Side Story 8 – The day it happens
(Third party’s POV)
“♪♫Humm, hum, The weather is lovely, humm, hum♫♪“ (Lillie)
Lillie is a pure and hardworking girl tending the farm in the late morning till afternoon.
In the early morning, Lillie is busy hanging the laundry up. Four stakes are placed on the ground and strung together. Lillie specializes in livelihood magic and can use her mana to invoke phenomena to wash and dry the clothes very quickly or clean the house. One of the stakes is empty, which is reserved for Adam. Adam is still serving in the military. It has been six years since he joined the military as a hero’s party candidate, and two years and six months since he has been accepted as a hero’s party member. Adam still comes home often when he joined the military as a hero party’s candidate, but once he becomes a hero party’s member, he has to work and train full time and has no time to even return home.
Every two days, she would carry several buckets of water from the well at the back of their home to the washroom, and clean the laundry with invocation magic that she learned from her brother’s magic books. The cost of invoking such magic is very small, and it only makes her unable to be unable to invoke other magic for about an hour. The cleaning using this method is very useful, as Lillie just needs to imagine the dirt and grime to separate from the laundry. If there are any other types of dirt that soiled the clothes, Lillie would need to picture it in mind and imagine removing that dirt from the laundry. There is no need for the hard labour of beating and scrubbing the laundry. The water is there to soften the fabric so that the removal of the dirt by magic doesn’t accidentally destroy the fabric.
(Lillie’s POV)
Dad just came back from the village square after selling his produce. Mom is probably still negotiating with the tailor on the selling of her sewing and to take some of the commissions.
“No, my son is an honest and upstanding person. Please, you have to tell them to check again.” (Dad)
“This is a decree issued by the king. I’m your old friend, so I’m telling you to please keep this to yourself only. Don’t let any of the imperial troops hear this, especially the imperial lawmaker.” (Patrol leader promoted to Imperial knight)
“But we can’t accept this judgment. You know, me and my wife will be stoned to death by the villagers in that decree. How can we quietly accept this kind of judgment?” (Dad)
“That’s why I plan to ask a friend to take you and your family far away from here and start a new life there.” (Imperial knight)
“That’s just a slow death. We have no other means of income other than this land. What can we possibly feed ourselves with at there? We will also be this kingdom’s fugitives if we run away from the kingdom’s law.” (Dad)
“At least you guys may live to see other options available. Staying here will just mean sure death. I don’t want to witness a friend die meaninglessly.” (Imperial knight)
“I and my family wish to at least meet our son and escape together.” (Dad)
“I heard that his action of abandoning the battle during the critical time has caused the death of many frontline generals that are difficult to replace. The king and the royal lawmakers will not let him off. He’s most probably punished to death by now. I know I’m the one who introduced your son to the military, so I’m really sorry for this, but just give up on that idea.” (Imperial knight)
“My son will never do that. There must have been a terrible mistake.” (Dad)
“The battlefield report came as people such as General Gramont and the hero’s party. I don’t think you can argue against the report of such influential people. Though I heard from a very close colleague of mine, and he told me to keep this a secret, because leaking it would mean court martial and death to their immediate family. They said your son did well and saved a lot of lives on the battlefield, but that is only rumoured.” (Imperial knight, whispering to dad)
“Hey, Claude. Clarice is captured and held by the grandson of the village head. They are bringing her here. I heard they rough her up real bad. Bunch of delinquents. ” (Villager 1)
“Damn, my wife!! Are they the demons themselves!? I will go there myself. Come and help me teach those brats a lesson.” (Dad)
“No, you mustn’t! Your wife is lost cause! Think for your daughter’s sake! Run away with me now!” (Imperial knight)
“But …. NO WAY!! This ain’t right! I can’t abandon Clarice! Help me to bring my daughter to safety. I will follow right after you. We will meet at the usual place if luck is on our side” (Dad)
“Dad, please save mum. I’m afraid of those four idiots.” (Lillie)
“Yeah, dad will rescue mum now. You follow Gustov’s guide to bring you away from here. We will meet up again after this when I got mum with us.” (Dad)
“Please stay safe, dad” (Lillie)
“You too, please run away from here and stay safe. My friend, I entrust my most important child in your hands. Please, take her away to safety.” (Dad)
I know Dad is trying his best, so in order not to hold Dad back, I will not ask him not to go and rescue mum. I will find my own way to be useful and run away together. Oh, brother, where are you now? Why is the army going against us when you are also part of them? Did you betrayed the army and caused them to retaliate back at us?
While thinking about that, the army has surrounded our house when I am still busy packing our clothes and necessities into a rattan bag.
“Shit, this is worse than I thought. Our transporter cannot pick us up in this barricade.” (Imperial knight)
“What should we do, sir?” (Lillie)
“You get everything ready and wait for my signal. If you hear a whistling sound, just run to the east as fast as possible and never look back, you hear me? Never look back no matter what happens.” (Imperial knight)
I saw Gustav-san went out of the house and talked with someone important in the imperial army, so I quickly get everything into backpacks and pouches to that we can run away easily.
(Third party’s POV)
This village has four stooges that constantly has been a thorn of the people in the village, and only Adam, Brandon, Larsen, and Amanda dare to stand up against them. One of the stooges is the village chief’s grandson; another two is the grandson’s cousin from another village who lost parents. Another is a childhood friend and follower that live in the village.
Clarice’s dress is torn and tattered and is being humiliated by the army shackling both her hands and feet together with two pieces of wooden shackles and being forced to walk while being spread eagle from the village square.
Claude has two soldiers at each side pressing him down, and they forced him to crawl on his knees.
“Claude! Hang on there” (Clarice @ mum)
“Urgghh! I worry … you too, Clarice” (Claude @ dad)
“Please! Treat my husband’s wounds quickly. I don’t care what you do to me, just treat him quickly!” (Clarice crying and restrained by army and village head’s men)
“No! Don’t ever touch my wife again. I will kill ..Arghh” (Claude)
Three thin bamboo poles were pierced into Claude’s rib cage, puncturing one of his lungs and injuring another seriously. The village head smiles in the background, and thinks in his head “Good riddance”. He hit one of the stakes with his walking stick and caused severe pain to Claude.
“NO! Stop it, please! Why? Why do you restrain us like this?” (Clarice)
“Don’t make me repeat it again and again like a broken record. Listen, YOUR son Adam, the mage in hero’s party, has committed the crime of dereliction of duty, leading to the death of many thousand lives. To answer for his crime, he is to be tortured and put to death. Due to the King’s compassion and the hero’s plead for leniency, he has been spared the death sentence and is currently being punished with caning. However, the punishment for his family still stands, and the family is to be put to death by means of stoning by the angry public that lost their sons due to his conduct in battle. Due to the mercy of your village chief, pleading that he doesn’t want the villagers to stain their hands with blood by stoning you all to death, he suggests we burn you all alive. Isn’t he such a considerate person? Of course, the wood for the fire is provided by the village.” (Imperial lawmaker)
“With this, do you all agree that we take something back of equal value with the wood you parted from their home” (Village head)
“Yeah!” (Village head’s men, and the sawmill owners who provided the wood)
Back then, when the imperial army arrives and give out the decree, the village head pleads to the imperial army chief that they don’t can’t stand the thought of hitting fellow villager with stone till they die, so they suggest to use fire to the imperial army chief. The imperial army chief accepted the suggestion.
Clarice fell limp to the answer given by the imperial lawmaker. She doesn’t know what to say or do, so she just can repeat that their son, Adam, is wrongly accused, and request the king to reconsider. Claude is also not in good condition, and he can only softly protest against the treatment of his wife and repeat that his son is innocent. The continuous ramblings of both Claude and Clarice caught the attention of the imperial lawmaker, and he made a snide remark out loud.
“My son is innocent. Please tell the king to reconsider again” (Clarice)
“Adam, he wouldn’t leave after a task is assigned to him. He won’t abandon his duty, Urggh!” (Claude)
“Listen here, the family of the convict. What you said is an insult to the sanctity of a king’s decree. Originally, the law of the kingdom can allow leniency to your punishment, by either paying up 500 gold crowns for each one of you, or serve in the kingdom’s palace as palace slave workers for 50 years without any payment and food, and just eat the scraps of the palace staff and sleep on the hard floor of the slave room. However, you all have committed lèse majesté of the first order when you question the veracity of the king’s decree. Therefore, all your rights are forfeited and no leniency is allowed in your family’s punishment.” (Imperial lawmaker)
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Lillie waited and waited in the house, but there is no whistling sound to be heard. She hides herself to the wall and listens to the commotion outside. She overheard the argument of her parents with the people with authority (imperial lawmaker) and decides to go towards her parents quietly without attracting any attention to herself.
“Dad, mum. Oh no, dad. We need to get you treated. I will bring you to Amanda’s mom.” (Lillie whispering)
“No, we are ..done for. Please, escape alone, and go to your brother. Don’t believe the kingdom’s claim” (Claude @ Dad, murmur silently)
“Lillie, don’t worry about us. Please save yourself. Listen to your dad’s words, follow your brother if he finds you. Live your life happily, and don’t look back.” (Clarice @ Mum, whispers quietly)
“Hey, who’s there?” (Imperial army)
“Ah, that’s the convict’s daughter. Hey, restrain her before she runs away. She will be sold to pay for the punishment’s expenses.” (Village head)
“Hurry, run. Please spare our only daughter.” (Claude and Clarice)
“Don’t worry, we are not savages. She will only be sold away to the slave dealer.” (Imperial army chief)
“After we had our fun, HAHAHAHA!!” (Draka and his three stooges)
“Curse you all. You all are demons in human skin.” (Claude)
“I will haunt you all every night if you dare to lay a hand on Lillie.” (Clarice)
“Ohh, how scary. Two dying dogs barking up the wrong door. We are not afraid of your threat. You can’t return as a zombie once you are burned to ashes. We are also protected by the talisman given by the Church, as we are devout followers God. Your spirit will be torn to pieces by God before you can touch us.” (Draka and his three stooges)
“No sane person will approve of such god, ptuii” (Claude, spits on the feet of Draka)
“Chief, please take the adults away and burn them. We are going to “educate” the youngster over there. Come and join us after we are done” (Village head)
Lillie’s parents are dragged away, while Lillie still contemplating what to do, to run alone or rescue her parents. She activates her blue pendant by invoking the defensive magic chant. A large blue barrier encapsulates Lillie. She then assigns her parents as the target of her protection. However, the four idiots place their limbs in the way, and the formation of the protective barrier becomes incomplete. The army hit the incomplete barrier with their weapons, and it falls apart easily under their assault. Only Lillie’s barrier managed to stay in one piece when they attack.
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(A little flashback)
When young, after Adam was admitted into the military to be trained as a hero party’s candidate, Lillie has to fend off the delinquents alone when she goes out to the farm or play with her friends. Although Amanda, Brandon, and Larsen will come to help Lillie and vice versa, there is no guarantee that they can be on time. Due to that issue, Adam learns the difficult spell of mana barrier to enchant it into the blue pendant that Lillie is wearing.
The art of magic for mana barrier is one of the pinnacles of magic phenomena, owing to the difficulty of maintaining calmness in the face of attacks and negate them like a mirror facing its reflection. Adam learns the mana barrier spell in under two years, and it takes another one year to learn how to enchant the mana barrier into a magical item. During that time, as compensation of the lack of defense, Adam creates a small ring with a ruby red magic core using alchemy, with his own blood as the medium together with a lot of powerful magic cores. The end product is a ruby ring that can produce any shapes around the user when invoked. The shape may be small, but the holding power is strong enough to block a medium-sized rolling boulder immediately when a flat surface is applied. If used offensively, it can punch a hole into a tree or a boulder almost immediately. Adam only taught Lillie to use the ring defensively though.
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(Back to the current situation)
Lillie couldn’t deploy the barrier on time, and her ring’s defense is too small to protect her parents. While protecting her father with the red ruby ring’s invoked phenomena, the imperial army chief grabbed a sword and proceeds to place it onto Clarice’s neck.
“Stop your resistance or I will cut her throat” (Imperial army chief)
Lillie stopped putting up a fight and stop moving.
Claude and Clarice tried to persuade her daughter to run away alone and ignore them but got silenced by the four stooges by tying a cloth over their mouth.
“Your items look interesting. Surrender them or I will kill your parents on the spot” (Imperial army chief)
“You will kill my parents if I give up now. I will fight till the end” (Lillie)
Draka and his followers then bashed Clarice and Claude. The imperial army followed and hit them with the back of their weapon, causing agony to Lillie’s parents. Fresh blood flow from their body and bruises appeared on their faces. Lillie keeps attempting to push them out with her red ruby’s defensive wall and invoke the assignment of mana barrier around her parents one by one, but the army and villagers that sided with them are too much to deal with, and she couldn’t get any mana barrier to seal her parents with.
Unfortunately for Lillie, her own mana barrier is getting besieged, and after expending so much mana trying to help her parents, her own barrier couldn’t hold up against the continuous assault of magic-breaking attack. The army pinned down all her limbs and presses her on the ground spread eagle. The four stooges licked their lips and smirked after seeing Lillie got caught in such an embarrassing pose. They leave Claude and Clarice and tried to approach Lillie. One of the soldiers removed Lillie’s blue pendant, and the village head quietly and sneakily takes the red ruby ring and slip it into his pocket. The imperial lawmaker announces her sins and the punishment that awaits her. She was at a loss at the moment, her mind was blank.
“Stop there, what are you doing to Lillie? Release her” (Brandon and Larsen)
Brandon and Larsen then proceed to run towards Lillie’s direction but encountered Claude and Clarice on the way. They tried to carry them away while the army is surprised by their sudden arrival. The four stooges and imperial army chief are the nearest to Claude and Clarice’s location, so they attacked the duo. They outnumbered the duo, but they managed to even out the situation with their combination of skills and team coordination. Usually, the military would have more combat-related skills and they usually have higher skill rank than farmers or commoners, making them the elite force. The imperial army leader is someone of formidable skills in the military that specialize in horseback riding attacks and has great pride in his skills, but today he’s humiliated by two farmer commoners.
The imperial army chief, feeling outdone and growing impatient, goes to grab a spear from a nearby horse and attacked the duo with a spear on horseback. At first, they still can manage it, but the continuous use of advanced spear skills by the imperial army chief managed to break the coordination of the duo and Larsen became his victim and got stabbed in the abdomen.
Amanda is running behind and just arrived at the location where Lillie and her parents are. She’s recording the incident so that she can report it to her father the wrongdoings in the kingdom.
Brandon quickly grabbed Larsen and escape from the furious attack of the imperial army chief and the four stooges. They managed to reach the edge of the forest, and the imperial army chief stops giving chase. Amanda quickly gives first aid to Larsen in the forest and managed to save him from bleeding to death. Amanda applied a poultice to stop the bleeding and wrapped up Larsen’s wound with a cloth bandage. She kindles fire, and boiled a little green juice (made from various leaves blend together) over a rock and feed it to Larsen to prevent him from having a fever. It actually prevents infection, but the science of medicine in this world is still very ancient.
Meanwhile, the imperial army dragged Clarice and Claude to the back of their house, where the villagers gather. The imperial lawmaker read the charges on both of them in front of the villagers, and then the army tied them to a crucifix each and lit the firewood gathered together by the villagers at the bottom of the crucifix. Claude and Clarice are too wounded to give out any protest and died burning on the crosses while cursing those who bring harm to their family.
Lillie was dragged by the hair and brought inside her house. There, the villagers that are on the village head and Draka’s side ransacked the house and take all the valuables they can find. Lillie was at the verge of breaking down, as they stripped her and pokes fun at her body. Draka demanded that she teach them how to invoke the magic on both her blue pendant and the red ruby ring. In order to defend herself, Lillie tells them a false invocation, and the village head passed the red ruby to a village stooge and tells him to wear the ring and invoke the magic. The village stooge tried invoking the magic after wearing the ring, and he immediately fainted. The entire gang under Draka and village head got mad, but Lillie managed to make use of the opportunity to get out of their pinning, and kicked several of the men in their nuts and ran to the back of the kitchen, taking a knife.
With a knife at hand, she threatened to stab at any of them that dare to approach her. Draka just laughed it off, while the village head smirked at the back. The backdoor of the house broke open, and soldiers wearing armour and shield came in from it. Lillie tried stabbing them at the gap between the armours, but it was useless. They grabbed the knife away and slammed Lillie on the ground, and she fainted from the impact. The next thing she knows is that her body is defiled while her consciousness is extremely hazy, and woke up in a cage later.