Returning with a Full Load

A day later, Benjamin set out from the island with a ship full of people, embarking on the sea route home.

They had requisitioned the ship from another village. There were three villages in the archipelago altogether. After all the priests and elders had been wiped out, the remaining guards had long since lost their heads. Naturally, no one could stop them from taking ships.

Most of the villagers who chose to follow Benjamin came from the first village.

Around three hundred people chose to follow him—a fairly high proportion. They might not yet have understood what Benjamin's words meant, but judging by their expressions, something within them had already begun to awaken.

—After living in a daze beneath the rule of divine authority, they had realized for the first time that perhaps... there was another way to live in this world.

As for the other two villages, they had not witnessed Benjamin slaughtering the priests with their own eyes, so atheism was not nearly as convincing to them. Those people only knew that foreign enemies had invaded. They had never even seen The Church, so how could they speak of any awakening?

Therefore, Benjamin had no intention of taking them along.

"We can't save everyone. This was their own choice." Standing on the deck, Benjamin watched the brother and sister staring toward the island from the stern and tried to comfort them.

The girl turned around. "What will happen to them... if they stay there?"

"They'll die, probably." Benjamin shrugged. "There are quite a few Magic Beasts raised on the island. Now that the Overseas Sect has been completely destroyed, those Magic Beasts will soon lose control. The people left behind have no ability to resist them."

"Are we really just leaving them there to wait for death...?"

"That