Chapter 409 Nightfall

Night fell.

A roaring bonfire was lit in the ruins of the destroyed village. The fuel of the bonfire was charcoal collected in the ruins and firewood found nearby. The warm flames dispelled the chill of the night in this season, and the bright fire was to save the survivors. Protection from being attacked by jackals.

Around the roaring bonfire, seventeen surviving villagers gathered together. They stretched their legs and feet by the warm bonfire, baked their stiff joints, and dispelled the cold that had accumulated in the cellar for many days. Heavily armed Cecil soldiers stood guard around the bonfire, baking the bread and jerky they carried with the flames.

Wright completed a brief prayer at night and came among the villagers with a piece of bread. The villagers were a little commotion, but after the daytime contact, they had discovered that this seemingly scary big man was actually this group of strange soldiers The gentlest and most talkative of them all, they soon quieted down and gave Wright a place to burn the fire.

"Let's rest here for a night, warm up, fill our stomachs, and leave tomorrow," Wright said to the villagers, no matter how much they understood or whether they were listening to him, "Let's go southwest, There's Cecil's forward camp there, and someone can escort you to the safety of the south."

The survivors stared at the flames, stared at their hands and feet, or fiddled with the flames in front of them with branches from time to time. At first, no one answered Wright, but after a few seconds, a woman said: "You said you are Cecil The people...are the Cecils who fought against the lord?"

"It was your lord who started the war first," Wright said, and then he shook his head, "but none of this matters... Your lord has been defeated, Duke Cecil will be the protector of the entire southern border, and you will in the future They're all Cecilians."

"It's not bad, it's almost the same..." A gray-haired man next to him shook his head and said, "We... ah..."

The poor words made the man unable to say anything but sigh. Wright was used to seeing clumsy commoners and didn't care much about it. He just glanced around at random, and then saw the sleeping man. The little girl between the woman and the man - the one with the big bright eyes: "Are you her parents?"

"No, I'm her uncle," the man shook his head. "Her parents died last year, when there was a food shortage. I plan to keep Emily for a few years and send her to town when she's older. In the church, who wants to get it... alas."

Emily - The little girl's name is Emily.

Wright remembered the name silently, he glanced at the little girl, and the latter probably heard the conversation of the adults at this time, or maybe she had not slept well. When Wright looked at her, she was dazed. Eyes opened.

Those eyes gleamed in the jumping flames of the campfire,

She was dazed for a moment, then remembered who the big man was in front of her, looked at Wright boldly, and after a moment grinned -- not knowing what.

The little girl's uncle looked nervously at the somewhat rash girl, for fear that she would annoy Cecil's soldiers and cause trouble: "Emily, what are you laughing at!"

The little girl still smiled: "There is a circle of light around the big uncle."

A circle of light?

Wright was stunned for a moment, then quickly looked at himself, and then saw the reflection of the bonfire floating on the surface of the Cecil-style armor: The little girl probably regarded the reflection of the armor as something incredible.

The woman next to her became nervous immediately after hearing the little girl's words, and hurriedly explained: "Master, don't mind, this child has a bad brain since he was a child..."

"It's okay, it's okay," Wright smiled nonchalantly, then broke off a piece of his own dough and handed it to Emily, "Here, eat it."

The woman hurriedly said, "She has eaten..."

"Children are prone to hunger, she should eat more," Wright waved, "Our lord said that children are the future of the territory, and no matter how hard they are, they can't be hard on children."

These strange words made the people around them at a loss for a while. They had never heard such strange words from any lord or knight, but some people were still curious when watching Wright's actions. A young man said beside him: "...What kind of place is Cecil?"

"An unbelievable place," Wright thought for a while, and suddenly he didn't know how to describe his impression of Cecil to others. After two years of missionary work in the South, he felt that his vocabulary was a bit poor for the first time. " People don't have to worry about survival, no nobles oppress the commoners, all affairs in the territory are run according to strict laws, and the people who enforce the laws are officials who have passed the examination..."

People listened blankly. Many of Wright's words and descriptions seemed incomprehensible to them, but they didn't dare to turn their heads like this. Seeing such a situation, Wright couldn't help but stop, and after a brief thought. , he raised his hand and pointed to the people beside him: "You can have your own farmland and houses, and no one has the right to take it illegally; you can go to work in the factory, and the lord will pay you; , you can go to the hospital to heal your sore, and no one will drive you out of the house; you..."

Wright looked at the little girl with wide eyes and couldn't help smiling: "Emily, you can go to school, there are many children your age, all in school, you can make many friends."

"My three gods of abundance, what you said is the same as what the priests said," an old woman couldn't help but exclaimed, "That's where we can go after we die, right?"

Wright was a little stunned for a while, and then he was a little dumbfounded. He shook his head and began to explain more patiently what Cecil had on his collar.

The light of the jumping bonfire was shining close at hand, and the priest who had lost his holy light was gradually coated with a warm and bright light.

However, between the jumping firelight, an incongruous shadow suddenly flashed on the edge of Wright's vision.

On the rubble outer edge of the village, between the burnt fence and the shack, something flashed past.

The soldiers guarding the campfire had stopped talking at some point. They cautiously placed their hands on the hilt of the fusion-cut sword that never left their bodies, and a faint light of runes emerged from the seams of their gauntlets.

A soldier gave Wright a signal in the military's unique sign language, and Wright then lowered his voice and said to the villagers beside him: "Everyone is quiet - walk slowly to the cellar."

Several Cecil soldiers stood up from the bonfire and moved closer to Wright while moving their bodies, while the overwhelmed villagers got up one by one - but their movements were still too big, too obvious .

There were a few slight "boom boom" sounds in the night sky, followed by the sound of flying objects quickly cutting through the air. An experienced soldier immediately reacted and shouted: "Crossbow arrows! Enemy attack!!"

The force field shield was activated at the first time, and the outer edge of each Cecil soldier's gauntlet opened a translucent shield emitting a faint light, and a few inconspicuous silver lights fell there in the night sky. On the translucent energy barrier, there was a clanging sound, and in the next second, the light of the fireball technique shone among the ruins, and a fiery fireball slammed into the force field of a Cecil soldier. on the shield.

The explosion of the fireball illuminated the surroundings, and the villagers around Wright fled in panic, panicked shouts followed, and the situation became chaotic in an instant. Shouting: "Civilians enter the cellar! Others find cover to meet the enemy!"

The figures of the attackers emerged from the cover one by one. They kept shooting the Cecil soldiers holding up their shields with crossbow arrows and the unarmed panicked civilians. Because it was not easy to aim in the dark, many crossbow arrows lost their aim. , and then they pulled out all kinds of weapons and rushed out from all directions while shouting.

With the flash of the previous fireball explosion, Wright instantly saw the appearance of the attackers - they were a group of desperadoes who looked like refugees, but were actually wearing armor and holding weapons. Some of them were even wearing clothes. The knight's smocks and the caster's short robes, these people had muddy faces, tattered clothes, and bloodshot eyes were red. ——

They are the remnants of the aristocratic coalition army, who were defeated in the gravel ridge, left the army in the pursuit battle, and became outlaws in the wilderness.

Wright even saw two Holy See knights in church smocks and swords, and a priest of the Holy Light in tattered priest robes among the screaming outlaws!

Without hesitation, he opened the force field shield of the magic guide terminal, and then pulled out the fusion cutting sword that had been sent to him not long ago, and met the robbers who fell into trouble.

At the same time, in his mind, the information he heard recently appeared——

After the defeat of the noble coalition, the mixed Holy See knights and priests of the Holy Light also fled with the coalition, and many of them became prisoners of the Cecilians in the brutal pursuit, while some of the remaining people were in During the escape process, they separated from the main force and were fortunate enough to escape the pursuit. Some of them fled along the path in the wilderness to the northwest, hiding in the cathedral of the southern parish of the Church of the Holy Light and shivering—because they had just shot down the southern border. The Searle army didn't have time to trouble the church for the time being, and those who failed to cross the wilderness and stayed in the war zone with other noble soldiers became robbers.

Cecil's army is still active in the entire southern border, hunting down the remnants of the nobles who escaped, and the news that "Duke Cecil will take over the southern border again" has spread throughout the southern border, so these aristocratic remnants wandering in the wilderness are not at all. Dare to return to their territory - serf soldiers or civilian levies among them are not bad, after all, they are civilians originally, as long as they throw their weapons and change into rags, they can easily return to their hometown or hide in the countryside , but those extraordinary people, especially those with status and status... they are still active in the wilderness, and... hungry.