Knights and Magic Wand
Chapter 80 - 80 60 Lord's Court

80: Chapter 60: Lord’s Court 80: Chapter 60: Lord’s Court Following Knight Balfe, Leon visited Longka and Platon successively to recruit workers for digging graves.

Both villages were as he had understood from previous conversations.

Longka bordered the woods, and the village’s environment was tranquil and peaceful, except for the unpleasant odor from the tanners’ yards.

He must remind Lokhak to never choose the downwind side if he decided to live here.

Platon was close to the town’s main road, and the small village square had several stalls, even a small trading post with several carts traveling to and fro.

With the aid of Knight Balfe, Leon managed to gather more than seventy workers from the two villages, and additionally found the elderly village official of Platon, who he tasked with taking a deposit to the town to order a large number of coffins.

The two estates were not far from Selva, and Leon and Balfe managed to race back on horseback before sunset.

The next morning, the workers from outside the village had arrived as agreed, and together with the able-bodied locals, they began digging the cemetery.

Azeryan was still healing, so Leon, with nothing on hand, asked Olivia to gather a few villagers to help identify and record the deceased with wooden tags.

Since there was no time to make gravestones, they briefly engraved the names on wooden boards, which would help the youths returning home later to recognize their relatives’ graves.

With enough hands, efficiency skyrocketed, and in just three to four days, they had dug all the graves in a secluded wooded area outside the village.

The wooden coffins ordered from the town also arrived in batches over the next few days.

During this time, Azeryan had recovered enough to walk properly and even found time to visit his estate with Lokhak.

Seven days later, all the bodies were properly buried in family order, and Knight Balfe, having completed his duties, set off from Selva.

Soon after the workers from Longka and Platon had been paid and disbanded by Leon, a young man stationed at the Windmill Tower outside the village hurriedly came running to bring news.

…The youth from various households had finally returned.

On the rural paths, led by the village official Tok, dozens of young militiamen dressed in leather and chain armor, wearing iron helmets, and carrying spears crossed the hill anxiously towards the village below.

They had heard about the misfortune back home from the fort’s officers at the border, but didn’t know the specifics of their family members’ safety—each of them eager to return home to ensure their loved ones were unharmed.

However, the eerie silence as they entered the village raised an ominous foreboding.

The young men instinctively quickened their pace and soon reached the village square where women and children had just gathered.

The women and children wept with joy, running towards their family members who seemed as if from another lifetime, and sobs followed.

The men, upon hearing the tragic news, embraced their wives or the few surviving children, crying their hearts out.

Still, many young men, confused and distraught, hurried through the crowd, trying to find even one familiar face of a relative.

Their futile search was destined to yield nothing.

The men called out in panic, hoping for any response, and gradually, the calls for their wives and children turned into heart-wrenching wails…

In the cemetery, the youths wept unrestrained before their family graves, having not even had a chance to see their loved ones’ bodies.

The dirt and coffins had spared them from seeing the tortured states of the bodies, which was, in some ways, the last act of mercy from fate.

The men, now widowers, were heartbroken, lingering for a long time before the graves in the cemetery.

However, the village official Tok, after paying his last respects at his parents’ graves and drying his tears, could not find his estranged son’s grave.

Pulling along his elder son, Tok asked the surviving women around about the whereabouts of Boris, only to meet their eyes filled with resentment and complexity.

Were it not for Tok’s previously reputable character, the surviving women would have loved to spit in his face.

It was not until he found Brian the Blacksmith that Tok learned about the whereabouts and circumstances of his younger son.

“…This little bastard…

How did I end up with such a disgrace!”

Tok’s voice trembled, his face aging with guilt.

The crime of robbery was already appalling enough, but hearing that Boris had knowingly deserted his fellow villagers in the face of disaster left Tok, who had lost elderly close relatives, with eyes dry from crying; they could squeeze out no more tears.

Boris was his son.

But the deceased elderly parents were also his beloved kin.

Tok couldn’t understand—had merely scolding him occasionally led his monstrous son to disregard even his grandparents’ lives?

The man covered his face, his head hung low, his shoulders trembling uncontrollably.

Mr.

Brian Sr.

patted Tok’s shoulder, “The new Lord has decided to wait until everyone is gathered before judging Boris, but if you can’t accept this reality, he also allows you not to participate in the upcoming verdict.”

Hearing these words, Tok could only shake his head numbly.

Regardless, that was still his flesh and blood; he had to witness his son’s fate personally…

…

In the upstairs adjoining homes now cleaned by children, Leon was sitting by the window when he heard the neighboring door open.

He looked down at the figure on the street below.

He saw the village official named “Tok” walking soullessly out of Old Brian’s house, gradually disappearing.

Leon had thought Tok might try to come to him to plead for Boris’s case, considering he was a father.