Chapter 130: Aftermath (Part One)
Night had fallen.
The fire outside the city continued to blaze distantly, and the stench of smoke carried ashes into the sky above Alectine City, mingling with the flickering light of campfires.
On the gradually darkening southern streets and among the ruins to the north, sparks flitted about, as search teams composed of knights and nobles scoured the darkness for any possible hiding spots. Before long, shouts and cries began to drift through the foul winds, growing faint as time passed.
To the south, under the watchful eye of the Faith Organization, several soup kitchens established by the nobles began to operate. Those swept up in the calamities of war—having lost their homes, their means of living, and their farms—formed long lines beneath the flickering lights, squabbling and fighting erupting here and there. Each time, the knights responsible for maintaining order and the volunteers in the city would step in to calm things down.
After the rain stopped, the water pooled on the ground rolled the bloodied yellow mud from the yard, the ruins, and the alleys into murky streams. The equally dirty, blackened mud dripped down from the eaves, and below, a little figure cloaked in a tattered cloak was limping towards the brightly lit crowd. It was a four or five-year-old little girl with an injured head wrapped in bandages.
She approached the long line of people, clutching a dirty bowl with a chip taken out, her gaze timid as she stared at the soup shed not too far away. She licked her cracked lips, looking a little lost. Just then, the black-haired girl who was chatting with someone noticed her and, looking startled for a moment, whispered something to her companion before heading over to the little girl.
“Sister…”
The little girl stepped back, looked up, and stammered.
The black-haired girl squatted down in front of her, glancing at the injury on the girl’s head, a hint of sorrow flickering in her eyes before she broke into a sweet smile, “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
The little girl shook her head lightly, thought for a moment, and then nodded slightly, “It hurts.”
The girl looked a bit pained and took the little girl’s filthy hand, “Are you here alone? Where’s your father?”
“Father died…”
“Is that so… and what about your mother?”
“She died too…”
Looking at the little girl shrinking into herself, the sorrow in the girl’s eyes became hard to control. She rubbed her stiff face and pointed to the position of the Faith Organization behind her, “Listen to your sister, go over there and find the uncle in the white robe. They will help you with your wounds. Give the bowl to your sister, and I’ll get you some hot porridge, okay?”
“Thank you… sister.”
“Such a good girl.”
The girl took the dirty bowl from the little girl, blew off the dust, wiped it with her sleeve, and stood up. The little girl kept looking back as she trudged toward the Faith Organization. The girl smiled at her and gave her a little fist pump for encouragement, then turned back to the group she had been chatting with.
“Miss Silvya, if I may be frank, you’re only sixteen this year, right?”
The speaker was an elderly man, his face lined with age, missing an arm, and plastered with bandages.
His face was pale as paper and wore a tired look. It was hard to imagine that someone of his age, after sustaining such severe injuries, could still manage to stand here. Yet at that moment, he was dedicated to his task, and for that alone, this man commanded my respect.
Besides, his arm had been lost in a scuffle with heretics.
“I’m seventeen,” I replied to the old man.
On my seventeenth birthday, I crossed mountains and rivers with the knights, braving the rain toward the battlefield, where I found corpses of the starved lining the roadside. Under such circumstances, a birthday felt trivial, insignificant.
“Impressive, cough…” The old man sighed slightly, his murky eyes lighting up a bit, “Heroes emerge in youth. All the things I’ve done in my old age can’t compare to a seventeen-year-old girl… cough, Miss Silvya, the world is perilous, and human hearts are hard to read; having someone as capable as you, brave enough to face villains, may be a boon to the people of this age…”
The old man spoke earnestly, but in such dire times, it was hard to feel even a glimmer of joy. Instead, his praise felt as heavy as a mountain, suffocating me, making me shake my head and change the subject.
“Old sir, you mentioned that the merchant association’s food won’t last the city three days. What if we borrowed food from the nearby cities?”
“I’ve already arranged for people to go out during the day, but I can’t guarantee results. Those heretics may have lost the war, but plenty have fled to surrounding areas; I believe the nearby cities have received word and have likely shut their gates. There are too many issues stemming from this war, and with the recent disaster, their food supplies may not be sufficient either. We might have to think of something else…”
This elderly gentleman was a high-ranking member of the Saint George Currency Exchange and also the head of the Williams Chamber of Commerce’s delegation. I had seen him a few times before. He had left Woodward Forest early with Beiyard to investigate the food situation in the southern Republic.
As the story goes, once they reached Alectine City, war broke out, and they were trapped inside, doing their best to hold the city. Many in the merchant association perished until we drove back the heretics and reclaimed the city; of the nearly hundred people in the group, barely twenty survived.
As for Beiyard…
“Have you found Beiyard?”
The old man replied that Beiyard had been separated from them during the chaos, and they hadn’t found him since, his fate unknown.
“Not yet, cough…”
He coughed, shaking his head slightly, an expression of pain crossing his features.
“When the heretics breached the city, the young master fought valiantly alongside us. He was filled with youthful vigor; this old bone of mine couldn’t keep an eye on him, and before I knew it, he charged into the enemy lines…”
My heart sank at those words.
After a moment, I lifted my head to gaze at the night sky.
…No news of goat cheese either.
Beiyard…
Please don’t d*e.
My mood turned heavy, and my desire to speak faded. Before long, I bid farewell to the old man, took a bowl of porridge, went over to the Faith Organization, handed the porridge to the little girl, gave her a few gentle reminders, and turned to leave.
Back at the camp, I found Isaac and had some warm food with him.
Due to the food shortages in the city and the need to care for the civilians, the church had distributed some of the army rations, leaving us with even less. We weren’t expecting to be full; just having a warm bowl of soup warmed my stomach a little, lifting my spirits slightly.
The bloodstains on my dress hadn’t been washed out yet.
After a long and busy day, everyone looked filthy and reeking. The fierce battles had just concluded, and the knights had no time to catch their breath, busying themselves with all kinds of tasks. By evening, some still hadn’t had much time to sleep, and with the heretics still roaming in the city, who really cared about cleanliness?
After finishing my meal, I dragged my weary body to the infirmary to find Barry.
