Chapter 8: Hunting the Devil (1)
A Nomis horse.
It only reveals a corner on the ground, and more parts are buried deep in the soil. There is also a large lodged tree pressing on it.
Ella used a branch to push the soil away, and digged a small hole under the big tree with difficulty. The gold coin lost its support, and fell into the pit after being pressed for a moment. Ella picked up the gold coin with two fingers, blew the mud on it, and put it in her pocket.
Most of the members of the ancient Abraham church died under Jokibe. Habiba was missing. She could not move Gottfried, who was fainting. Although she had tried to walk to nearby towns for help, because she was penniless, no one was willing to pay attention to him.
She was tired and hungry. Fortunately, there were many corpses of animals burned to death in the woods. Ella took out some unscalded food from it and barely used as filling food.
The day passed and Gottfried showed no sign of waking up.
So Ella could only start collecting the gold coins buried deep in the soil as she said at the beginning. They were all relics of the Semites. Although they had no bones left, things like clothing were preserved. However, when they were blown by the storm of Yogibe, these things were buried very deeply, and it was very difficult to dig them out.
Ella needs these things more now than the dead.
On the second day, Habiba's voice came from afar: "Advisor! Appointment! You squeak! I'll save you! Master has the unique skills of pretending to be dead. You can survive if you learn one or two percent...Advisor! Appointment! Come out quickly! I still have half a roast chicken here!"
After hearing this, Ella responded loudly. After a while, a group of Semitics came over. Habiba walked in front of the crowd, still gnawing at the half of the roast chicken he had just mentioned with relish.
"When I saw that the situation was not good, I ran to Flanders to find help. I knew there was a village where the ancient Abrahamic church gathered. But after I got there, I realized that there were not many magical people there. Fortunately, Jogibe had been killed by the people of the Abrahamic Orthodox Church, and we were nothing."
Habiba threw the chicken bone back and glanced at Gottfried, who was lying on the ground.
"What's wrong with my apprentice?"
"I don't know... he has been fainting for more than a day."
"Dimme? That's fine. When I go back, I splash him with cold water and he gets up."
Ella began to wonder if Gottfried was Habiba's personal disciple.
After reporting the deaths of the rest of the people, the Semites who followed Habiba scattered silently and collected the remaining clothes of the dead in the forest. They piled up the collected clothes, then gathered them around them, bowed their heads and began to pray.
Their prayer was ambiguous, and Ella understood only one of them:
"Blessed are you to meet the true judge."
After the prayer, they stuffed the clothes into a cart. Habiba said that it was to bring them back to the gathering place of the ancient church of Abraham for burial.
This surprised Ella again: "They and these dead should not know each other, right?"
"It's all the same," said Habiba. "These dead are rich, and the ones I bring are poor. But whether they are rich or poor, the members of our ancient church in Abraham are homeless."
As Jogibbe said, the Count of Ile de France did not actually put eyeliners. This group of members of the ancient Abraham church walked straight to Flanders along the road, and did not encounter any investigation along the way.
Ella was about to go to Flanders' port to board the boat, and walked back to Stadt by sea, and followed them. Because they carried the relics of the dead, everyone was silent along the way.
They soon came to the village where the members of the ancient Abraham church gathered. It was built in a very remote hill away from the cities and villages where the Almani Commonwealth lived.
Suddenly, someone in the crowd screamed, breaking the tranquility of the team. He pointed his trembling finger at the small village in the distance - it was trapped in a sea of fire.
The crowd stirred up and threw their carts and rushed towards the village. They pulled out buckets, washbasins, and even wooden bowls from places that were not on fire, stumbled into the well, filled the river with water, and stumbled back and splashed at the houses that caught fire.
Ella stood there blankly. She had already vaguely noticed something--even though the fire was so big, there was no crying sound in the village.
The fire lasted from noon to night before finally extinguishing. Ninety percent of the houses were burned by the fire. People walked silently among the pile of coke, looking for their relatives.
The good news is that those who stayed in the village seem to have evacuated elsewhere, with no casualties.
Among the several surviving houses, one of the walls was written with a few big words in red paint:
"Go to die, demons!"
"Demon..." Ella asked carefully, "Why is it a demon..."
"A few days ago, people around the neighborhood dreamed of the village of Yokibe. Yokibe is like us, all Semites." There was no trace of lightness in Habiba's tone. "In fact, we are not very popular in the Almani Federation."
"I dreamed of that dream, but that was not what you did! Why do they do this!" Ella shouted, "I will take you to the local lord and ask him to avenge you and let those who burn your village be punished!"
"It's useless. The lords even ignore the people of the Almani Federation, let alone us? Besides, we Semites are not within the legal protection of the Almani Federation."
The speaker sighed, took on the only remaining grain in his family, and said to the others: "Let's go, it's time to build a village in another place."
Others followed him and found the remaining things to use in the ashes.
"Your village was burned for no reason! You just endured it?" Ella shouted.
"You can't help them. This is our life." Habiba sighed, "Who made our country destroyed more than 1,500 years ago? It would be a blessing to lose the race of the country and be unable to become a slave."
"Isn't the Tianfang Empire a country for you Semites?"
"That's not our country... The Tianfang Empire has gone astray in faith from top to bottom, from the elderly to children."
"But we are not afraid." Someone said, "There will be a savior to take us out of suffering - this is God's promise to us."
Ella suddenly understood why they prayed like this to their dead compatriots:
Chapter completed!