; and in adversity, facing the rescued civilians' incomprehension and displaced blame — even stone-throwing — they still managed to maintain their hearts of justice……

"Wait, they stepped forward to save people, so why were they blamed by the people they saved?"

"Because among the saved, some had family members who were not saved; before being rescued, those family members had already suffered miserably at the hands of the Dark Faction. The rescued people felt they had arrived too late."

"So good people should just be held at gunpoint?"

"Gun?"

"I mean, treated with ingratitude."

"Mm, a very apt way to put it, but that is indeed human nature.

The pain of losing loved ones made Orario's residents hate the Dark Faction, but the Dark Faction were villains to begin with — they wouldn't care about that hatred, they'd just kill the survivors along with them.

The only ones they could vent their resentment on were the righteous people who had saved them but failed to save everyone — precisely because those people knew their saviors would not harm them."

Xier thought for a moment, then nodded, confirming the statement: good people should just be held at gunpoint.

"So Miss Liu fell into blackening because of this, and then became a wanted criminal in Orario?"

Broly asked.

"Ah, the Astraea Familia's — Liu and her companions' — justice isn't that fragile. They upheld justice for the sake of their own ideals, not for other people's opinions.

And the people who threw stones and blamed them were only doing those excessive things because their hearts were full of pain and sorrow with nowhere to vent.

As long as you explain properly and guide them a little, those people will realize their mistake and understand that resenting the people who saved them is utterly senseless."

Xier's words made Broly frown. He tried to put himself in the perspective of those justice girls in the story, and found that if it were him, he would probably only use one method to make the ungrateful realize their own error.

"So after that, Miss Liu and the others put knives to those people's throats?"

"Uh, no, they didn't do that."

"Then how did they make the others realize their mistake?"

"Actually, they didn't make them realize it — they just silently endured it."

"Ah, then Xier Jiejie, why are you taking the side of those ungrateful people, saying they would realize their mistake, speaking up for them?"

Broly grew somewhat dissatisfied; this kind of thing — saving people only to be resented by the saved — just made him furious to hear.

Before, in the Six-Faced World, he had also encountered that kind of ungrateful scum, but whenever he ran into them, he basically killed them on the spot.

His style: I do good deeds without asking for gratitude, but if you dare repay kindness with enmity, I'll send you to heaven right then and there.

Broly calls this swift karma, acting on whim; thus when he occasionally encountered the ungrateful, he never felt any pent-up frustration.

But the justice girls in Xier's story apparently didn't kill those ungrateful fools, and that made Broly's anger flare up.

Of course, if the protagonist were an unrelated party, Broly might not feel too strongly, but one of the resented protagonists happened to be Liu Li Ang — if she were his capture target at that time, who knows how much her Happiness Value would have dropped in that situation.

The moment he thought of the elf girl's possible unhappiness back then, Broly wanted nothing more than to transmigrate to this world's past, beat up those foolish commoners who dared throw stones at Liu Li Ang and the other justice girls, then throw them to the Dark Faction side so they could accept the fate of being slaughtered by Dark Faction villains that they originally would have suffered.

"Wah, I wasn't speaking up for those people — it's just that they really did realize their mistake later on."

"Eh? They calmed down and realized it on their own?"

Broly's anger from listening to the story eased slightly; if that was the case, he could barely accept it.

"That's not it — I made them realize their mistake."

"Huh?!"

"At that time, I was helping Miya Mama build the Hostess of Fertility's reputation, distributing porridge and food in the refugee camp. When someone was saying discouraging things, complaining that Miss Liu and the other adventurers' desperate struggles were useless futile efforts, I comforted him, and that made everyone realize the error."

"Uh, how did you comfort him?"

"Mm, let me think. I remember that person said at the time: 【Useless, all useless. Even if food is distributed, it has no meaning. We're all going to die anyway — either starve or be killed by the Dark Faction.】

And I said the adventurer lords are all trying their best, to which he replied: 【Adventurers? Those people are completely unreliable now. Haven't they all been beaten by the Dark Faction until they have no power to fight back? Me too, everyone else too — we're all going to die, just like my younger sister. Adventurers would never protect us.】

This is how I comforted him at the time: 【Then let's all just go die together.】 The expressions of him and the surrounding people — I can still remember them now — were utterly dumbfounded. They seemed surprised by my words, but it was precisely because they were suffering, sad, and in pain that they said such things. If so, as long as they're dead, they won't feel any pain at all, right?

And the fact proved that everyone wants to live properly, and doesn't want to die immediately and go to the heavens to see their departed loved ones.

So after he stammered out 【I, I don't want to die……】, I apologized to him, and told him and the others: 【The adventurers saving you (including Liu and her group) absolutely do not want you to die. They are cheering you on right now, trying harder than anyone in the temporary camp, wounded all over, protecting all of you. Of course, there are people they couldn't protect, but they blame themselves more than anyone……】

I apologized for deliberately misunderstanding their pessimistic thoughts, and hoped they wouldn't misunderstand the adventurers."

"That worked?"

"Of course not. They still said things like 【Since you can't protect us, don't give us the expectation from the start by saying 'we'll protect you'】, and 【Justice that's just lip service is nothing but self-satisfaction; that kind of person is called a hypocrite】……"

"Ah, those people actually still said that. Then Xier Jiejie, how did you make them realize their own mistake?"

"Mm, I simply affirmed their accusation of hypocrisy, and said that in a situation where anyone could die at any moment, where everyone struggles just to protect themselves, the kind of 'hypocrisy' that is still willing to help someone — Liu and her group's seemingly superficial 'justice' — is extremely worthy of respect.

It just so happened that Dark Faction members attacked the temporary camp right then, and the Astraea Familia — two of Liu's former companions — struck in time and defeated the Dark Faction members, protecting the people in the camp once again. Those who had previously vented their anger on Liu and her group began to realize the correctness of my words, and felt regret for their own excessive actions."

Hmm, I can still recall the remorseful expressions on their faces, feeling ashamed of what they once did……

Xier wore a delighted look, as if that were some scene that brought her joy; after taking another bite of fruit ice cream, she noticed the boy across from her had fallen silent.

"Mr. Broly, what's wrong? Still tangled up over those people from the past?"

"No, I was just imagining an 11-year-old Miss Xier distributing food before a crowd of refugees, and guiding them with words to make them realize their own mistakes."

Xier: "……"

【Oh no, I got too invested in the storytelling and forgot that if I really am an ordinary human girl, seven years ago I would still have been an 11-year-old human girl who hadn't grown up yet……】

Just as Freya thought she was about to be seen through by the boy, she heard the Saiyan boy across from her say: "Miss Xier really is amazing, to be able to make people aware of their own errors with words at age 11; if it were me at 11, I'd probably just stomp those people's heads into the mud, even crush a few, to make them understand their mistakes."

"Uh, thanks for the praise."

Xier kind of wanted to retort, but in the end she still didn't retort.

"But, Miss Xier, you still haven't told me how Miss Liu became a wanted criminal?"

Broly had come to understand the elf lady's just past, but he did not understand how she turned into a wanted criminal.

"This is something that happened two years after the Dark Age ended; the Great Dark Age Struggle was announced at an end because the Justice Girls and the adventurers of the major Familias were active, and the Dark Faction's scheme to destroy Orario was destroyed.

But at the time, some remnants of the Dark Faction still fled; Ryu and her Familia companions kept pursuing those Dark Faction remnants to strike and eliminate them.

It was under these circumstances that the Dark Faction remnants designed a trap in the Dungeon, ambushed the Justice Girls of the Astraea Familia, and in the end only Ryu survived.

Ryu afterward took revenge for her fallen companions, spending three years killing everyone connected to the design of that trap, including Guild Staff who leaked their Familia's operational intelligence to the Dark Faction."

"Avenging companions, that's wrong too?"

"Avenging companions isn't wrong, but Ryu's methods were too fierce; some people were killed directly merely on suspicion of colluding with the Dark Faction, without substantive evidence, and that is what forced the Guild to put a warrant on her."

Hmm, so-called collusion refers to the type where helping shadow, passing messages to the Dark Faction also counts, and among them were included some who didn't know the identities of the Dark Faction members, just did jobs for money and didn't know their actions were helping the Dark Faction.

This kind of wholesale slaughter revenge continued for three years, until the Dark Faction Familia members involved in killing her companions were ambushed and wiped out entirely by Ryu, at which point the revenge was declared over.

"Two years ago, when I encountered Ryu in a deserted alley, she was covered in blood and wore a look of having no attachment to the world; even now, she only chooses to work helping in the tavern to repay the kindness of me and Mother Miya taking her in."

The parfait was finished, and Ryu's story was more or less told; Xier looked at the Saiyan boy: "So, when I heard a while back that Ryu wanted to consult you, Mr. Broly, on swordsmanship, I was very happy, because she, who has always been trapped in the past, rarely has things she actively wants to do."

"Mr. Broly……"

"Hm?"

"Can I ask a favor of you?"

"Miss Xier, go ahead."

"Please bring Ryu a wonderful encounter experience; no matter what happens in the future, don't let her feel sad, okay?"

"Hm, that is naturally the case; even if Miss Xier you didn't say it, I would do so too."

Broly nodded in answer to those words.

"Then it's settled."

Xier smiled, then said: "Though it's called a date with me, we've been talking about Ryu the whole time; Mr. Broly, do you think that's alright?"

"Uh, then let's talk about Miss Hill's matters?"

"Goodwill not enough."

"Then talk about my matters?"

"That I'm interested in; Waitress, another Fruit Parfait please."

"Eh, Miss Xier, you can still eat?"

"That last one I finished eating all by myself, you didn't even feed me a single bite."

"Sorry, I just saw you kept eating on your own."

"During a date you can't be that distant; the correct approach should be to actively feed your date partner, come to think of it, Lady Hestia didn't give you a pretty good demonstration of that just recently?"

The one who went on a date the day before yesterday was Helen, but this time the one on a date is herself; Freya feels Helen's memory of Hestia's moves was quite good.

"Sorry, then I'll feed you now?"

The waitress brought a new parfait cup, and Broly said.

"Ah~"

At this, the quest board girl merely parted her cherry lips toward the boy.

Broly didn't hesitate either, picked up the spoon, and began feeding her the ice cream from the parfait cup.

He watched Xier's swallowing motion, and subconsciously swallowed his own saliva.

"Hm, Mr. Broly, I'll feed you too~"

Xier detected him swallowing saliva, opened her eyes, and also picked up a spoon, scooping a spoonful of ice cream over to him.

"Thanks."

Broly caught the girl's feeding, thanked her, and the cool sweet taste made him calm down slightly.

"My past is also somewhat complex, and there are some things inside it that I can't reveal to Miss Xier right now; hope Miss Xier you can forgive me for that."

"You have some concealment toward me, looks like my Goodwill on your side isn't high enough either; but, we're even, I can forgive it."

Not detecting the boy lying, Freya-turned-Xier spoke quite magnanimously.

"I am a Saiyan, from another world different from this world, born on Planet Vegeta, but from childhood my father and I were exiled to an extremely remote planet……"

(Chapter End)