Dust of History

Dust of History Chapter 3: Wanted Man

In a room full of various corpses, an old man who was messing with corpses turned his head to look at Aza and complained regretfully: “I’ve been wondering, why would that skinny monkey send me goods today? Moreover, didn’t even bargain the prices, I knew cheap things are no good.”

    Aza wanted to stand up, but just when he put his hand on the ground, stabbing pain erupted in his chest, he let out a painful cry and fell to the ground again. are gone. The old man ignored him, complaining as he open up the corpses.

    Inhaling a few breaths, Aza turned around strenuously and looked around. This is a very large room, or just a very huge house, with a simple structure, a high roof, a large space, wide doors, and some large glass windows on the four sides of the walls. This room is quite bright. Every corpse inside can be seen clearly.

    Not exactly only corpses, because, in addition to more than a dozen complete corpses, there are dozens of mutilated corpses, as well as countless organs soaked in glass bottles, which are placed on shelves and countertops of varying heights. This place deserved to be called the human body exhibition hall. Aza was lying beside a naked male corpse, some arms and legs surrounding him, while the old man was dismantling a female corpse.

    After a while, some footsteps sounded, the wide wooden door was knocked, and a voice shouted from outside: “Is old man Sandrew here? Open the door.” The old man shouted back: “Yes, open it yourself and come in.” Several heavily armed soldiers entered. Several of them exclaimed in a low voice when they saw the display inside.

    A squad leader asked the old man, “Is there any other person here?”

    “Person?” Old man Sandrew nodded, “There are many people here, what type of people pick yourselves.”

    “I’m asking, have you seen any suspicious living people around here?”

    “I haven’t seen this one, and that one either,” said the old man Sandrew, pointing to a few soldiers. The soldiers wrenched their expression as they looked at the finger pointing at them, which had just been taken out from the female corpse’s belly and were covered with blood and some unknown liquids.

    “This old man… It’s like this, today a prisoner escaped from a prison in the city. He was a very vicious and cunning spy. He also killed everyone in the prison, including the two guards who often sell corpses to you. Both fat and skinny ones. The criminal is still hiding in the city, and we are ordered to search for him.” The team leader said.

    “I haven’t seen no spies, and there’s no one hiding here. You can search if you want.” Old man Sandrew buried his head and played with the bodies again.

    “Search every single corner carefully. Remember, it’s a man in his twenties, a tall guy, with black hair and dark eyes, and a wound on his left arm. Also remember, execute him on the spot, no talking. Order from the Duke of Murak. This guy might be able to do sorcery, stay alert.” The captain gave the command in a dignified manner, to endure the intense feeling of vomiting.

    Lord Murak’s order? Aza couldn’t speak but could hear clearly. He didn’t know how he escaped after killing those people with him heavily injured. But he also heard the “kill on the spot, no talking” order just now.

    The optimal choice now is to close my eyes and continue to play dead and wait until they are gone. But unfortunately, the room was well-lit, and his appearance could be clearly seen, including the bandage on his arm.

    “Hey, come and see.” The old man Sandrew took out something from the female corpse’s abdominal cavity, proudly holding it up in his hand as if he had found a great discovery, “I bet this woman has never given birth, but definitely abortion. There really are people in Royal City who actually did this kind of thing.”

    Warghh——’ Uuegh——’ The two soldiers next to the captain finally couldn’t control themselves and vomited. The effect is contagious, and many other soldiers also vomited one after another.

    “&@#* this, who brought the recruits?!” The captain hopped away with vomit drenched on his boots. Seeing that the other soldiers began to vomit one after another, he took another look at the ‘thing’ that the old man Sandrew was holding, several tendons attached to the female corpse. Sickened for a while, he shouted: “Retreat, retreat, hurry up!” The soldiers immediately ran out as if they were fleeing from death.

    “Hey, clean it up for me before leaving.” The old man Sandrew chased after them a few steps, grumbled a little, came back and closed the door, then walked up to Aza cursing. He stared at him strangely and said, “No idea how you can kill that skinny rascal after he delivered you here personally.”

    It was only then that Aza could see clearly that this was a rather tall old man, wearing a monk’s robe that was so dirty without any visible colour. Because of his grey beard and hair entangled with the silk threads of his robe, he could only see his facial features in a limited space. The only thing he could see clearly was the pair of eyes, black and white, without any trace of dullness at his old age.

    “I don’t know what’s going on either. Since you know they’re looking for me, why didn’t you hand me over to them?” Aza asked weakly. The broken bones in his chest screamed every time he said a word.

    The old man Sandrew widened his eyes and asked like he didn’t understand his words, “Why would I hand you over to them?” He raised five fingers and circled it around. “You’ve cost me five coppers. Five whole coppers.”

    “If I escaped, I will pay you the money myself.” Aza was completely at a loss for the situation in front of him. With such a serious injury on his body, he became a wanted criminal inexplicably, and the order of ‘killing him on the spot’ gave him no chance to speak for himself.

    “Nah, it looks like you won’t be able to leave this city. Since they searched here, they might as well have searched the woman’s toilet. What in the Hades did you do?” the old man asked.

    “I just rescued the Duke’s daughter from the swamp.”

    “And then slept with her on the way? Gave birth to her child? Sold her into a brothel? Or maybe even sold her to a slave trader?” The old man’s imagination was very rich.

    “Escorted her all the way to Bracada.”

    “What a special way of thanking someone.” Old man Sandrew shook his head. “But I’m not interested in whatever it is about anyway. I need some manpower here, work to pay off your debt. You can’t escape anyway. Looks like they’re serious, they won’t stop until they catch you.”

    Aza was stunned for a while, and then weakly replied, “It seems like that’s the only way. I just need a doctor or priest right now.” Because of the severe pain, his voice had begun to be hazy.

    The old man Sandrew looked at him, reached out and touched Aza’s chest, his hands suddenly grabbed the ribs on both sides and yanked them. Aza screamed, feeling that several knives were stuffed into his chest and twisted, and he almost fainted again. After he took a breath and cleared his mind, he realized that the broken bones were attached correctly as they were, and the pain was almost gone. More than a dozen priests in Bracada needed a whole morning to fix it, but this old man only took a while to do the same thing. Although Aza didn’t know much about magic, he could probably guess that it was a very super high-level healing spell.

    “Three months,” said old Sandrew.

    “What?” Aza didn’t know what the old man meant.

    “I fixed you, so work here for three months.”

    Aza hurriedly raised the left wrist that was crushed by the werewolf and asked, “What about this?”

    The old man Sandrew untied the bandage and took a closer look, and sighed: “At least three years.”

    In the Duke’s Mansion, in the study of the Duke of Mulak, the Duke frowned, listening to the report of the Royal Guards’ fruitless report.

    Knight Clovis ​​stood upright beside him. Even in such an angry mood, he did not lose his temper at all, and he was still so imposing, calm and well-mannered, and ‘knightly’ was the right word for him.

    But when he looked down at the floor, his eyes leaked uncontrollable anger from time to time.

    The duke did not blame him, the duke would never blame anyone or lose his temper with anyone. It’s just that Clovis couldn’t forgive himself for making such a grave mistake. This mistake may lead to the failure of their entire project, and even endanger the safety of the Duke and himself.

    The Duke asked suddenly, “Why did you kill everyone in the prison?”

    Clovis replied, “I’m afraid that the soldier leaked something.”

    “When a person is locked up without any explanation, how would he still have the mood and leisure to chat with others?” Duke Murak slowed down and said with a heavier tone: “The most important thing is that you didn’t inspect carefully before you killed all of them. How did the soldier lure the jailer in? How did he disable the jailers? How did he escape? If every detail is clearly comprehended, something useful will surely be found.” The Duke concluded again. “You’re too young and too impulsive. Be patient and think about problems from as many angles as you can to find more solutions.”

    “Yes. I will do everything and anything in my power to capture this soldier.”

    “Think about things with more perspectives,” the duke repeated tirelessly. “Don’t be too conspicuous, maybe some people will be curious. Just leave this matter to the Personal Guards.” The Duke thought for a while, “Shouldn’t be too troublesome, that soldier probably didn’t know why he was being wanted, and he won’t report to other places. Let’s do what we should do. Go back now, and remember that you must not show any traces of your connection to this fugitive in front of others.”

    “Yes.”

    Looking at Clovis’ back, the duke’s brows were still frowning. This is a very ambitious young man, very capable, very hardworking, and very ruthless. He is definitely a good deputy, a good subordinate, and a useful chess piece. But he’s not likely to be a person who can achieve great things.

    If a person’s desire is too strong, it will muddy their reason. If you are too focused, you will not be able to grasp the whole picture and the subtle changes in it. Once attracted by a single leaf, you cannot see the entire forest.

    Too ambitious, and too ruthless, he tends to overdo things.

    There is also a huge family behind this young man. The Ernie family is a wealthy family for many generations. Within them are high officials in the court, there is no lack of power in the field. He is the eldest son of the family, and he is definitely a perfect marriage partner. But definitely not a good husband.

    It’s hard to live with someone who takes fame and fortune too seriously. This kind of person only cares about themselves.

    Sighing in his own study, Duke Murak suddenly felt a little tired.

TL Note: Changing Sandro to Sandrew.

Really sorry, exam this month, can’t squeeze in the time to do quality translations.