Chapter 61: The Audacious Maiden

As the group passed by the canal, Leo saw the corpses of the horse bandits nailed up by the militiamen on wooden frames. Eighteen bodies were lined up in a row, stripped naked and hung on crosses. Wounds gaped open to the air, flesh curled and torn, some with bellies split and entrails spilling out. The blood had long since drained away, leaving their skin gray and bloodless. As the agitation and battle-lust in Leo’s heart faded, the refined soul of a modern man once again took hold, and he found these corpses utterly terrifying, straight out of a scene from some American horror film.

“Too barbaric! Too cruel!” Leo shouted as he hurried past, shaking his head after a brief glance. The militiamen following behind exchanged looks, at a loss for words. Wasn’t this your own order?

“Should we take them down and bury them?” one of the militiamen whispered to Ivan.

Ivan shot him a glare, “What’s it got to do with us? If you have that much free time, shouldn’t you be digging your own grave first?”

After thinking it over, the militiaman had to admit Ivan made sense.

Returning to Riverbend, Leo saw the villagers’ corpses laid out on the open ground outside the lord’s great house. The survivors gathered together, mourning in silence. Olivia, with Luther’s help, was comforting the bereaved families. On the whole, the villagers didn’t seem overly grief-stricken; some even looked faintly relieved. Only a few young women and children wept quietly.

In Leo’s fragmented memories, whether it was a bandit raid or the harsh winter snow, people died every year in these northern villages. It had become a part of village life. Especially since the orc invasions began, each attack claimed a dozen or more lives, until at last they had to migrate the entire village under Urian’s leadership.

So after this massive bandit attack, to find only nine villagers dead among eighteen slain enemies was a result they’d never have dared hope for in the past.

Seven or eight burly kobold blacksmiths sat idly on the wooden platform outside the lord’s house, watching the odd human gathering with boredom, eager for it to end so they could return to their smithing. Kobolds had no such complicated feelings or customs—when a companion died, they didn’t even bother with burial, simply tossing the body into the wilderness. The fact that they hadn’t eaten the corpses while still warm was already a mark of their civilization.

Seeing Leo return from outside the village with the militia, Olivia hurried over with the little mouse in tow, worry etched on her face. Out of habit, she pulled out a towel to wipe the blood from Leo’s body and checked for injuries. In the earlier battle, the horse bandits’ blood had splattered all over him. By now it was dried and could not be wiped away; his whole body was filthy, the fur collar of his armor stiff and matted, making him look rather pitiful.

In the past, whenever Leo went hunting in the wilds or fought alongside Urian, his recklessness always put him at the front, and he would come home battered and bruised. Olivia’s superior medical skills, far above those of other villagers, had been honed tending to Leo.

Seeing the two girls, one big and one small, looking at him with anxious eyes, Leo smiled to reassure them. “It’s nothing, just the bandits’ blood. I’m not hurt at all.”

As he walked further in, he began to boast, “A bunch of horse bandits, nothing more! They couldn’t withstand a single blow from me! I cut them down one by one, just like chopping melons!”

The mouse looked up at him, her face full of adoration, clearly proud to follow him. Olivia, however, paid no heed to his bragging. Like a little wife, she fussed at him as she walked, “Father told you time and again, but you never listen. You’re the militia captain now, you should be commanding from behind, not always charging ahead…”

Leo replied with a string of nonsense.

“You nearly got yourself killed by kobolds last time! Haven’t you learned anything?”

Another string of nonsense from Leo.

Incensed, Olivia stomped her foot, rolled up her sleeves, and began thumping his back with her fists. “You’re going to be the death of me!”

Leo, unbothered, dodged her attacks while responding in the refined imperial tongue he’d picked up from the mouse. “How dare you! Such insolence from a mere village girl toward your lord!”

He tossed aside his weapons and shield, ducked his head, and in a flash, scooped Olivia up onto his shoulders.

“Put me down!” she cried.

Amid the envious looks and playful jeers of the crowd, Leo strode around the camp with the blushing, struggling Olivia balanced on his shoulder, like a lion on patrol in his domain.

That night, Urian finally returned from the wildling tribe. Four wildling hunters had escorted their party all the way back to Riverbend, watching until they crossed the canal before vanishing into the wilds. Though the region’s larger beasts had been greatly reduced thanks to recent clearing efforts, they hadn’t been eradicated. If a hungry bear or tiger appeared, Urian’s small group, with only two militiamen and a donkey, could easily have suffered casualties. Out of respect, Elder Zulvan had specially assigned four wildling hunters to see them home.

This was a courtesy neither Leo nor Freya had ever received. At their first meeting, despite Leo’s sincerity and goodwill, Elder Zulvan had been outwardly cordial but inwardly wary and distant. Indeed, communication is everything: Riverbend’s persistent goodwill, adherence to etiquette, and fair dealings with the wildlings had finally borne fruit. After all, no one bows down to another at first sight, any more than a boss can promise the moon and never pay wages and expect loyalty.

Leo recounted to Urian in full detail all that had transpired in Riverbend over the past two days, from the arrival of Brother Lawrence to his eventual hanging beneath the ruined tower’s gate.

When Leo finished, Urian nodded approvingly, “Good, good! That’s exactly right. Damn those missionaries—don’t they have ancestors of their own?”

Since Riverbend’s population began to grow, all sorts of strange people had set their sights on the newly established domain. As for the church, only some peddlers of “holy relics” had shown up until now. For example, a feather from the six-winged archangel—freshly plucked from a goose, only thirty silver coins, guaranteed to ward off all evil spirits when placed under your pillow. Or the staff of Bishop Ethanpol of the Sacred Light—a whittled stick, just two gold coins, said to bring perfect health to whoever holds it. Or the blood of Saint Peter, the first Pope—dried sheep’s blood, only ten gold coins, which, when smeared on a church’s cross, would protect the land for a hundred years of peace and good harvest.

Unfortunately, the paupers of Riverbend couldn’t scrape together a single copper, and many had never even seen imperial gold or silver coins. There wasn’t even a single chapel in the settlement. Especially when they ran into Leo, things went even worse for the swindlers—if they didn’t end up dead, they’d be skinned alive. Leo’s tireless anti-fraud and counter-fraud efforts had bankrupted these charlatans, leaving them questioning their very existence on the road home.

But a figure like Brother Lawrence was a first.

Leo, however, was uneasy. “Aren’t you worried about reprisals? That’s the church, after all. A dead monk, one who could use magic at that—surely they’ll investigate?”

Leo, having read too many western novels in his previous life, harbored a far darker view of religious authority than Urian and the others.

“Boy, this is the North. Tyr makes the rules here. The Sacred Light? Who are they to us?” Urian was utterly unconcerned.