A week later, the priestess and her friends returned.
But this time, everyone's expressions looked gloomy and ugly.
"What's wrong? Why are you all making such long faces?"
Sitting behind the desk, Fang Zheng chuckled as he looked at the angry girls with puffed cheeks.
"Could it be that the mission failed?"
"No, Sir Knight, the mission was successful, but..."
The priestess was about to speak but stopped. She looked at Emilia not far away. Emilia was looking down at the ground without saying a word. Parker was also silent beside Emilia, a rare occurrence.
"You come and report."
Fang Zheng nodded to the priestess, and the priestess quickly stood up and explained the whole situation to Fang Zheng.
According to the priestess, the mission they were tasked with this time was to eliminate the goblins at the border of the Kingdom of Lugnica and the gathering place of the elves, because goblins there had been harassing the elven tribe, so the elven tribe requested help, but due to the serious xenophobia in Lugnica and the fact that Lugnica did not have a king, they finally decided to find adventurers to resolve the situation - this was also the reason why the elven archers came to them, and after the next mission, they also joined in.
At the beginning, everything went smoothly. After witnessing the atrocities of the goblins, Firut and Emilia experienced a series of baptisms from shock to anger. Then the group went deep into the ruins, not only eliminated the goblins entrenched in the ruins, rescued the captives tortured by the goblins, but also found the ruler of the goblins - a troll from the Demon King's army!
Facing the troll, everyone had a tough battle at first, but then the idiot troll made a mistake.
It actually started to chant the Fireball spell...
Then he was knocked down by an explosion magic from Huihui, who was a very immature person and loved to fight.
It can be said that the entire plan to encircle and suppress the goblins was ultimately a complete success, but the problems arose afterwards.
After destroying the trolls, the priestess and her group habitually began to look for the goblin's nest and completely cleaned up these evil offspring. But what they didn't expect was that when Ai Si was about to kill a goblin, she was seen by Emilia, and Emilia actually stopped her.
She wants to save the little goblin!
Of course, Priestess and Ais were not willing to do this. They had surrounded so many goblin nests and knew how dangerous it was to let these little goblins survive. However, Emilia believed that goblins were not inherently bad, and what you were doing was simply a massacre!
The two sides quarreled over this, and at this moment, the little goblin protected by Emilia actually picked up a stone and tried to attack Emilia, but was stabbed to death by the quick-eyed and quick-handed Aisi. Everyone thought Emilia should have recognized the nature of those goblins, but unexpectedly, Emilia said that we wanted to kill it first, and it was natural for the little goblin to fight back...
Now even Firut felt that Emilia was unreasonable.
After that, the two sides had a big fight. The priestesses insisted that goblins were evil beings and that leaving them would only bring disaster to the future. Emilia said that it was unreasonable to infer good or bad based on race, and such a thing should not be done at all!
Because of this, on the way back, the atmosphere in the team was quite tense. No one had expected that a simple mission would turn out like this...
But Fang Zheng had anticipated this.
Otherwise, why would he arrange Emilia to kill the goblins?
"Okay, I understand the general situation."
After listening to the priestess' report, Fang Zheng nodded and then looked at Emilia.
"So Emilia, what do you want to say?"
"I... my thoughts haven't changed. I don't think those little goblins should be killed... It's unreasonable to kill them just because they are goblins!"
"But didn't I tell you that if we don't kill them, these goblins will attack other villages and people?"
Hearing this, Huihui couldn't help but refute, but Emilia obviously also had her own insistence.
"If you hadn't killed so many goblins, they wouldn't have been reduced to attacking villages!"
"Is this our fault? If these goblins hadn't attacked the village, why would we have gone to destroy them?"
Watching the argument between Huihui and Emilia, I always feel that things are developing towards the question of "which came first, the chicken or the egg"... No wonder they haven't come to a conclusion all the way. It would be a miracle if they could come to a conclusion.
"Okay, stop arguing."
Fang Zheng was too lazy to listen to such a low-level quarrel, so he waved his hand to signal the two to stop.
"I have heard both of your reasons, and I understand your thoughts. Now, let me tell you what I think."
Hearing this, everyone turned their eyes to Fang Zheng, and Fang Zheng glanced at everyone.
"Here, I will not tell you who is right or wrong right away. What we need to do first is to think scientifically and look at the problem rationally, and then we can solve the problem."
“……???”
"The first thing I want to talk to you about is the definition of good and bad. What is good and what is bad? What do you think determines this?"
"this……"
Faced with Fang Zheng's question, everyone in the group was speechless.
"Anything that is good for our race, ethnic group, and development is a good thing. On the contrary, it is a bad thing. For example, why can't we kill people at will? Because killing people at will will cause social chaos and make a country ruined. In this way, the citizens of the country will not be able to live in peace, thus reducing their quality of life. In order to allow citizens to live and work more peacefully, there are laws strictly prohibiting random killing."
Fang Zheng stretched out his finger and pointed at the table.
"Why do we advocate helping the weak and helping each other? Because only by uniting in this way can we grow stronger. Humans are very fragile. In the wild, humans are not as physically fit as wild animals, and they cannot spit out venom. If they get sick, they will die. They are not like wolves, and they cannot match the vitality of sub-dragons and dragons. If we do not unite, humans would have perished long ago. Therefore, we advocate unity and oppose isolation."
Facing Fang Zheng's words, the girls nodded blankly. Although they could not fully understand what Fang Zheng said, they understood the general meaning.
"Therefore, kindness and justice, good and bad are always subjective definitions. The values that apply to one group of people do not necessarily apply to another group of people."
Having said this, Fang Zheng looked at Emilia.
"Emilia, your idea is good, but it's a pity that it lacks a premise."
"premise?"
"That's right. That means you have to reach a consensus with the goblins that everything they do is wrong."
"This...is this even a question?"
Emilia was stunned and didn't know what to say, attacking a village and abusing young girls, this was definitely wrong!
"Of course, it's natural for you, but it may not be the case for other races. For example... do you think eating humans is a good thing or a bad thing?"
"Of course it's a bad thing!"
"But on the small island to the south, there is a race called cannibals. They will dig out the hearts of defeated enemies and swallow them alive... What do you think?"
“Wow… is this true?”
"I definitely don't want to go to that island... I don't want to run into cannibals..."
Hearing Fang Zheng's words, the girls all showed expressions of dismay, while Emilia frowned and began to think.
But then Felt spoke.
"Is this even worth considering? Those guys must be maniacs! Lunatics!"
"Really? Then if I were to tell you that in their culture, eating the enemy's heart means gaining the enemy's powerful strength... In other words, they recognize this powerful enemy and only eat his heart. For cannibals, this is not a bad thing, let alone a sin. Instead, it is a kind of honor... Then when facing these cannibals, how are you going to convince them that eating people is a bad thing?"
"this……"
This time, Emilia didn't know how to answer.
"It's the same with goblins. You may think that goblins are evil and cruel, and you want justice, but no matter how you describe it, the essence of hunting goblins will not change - the existence of goblins threatens human life and safety, so we will eliminate goblins."
Having said this, Fang Zheng spread out his hands.
"See, it's that simple. There's no point in getting hung up on good and bad. We need to look beyond the surface to the essence. The goblin way of life is robbery and plunder, and there are no female goblins, so they can only plunder women of other races and force them to reproduce. This is an objective reality that cannot be changed by subjective will."
As he spoke, Fang Zheng chuckled.
"The same is true for the demons. Do you think that the demons are evil because they destroy everything? But they just want to destroy the world and then reunite with their mother. What do you think? Doesn't it sound pitiful and sad? Everything they do is just to see their mother. So, out of pity for these demons, should we just let them destroy the world?"
“…”
"If one day, a mysterious race suddenly appeared and attacked humans, with the excuse that 'You humans wantonly slaughtered other lives and devoured their flesh and blood to sustain your own existence. This is too evil! You must be exterminated!', what would you do? Would you listen to them and stop eating, starving to death? Or would you rise up in resistance?"
"this……"
"A lion king will kill and eat the children left by the previous lion king, and then give birth to his own children with a lioness. A disabled wolf will be dismembered and killed by the wolf pack. From a human perspective, these are extremely evil acts, but for them, they are just actions necessary for survival. What a lion king needs is to leave behind his own offspring, not to raise the children of the previous lion king. The wolf pack needs to stay energetic in order to face the next hunt. A wounded and disabled wolf will not bring any benefits to the wolf pack, but will hinder its progress."
Fang Zheng crossed his hands, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the girls who were lost in thought with a slight smile on his face.
"Look, this is the difference in basic values. What we take for granted may be incredible for other races. What other races take for granted may be unacceptable to us."
"Is it possible... that we can't live together?"
"We can seek common ground while reserving differences in some areas. For example, elves don't eat meat, but they won't stop humans from eating meat. Although they may not like it, they can accept it. This is the point of seeking common ground while reserving differences. But on the other hand, you can't convince a wolf to eat grass, because wolves are carnivores. If they eat grass, they will die. This is the price of endangering their lives. The wolf will definitely not listen to you."
"I didn't expect you to say so many weird things, they sound quite reasonable."
"Objective reality and subjective will exist at the same time, and so do you."
Looking at Firut, Fang Zheng chuckled.
“That’s what you have to learn.”
"Hey? Why should I learn this?"
"In order to find a theoretical basis for your hatred, what you said in the council chamber before, although it makes sense, has a weak theoretical basis. You must see the essence through the phenomenon, find the root of all this, and then discover the problem and solve it... Especially if you really want to completely overthrow Lugnica's system."
"Wow...it sounds like it's going to be troublesome..."
"If you don't want to be king, then don't bother."
After retorting to Felt, Fang Zheng looked at the silent Emilia again.
"Same to you, Emilia."