While people in various places were showing interest in the rather shocking news that Kyle had established an orphanage, the man himself was lost in constant worry.
“Ha… I feel more exhausted than when I was in the military.”
Was it because everything was still in its early stages?
There was simply too much to do.
First, the criminals in the rehabilitation center had not even developed proper foundations, so Kyle had to personally correct each of them one by one.
He could not afford to be careless either.
Doing things halfheartedly did not suit his personality, but more importantly, the stage when someone built their foundations was the most crucial.
A person’s entire life was at stake.
Kyle was not coldhearted enough to treat that carelessly.
Second, he had to play with the children.
Simply leaving them to entertain themselves without any guidance did not suit Kyle’s temperament either.
Since the donations had given him some financial breathing room, he had purchased toys.
However, most shops sold only small ones, so he was also building playground equipment himself.
And that was not all.
These children did not have ordinary families, so he needed to consider their futures as well.
Kyle was struggling to devise games that incorporated the appeal of martial arts while creating an environment conducive to mana awakening.
If that had been all, he might still have possessed some free time.
At the very least, he would have been able to rest properly at night.
However, Kyle also had to patrol tirelessly after dark.
Cockroach-like bastards continued creeping into the district despite his efforts to clean up the surrounding area.
If he left them alone, they would once again filthy the alleys around the orphanage.
Once one began cleaning, one had to finish the job properly.
Therefore, Kyle personally continued working throughout the night to deal with them.
Could he not simply order the others to do it?
‘I want to do that too!’
Why would he not?
Unfortunately, the bastards prowling around this area were reasonably capable.
Rumors about Kyle must have already spread because those who came were mostly people capable of using at least some degree of power.
Some could even wield Aura, while others carried specialized weapons one might expect to see in the military.
‘They said they came personally because I was disturbing the order of Boritz, did they?’
It sounded like utter nonsense coming from criminals, but apparently even the criminal underworld possessed its own form of order.
Kyle had shattered that order, so skilled members of the surrounding organizations had joined forces to punish him.
Naturally, their arrival was not enough to make Kyle nervous.
No matter how many small fry gathered together, they were still only a school of small fry.
However, enduring it once or twice was one thing.
As the attacks continued repeatedly, fatigue gradually began accumulating.
“If they could at least establish proper foundations, I probably would not need to intervene personally….”
Kyle spoke with a weary expression as he rubbed his bleary eyes.
Things would have become considerably easier if even a few of them could properly control mana, but hardly any could.
‘Should I just crush all of them?’
That thought crossed his mind several times every day, but he ultimately settled for beating them into submission.
As the criminals claimed, their world possessed a certain order.
Kyle could not predict what kind of chaos would erupt if that order collapsed all at once.
That was precisely what made the matter so troublesome.
Of course, he showed no mercy to those who crossed the line.
When even their most elite members failed, some organizations eventually resorted to crossing it.
Whenever they did, Kyle’s sword became stained with blood.
Night fell again, and Kyle stepped outside once more.
The people standing before him were all young organization members who knew nothing.
“Fucking bastards.”
Infuriated that the organization intended to use ignorant youths as shields, Kyle raised his Aura.
Their shallow plan was to sacrifice the younger members and wait for an opening.
For the good of society, people like that were better off dead.
Kyle understood perfectly well that saving everyone was nothing more than an ideal.
Even Sister Haynes, whom he respected more than anyone, had told him it was impossible.
However, he still had to do what he could.
‘All we can do is our best. By doing that alone, we have fulfilled our duty.’
Kyle recalled the lesson that remained deeply engraved in his heart and began his sword dance.
He was trying to live kindly.
He wanted to live while atoning for the things he had been forced to do on battlefields over the years.
Yet no one seemed willing to help him do so.
“You think I look easy because I have only been defending myself?”
Kyle asked with an enraged expression as he drove his sword into the torso of an officer who appeared to belong to the organization’s leadership.
Because Kyle had spared them, these bastards had forgotten their place and become even more brazen.
At times like this, he needed to make certain that several heads were severed.
However, he did not intend to stop there this time.
He would show them just a little of the man he had once been.
‘He is fucking unbearable as an ally, but hell itself as an enemy!’
Kyle had once been so vicious that such words had circulated about him.
He began the interrogation.
After throwing aside one criminal who had fainted amid horrific screams, Kyle dragged over another and tortured him as well.
Using the information he obtained, Kyle quietly headed toward the organization’s base.
Less than an hour later, he appeared covered in blood before a man who flinched at the sight of him.
“If you continue allowing outside organizations to prowl around the orphanage, will there be any reason for me to leave your people alive?”
Kyle’s expression overflowed with killing intent.
The criminal hurriedly shook his head.
“Go and tell your boss. If those people appear around here again, then….”
Kyle let the sentence trail off and stared at him for a long moment.
He then released a quiet sigh, drew a bucket of water from a nearby well, and poured it over himself.
He could not return to a place filled with children while drenched in blood and radiating killing intent.
Apparently deciding that looking like a drowned rat was preferable, Kyle soaked his entire body before returning to the orphanage.
“None of you were slacking off, were you?”
“No, sir!”
The trainees hurriedly snapped to attention when Kyle returned.
A bitter expression crossed his face as he watched them.
He had suppressed as much of his killing intent as possible, but he could see that the remaining traces of it had still frightened them.
“All right, all right! That is enough training for today. Gather around. It is time for your basic studies.”
Kyle clapped his hands and called everyone together.
Many of them had wandered through the back alleys because no one had ever taken them in.
Consequently, a considerable number had never received even a basic education.
Kyle therefore had to become their language teacher, mathematics teacher, and ethics teacher.
They were grateful to him, but gratitude could not prevent them from becoming sleepy.
“Ahem! Who is falling asleep?”
Kyle frowned when he saw that more than half of them were already dozing during their very first lesson.
They were undoubtedly afraid of him.
The fact that they still managed to fall asleep meant his talent for teaching was unbelievably terrible.
Then how had he taught his other disciples?
Since ancient times, people had said that a club could make anything possible.
It was an ancient and venerable truth passed down in the north.
However, without a club as his weapon, Teacher Kyle’s lack of ability was thoroughly exposed.
‘No. It is only because this is my first time.’
With that thought, Kyle woke the sleeping students and tried explaining everything in a way that would be easier to understand.
Only a few minutes passed before they began falling asleep again.
The children sitting in the back were playing with toys they had made from stones and wood.
Kyle fell into despair as his lesson was completely ignored.
“All of this is homework! If you do not memorize it before the next lesson, every last one of you is dead!”
Although he had failed to teach them properly, Kyle displayed the pettiness of taking his frustration out on his innocent students.
However, his already-shattered heart could not be restored.
The lesson, which the children nicknamed “mental training time,” finally ended, and cleaning time began.
In truth, it was closer to construction work than mere cleaning because they also had to reinforce the unfinished parts of the building.
However, perhaps because everyone worked together, they quickly reached their target.
“You are all free for the next two hours. Rest as you please!”
Rest after labor was essential.
Kyle rewarded those who had worked hard with genuine free time rather than independent study.
He then looked outside the orphanage with a cold expression.
Someone else had arrived.
“Who are you?”
“I came from here.”
Kyle furrowed his brow as the smooth-looking man handed him a business card.
The card listed an ordinary trading company and the man’s position.
Kyle nodded and invited him inside.
The man might have come to make a donation, so Kyle politely escorted him into the Orphanage Director’s office and listened to what he had to say.
“There are quite a lot of children.”
“I somehow ended up gathering many of them.”
Kyle answered and quietly watched the man.
The visitor cleared his throat and cautiously stated his business.
“Our trading company appears to require many workers.”
“Oh! Is that so?”
Kyle initially smiled and treated him politely at the mention of needing workers.
However, his expression gradually began to twist.
“So… what you are saying right now is….”
“Yes. Sell us a few of the useful children.”
The man had not said he wanted to “employ” them.
He had asked Kyle to “sell” them.
A vein began bulging on Kyle’s forehead.
A murderous pressure erupted from his body and crushed the man.
“Ghk! G-Gah… Why… Why are you doing this…?”
“Do I look like a slave trader to you?”
The man’s face steadily turned pale at Kyle’s words.
Kyle barely managed to retain his reason.
After suppressing his aura, he spoke to the man in an icy voice.
“Get out.”
At those two words, the man hurriedly opened the door and fled.
Kyle released a quiet sigh as he watched the lunatic who had come to an orphanage and openly asked him to sell children.
Had he chosen the wrong city?
Or was the nation of Weiden truly this rotten?
“Perhaps I should have gone south….”
Kyle released a deep sigh as he considered how deeply Boritz had decayed beneath the name of freedom.
However, he had already taken responsibility for the children.
He could not simply continue complaining.
After considering the matter for a long time, Kyle finally nodded as though reaching a decision.
“I will have to remain busy for a while.”
He already felt sorry for establishing the children in a place like this when they deserved to grow up seeing only good things.
He could not allow vermin-like bastards to continue roaming freely around them.
Kyle ultimately resolved to clean up the city himself.
However, that was work for the night.
During the day, he needed to concentrate on rehabilitation and educating the children.
“It is time for class! Everyone, assemble!”
Kyle clapped his hands and gathered the children before beginning another lesson.
He taught even more passionately in an attempt to make up for his earlier humiliation.
However, the harder he tried, the more children began nodding off.
‘It is only because this is the first day….’
Kyle desperately told himself that it was merely because he had never taught in this manner before.
With a gloomy heart, he prepared dinner.
Although the building was old and dilapidated, everyone still needed to eat properly.
Kyle prepared a generous amount of food and distributed it before returning to the Orphanage Director’s office to wait for the sun to set.
He put on the gray coat he had purchased in the city he visited before arriving in Boritz and placed the fedora on his head.
Finally, he fastened an old sword once used by a criminal to his belt and quietly left the orphanage.
‘I am not a hero.’
He was not moving to punish criminals.
He was only acting for the sake of the children who had become his responsibility.
Had they not prowled around Kyle’s surroundings, he would never have gone out at night like this.
Even if he had known what they were doing, he would have turned a blind eye.
However, now that they had interfered with him, he had to act.
“I clearly said I wanted to live quietly.”
Muttering those words, Kyle quietly entered the dark alley.