A month had passed since Kyle established the orphanage.
When he had first gathered the children and founded it, everything had been incredibly difficult.
These days, perhaps because the operation had stabilized, things had become considerably easier.
A Mana Aptitude Test once a week.
Morning training for Mana Awakening.
Morning lessons.
Lunch.
Afternoon lessons.
Dinner.
Nighttime physical training.
A day of free time once every ten days.
Kyle had arranged everything into this fixed routine, allowing the orphanage to operate like a wheel turning without pause.
The schedule might have been somewhat demanding for the children, but they followed it surprisingly well.
“What admirable little rascals.”
Simply thinking about the children brought a smile to his face.
Rather than becoming jealous of the four geniuses—Mary, El, Norris, and Sarah—the other children learned about mana from them and steadily improved on their own.
How could he not be proud of them?
The Rehabilitation Center, on the other hand, required Kyle to conduct regular inspections.
After all, its residents had once been involved with criminal organizations. If Kyle stopped paying attention to them, they might quickly begin entertaining improper thoughts again.
Even so, their bodies had already changed after only a month.
Several had successfully awakened their mana, and their attitudes were gradually changing as well.
Perhaps because of that, many people who had belonged to nearby criminal factions began entering the Rehabilitation Center to receive professional training from Kyle.
That was when the problem began.
“Whew!”
Unlike when he had been thinking about the children moments earlier, Kyle was now breathing heavily as anger surged across his face.
The nearby criminal organizations had begun treating those who left their ranks to enter the Rehabilitation Center as though they were being promoted into a superior organization.
Why was Kyle being placed in the position of some kind of final boss?
He had gathered abandoned children and taught them.
He was rehabilitating worthless criminals.
They should have been praising him, not spreading ridiculous rumors!
His fury immediately turned toward the bosses of the criminal organizations.
“Why in the world are these rumors spreading?”
The bosses lowered their heads beneath his enraged shout.
“Why am I your boss? Why?”
Kyle demanded with a thoroughly furious expression.
From their perspective, however, it was only natural that they would see him that way.
They might have been paying for his lessons, but Kyle had personally modified several techniques specifically for them.
Basic Weapons Arts for Criminals, adapted from military weapons training.
Underhanded Combat Arts, adapted from the standard combat arts used by soldiers.
A Simple Mana Circulation Method for Stupid Criminals.
He was even teaching them an advanced Aura Circulation Technique.
Were these things anyone could normally learn merely by paying money?
Kyle even demonstrated the movements personally for those unable to understand his explanations.
His club techniques were painfully close to an ordinary beating, but that only ensured that the movements were engraved firmly into their bodies.
Although only a short time had passed, many of them had already experienced tangible improvements.
Where else could they possibly find such a benefactor?
To the surrounding criminal organizations, Kyle had already become a figure resembling a supreme boss.
The problem was that Kyle hated being treated that way.
“…We apologize.”
The gang members looked dejected as Kyle openly denied any connection to them.
Unable to remain angry when he saw their expressions, Kyle sighed and spoke.
“Tsk! Fine. Since you received my teachings… I can understand that much. But why are you expanding your territory?”
It might have been tolerable if they were proceeding slowly.
Instead, these bastards were absorbing the surrounding organizations.
Had they fought them?
No.
Had they assassinated their leaders?
No.
Then how exactly were they absorbing them?
The answer could be found on the leaflet Kyle was holding.
“And what the hell is this supposed to be?”
The leaflet contained a long list of Kyle’s alleged accomplishments.
「I Achieved Mana Awakening After Training Under Him!」
「I Finally Achieved Aura Awakening After Nearly Giving Up! His Teachings Are Absolute!」
The leaflet was filled with absurd claims like those.
It would have been one thing if only a single organization had distributed them, but every criminal organization near the orphanage was doing the same.
As a result, Kyle’s reputation as the ruler of the eastern underworld was becoming far more firmly established than his reputation as an Orphanage Director.
Even more absurdly, once people who had genuinely achieved Mana Awakening began appearing, the surrounding organizations started wavering even more.
“Just as you gave us an opportunity, could you give these men one chance as well…?”
“When you think about it, they are pitiful men.”
“We thoroughly removed all the irredeemable trash before bringing them here.”
Perhaps Kyle had completely reformed their way of thinking.
The bosses had personally rescued young men who were suffering miserably, just as they themselves once had, and were now pleading on their behalf.
“Whew… Are those the ones?”
“Yes.”
Kyle released a hint of his pressure as though testing them.
The young men flinched and stepped backward.
Seeing their reactions, Kyle felt that he understood why they had been brought to him.
“They have talent.”
The gang members had probably remembered their own pasts.
With no one willing to help them, they had been forced to live in the gutter.
Perhaps they wanted to give an opportunity to these young men, who already wandered the back alleys despite possessing remarkable talent.
They had recently experienced such changes themselves, so they probably wanted others to feel the same thing.
“…What are you going to do about the surrounding organizations?”
Kyle’s voice had softened somewhat.
The bosses apparently took that as a sign of hope, because they raised their heads with bright expressions.
“We will persuade them as much as possible.”
“We are preparing something separately.”
They spoke as though asking him to trust them.
Why did that only make him feel more anxious?
Nevertheless, the young men appeared too talented to be left to rot, even in Kyle’s eyes, so he accepted them.
“Place them in the Rehabilitation Center.”
““Yes!””
The gang members hurried into motion the moment Kyle gave the order.
One of them even patted a nervous young man on the shoulder and congratulated him.
The young man immediately began grinning.
His reaction was understandable.
Even though they were criminals who prowled the alleys, they understood how valuable the opportunity Kyle offered truly was.
The nation’s leaders were too busy engaging in political struggles to seize control for themselves.
The noble families were too busy watching one another as they struggled to survive those conflicts.
The merchants were obsessed with money.
Because of that, capable individuals looked only upward and acted solely for the sake of earning greater wealth.
No one cared about those trapped at the very bottom.
Weyden was the nation where that tendency had reached its peak.
It was a nation of freedom that had reduced the functions of its government to the bare minimum in order to survive beneath pressure from the surrounding countries.
Then someone like Kyle appeared in such a place and set the clocks of those whose lives had long since stopped into motion once again.
“You may expand, and you may recruit members from other organizations, but do not cross the line.”
Kyle spoke in warning.
The gang members who had begun dispersing stopped simultaneously, turned toward him, and bowed their heads.
They nodded with solemn expressions as though Kyle’s words were the law itself, then moved away to carry out their duties.
At least to the gang members near the orphanage, Kyle was the law.
Now they were attempting to extend that law throughout the eastern district of Boritz.
“What a headache.”
Kyle could not understand how something he had begun merely to raise the children had developed this far.
However, it was also difficult to abandon everything now.
Furthermore, those who entered the Rehabilitation Center also brought donations, so he decided to view the situation positively.
“Something will work out somehow.”
Their recent improvements had made them excited, but Kyle assumed that their enthusiasm would gradually settle down with time.
With that thought, he entered the orphanage.
Now that the basic system had been established, his mornings had become far more relaxed than they had been only a week earlier.
He could even enjoy the luxury of drinking a warm cup of lemon tea in the Director’s office.
“Mmm… This is the feeling.”
He had been far too busy operating the orphanage and the Rehabilitation Center.
That had not necessarily been a bad thing, but the entire reason he had wanted to leave the military was to enjoy a peaceful daily life like this.
“I hope these days will continue forever….”
“Teacher! You have a guest!”
Kyle frowned at Sarah’s voice.
He placed his lemon tea on the desk and rose from his chair.
He was irritated that his precious break had been interrupted, but he could hardly become angry with a child.
Kyle hurriedly smoothed the furrow between his brows with his thumb before opening the door.
“Who are you?”
“Ah! I come from this organization.”
“…….”
Kyle’s expression hardened when the man immediately presented him with a business card.
He remembered the slave trader who had visited in the past.
The observant man noticed Kyle’s expression stiffening and immediately continued with an explanation.
“I am not here to take any of the children.”
“Then….”
“I have come purely to make a donation.”
Kyle tilted his head when the man claimed that he truly wanted nothing more than to donate.
“I understand that you have no reason to trust me. It is not entirely without motive, however. Perhaps you could think of it as building our reputation in advance among the children who will eventually grow up and leave this place?”
“You mean you are investing in advance so you can recruit them later?”
“Yes.”
Kyle regarded the man with even greater suspicion.
However, the visitor simply handed over the donation and departed, leaving Kyle with no reason to interrogate him further.
“The Southern Herse Mercenary Guild….”
Kyle frowned as he examined the name of the man’s guild on the business card.
Simply hearing the name Herse was enough to irritate him.
However, a guild from the southern region was likely connected to many different factions.
The real problem was the person who came after him.
“Where did you say you came from…?”
“I represent the Western Free Merchants’ Association.”
The man spoke with an amiable smile, while Kyle regarded him suspiciously.
The next visitor was the same.
This time, a man affiliated with the Free Knights from the eastern Empire arrived carrying a donation.
Kyle could not understand how organizations from such distant places had learned about a small orphanage in a neutral nation and decided to make donations.
However, after this many visitors, he had no choice but to realize what was happening.
“Is it those bastards?”
They were his finest disciples—and his greatest troublemakers.
Kyle had only wanted them to grow into reasonably capable adults, but they had become so exceptional that they had even delayed his discharge from military service.
He realized that the donations had come from them.
And this was only the beginning.
The next day, more people arrived to make donations.
“So these bastards were living in the east?”
Kyle had been worried because he had heard nothing from his former subordinates.
Now, they were using their donations to inform him of where they were and how they were doing.
In truth, Kyle welcomed donations as long as they were sent quietly.
However, some of his former subordinates were determined to draw attention to themselves.
Perhaps irritated by Parshu’s announcement that he would donate an enormous sum, Coutinho and Korn also publicly declared that they would send additional donations.
「Sensational Newcomers, the Coutinho Mercenary Company! Are They Donating to Haynes Orphanage as Well?」
「The Korn Battle Mage Corps Leads a War to Victory! Half of Their Earnings Donated to Haynes Orphanage?」
“Ha… These bastards….”
They appeared to be competing over who could donate the most.
As a result, interest in the true nature of Haynes Orphanage, which had barely begun to subside, rose to the surface once again.
「Criminal Organizations United and Numerous Factions Showing Interest! What Exactly Is Haynes Orphanage?」
“…What else would it be? It is an orphanage.”
Kyle muttered and threw the newspaper onto the table.
He had clearly intended to live quietly.
Was it merely his imagination, or did his life keep becoming noisier?
Kyle sighed.