Chapter 824 Longing to Return Home <TOC> Chapter 826 The Fallen Battlefield
Translator: SumTLMan
The spring day was radiant, with the midday sun casting a gentle warmth. But the scene before Drew’s eyes sent a chill down his spine.
Earlier, he had spotted a rising plume of smoke and assumed it was a signal of human activity.
Guiding the Gondola towards it, indeed, he found humans. Or rather, the traces of what was once a small village nestled at the edge of a forest. But now, there was not a single soul alive in this village.
Dozens of houses had been swallowed by flames. The fires had long since dissipated, leaving only smoke curling in the air.
As for the villagers…
Aghast and enraged, Drew took in the sight of human corpses hanging from wooden stakes outside each house.
The bodies of men, their limbs all severed, were impaled on the stakes, reduced to macabre totems. The women were stripped bare, their bodies brutally mutilated and haphazardly discarded. But what sent a frigid shiver down Drew’s spine were the children’s bodies scattered about, regardless of gender, their clothes torn off, their purity desecrated.
Not a single living being was left, only corpses bearing immense grudges.
Some of the victims’ eyes were still open, the expression of resentment and cursing in their lifeless gaze yet to fade. The sight was enough to make Drew’s skin crawl.
He had seen death before, whether it was corpses gnawed to nothing more than skulls by sea beasts, or soldiers butchered into pieces on the battlefield. He had even seen a flesh-eating ghoul feasting in the White Shell Sea Market, kept as a pet by a wizard.
But none of those instances had ever sparked such fury in his heart.
He crouched in front of a house that had been reduced to a charred skeleton by fire. Before him lay the putrid corpse of a boy. The boy’s eyes remained open, staring blankly at the sky. His pale cheeks were smeared with ash from the burnt house, yet from the corner of his eye down to his earlobe, there was a clean streak.
Drew could imagine the scene at the time of death: the boy silently shedding tears before his demise, the tears rolling down his cheeks, falling off his earlobe, leaving behind this faint white trail.
Drawing heavy, ragged breaths, Drew reached out to touch the boy’s eyes.
“Sleep now. In another world, you will find happiness,” Drew murmured softly. As his palm moved over the boy’s face, the boy’s eyes closed.
“The most evil thing in the world is the human heart,” said Angel, standing behind Drew, sighing quietly. “In some ways, humans are just beasts. They think they understand their own nature and are superior to beasts. But sometimes, the things they do are even more brutal and insane than the actions of beasts following their primitive instincts.”
Drew’s eyes were filled with fury: “Lord Pat, do you know who did this?”
“I don’t,” Angel replied. “The great fire has erased all traces.”
Drew fell silent for a moment, “Lord, may I bury them? It’s a chilly spring, and their bones are exposed to the cold. I reckon they might feel cold.”
“They’re already dead.” Angel wanted to continue, stating that once a person is dead, without a soul or innate spirit, the body is nothing but a worthless shell. Furthermore, these people were strangers to him.
However, he left his words unspoken, simply nodding his head, allowing Drew to proceed.
He could guide Drew on how to confront the harsh winter of the Wizarding World, but he didn’t want to interfere too much in Drew’s personal decisions of morality and conduct.
Perhaps in the future, Drew would become a dark wizard or white wizard. Reflecting on this experience, would he feel disgust or nostalgia? Or perhaps even laugh at his past naivety?
Angel stood silently on the side, not interfering with Drew’s actions.
His willingness to let Drew spend time on this task was also due to a sense of homesickness. Before returning to the Old Land Continent, he was eager to fly back immediately. Yet, the closer he got to his hometown, the more apprehensive he felt.
The village was small, and the population was not large.
Angel handed Drew a handy shovel that he had crafted. Within half a day, a large pit was dug out.
By the time Drew covered the pit with soil, it was almost dusk.
Holding a bunch of white flowers in his hand, Drew stood silently in front of the pit for a long time. Not until the setting sun dyed his eyes a soft red, and the evening breeze stirred the petals, did he walk up to Angel and apologize in a low voice.
“I’ve wasted your time, Lord. I was too willful.”
“Whether you’re willful or not, you’ll judge for yourself once you truly step into the Wizarding World,” Angel turned around first, taking out the Gondola. “Let’s go. While the night has not yet fallen, let’s find some inhabitants to ask about our current location.”
After returning to the Gondola, Drew was noticeably more depressed than before. After a long silence, he suddenly asked, “Lord, would wizards commit such village massacres too?”
“Yes.” And even more ruthlessly than you could imagine.
Angel’s answer flashed a touch of sorrow in Drew’s eyes.
“Wizards are humans too, and the evil in human nature manifests in all walks of life. It’s just a matter of glossing over it or making it explicit,” Angel paused for a moment. “However, because the gap between the layers is too vast, wizards are to ordinary people as heaven is to earth. Therefore, if ordinary people do not provoke wizards, wizards will not deliberately target them. This is an unspoken rule in the Wizarding World. After all, the backbone of the wizarding community still needs to be born from ordinary people.”
“It’s rather the ordinary people, without any burden, who are passionate about internal struggles.”
The conversation concluded, and Drew, steering the Gondola, continued to venture deeper into the continent. Meanwhile, Angel leaned against the ship’s rail, his gaze resting on the distant mountains and forests, bathed in the ruddy hues of twilight, a nostalgic look in his eyes.
Angel had initially planned to locate a populated area before nightfall. However, to their disappointment, when the stars began to twinkle in the night sky, they still hadn’t found any traces of human habitation.
“It seems we’ve taken a wrong turn,” Angel yawned, “That little village couldn’t have been completely isolated. There must be a town nearby, so we chose to follow the path outside the village.”
Unfortunately, that path led to a forest, and there were no defined trails within. Thus, they picked a direction at random, not expecting to travel nearly a thousand miles without finding any human signs.
“Should we turn back? If we go full speed, we’ll be back quickly,” Drew suggested. They had been flying slowly and low to the ground in search of human traces, which is why they had traveled so short a distance despite the time they’d spent.
“You decide,” Angel responded.
After some thought, Drew decided to return to the forest from which they had come and select a new direction.
However, just as he was about to turn around, an orange-red glow emerged from the pitch-black forest in the distance.
“A fire? Could someone be in the forest at this late hour?” Drew suddenly had a thought, “Could it be a forest ranger?”
With this thought, Drew immediately steered the Gondola towards the source of the light.
It was only when they landed that they realized the source of the light wasn’t a so-called forest ranger, but a young girl shivering in front of a bonfire, wrapped in a layer of animal skin.
Their descent filled the girl’s eyes with a mixture of fear and curiosity.
She had never seen a ship that could fly in the sky, and such a beautiful one at that. This aroused her curiosity about their identities, even as she was frightened by their sudden appearance.
Drew was the first to jump off the ship, landing on a tree and sliding down the trunk to face the girl.
“There’s no need to be afraid, we’re just…” Drew thought for a moment before having a flash of inspiration, “Travelers, we’re wandering travelers. We won’t harm you; we just want to ask for directions.”
Drew’s words did little to alleviate the girl’s wariness. She continued to watch him cautiously, one hand clutching a bundle at her chest and the other brandishing a dagger.
“Alright, I’ll stay here and ask,” Drew sighed, “Where are we? How far are we from the nearest town? Which direction should we go?”
Drew’s questions caused the girl to pause momentarily before she slowly replied, “I don’t trust you; you need to leave right away! If you’re looking for civilization, head in that direction…”
The girl pointed towards the southeast.
“Is that the direction of the town? What’s the name of this country we’re in now?”
The girl no longer responded, just holding her bundle and glaring vehemently at Drew.
Drew, unsure of what to do, wondered if he was expected to contend with a woman. As he was at his wits’ end, Angel’s voice echoed from above, “Drew, come up.”
Caught off guard, Drew swiftly scaled the tree and hopped onto the Gondola.
At this moment, Angel was looking down at the girl, who met his gaze with an equally unyielding stare.
With a soft chuckle, Angel flicked a dark object from his bracelet, which fell straight towards her.
The girl flinched, suspecting a covert attack. She prepared to flee, only to find her body strangely immobilized. As she watched the dark object plummet towards her face, she let out a scream of fear.
However, after a moment, she realized nothing had landed on her head. Stealing a glance, she saw a fluffy white fur coat suspended mid-air before it slowly enveloped her body.
A wave of warmth instantly engulfed her.
Simultaneously, she found she could move again. She looked up, intending to locate the airship, but it had already disappeared.
On the other side, aboard the Gondola,
Drew curiously queried, “Why did you suddenly show concern for that girl, my lord?”
“Isn’t it a gentleman’s duty to help a maiden in distress?” Angel quirked an eyebrow, his tone teasing.
“Um… I just feel that your actions seem a bit inconsistent, Lord? Could it be, you prefer this style?” Drew murmured under his breath.
Angel retorted with irritation, “Can’t you see that the young lady is pregnant? Judging by the size, I reckon she’s close to giving birth. In this deep forest and harsh cold, this is the only aid I can offer.”
“Pregnant?” Drew was taken aback, recalling the previous scene. Indeed, the girl had been clutching her stomach. At that time, her belly was protruding, and he had thought it was merely bundled clothing, but it turned out she was an expectant mother!
With this realization, her cautious behavior earlier now made sense. It’s natural for a pregnant woman to be reluctant to have strangers too close.
“But what’s peculiar is, why would a pregnant woman appear here alone at such a time?” Drew voiced his confusion.
In fact, there was more to this oddity than Drew’s observation. Angel could discern from the girl’s accent that it was the distinct articulation of a Goldfinch noble. From the delicate texture of her skin and the pierced ears, it was highly likely that she was of noble birth.
It was indeed an anomaly for a noble girl to be in such straits.
However, Angel had no intention to probe further.
As Drew continued to ponder over the peculiarities, Angel quietly suggested, “We’ll understand better if we head southeast as she directed.”
Angel hadn’t forgotten the flicker of resentment and rage in her eyes when she had pointed the way earlier.
Angel surmised that the girl was using them as pawns, with her enemies or pursuers likely located southeast. Nevertheless, he was nonchalant about it, considering it nothing more than seeking directions.
Chapter 824 Longing to Return Home <TOC> Chapter 826 The Fallen Battlefield