In the Ice Territory, everyone knows what happened fifteen years ago. Daemon sat stiffly on the dirt, and every word the hunter spoke made the stillness longer. He wondered whether his curiosity was a good thing, a question he had never thought about before.
The hunter told him that "Glory" is a mysterious organization marked by the sun. They killed many civilians while hunting down demons.
At first, Damon didn't think there was anything wrong with this. Not to mention mysterious creatures, there are nobles coming to the town - or knights who are related to the nobles. Their mere appearance causes a commotion. These noble lords often use axemen and spear guards to clear the way, and swordsmen crowd in front of the car. If a civilian collided with the guards, they would be whipped a few times, and the unlucky ones would be regarded as assassins.
According to the laws of the kingdom, assassinating a noble is a crime that will bring disaster to the whole family. The scene of executing criminals is familiar to everyone. Damon had seen soldiers escorting unknown people to beheading them in front of the market. He was shocked the first time, but he didn't find it strange after that. Whether they were civilians or criminals, it had nothing to do with the carpenter's son, how many people died.
To his surprise, the adults seemed to think it was a wrong thing to do. Their attitude began to tilt towards the compassionate priest - the condemned prisoner would get a last chance to pray before execution, which was the knowledge Dorothy taught him. Upton always wanted Dorothy to have a family as soon as possible, but she liked to go to Gaia's church.
On the night of Penance, Dorothy revealed to Damon her desire to become a nun of Gaia. Damon told Upton of her wish in the early morning. The father slapped his sister but kicked Damon before turning back and grabbing Dorothy's hair.
"You are a selfish, stupid girl." Upton yelled at her, "Serving Gaia is a sacred profession, and it is not what people like you should think about!"
Dorothy cried all night, but later she forgave Damon. In the boy's eyes, no one is more selfless and tolerant than her. If this was not enough to become a priest, Damon could not imagine how compassionate priests and nuns must be. And this kind of compassion for being hurt made him instinctively afraid.
The same goes for sympathy for death row prisoners. Damon knew those were bad people who had committed crimes. It is a gift for thieves, adulterers, fraudsters, and murderers to have the opportunity to repent before they die. They are all degenerates who do not enjoy the grace of the goddess of virtue.
The sinners were judged. When Father Dürer preached in the church, he said, "If you have sympathy for those evildoers, why don't you pray for the innocent people who were harmed by them?"
Damon has never feared execution since. He saw the machete fall, blood and heads rising into the air. Like the adults around him, only a girl like Dorothy would avert his eyes.
"The Paladin killed someone." Damon was full of questions, "So what?"
"They killed a lot of people."
"The executioner also killed many people." Damon even thought this profession was very handsome.
"A lot." The hunter replied, "A lot, not just a lot. More than you can imagine. Executioner? He is not a judge, he is just a guillotine."
Of course Dimon couldn't imagine it. "There are that many people in a small town?" This is the maximum number of people in his concept. I heard that Winnivas has a larger population and is a big city. It’s just that Damon has never been.
"A small town? It's dozens of times bigger than a small town."
The boy suddenly became motionless.
The huge shock made him almost forget how to control his body. With a population dozens of times that of the town, Dimon didn't know how to solve such a complicated arithmetic problem, but he knew that the answer was worth fearing.
"They...why did they do this?"
"That's what the Paladins do. They hunt down demons and burn them or behead them." The hunter took out a bottle of mead from nowhere. "It wasn't until then that I discovered that there were so many nameless people in the Ice Territory."
"But many people are not demons." Even a ten-year-old knows this.
"There are many of them." Xia Zuo pulled out the wine cork, "If you sprinkle a handful of sand on the coast, the gods will know how to pick them out. When the devil is raging, everyone is tense, and the nobles are fighting each other one by one. The beaten domestic dogs are still obedient. The tin-shelled dogs say that wherever there is a devil, they are eager to plow the entire land."
"But a lot of people died."
"The battlefield is where people die. The only difference is that it consumes soldiers, while Winnie Watts consumes civilians. It is an honor for a man to die on the battlefield, but only the bones are left when the strong bully the weak and are hung up and burned with women and children. It’s a shame.”
Damon didn't know what to say. In the past ten years of his life, he had never thought about soldiers or the battlefield. His mind accepted too many new terms, and he realized that something was changing inside him. Damon couldn't tell what kind of change it was, but he felt vaguely longing for it. "I also want to have glory." He told the hunter. "The Paladins are doing something wrong. They are just relying on the strong to bully the weak."
Wittek handed him the bottle and let the boy take his first sip. The mead was sweet and spicy, sliding down his throat and rapidly expanding inside. Damon felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of fire, and even his nasal cavity was heating up. He swallowed hard and his stomach burned. This gave Damon the illusion that he was now a man.
"Do all adults drink this?"
As soon as he opened his mouth, the hunter knew that he was still the same kid. But Wickett did not choose to undermine the boy's inflated self-confidence. "Only the best men can drink." He turned to the Paladins and the Radiant. "There is no honor in killing civilians, but they do it anyway. Maybe there are a few high-status beasts behind them who are adding fuel to the flames to reap the benefits. To them, this is a war. There are benefits to be gained from war."
"It's disgusting," Damon said. "Why didn't you tell me the secret earlier? There were Paladins in Bonfire Town two days ago, and many people went to greet them. Have they forgotten the innocent people those people killed?"
The hunter asked: "Is the tinplate more hateful, or the warmongers?"
The boy thought for a moment. "They are all, but the white iron skin is even more hateful."
"Do you hate them?"
"certainly."
"Think about it carefully, don't imitate that old slicker like Mayor Morton. He is exactly the same as Sir Conley. Now besides representing this and that, I really don't know what else he will do. Tell your friends, next time Don’t use some idiot as your model when you play house. Don’t overthink it, Damon, and tell the truth.”
"No...not that much."
The hunter smiled as he had expected. Damon defended: "The Paladin did not kill Upton, nor did he kill B'Elanna and Dorothy."
"So you have no reason to hate 'Glory'?"
"They made a mistake," Dimon said hesitantly. "They make mistakes and they will be punished. I neither sympathize nor hate them."
"A child's temper."
The boy was very angry. He grabbed the bottle and took a big gulp. But before he could say anything as if to testify, he bent over and coughed violently.
"Not everyone is as lucky as you, Damon. Don't mention fifteen years ago to anyone in this town, and remember, don't talk about it everywhere." The hunter allowed Damon to become bold under his indulgence. He stared at the afternoon clouds, watched as they were driven by the cold wind into the town's sky, and then gradually calmed down under mysterious restrictions.
Witek Shazo seemed to have suddenly lost all intimacy. There was no friendly gleam in his eyes, a depth that was more than just the overlapping of cloud shadows. "I used to have a younger brother. He was working as a fur reseller in Winniewats. He got married and had three sons."
A good beginning often means a bad ending. Damon was already familiar with the story's formula. But when he heard the hunter use "I" to narrate the story without any hindrance, he still couldn't help but turn pale.
"He... was he killed?"
"Inaccurate. Deman was lucky enough to escape the sharp sword of the Paladin and the purge of the nobles to exclude dissidents. He fled to Bonfire Town and defected to me. But his two sons died in Venevoise, and his wife was accused of being a devil. And put a noose on it. The executioner told Deman that there was not enough firewood in the city recently, and this would save him pain."
Damon bathed in the sunshine, but felt cold all over.
Leaving Winnie Watts cost him the ultimate price. Wittek drank up the mead in one gulp. "The last of Deman's children encountered a real demon on the road. My brother eventually arrived in Bonfire alone. I greeted him with mourning, but he committed suicide in the night."
"……I am very depressed."
"Don't imitate Morton. His pretense is as exaggerated as a clown. I can clearly see how sad you are, so don't say anything like this."
The hunter suddenly said: "You are very similar to my little nephew." He did not talk about "Glory" and the massacre anymore, but smiled gloomily. "I've told you all the secrets, Bonfire's, Whinworth's, and my story. Go away now, kid, you've got nothing to gain from me."
There is no comfort in grieving alone. The boy wanted to say something else, but the door to the yard was knocked open. He was startled and was about to turn around——
"Damon!" Upton's voice was terrifying. The boy turned around stiffly and saw Dorothy sticking out half of her face behind his father. She never forgot that time. Damon finally understood how his father had predicted that his sister was not suitable to be a nun.
…
The process of returning home was extremely difficult. Both mentally and physically. Damon limped at the end, his cheeks and throat burning. My father's nails were badly trimmed, which was very good for slapping others.
His sister Dorothy slowly fell beside him. "Why are you looking at me like that? I didn't do it to snitch. I chased you to the chestnut tree and saw Xia Zuo catching you." While defending, Damon noticed the curiosity she tried to suppress. Sure enough, before he could answer, Dorothy asked: "He didn't beat you, but even invited you to eat. How did you do that? What did he tell you? Threatened to nail you to the tree trunk?"
"No." The last unfounded guess made him unable to help himself. "He was just telling me stories."
"Bedtime rhymes?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"The story you all know. About the 'Crow's House'." Suddenly, Damon remembered that this name seemed to have been given by an older child. There are no crows in the church. He must also know the whole story, but he won't tell us.
My sister suddenly lost interest. "That damn place...it doesn't matter if you know about it."
"There are other things." Although her concern led to less than perfect results, it was still out of good intentions. Damon was feeling sad about Wittek's experience, and he shared it with Dorothy without thinking: "Mr. Xia Zuo's younger brother's family all died fifteen years ago. He said that I am like his little nephew."
Who knew that Dorothy showed no sympathy at all. She stared at Damon's swollen eyes suspiciously for a moment, as if checking whether he was talking nonsense.
"Damon." The sister's whisper was barely audible, so she leaned closer to the boy's ear.
"I have to tell you, everyone knows that the hunter has no brother. He only has a little sister who married to Winnie Watts, and his sister has no sons."
Before he finished speaking, Dorothy straightened her back and strode past him.
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