~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
"My lord..." The woman pressed urgently, "Demon lord, may I ask who my lord is?"
"The great God of Death and Time."
The demon's eyes dropped, its crimson pupils cold and sinister. "The God of Death and Time, who holds authority over human souls and the cycle of time and space. The absolutely just and orderly Dark God King. Koevikros."
"God of Death and Time, God of Death and Time..." A blazing light burst in the woman's eyes.
As long as her faith was devout enough, the God of Death and Time could fulfill her wish.
"Demon lord, your believer Norma begs for your guidance. Which direction must I go to find my lord's temple? Norma is willing to serve my lord for the rest of her life!"
"Pitiful human. You cannot enter my lord's temple."
Words that made the heart tremble spilled from the demon's crimson lips. "Your soul is dim and lightless. Your thoughts are rigid and blindly obedient. Your flesh is nothing but an empty shell."
"Human — what do you live for?"
What do I live for?
Norma's face went blank. What did she live for?
For her children? But her children were already dead.
What about before she had children?
She couldn't remember. She had never once thought about it. She had simply lived, day after day, eating, sleeping, herding, day after day, never asking herself why.
"I — I don't know," Norma said, shaking her head in panic.
Did living really require an answer to why?
Something flickered in the demon's scarlet eyes. A trace of pity.
"Human, you have no self. No freedom."
"Only a free soul may approach my lord's statue."
No self. No freedom.
Norma felt utterly lost.
She had lived for thirty years, and not one of those days had passed without hunger. Every day she worried about filling her stomach. She didn't understand what "self" meant , and she understood even less why she should have freedom.
Commoners were born to be ruled by nobles and disciplined by the church. Their bodies belonged to the lord. Their hearts belonged to God. No one had ever told her she lacked freedom. No one had ever thought to say it.
But yes. She had no freedom.
Her life, her marriage, her very existence , all of it lay in other people's hands.
The lord could wave his hand and take away her little lambs. Her parents' nod could force her to marry a man she didn't love. Bandits could come at any hour and snatch her children away.
Her life was like a candle flame swaying in the wind, ready at any moment to be snuffed out , blown dark or drowned by rain.
Freedom. She longed for freedom.
Norma knelt on the ground and begged humbly. "Demon lord, please instruct your ignorant believer. What must I do to gain freedom?"
The fog churned overhead. The demon's red eyes flickered within the black mist. "Pitiful mortal , go east. There is a land of freedom in the east."
Norma hesitated. "The east... the east coast?"
The demon gave no clear answer. It simply turned an indifferent gaze upon her.
"After dawn, walk ten miles east. You will meet a noble person. She will tell you the answer."
The black mist thickened. The demon faded slowly into the night.
Norma watched it go and panicked as if she had lost her last lifeline. "Demon lord , my lord, where are you going!"
"Demon lord, will you come again?"
"My lord, how do I call your name?"
"Demon lord!"
She scrambled to her feet and shouted at the sky.
The demon's figure was already gone. Those dazzling crimson pupils had vanished from the heavens.
Norma crumpled to the ground in sorrow. Then, from the snowy peaks, a cold mountain wind came sweeping down.
The demon's low voice rode the wind, distant and faint.
"My name is Ferryman."
The voice dissolved into the sound of the wind.
"Ferryman..." The light came back into Norma's eyes.
Ferryman. Was he a divine envoy sent by the God into the world to ferry them home?
Norma knelt on the ground and prayed with her whole heart.
Grateful to the God for granting her a new life.
The winter night in the northern lands was long and punishing. The fire the Seco people had lit still burned.
Over a dozen rescued commoners dragged their stiff bodies to the fire and stretched out their hands toward the warmth they hadn't felt in so long.
Two days had passed since the Seco people captured them.
Two full days without a single drop of water. Not a bite of food.
They had lain on the frozen ground, licking ice and snow off the rocks with their tongues, gnawing at grass roots when the hunger became unbearable.
They had thought they were going to die here. No one had imagined a demon would appear.
The demon killed the Seco people, then cut the ropes binding them.
These commoners couldn't make sense of it , why would the fearsome demon of legend save them, while the Seco people, who were human, had wanted to eat their flesh and drink their blood?
They weren't as bold as Norma. They hadn't dared look directly at the demon's form. But they had heard every word of Norma's conversation with it.
The demon said there was a land of freedom in the east.
Was there really such a place in the world?
They stole glances at Norma. After dawn , could they go with her to find this noble person the demon had spoken of?
Norma noticed them looking at her, but she said nothing. She lowered her head and searched by the firelight for the remains of her child.
Bones were scattered everywhere in the disorder, fragments from different people mixed together, impossible to tell apart.
She found only her child's clothes.
A small sheepskin jacket, sewn with rough, uneven stitches , stitches she had made herself, one by one, with a bone needle.
"My child..." Norma clutched the jacket to her chest and sank to the ground, weeping without sound.
The people around her, eyes gone red.
They were herders from the same tribe, bound by blood and kinship. The Seco people had burned their tents, slaughtered their cattle and sheep, and dragged them all here. Their home was gone.
Damn the Seco people.
They ground their teeth. Looking at the charred corpses still smoldering in the fire, they wanted to drag them out and beat them again , beat them until there was nothing left.
One man grabbed a Seco man's burnt leg, ready to tear into it out of sheer hatred, but another stopped him. "Didn't you hear what the demon said? Those who eat human flesh will be punished by heaven. They go to hell!"
The first man laughed and wept at the same time. "Hahaha , hell! Good. Serves them right. Beasts like that deserve every bit of it , serves them right to go to hell!"
Norma held her child's jacket tight against her and murmured, her voice worn to a rasp. "Did you hear that, my child? They will go to hell. They will find no peace even in death."
"You can rest now, my child."
The fire burned down to embers.
The herders searched the moraine shore and found the rest of the Seco bodies. They stripped the corpses of their clothes, took the weapons, and gathered several bags of wheat along with dried beef and mutton.
"Damn them — they had food this whole time!"
They had food. And still they chose to eat human flesh.
"They are the real demons."
Dawn came. The exhausted herders wrapped themselves in thick animal hides and walked toward the rising sun.
The grassland people carried their own wisdom. They knew the sun rose at different angles in winter and summer. Guided by knowledge passed down from their ancestors, they could find their bearing even in the open emptiness of the wild.
Under the slanting morning light, fourteen lean shadows moved across the desolate glacier, pressing east , toward what they hoped lay waiting for them.
They hadn't gone far when they spotted a carriage coming hard toward them from ahead. It was magnificent, ornate , and utterly out of place on this barren land. It looked like something from a dream.
The ground trembled beneath the wheels. They stopped and watched.
Beside the carriage rode a fine horse, and on its back sat a knight, imposing and straight in the saddle.
Behind the carriage came two reddish-brown horses, a man and a woman riding close, keeping pace, the owner's attendants.
Norma's breath caught.
Could her noble person be among them?
➤ Next: What a Kind Lady
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────
📖 Read up to 300+ advanced chapters on Pat reon
🔍 Search: p a t r e o n(.)com/BZDXG
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────