Chương 193: Deserving and Undeserving

When Kochi saw the scene inside the room, his legs gave out completely, and he collapsed onto his rear on the floor. The room was the reception hall of the Chief's Residence. In the center stood a long, Western-style table covered with a red tablecloth, laden with delicious delicacies served on fine silverware.

The Chief's Residence was luxurious: hanging on the walls were exquisite landscape paintings looted from the Governor's Mansion, and overhead hung a massive golden chandelier, its hundreds of candles illuminating the room with brilliant warmth. It was every bit as opulent as the mansion of a human noble; it was almost impossible to imagine such a scene existing in the primitive Monster Forest. Yet the people sitting in the feather-cushioned chairs were covered in filth and soot.

Many bore severe burns across their bodies, and quite a few sat with slumped heads and lifeless eyes—they were corpses! Aside from the deceased, the forty-odd living souls in the room turned their eyes in unison toward Kochi at the doorway, their gazes filled with complex emotions. Sunk to the floor, Kochi trembled uncontrollably. Their eyes pierced through him like razor-sharp knives. A pool of urine spread beneath him on the ground.

At the head of the long table, Li Qinwu let out a cold snort and jerked his chin toward Gobu-Kuang. Gobu-Kuang stepped forward, hoisted Kochi up by his collar, dragged out a sofa opposite Li Qinwu, shoved Kochi into it, and pushed the sofa up to the table. Sitting on the sofa, Kochi curled himself into a tight ball, looking as though he were trapped in a confession chair. Dressed in ornate silk robes, Kochi sat at one end of the long table.

Surrounded by such grandeur while everyone else was covered in dirty soot, it almost made Kochi look like the true master of the house—the only one deserving of such a luxurious room. Li Qinwu took a deep breath and spoke: "Thank you all for waiting. Now that everyone is here, I'm sure you can't wait to dig into these lavish dishes, can you? Hahaha." The crowd forced out painful chuckles, followed by groans of discomfort—everyone was injured, and laughing only aggravated their pain. Li Qinwu gave Gobu-Kuang a look.

Gobu-Kuang brought over a wooden tray and placed it before Li Qinwu, displaying an array of medals and commendations. Li Qinwu picked up a Class 3 Medal of Valor.

"Gobu-Sen, your bravery in fighting the fire was exemplary. You are hereby awarded the Class 3 Medal of Valor." A goblin named Gobu-Sen tried to stand up, but after wincing and grimacing in pain for several seconds, he failed to rise. Flustered, he leaned heavily against the table, knocking over a wine glass in his struggle to stand, sweat pouring down his face as his burn wounds reopened. Li Qinwu pressed his hands down in a soothing gesture.

"Don't. There's no need to stand—I can barely stand up myself. Everyone stay seated. Stay seated." Li Qinwu handed the medal to Gobu-Kuang. Gobu-Kuang walked over to Gobu-Sen, offered a crisp salute, and carefully pinned the medal onto his charred clothing. Gobu-Sen cast a look of deep gratitude toward Li Qinwu. Li Qinwu nodded back, offered a few words of encouragement, and then turned his eyes toward a human worker.

"Kleis, your meritorious effort in fighting the fire is recognized. You are hereby awarded..." One by one, Li Qinwu called out their names, bestowing medals upon almost everyone in the room.

"Kanda." Kanda stood up, walked before Li Qinwu, and came to attention with a salute. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Looking at Kanda's visibly taller and broader physique, Li Qinwu smiled with satisfaction. He picked up two medals.

"Kanda, you eliminated an extraordinary enemy and thwarted their ongoing sabotage. You are hereby awarded the Circle Star Medal and the Class 4 Medal of Valor!

"Come, bend down a bit." Overwhelmed with emotion, Kanda bowed deeply, leaning his chest toward Li Qinwu. Li Qinwu pinned both medals onto his chest. Touching the medals—crafted like fine works of art—Kanda trembled violently with excitement.

"B... Boss!" Li Qinwu nodded with a smile.

"Kanda, head to the back kitchen later. I had the cooks set aside a portion of these dishes for your mother to take home. Go back and sit down for now; I have other arrangements for you later." Kanda nodded heavily, returned to his seat, and gazed at Li Qinwu with eyes full of worship. Li Qinwu picked up the final medal and turned his gaze toward the sofa beside him, where Tie-Ouk lay.

Tie-Ouk's eyes were glassy and lifeless, his head slumped to one side, his chest bound tightly in bandages to keep his internal organs from spilling out. Behind Tie-Ouk stood a young man, his face drenched in tears—it was Tie-Ouk's son, Sineko. Li Qinwu let out a soft sigh, stood up, walked over to Tie-Ouk, and pinned the final medal onto his corpse.

"Tie-Ouk... I failed you. I promised to keep you safe, but... I broke my word." With a thud, Sineko collapsed onto his knees and broke into a heart-wrenching wail.

"Father! Father! Waaaaahhh!!" He cried agonizingly, his overwhelming grief bare for all to see. Li Qinwu stepped forward, pulled him up to his feet, and patted his shoulder.

"Be strong. You must be as strong as your father—strong as steel!

"You will carry on your father's legacy. Can you do it? CAN YOU?!" Li Qinwu shook Sineko's shoulders with firm strength. Wiping his tears fiercely, Sineko yelled: "I can! I can do it! The Steam Age my father pursued—I will build it!" Li Qinwu nodded in approval and signaled to Gobu-Kuang. Gobu-Kuang brought over another sofa and placed it next to Tie-Ouk. Li Qinwu guided Sineko into the seat before returning to his own place at the head of the table.

Sweeping his gaze across the room, his eyes landed on Kochi, who was shrinking back so hard he looked as if he wanted to reduce himself to a single pixel. Everyone else in the room turned to glare at Kochi as well. Millimeter by millimeter, Kochi raised his head. Seeing Li Qinwu staring straight at him from across the long table, a sudden wave of dizziness hit his brain. He was practically a single breath away from dying of pure terror. Yet Li Qinwu did not call him out immediately.

Instead, he picked up a silver fork, speared a piece of meat dripping with rich gravy from a silver platter, and held it up before the crowd.

"This is tenderloin from a Horned Crocodile—the tenderest cut on its entire body. A single Horned Crocodile yields barely two pounds of it. It's rich in magic power and exquisitely flavorful; even high nobles in the human world can rarely taste it." With that, he ate the entire piece in one bite, chewing vigorously before swallowing it down. Next, he picked up a gem-encrusted golden goblet, brought it to his nose, and savored the aroma of the red wine inside.

"This is red wine retrieved from the underground cellar of the Governor's Mansion in Poloya. I heard it's a seventy-year-old vintage—rare even for kings to drink. A single bottle can be traded for ten high-purity mana crystals." He downed the wine in one gulp and displayed the empty goblet to everyone. Smacking his lips, he said: "This single sip is worth at least a year of hard labor from a hundred-person village. And this entire table of delicacies is worth years of labor from ten such villages.

Tell me, everyone..." Li Qinwu's gaze turned sharp as steel, sweeping across every face in the room.

"Do we deserve to enjoy all this?" Silence fell over the room. No one spoke. Li Qinwu slammed his fist onto the table, his expression contorting into a fierce roar: "I'm telling you! WE DESERVE IT! We bloody well deserve to enjoy all of this! We bleed and fight on the battlefields! We bravely charge into raging infernos to rescue the Alliance's precious assets!

"We go to the hardest places! The most dangerous places! The places that need us the most! WE DESERVE IT! We deserve to enjoy every bit of this!" Li Qinwu stood up, pointing his finger toward the crowd, tapping toward each person one by one.

"EAT! DRINK!" In unison, everyone picked up their cutlery, hungrily devouring the delicacies and gulping down the fine wine.

"The food and wine you consume represent responsibility! Eat! Drink! And carry that responsibility on your shoulders—unless..." Li Qinwu's glare shot across the long table like a flying blade, locking directly onto Kochi.

"... unless you have a guilty conscience!" Kochi felt the dizziness in his head intensify as a loud ringing echoed in his ears, his heart pounding like a war drum. Trembling, he raised a fork and speared a piece of meat from the silver platter in front of him. The meat swayed precariously as he forced his hand toward his mouth.

'I... I don't have a guilty conscience... Can I... eat it too...?' Kochi opened his mouth to bite into the meat, but in that split second, he instinctively raised his eyes toward the crowd. Led by Li Qinwu, everyone in the room stared directly at him with bloodshot eyes. Those forty-odd soot-blackened figures seemed to transform into forty twisted, black demons coming to claim his soul. BOOM! Kochi felt a loud crack explode inside his head.

His hand went limp, sending the fork and meat tumbling to the floor as a trickle of blood leaked from his nostril. He swayed unsteadily, fell off the sofa, and rolled underneath the long table. After a few violent twitches, he breathed his last—scared completely to death.