Less than a week after Kyle escaped from the Herse Empire, he had already gone and caused an incident.
Had he squandered all his money?
No, that was not it.
The compensation he had received from the military and the money he had saved over the years remained safely deposited in the bank.
Then had he become a criminal?
That was not it either.
He had merely become something similar.
“Ha….”
Kyle released a deep sigh while wondering, ‘How did things end up like this?’
It had begun while he was walking with the girl he had rescued.
Children who were being beaten or lying injured like her kept catching his attention everywhere he went. Kyle had plenty of money, and he had thought that taking in a few children would not be difficult.
By the time he finished rescuing them, however, he had gathered a considerable number.
The real problem came afterward.
Kyle had planned to deposit all but a small amount of his money in the bank and then head for the outskirts of the city.
That was when the criminals he had beaten came looking for him.
‘Please take us in!’
The criminals bowed deeply and begged him to accept them.
Every last one of them was an animalistic bastard who had beaten children.
Kyle had been about to beat them again without bothering to hear them out when one man began explaining his circumstances in exhaustive detail.
‘I did not want to live like this either. I came here with great ambitions, but a pickpocket stole all my money!’
‘The same happened to me. I used to be an honest fisherman, but then a criminal organization….’
‘I wanted to become a famous mercenary! But somehow, things ended up like this….’
The men burst into tears as they spoke.
They wailed that if someone had taken them in the way Kyle had taken in the children, they would never have lived such lives. They pleaded for a chance to reform.
Then the children behind them began crying as well.
Before long, everyone surrounding Kyle was in tears, drawing the attention of every passerby.
While trying to resolve the situation somehow, Kyle had ended up taking in all of them.
“…I must have lost my mind.”
Kyle looked ahead with a bitter expression.
The criminals were working diligently.
They had settled in a crumbling building on the outskirts of the city.
Located in a dangerous district, it was a property that even its owner had abandoned.
The owner had fled without taking any of the legal documents, making it impossible for him to return later and claim that the building belonged to him.
His decision was understandable.
The only people visible in the surrounding area were criminals.
What possible hope could there be in a place like this?
Clinging to the building out of greed would only have resulted in suffering at the hands of criminals.
Consequently, the property had become the base of a criminal organization.
Although it would not have been strange for the structure to collapse at any moment, it was still a fairly large building by the city’s standards and even possessed a garden.
Kyle had moved everyone into it.
As for the criminal organization that had originally occupied the building?
Kyle and the petty criminals who had gathered around him had crushed them.
“Hey. Are you taking a break?”
“N-No, sir.”
When Kyle glared at him, the young man hurriedly picked up his hammer and rose to his feet.
He then began scolding the other men who had been lazing around and urged them to work faster.
They were repairing the various sections of the building that were on the verge of collapse.
“Boss! We have trouble!”
“Stay here and protect the children.”
Kyle spoke while looking at the large group of criminals approaching from the faction he had crushed several days ago.
They must have heard that Kyle was powerful because they had brought a respectable selection of weapons.
There were magic guns constructed with mana stone fragments.
There were magic tools capable of firing low-rank spells.
They had even brought magic bombs.
Having heard that Kyle had awakened mana, they intended to attack him with weapons powerful enough to harm an Awakened.
There was one matter worth considering.
If weapons capable of harming the Awakened had already been developed, why did so many soldiers still run around wielding swords?
Why were those who had mastered Aura treated as precious assets?
There was a reason for all of it.
“Damn it. He dodged them?”
Kyle’s visual perception far surpassed that of an ordinary person. He avoided the barrage of shots from the magic guns with practiced movements and rapidly closed the distance.
He then skillfully swung a sword he had taken while raiding a criminal organization several days earlier.
Would it not be a waste to use his own sword against petty criminals like these?
They were petty criminals only by Kyle’s standards, of course.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“Stop exaggerating…. I struck you with the flat.”
As though telling the criminal to stop whining, Kyle kicked the man he had struck with the side of the blade.
Kyle had shown the assassins no mercy whatsoever, to the point of brutality.
Yet he had not killed a single person here and was deliberately going easy on them.
There was a reason for that.
Most of the people gathered before him were still young men.
‘Could they be reformed as well?’
Kyle looked at the youths while entertaining the thought.
Just as Sister Haynes had given him an opportunity, perhaps they could also live honest lives if someone gave them a chance.
Even while distracted by such thoughts, Kyle leisurely crushed them one by one.
Before long, every one of them was lying on the ground.
“Collect their weapons and tie them up for now.”
“Yes, sir!”
After once again demonstrating his overwhelming strength, Kyle had the unconscious men carried inside the building and sank into thought.
Having taken in yet another group, Kyle began formulating a plan.
If there had only been one or two people, it might have been manageable.
He could not support this many people by himself.
Nor could he allow them to commit crimes.
“Hmm… This is more difficult than I expected.”
Kyle was beginning to understand why Sister Haynes had spent every day worrying while managing the orphanage.
Running an orphanage was far more difficult than it appeared.
Simply relying on donations was far too shortsighted.
“So the answer is to raise them and sell them off?”
Just as Kyle had been sold to the military and the money had been used to fund the orphanage, he might have no choice but to raise these children properly and sell them off as well.
Of course, that alone would not provide nearly enough money to operate the orphanage in the immediate future.
He could use his personal savings, but once they began depending on that money, it would be spent without end.
For now, he needed to accomplish as much as possible with the resources available to him.
He needed a plan.
Young adults capable of working immediately.
Children capable of performing small chores.
Children who needed protection.
Kyle intended to divide them into those three groups before making detailed plans.
No matter how difficult their circumstances were, should they not possess at least one happy childhood memory?
Therefore, he intended to give the youngest children only a minimum education and allow them to spend the rest of their time playing.
The others would perform the minimum amount of labor necessary to maintain the orphanage while also studying for their futures.
“Good. That settles the orphanage plan….”
Now that he had established himself here, the orphanage was not the only problem.
The criminals in the surrounding area would inevitably become an issue as well.
One way or another, Kyle would have to settle matters with those bastards.
“Negotiation….”
He did not like the idea.
Had his subordinates been with him, he could have swept away every criminal organization in the area and reorganized the district completely.
However, Kyle did not want to do that.
Doing so would drag him deeply into Weiden’s underworld.
He had only just escaped from the cesspit of the Empire. He could not allow himself to step into another one already.
“I have to remain in the light somehow.”
Kyle muttered to himself and began considering a method that would allow him to negotiate while remaining on the lawful side of society.
To accomplish that, he first needed to demonstrate his strength.
Frankly, Kyle possessed enough power to wipe out most organizations by himself.
If he used even the abilities he kept hidden, he could probably eliminate every criminal faction in this district.
“Since I am already thinking about it, perhaps I should get moving.”
Kyle spoke quietly to the men who were diligently carrying out his orders.
“I am going out for a while, so keep working hard. If the children still have to sleep outside tonight… you know what will happen, right?”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Kyle smirked at the terrified young man before casually offering them a piece of information they would find irresistible.
“If you do a good job, I will teach you the basics of mana control and martial arts.”
Everyone working on the repairs turned toward Kyle at once and erupted into cheers.
“We will work hard, Teacher!”
Kyle seemed to find the title pleasant enough.
He smiled, nodded, and headed toward the dark alley visible in the distance.
He needed to punish the garbage who had sent inexperienced young men to test him.
For the sake of the children, the surrounding district also needed to be cleaned up.
“You insane bastard! You came in here alone?”
“Yeah. I came alone.”
Kyle answered while casually subduing one of the criminals.
Watching him, another criminal spoke as though he had finally become certain.
“That bastard is an Aura User!”
“He may be even stronger than that! Everyone, respond accordingly!”
A middle-aged man shouted after seeing Kyle storm into their territory alone.
A smile formed on Kyle’s lips.
“Not bad.”
It was commendable that they had realized he might be an Aura Manifestor or an even higher-ranked ability user.
However, with only that degree of judgment, they were no different from the assassins who had attacked him in the Empire.
Unlike ordinary petty criminals, these men were unmistakably human garbage.
There was no reason for Kyle to show them mercy.
He walked through the alley, which had already become drenched in blood, and finally stopped before the boss.
“Where are the other factions like yours?”
“R-Right next door….”
Kyle stared at the boss for a moment after hearing his answer.
“Even if I eliminate you now, more organizations like this will eventually appear, will they not?”
Kyle muttered to himself.
After thinking briefly, he nodded.
Even calling these men waste would be an insult to actual waste, but perhaps he should determine whether they could still be recycled.
“Wait here for now. If you run away… then….”
The boss hurriedly nodded, indicating that Kyle did not need to finish his sentence.
With a cold expression, Kyle left to raid another organization.
Once again, these were merely petty criminals.
To Kyle, who had spent years cleaning up after nobles at the very heart of the Empire, they were easy opponents.
Kyle raided several nearby criminal factions and gathered them all in one place.
“From now on, we are going to make something called a ‘contract.’ Does anyone object?”
Everyone hurriedly shook their heads.
Kyle gave them a cold smile.
“We are human beings, are we not? Should we not live while respecting at least some basic boundaries?”
The criminals hurriedly nodded in response.
“Let us say that until now, you acted this way because no one taught you any better. But what happens if I teach you, and you still continue living like animals?”
Kyle paused and looked over everyone with an icy expression.
The criminals swallowed nervously.
“You will not do that, will you?”
The criminals hurriedly nodded when Kyle smiled and asked the question.
Kyle nodded with a satisfied expression and began the ‘negotiation’ in earnest.
Even if he threatened them now, it would be difficult to control them completely.
Therefore, the best solution was to establish a minimum boundary and allow the criminal factions to continue operating as long as they did not cross it.
After concluding a peaceful agreement(?) with the surrounding criminal factions, Kyle began working in earnest to establish the orphanage.