The burial man yelled and woke Oliver up, who was now feeling rather dizzy from being thrown to the ground.
“You bloody idiot! Look at what you’ve done! If you don’t fill the pit tonight, I’ll throw you in it! Damn!”
His words were nasty, and the fact that Oliver was still at a loss made him even more furious. He spat on Oliver and then walked away back to the cabin.
The viscous mucus hit the center of Oliver’s forehead, and he then started fiercely throwing up. He was throwing up so badly that his entire stomach had been emptied, and then the bitter bile came up.
It was not only because of the mucus. It was also because he found himself covered in sticky dead body fluid and rotten flesh. His left hand was still grabbing the set of half-rotten guts, and in his right hand, there was a thick femur.
The scene was worse than any nightmares he had never had. It was beyond disgusting!
Oliver hurriedly threw the guts and bone away and held his breath. He felt that the horrible odor could kill him anytime.
At this time, some blue light blinked and flashed past, which caught his attention.
Oliver’s eyes were sharp. Following the direction, to his surprise, he saw that the femur had cracked, and from within, the blue light was shining through the fine cracks.
The great curiosity and hope made him forget the killing odor and how dirty he was. His movement had become very gentle.
He carefully moved to the femur and picked it up with great caution.
There was indeed blue light coming out!
Oliver didn’t check it immediately as he had learned his lesson. Instead, he climbed to the edge of the pit by grabbing a few bodies. After looking around and making sure there was no one else around, he cracked open the bone carefully.
He did it rather carefully, and the blue light was revealed bit by bit as the small pieces of bones on the outside were falling. Finally, Oliver got a light blue short stick in his hand, and the stick looked rather delicate and transparent.
Oliver was shocked, having no idea what it was.
Then he quickly hid the short stick in case George and the rest of the burial men would see.
Anything found from the bodies had to be submitted to George, who would make a selection and give the valuable ones to the city hall officials in charge of the cemetery and the priests. It had happened several times that George and his men immediately took Oliver’s findings away when Oliver spotted something valuable. Not only that, George would not even pay him on time but just give him two bad meals a day.
Oliver wanted to bury the stick somewhere close and dig it out when he got a chance to leave this place. He would then get himself some money by selling the stick. However, at this time, he noticed the many small characters engraved on the beautiful stick, which was as blue as ocean water.
As a young man who loved opera, Oliver had spent lots of time studying characters and learning different cultures. Therefore, he immediately recognized the characters. It was Sylvanasian, one of the three most common tongues in the ancient Magic Empire!
Ms. Audrey’s material was a great help to Oliver for understanding the characters. Oliver had lots of thoughts in his mind. He figured out the correct reading order and found that it was a piece about meditation! In the end, the owner even wrote down where he buried his treasures on the short stick!
Earth, fire, wind, water… Is this a sorcerer’s meditation method? Oliver had heard many stories from bards and some operas, and they were about how an evil sorcerer did bad things to nobles and ordinary people, but in the end, the sorcerer was defeated by the clerics and nobles together. He had some thoughts on where this came from. He believed that it was from a sorcerer who did this before he or she died. Maybe the sorcerer hoped that this could be left to someone, but the person never came…
Oliver was a romantic person, and thus, he naturally longed for the mysterious life of a sorcerer who was always under the Church’s chasing. As a devout follower, his conscience had plagued him multiple times for this, so he never did anything evil or tried to be a sorcerer himself.
However, what he had experienced in Rentato had made his belief less solid.
Why his Lord never saved him when he was suffering so badly? Why would the priests allow George and his men to do whatever they wanted and even protected them? Why could those clerics, nobles, and wealthy people enjoy luxurious coffins and tombs after they died, while a poor man, no matter how devout he was, could only be thrown into such a pit?
Did the Lord call this justice?
If so, he should save himself using a sorcerer’s method first.
No one would know. In the future, he would be rich, and he could still be the same devout follower of the lord.
The conflicting feelings and thoughts appeared within Oliver’s mind. Finally, he decided to bury the short stick first to save it for the future. After all, once becoming a sorcerer, he could possibly be spending his whole life living in fear and hiding. He did not want that.
Oliver buried the short stick beside a gravestone and left a secret sign for himself. He then hobbled back to the pit as he still had to fill it; otherwise, George and his men would definitely beat him up again.
Oliver knew that there would be no sleep for him tonight.
At this time, someone kicked him in his back and then punched him to the ground. Oliver felt pain all over his body, especially in his back.
“Damned lazybones! You did nothing! You wanna die?!”
It was Goldson, another burial man. He started beating Oliver up using all his strength.
Oliver could do nothing but to cover his head with his arms. Like a shrimp, he curled his body to protect his most vulnerable parts against the punches and kicks that were falling like raindrops.
After a while, Goldson started feeling a bit tired. “Get up and get the work done! Or I’ll throw you in it!”
Before Oliver responded, Goldson had turned around and walked back to the cabin. He did not know how Oliver was staring at a gravestone with a special sign behind him. There was blood in Oliver’s eyes.
Oliver knew that he would die sooner or later if he did nothing. But if he was going to die, they would die with him!
He slowly climbed up and walked to the gravestone. After digging out the short stick, he hid in the pit and carefully read it. After remembering the characters, he hid the short stick in front of his chest.
He then climbed out of the pit and picked up the iron spade left by Goldson.
He shoveled dirt into the pit to fill it, and the work only lasted for half an hour. With the spade in his hand, Oliver walked to the cabin with his face slightly flushed. His movement was quiet, for he didn’t want to wake Goldson up.
Entering the cabin, Oliver heard Goldson asking while half-dreaming, “All done?”
That was way too fast.
“This one is blunt. I am taking a new one,” said Oliver, who sounded like a sheer coward.
“Bloody slug,” cursed Goldson. “Sharpen both the spades after the work’s done.”
The iron spades were given by the city hall. They could not afford iron items.
“Ok,” said Oliver.
At this time, Oliver had come to Goldson and was now standing behind his back. The silver moonlight went through the window and covered him in silver-white. Under the witness of the moonlight, Oliver’s shadow on the opposite wall raised the spade high in the air!
And then it fiercely dropped.
“Ahh!!!”
Goldson’s bitter crying only lasted for a second and was cut off by his last breath. He had never expected that the useless, young coward from a rich family who only knew how to please girls would have the guts to murder him!
Goldson was dazed. He was never on alert when facing such a coward!
Fear had frozen on Goldson’s face, and his unfocused eyes opened widely.
Blood dripped onto the floor from Oliver’s spade. He spat on Goldson’s head.
“You’re good, uh? You’ve got something? You said you were gonna bury me, uh? Come! Come show me!” Oliver yelled at the body crazily.
After a few minutes, he slowly calmed down. After finding dozens of Fells from Goldson’s pocket, Oliver put on Goldson’s clothes.
After that, Oliver walked out of the cabin. The spade was still in his hand, and his left hand grabbed the short stick tight under his shirt. He then walked silently into the darkness.
The wind started roaring, and the night now looked even darker. There were now only dead bodies in the new public cemetery.
…
Shirley hurriedly came back to the village. Before she could walk to Vicente’s place, she was stopped by a local peasant woman.
“Miss Shirley, don’t go. Vicente, Vicente is a sorcerer!” said the woman in fear. “Fortunately, you two are not married!”
Shirley’s head buzzed like she just got struck by a flash of lightning. She pulled the woman’s arm and asked, “Vicente… How is it possible?!”
Were night watchers here already?
“Miss Shirley, you have no idea how terrible it was! They found lots of dead bodies in his basement! He’s indeed a sorcerer! The clerics found it out…” the woman explained quite clearly to Shirley, but Shirley felt that she was going to faint anytime.
“Where is Vicente then? Did they catch him?” Shirley tried her best to stay calm.
The peasant woman looked very concerned. “No. They said he went to the marsh in the early morning!”
Shirley released a sigh of relief. As long as Vicente was still alive, there was still a chance!
She believed that Vicente had gone to the marsh to find the special herb because of what happened last night. He got lucky!
Shirley thanked the woman and hurriedly went back to the manor. She hoped that she could find Vicente in the marsh herself and tell him to hide for a while until her father solved the problem. He was not a sorcerer, so he only had to take out the magic book. However, she knew it clearly that as a noble lady, there was no way that she could go across the marsh and find Vicente there. She would probably end up getting lost there.
Therefore, she was about to send her servants there before her servants found out that the clerics were chasing Vicente. She was going to tell the servants that Vicente was the target of a few nobles’ revenge plan.
As soon as she walked into the garden in her family’s manor, a figure jumped out.
“Shirley, you like flowers? I found them in the marsh!” Vicente looked rather excited while waiting for Shirley’s praise. In his hand, there were a bunch of scarlet flowers.
