Y'know, knowing that the prime minister is calculating and not everything is as it seems. I believe that the reason the new king was elected was partly his doing just to get vegetables that his beloved wife desired. So he probably felt the need to keep the ex-soldiers under him to prevent them...
ngl im really confused about their motives on fighting each other. It seems to me like they're just treating fighting each other as a way to hang out or something, rather than to commit an act of evil or to foil said act
From his actions I believe the MC is actually his first kidnapping victim, hence his doubts and hesitation. Even he said it himself that the sin that he committed is trying to sacrifice children for his own, implying that he hadn't done any kidnapping before.