I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 261

The villagers watched in stunned silence as the terrified Bengal henchmen fled down the road with their tails between their legs. The illustrious Bengal clan. No one would dare to oppose them. This clan protected the land from sage beasts and bandits, giving prosperity to the region. Going against them meant death. No one there would even try. Yet, their leader was now dead, and the others fled in embarrassment. All they were trying to do was collect from a small fishing town. For such an outcome, I imagined it was like slapping the clan across the face.

“Y-you… do you know what you just did?” a voice cried out once they were out of earshot.

The elder who had previously been kneeling at the front had hastily gotten to his feet. He still had dirt on his robes and forehead as he spared me a scathing glare. It seemed like all of his previous fear and trepidation when it came to those henchmen had not transferred to me. I could only let out a sigh.

“I got rid of the problem. Is there an issue?”

“You fool! You damned fool!” He was hysterical, voice broke as he went to grab my collar, but then seemed to think better of it and pulled back. “You have doomed us all! You’ve brought the wrath of the Bengal clan down on our heads! They’ll burn this village to the ground! They’ll salt the earth because of your actions today, mark my words!”

I shrugged, but the villagers were much more alarmed. Several men and women let out cries of despair. Parents had to comfort their children who were growing increasingly fearful. Countless men glared my way, echoing the attitude of the elder. The villagers whispered amongst each other, saying nothing kind.

“We should run him out of town.”

“He’ll be the death to all of us.”

“If we hand him to the Bengal Clan, maybe they’ll forgive us.”

As I opened my mouth to respond, someone else spoke first.

“You really dare to chastise this man?”

The voice came from behind me. Elias stepped past me, putting his body between mine and the crowd, moving, it seemed, by some newfound confidence. At the very least, he was willing to face the other villagers with a straight back. He looked nervous, but there was a firmness on his face. A man standing his ground.

“Elias, you support the actions of this man?” The elder’s eyes narrowed.

“He saved my daughter from a horrible fate,” Elias replied, his voice filled with emotion. “Where were any of you? Where was your outrage when they were beating our children? When they were murdering them in the street? Both of my children would already be dead if you had your way!”

“You stood by, same as us!” one man in the crowd yelled back.

Elias’s hand balled into a fist, and he lowered his head. “You’re right. I was afraid. I stood and watched, and I did nothing. I was a coward, and I almost lost everything. However, this man did what any one of us should have done. Every single one of you knows that Bengal has been getting more and more unreasonable. We can barely survive as it is under their increasingly impossible requests.”

“There is nothing we can do! They’re paragons, and we’re mere mortals!” a woman cried out.

“Without their protection, we wouldn’t even be able to live as safe as we do this close to the endless sea.”

“So?” Elias roared. “How much are you willing to lose? How many daughters? How many sons? Will you just give up everything? I don’t consider that a life worth living!”

“It’s not that we don’t understand, Elias.” The elder seemed to notice the crowd growing out of his control. “However, we do not have the strength to go against Bengal, and this man has created problems the town must now deal with.”

“So, what’s your solution? Run him out of town? Exactly how do you plan on doing that? He’s a paragon with the power to at least kill a tier nine.”

The elder blinked and then looked at me, and although my expression didn’t change, there was a brief flicker of fear on his face. The other villagers shifted uncomfortably, as if suddenly aware that I was just as dangerous as the Bengal henchmen, if not, more. I supposed it was much easier to bully me when I didn’t say anything. After an open meeting, the elder seemed to conclude something and he straightened his robe and then gave a huff.

“Fine, do as you want. However, I want nothing to do with this. This village wants nothing to do with this! When the Bengal clan returns, we will hide. I suggest you take your family and go, but that is your decision, not mine. This is not our fight.”

“I expected no less,” Elias replied, a bit of bitterness in his voice.

The elder turned to walk away but stopped one more time and spoke. “As strong as he may be, do you really think he’s stronger than the entire Bengal clan?”

The elder left with those words, and the rest of the villagers followed suit, dispersing back to their homes. Some looked angry, others guilty, but none approached us. When most of the crowd was gone, Elias turned to me.

“I do not know you, but I find myself in your debt. Thank you for protecting my daughter.” He bowed.

“You saved me first.” I waved a hand. “I was merely returning the favor.”

Elias let out a long, shaky breath.

“He’s right, you know,” Elias spoke in a heavy voice. “They’ll be back. And next time, they won’t send a few henchmen. They’ll send someone stronger. They won’t let you go.”

“Should I have let them take her?” I asked.

Elias flinched, a wave of shame washing over his features. He couldn’t meet my eyes.

“No,” he responded, suddenly looking a bit older. “That’s not what I meant…”

I coughed, feeling like I might have been a bit too crude there. It seemed like he was already repentant. I really was used to talking to people who lived on the street, and people on the street never listened to the soft-spoken. I looked over at Elara, whose eyes were filled with tears and who was clearly shaken by this near disaster she had just faced.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to cause you more trouble.”

Elias shook his head, a small, sad gesture. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s mine,” Elara declared. “I’m the one who… who caused all this.”

“Your brother is still alive thanks to you,” I said, and then raised an eyebrow. “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be making sure he stays that way?”

Her head snapped up as she remembered Finn, lying broken against the wall. She let out a choked cry and rushed toward him, but I grabbed her hand, causing her to stop and look at me with surprise.

“Give them each one of these,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out two small pills before placing them into her hand.

She stared at the pills in her palm before closing them tightly and nodding firmly. She raised over to her brother, gently pried open his mouth, and placed one of the pills on his tongue. She then did the same for the other injured guard, the man who had been injured before I had arrived. Although I didn’t know what he had done, the medicine was easy enough to manufacture now, so it’s not like I had to be stingy.

This wasn’t made through alchemy, but through biosynthesis. I had naturally obtained all kinds of pills, and after a great deal of trial and error, I had finally been able to replicate the chemicals used in a variety of evolution medicines. At the moment, I could only make very basic pills, but I suspected that as my mana increased and I performed more experiments, I’d be able to produce more powerful medicine. At the moment, I was limited to just those healing pills and a couple of low-level evolutionary pills.

As Elias watched his daughter tend to his son with one eye, he spoke to me. “What are you going to do now? You shouldn’t stay here. They’ll be looking for you.”

I shrugged. “I’ll stay. However, if you need me to leave your cottage, I can find some other place…”

“Nonsense!” Elias shook his head. “Even if you weren’t there, they would likely come to give my family trouble now. There is no avoiding it.”

“I don’t know you well, but you seemed to have changed.”

“I just realized… what is really important to me.” He looked at his children.

“In that case, what about you? What are you going to do?”

He looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“You’re a fisherman with a boat,” I said, gesturing vaguely toward the shore. “You could leave. Take your family and go somewhere safer.”

He looked around the small, dusty square, at the ramshackle buildings, at the few villagers who were still watching from a distance. “This is my home. My family has lived here for generations. I won’t just abandon it.”

“Is this home worth the lives of your children?” I asked. “Your son has already made an enemy of the Bengal clan. Your daughter has caught the eye of men who will want revenge. They will be targeted. They will be hunted. Is this village worth their lives?”

Elias lowered his head. I could see that he understood. It was etched on his face. However, he was stubborn.

“Don’t worry,” I chuckled. “You won’t need to move. I’ll take care of it.”

Elias looked over at me in shock as I turned to head back to the cottage. I could practically see his head turning. What did I mean by it? How could I handle the entire Bengal clan? He would never allow himself to believe it, but in a couple of days, he wouldn’t be able to deny reality.

A call from Elara caught his attention. His son was now waking up after taking the pill. To them, it must have seemed like a miracle. However, until I figured out where I was and where to head to, they might see a few more miracles from me.