Night had fallen.
A bonfire was lit in the ruins of the village. The fuel for the bonfire was charcoal collected in the ruins and firewood found nearby. The warm flames dispelled the chill of the night, and the bright light was the protection of the survivors from the attacks of the wolves.
Around the blazing bonfire, the seventeen survivors were gathered. They stretched their legs and feet, warming up their stiff joints and dispelling the cold air that had accumulated in the cellar over the past few days. Numerous fully armed Cecil soldiers stood guard around the bonfire, using the flames to roast the flatbread and dried meat that they had brought with them.
Wright finished a short prayer at night and took a piece of bread to the villagers. There was a slight commotion among the villagers, but after the interaction during the day, they had found that this seemingly scary big man was actually the most gentle and easy to talk to among the strange soldiers. They quickly quieted down and left a place for Wright to warm himself.
"Let's rest here for a night, warm up, and fill our stomachs. We'll leave tomorrow," Wright said to the villagers, not caring how much they could understand or whether they were listening to him. "Let's go southwest, Cecil's frontline camp is there. Someone can escort you to the safety of the south."
The survivors stared at the flames, at their own hands and feet, or from time to time used branches to poke the flames in front of them. At first, no one answered Wright, but after a few seconds, a woman said, "You said you are Cecil's people... the people of Cecil who fought with the seigneur?"
"It was your seigneur who started the war first," Wright said, then he shook his head. "But it doesn't matter... Your seigneur has lost. Duke Cecil will become the protector of the entire southern territory. You will all be Cecil's people in the future."
"No, it's almost the same..." a gray-haired man next to her shook his head and said, "We... sigh..."
The man could not say anything but sigh. Wright was used to seeing the clumsy civilians, so he did not care much. He just glanced around and then saw the little girl sleeping between the woman and the man — the one with big bright eyes. "Are you her parents?"
"No, I'm her uncle." The man shook his head. "Her parents died last year, during the famine. I planned to raise Emily for a few years and send her to the church in town when she was a little older. Who would have thought... sigh. "
Emily — the little girl's name was Emily.
Wright silently remembered the name. He glanced at the little girl, and at this time, the latter probably heard the adults talking, or she was not sleeping well. When Wright looked at her, she opened her eyes in a daze.
Her eyes were shining in the flickering light of the bonfire. She was confused for a moment, and then she remembered who the big man in front of her was. She looked at Wright boldly, and after a moment, she grinned — no one knew what she was laughing about.
The little girl's uncle looked at the somewhat reckless girl nervously, afraid that she would offend Cecil's soldiers and cause a disaster. "Emily, what are you laughing about?"
The little girl was still smiling. "There's a circle of light around uncle."
A circle of light?
Wright was stunned for a moment, and then he quickly looked at himself, and then saw the reflection of the bonfire floating on the surface of the Cecil's armor. The little girl probably thought that the reflection of the armor was an incredible phenomenon.
The woman next to her immediately became nervous after hearing the little girl's words. She hurriedly explained, "My lord, please don't mind her. This child's brain has not been very good since she was young..."
"It's okay, it's okay." Wright smiled carelessly, and then broke off a piece of his bread and handed it to Emily. "Here, eat it."
The woman hurriedly said, "She has eaten..."
"Children get hungry easily. She should eat more." Wright waved his hand. "Our lord said that the child is the future of the territory. No matter how hard it is, the child should not suffer."
This strange sentence stunned the people around. They had never heard any lord or Master Knight say such strange words. But still, some people were curious when they saw Wright's behavior. A young man next to him said, "... What kind of place is Cecil?"
"... an incredible place." Wright thought for a moment, and suddenly he did not know how to describe his impression of Cecil to people. After two years of preaching in the south, he felt that his vocabulary of adjectives was a little poor. "... People don't have to worry about survival. No nobles bully the commoners. Everything in the territory is run according to strict law, and the people who enforce the law are officials who have passed the examination..."
The people listened blankly. Many of Wright's words and descriptions were not easy for them to understand, but they did not dare to turn their heads away. Seeing this situation, Wright could not help but stop. After a short moment of thought, he raised his hand and pointed to the people around him. "You can have your own farmland and houses, and no one has the right to take them away illegally. You can work in the factory, and the lord will pay you. You can go to the hospital to treat your sores, and no one will drive you out of the house. You..."
Wright looked at the little girl who widened her eyes and could not help but smile. "Emily, you can go to school. There are many children of your age in school. You can make a lot of friends there."
"My three gods of fertility, what you said is the same as what the priests said." An old woman could not help but exclaim. "That's a place we can only go after we die, right?"
Wright was a little stunned, and then he did not know whether to laugh or cry. He shook his head and began to patiently explain everything in Cecil's territory.
The jumping bonfire shone a few feet away, and the priest who had lost his holy light was gradually plated with a layer of warm and bright light.
However, between the jumping bonfire, an incongruous shadow suddenly flashed at the edge of Wright's vision.
At the edge of the ruins of the village, between the burned fences and shacks, something flashed past.
The soldiers who were guarding the bonfire had stopped talking. They cautiously put their hands on the hilts of their melt-incised swords, and a faint light of runes emerged between the seams of their gauntlets.
A soldier signaled to Wright with the unique military sign language. Wright immediately lowered his voice and said to the villagers beside him, "Everyone, be quiet. Walk slowly to the cellar."
A few Cecil soldiers stood up from the bonfire and moved closer to Wright while moving their bodies. The villagers who did not know what to do stood up one by one, but their movements were still too big and too obvious.
There were a few slight "bang bang" sounds in the night sky, followed by the sound of flying objects quickly cutting through the air. An experienced soldier immediately reacted and shouted, "Crossbow! Enemy attack! "
Every Cecil soldier activated their force field shields at the first moment. Every Cecil soldier's gauntlet had a translucent shield emitting a faint glow. A few inconspicuous silver glints from the night sky landed on the translucent energy shield, producing tinkling sounds. In the next second, the radiance of a fireball flashed in the midst of the ruins. A blazing fireball heavily smashed into the force field shield of a Cecil soldier.
The explosion of the fireball lit up the surroundings. The villagers around Wright hurriedly fled in panic. Panicked shouts followed, and the situation became chaotic in an instant. In the sudden chaos, the Cecil soldier shouted, "Civilians, get into the cellar! Everyone else, find cover and face the enemy! "
One by one, the figures of the assailants appeared from their hiding places. They continuously shot arrows at the shielded Cecil soldiers and the unarmed and panicked civilians. Due to the difficulty of aiming in the dark, many of the arrows lost their aim. Following that, the assailants pulled out all sorts of weapons, shouting as they charged out from all directions.
With the flash of the fireball explosion, Wright instantly saw the appearance of the attackers. They were a group of desperadoes who looked like refugees, but were actually wearing armor and holding weapons. Some of them were even wearing the cloak of a Knight and the short robe of a spellcaster. Their faces were covered in mud, their clothes were tattered, and their bloodshot eyes were red. They rushed out while shouting like crazy. Perhaps no one would have thought that they were once glorious and superior.
They were the defeated soldiers of the noble allied army. They were people who were defeated in Broken Stone Ridge, separated from the army in the pursuit, and became desperadoes in the wilderness.
Wright even saw two Knight of the Holy See wearing the church's cloak and holding a longsword, as well as a priest of the Holy Light wearing a tattered priest's robe.
He did not hesitate to turn on the force field of the magical terminal, and then pulled out the Molten Sword that was given to him not long ago, and faced the bandits who had become bandits in the wilderness.
At the same time, the information that he had heard recently appeared in his mind.
After the noble allied army was defeated, the mixed Knight of the Holy See and the priest of the Holy Light fled together with the allied army. Many of them were captured by Cecil's people in the brutal pursuit, while the rest were separated from the main army in the process of escaping and were lucky enough to escape the pursuit. Some of them fled along the small path in the wilderness all the way to the northwest, hiding in the cathedral of the Holy Light Church's southern parish. As Cecil's army had just conquered the southern border, they did not have time to find trouble with the cathedral, and those who did not make it through the wilderness and stayed in the war zone with the other noble soldiers became bandits in the wilderness.
Cecil's army was still active in the Southern Border, hunting down the remnants of the nobles who had escaped. Furthermore, the news that Duke Cecil would once again take over the Southern Border had already spread throughout the Southern Border. Therefore, the remnants of the nobles who were wandering in the wilderness did not dare to return to their territories. The serf soldiers and commoner conscripts among them were still fine. After all, they were originally commoners. As long as they threw away their weapons and changed into ragged clothes, they could easily return to their hometowns or hide in the countryside. However, the Extraordinaries, especially the Extraordinaries with status and identity, were still active in the wilderness, and … their stomachs were rumbling with hunger.
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