It's in apocalyptic setting, stealing something valuable (medicine) is crucial for their survival hence THE VILLAGE decided that the crime he committed matched his punishment.
I can't blame the ML too, he's the leader, he needs to establish the order and rules so the village can keep floating. And for their village, rules are rules, it's for their survival.
And you think killing is the right answer?
I didn't say it's right, i said I can't blame them. It's what the village decided to do, it's their way of survival.
Sure, but it's unreasonable. Humans need each other to live, the more people you have the easier it is to divide labor and survive.
There are a lot of ways to punish people to dissuade stealing. Solitary confinement for a time, giving them a whack or two, exile/kicking them out of the town. And if someone did need to die, there's a lot more merciful ways to kill than bludgeoning them to death with a bat.
Most importantly, this messes with the politics of the town and leads to an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, especially with their privacy being restricted. If you make any small mistake, it leads to a painful death. It fucks with peoples psyche and causes them to be MORE secretive and self-serving, not less because they know they can't trust anyone. We've already seen signs of this in the manwha like people fearing Guwon to the point that the girl and doctor wouldn't even eat near him, and the girl immediately threatening teach with violence when he found her in the warehouse.
The hounds having priority for the medicine alone is fine, but there should be exceptions for when theres emergencies with town members. Banning town members from using medication at all is insane, especially when they also have important jobs like the doctor.
People in the comments thinking there's nothing wrong with slowly and painfully beating a father to death because he tried to save his child's life... Stay away from me bro, ya'll would be the first to turn to cannibalism if you were stranded LMAO.
Just because you're going through difficult times doesn't mean you have to act like an animal. All lives are equal, and allowing a child to die because one of the adults collecting supplies might need that medicine at some point is fucking evil. Also, punishments should MATCH THE CRIME.