Chapter 918 The Refugees of Sea Wave <TOC> Chapter 920 A Mournful Sight
Translator: SumTLMan
“If you’re referring to the place where those little mutes reside, we’re standing right at it.” A ragged refugee genuflected in obeisance before a knight donned in full armor. Following him was a distraught middle-aged woman, the former owner of a bakery on the shores of the Blue Wave Bay.
The dilapidated shack’s door was forcefully flung open by the armored knight, his steely gaze penetrating every nook and corner of the squalid quarters. However, the place was deserted, devoid of any sign of habitation.
“You mentioned that they were here, where are they now?” The knight glared at the refugee with icy indifference.
The refugee seemed perplexed. He clearly remembered seeing those pesky urchins returning home, where could they have suddenly disappeared? The knight’s gaze turned more ominous by the second, causing the refugee to perspire nervously as he scanned the surroundings anxiously.
“Are you trying to deceive me?” The knight’s words hung in the air like an impending threat.
The tension that the refugee was under proved to be too overwhelming and he dropped to his knees in fear. “No, no, I swear I saw them return… Oh, I remember now! The spiteful old farmwife who used to live here had dug out a cellar in the backyard. Maybe the children are hiding there!” To make his claim more credible, the refugee nodded vigorously, “Yes, they must be hiding in the cellar!”
“A farmwife used to live here?” The knight reiterated, circling around the refugee’s doubt-laced words and proceeded towards the backyard, where the refugee claimed the cellar was.
“Yes, a wicked and harsh one she was, with an imposing build, quite like…” The refugee trailed off mid-sentence, his eyes flickered towards the bakery owner and sensing the inappropriateness of his remark, he cleared his throat, “Anyway, we, the residents of this area, despised her. But about a month ago, the old hag disappeared and those little pests arrived. No, not two, there were three of them, although the boy left shortly after he arrived. I have a strong feeling those brats had something to do with the farmwife’s mysterious disappearance.”
The bakery owner, who until then was in a stupor, suddenly lifted her head. Her expression morphed from desolation to grim determination, “That’s it, those kids are demons, they hurt my Nini!”
The knight disregarded the sudden manic outburst of the bakery owner and turned to the refugee, “This entire area is occupied by you and your kind. You accuse others of being harsh and mean, but what have you done from the farmwife’s perspective that qualifies as good deeds?”
As the Adjudicator Knight, he would never lend his ear to one-sided tales. The refugees accused a certain woman of being a malicious farmer, yet they refrained from introspecting their own actions. At present, the Sea Wave Dynasty was enveloped in shadows, and for a lone farmwife striving to subsist in a place teeming with refugees, wouldn’t she need to adopt a bit of fierceness to survive?
Upon hearing his words, the refugees responded with a sneer and a bow, not daring to talk back.
As they approached the cellar door in the backyard, the knight furrowed his brow abruptly, “Why is there an… odor of Decay again?”
“Seems like your previous suspicion might just have hit the mark,” the knight cast a sidelong glance at the refugees.
Upon pushing the door, as he expected, it wouldn’t budge. However, the light was flickering through the door crack, making it apparent that the door’s immovability was due to someone obstructing it from the other side.
The knight snickered coldly, unsheathed his long sword, and delivered a powerful strike at the cellar door.
With a sound, the wooden door shattered, revealing the figures behind it – two children, one plump and one skinny, looked at them with terror-filled eyes.
“Lord Adjudicator, it’s them, it’s them! The two children that the sailor mentioned, it has to be them! They were the ones who killed my Nini…” The aunt clung onto the knight’s iron boots with trembling hands, tears streaming incessantly.
Before the knight could speak, the two children, intimidated by the glittering iron sword in his hand, scurried back into the cellar.
The knight followed them down, and within a few steps, spotted a semi-decayed female corpse at the corner of the staircase.
The pungent stench of decay from before was wafting from this corpse. Her face had decayed beyond recognition, with fat white maggots writhing between the green and white patches.
The refugee following the knight had seen many starved corpses, so he was not afraid of the sight. Instead, he peered curiously.
“Looking at the clothes, this corpse must be that of the malicious farmwife!” The refugee exclaimed in shock, “I wondered why she disappeared, turns out she died here…”
After glancing at the decayed corpse of the farmwife, the knight managed to estimate the time of her death. After a bit of thought, the timeline of events seemed to fall into place – the farmwife’s death, followed by the kids moving in, clearly indicated their involvement in her demise.
Turning back to the aunt who was still crying, the knight had pretty much reached a conclusion in his mind.
Estimation suggests that the sailor from Blue Wave Bay wasn’t misguided in his words. The wicked tendencies of these two children, so cruel as to push his daughter Nini into the sea, were alarmingly plausible.
The knight heaved a sigh, his heart heavy in his chest. In this tainted world, even children had resorted to violence, brandishing weapons of malevolence.
In the basement with no escape route, Chira and Aniga stood guard before the cradle. They stared at the iron-clad knight and the imposing woman behind him, their faces a mask of fear and despair.
“Did you kill the man outside?” He questioned.
No one responded.
“Did you push her daughter into the sea?” He pressed further.
Still, there was no answer.
“No matter,” the knight continued, “Your action of pushing the girl into the sea was witnessed by a passing sailor. I now, in the name of the Adjudicator Knights, place you under arrest. If my judgment is flawed, you will remain unscathed. However, should you resist the arrest now, I won’t hold back…” The knight unsheathed his sword, leveling it at Chira and Aniga. The chilling gleam of the weapon forced the pair to involuntarily retreat.
A stretch of silence fell over them before Aniga abruptly pushed Chira aside and strode up to the knight. He pointed to himself, uttering incoherent noises but failing to form any words.
Observing Aniga’s empty mouth, a flicker of astonishment sparked in the knight’s eyes.
He had heard rumors of a mute residing in this area. However, he hadn’t expected the muteness to be not by birth but due to a severed tongue!
Seeing Aniga’s actions, a shadow passed over Chira’s eyes. Eventually, he stepped forward, positioning himself protectively behind Aniga.
“It wasn’t him. It was me who pushed the woman into the sea because her mother…” Chira turned back, fixing a grim gaze on the woman nearby, “…she insulted us! Even let her dog bite us! We were only defending ourselves.”
“It was only because you were interfering with my business, that I let the dog…” Before the woman could finish her statement, the knight interposed.
“The determination of right and wrong will be judged by the court. You will all come with me.” The knight declared with an unwavering voice.
Chira spoke calmly, “I will accompany you.”
“It’s not merely the matter of her daughter, the dead woman outside too, you must provide an explanation. Hence, you must go with me.”
Chira’s gaze grew dark, “We did not murder the woman outside.”
“Whether it was your doing or not, it will be known at the tribunal.”
“As I said, I will accompany you. But if Aniga leaves as well, who will look after my sister?” Chira fearlessly met the knight’s gaze.
“Sister?” The knight looked around for a moment, his eyes landing on the cradle.
The refugees murmured in confusion, “Do they have a younger sister? We haven’t seen her before.”
The knight advanced, forcing Aniga and Chira to retreat. As the knight reached the edge of the cradle, he peered inside.
His pupils constricted abruptly.
“What… What happened to her? Who did this?” His voice trembled slightly, yet his eyes were filled with fury. As a judgement knight, his principle was to abhor evil; although he disliked the children’s actions, the sight of the girl in the cradle – without arms or legs, even her mouth sewn shut – incensed him even more.
Murder was an act of the moment, but tormenting was a lifetime ordeal. More so, this was a mere child!
Looking at the girl in the cradle, a pang of sympathy flashed in the knight’s eyes. The refugees too curiously crowded around to look into the cradle, while Aniga and Chira guarded the cradle, their wary gazes locked on the knight.
Aside from the elderly woman, everyone was huddled around the cradle, their backs facing her.
A glint of resentment flickered in her eyes; she didn’t care what was in the cradle, her current sole desire was to avenge her daughter. With everyone’s back turned to her, it presented the perfect opportunity.
Trembling, she reached into her pocket, slowly drawing out a small knife she usually used to cut slices of bread.
Her gaze was fixed on Chira, according to a sailor she’d encountered earlier, it was a chubby child who’d pushed her Nini. Consequently, her primary objective was the elimination of Chira! If presented with the opportunity, she had every intention of extinguishing Aniga too.
She concealed a small knife behind her, feigning interest in what others were engrossed with – the object in the cradle. However, as she neared the crowd, she abruptly brandished the knife and plunged it into Chira’s abdomen.
As blood spurted and screams of agony filled the air, she was abruptly repelled by a knight’s forceful kick.
“Ha ha ha… Nini, I’ve avenged you… mother has avenged you…” The aunt was kicked aside. Even amidst throbbing chest pain, even without having killed Aniga, she’d painted her blade with the blood of Nini’s perpetrator. Nothing else mattered now…
Chira’s stabbing disrupted the equilibrium of the cellar.
The knight glared at the aunt, flabbergasted. Who could have anticipated that she’d audaciously murder in broad daylight, right before his very eyes?!
“Chira… Chira… don’t…” Aniga, who’d never been adept at ventriloquism, suddenly seemed to have a breakthrough at this moment.
Even Guina, lying in the cradle feigning deafness and dumbness, couldn’t resist struggling, querying with a peculiar, sharp ventriloquism: “What’s happening? What occurred? Chira? Chira, answer me, what’s the matter with you?”
“I… I’m fine.” Chira lay on the ground, coughing up blood, but still consoling Guina.
“I don’t believe it, what’s really going on?” Guina asked anxiously. “Lord Adjudicator, please, let me see Chira.”
The knight glanced at the struggling Guina in the cradle, her ventriloquism was strange, combining with her appearance to make a startling impression.
“Chira, he…” The knight wanted to reassure Guina, but as he looked at Chira, whose pupils were gradually dilating, he found it impossible to utter the deceitful phrase ‘he’s fine’.
The scene was a stark contrast, with the aunt’s maniacal laughter ringing out on one side and a profound silence descending on the other.
When the warmth finally seeped out of Chira’s body, Aniga lay on top of him, letting his tears trickle down, one by one, painting a picture of his heartache on his lifeless form.
Suddenly, Aniga’s gaze caught a sight of a small, blood-stained knife lying not too far away on the floor. The very blade that the aunt had used to stab Chira had fallen to the ground when the aunt was repelled by the knight.
Staring at Chira, now bereft of life, Aniga smiled a rueful smile that was as fleeting as a wisp of smoke in the wind. He picked up the small knife, his vision wavering slightly.
Guina, I’m sorry…and Vonman, my brother…this is our last goodbye.
Gripping the knife, Aniga aimed it at his own heart and plunged it in with decisive force.
Just as the knife pierced his heart, he heard a familiar voice calling out his name, “Aniga?”
Suppressing the searing pain, he turned his head towards the direction of the cellar entrance, where a figure was rushing towards him.
Stunned momentarily, he gradually managed to paint a faint smile on his face.
This is… wonderful…
To see you one last time before I step into the embrace of death… what a precious gift.
Chapter 918 The Refugees of Sea Wave <TOC> Chapter 920 A Mournful Sight