It’d been a long time since anyone asked Leo these kinds of questions, so he had to think about it a bit more. But that didn’t mean what he’d been pursuing his whole life was easily shaken.
"Maybe I’ve met them quite a few times. But you can’t overlook a lifetime of mistakes just because of a single moment of kindness. Unless they’re temporarily holding their status in order to betray the entire nobility and the crown, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it..."
Leo felt what he just said was a little lacking. If he didn’t say it fully, Michael would definitely catch him on it.
"But it has to be a case of actively betraying, not being forced by violence. I only accept people who willingly leave ’dark’ for ’light.’"
From his tone, to his words, to his expression, it was all clear that he absolutely hated nobles. Hated them so much there was no room to mend things.
This kind of thinking made Michael feel it would be really hard to get him to be more open-minded. As a modern person, his understanding of historical nobles could only be more than Leo’s, not less.
"So if that situation came up, what would you do?"
He thought that if he knew how Leo operated, it would make helping him later easier. The two of them shouldn’t have conflicting mindsets. Otherwise, this time Michael would definitely fail and get punished.
"What else? Obviously, kill all those with noble status who don’t know to leave ’dark’ for ’light.’
Besides that, we gather supplies, take over territory, commandeer buildings, free slaves, find gear for the rebellion army... We have plenty of meaningful actions to help commoners’ lives."
The more he spoke, the more Leo felt proud of the ’great’ things he’d done in his life. Coming from a poor background, no parents, yet he had such a progressive mindset to follow the ’light.’
From that day on, his hardships increased a lot. The risk of dying lurked every day, but it didn’t discourage him. On the contrary, he kept doing more and more ’righteous’ deeds.
Michael rubbed his forehead with a headache. He understood Leo was the ’hard-headed’ type. Even though his starting point was good intentions, his thinking was way too simple. But saying that didn’t mean he didn’t respect Leo’s spirit.
"How long are you planning to kill? Until there’s no one left?"
"That’s right. If they’re opposing justice, why would I keep them around?"
In Leo’s eyes at this moment, there was a fierce killing intent. This feeling made Michael’s spine go a little cold, but compared to Cook God’s killing intent, it wasn’t scary enough.
"What the hell did the nobles where you used to be do that made you hate them so much? If it’s just greed, that’s pretty normal since most humans are greedy a..."
Feeling that wasn’t enough to explain clearly to Leo, Michael tried to add more examples to clarify the word ’greedy.’
"People might not be greedy for money, power, or fame, but being greedy for comfort, greedy for sleep, greedy for food, greedy for fun, and many other things is also greed."
Right now he wanted to know the main reason Leo had such a strong hatred toward nobles. If the reason was too trivial, he definitely had to correct Leo’s thinking.
"About greed... that, I admit. Even in the rebellion army, though we’re extremely lacking, there have been many with negative behavior. Of course, if I see it, I beat them to death on the spot, not letting that ’evil’ corrupt everyone."
Hearing that, Michael couldn’t help swallowing. Leo was even more hardline than he thought. Even someone who’d contributed but acted ’unjustly’ got beaten to death on the spot.
"Tell me about what the nobles did. I want to hear that."
"Hmph, those beasts in human skin did countless evil things their whole lives. Heavy taxes, seizing land, monopolizing tools, arresting innocent people, forcing commoners, colluding with bandits, slave trading, killing innocents, hoarding food, controlling water sources..."
Leo listed off a long string of things he’d witnessed nobles doing in the past. He talked nonstop about countless evil deeds, as if they’d been carved deep into his memory, all spilling out.
Michael just stood there listening, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. He never even expected there were this many kinds of actions. This number was just way the hell too excessive.
"F*ck! Are these nobles or emperors? How can they just do whatever they want?"
"Mhm, you find it infuriating too, right? There’s one more thing even worse: they don’t change. After several thousand years, dozens of dynasties changed, but those bastards are still the same as ever. That’s why we rose up, determined to cleanse humanity."
Leo finally felt excited when Michael agreed with his viewpoint. As long as they were united, even if they couldn’t destroy all nobles, they could still kill thousands, tens of thousands. Kill until every noble in this world trembled knowing that someone actually dared to kill them.
But Michael, of course, didn’t think that way. He felt there were many holes in it that Leo himself probably didn’t even realize.
Leo was very smart, but being that smart still wasn’t enough to fully understand nobles. He only saw the blameworthy parts, not the pitiable ones. Only saw faults, not merits.
"Calm down and think about this for me. Who were the ancestors of nobles?"
To get both sides to calm down, first they had to find common ground. Even if it was just a trace of empathy, it was the foundation to keep resolving the conflict.
Michael knew clearly that answering this question would impact Leo’s current mindset quite a bit. No matter how resolute Leo was, as long as there was a crack in his thinking, Michael could slowly correct him, making him less extreme.
He was confident that with modern knowledge and lessons from history, he would definitely find a way to persuade Leo.