Chapter 27: The Desolate North and the Cost of Compassion

The northern sky was distinctly different. Perhaps it was the biting cold, freezing even the air itself, that lent the blue sky such a desolate pallor.

Lifeless trees stood in stark solitude beneath that pale sky. The boundless wilderness stretched out, utterly barren. Even the softest breeze failed to stir a ripple, as if the wind itself disdained to linger in such a desolate land, rushing swiftly onward.

In the distance, the white clouds seemed to merge seamlessly with the wan sky, blurring the line between heaven and mist. The white vapor of our breaths drifted slowly upwards, dissolving into this bleak, monochrome world.

Perhaps this was the unique essence of the North: all life withered, leaving only the howling wind and the rhythmic beat of hooves.

“This journey has been truly desolate, hasn’t it?”

Lia had once again fallen asleep against my chest. Though her initial perch there was meant to avoid alarming the townspeople, she had since simply preferred to sit in my embrace. I glanced at the weather, finding the oppressive silence unbearable.

To remain silent in such an expansive, empty space would surely drive a person to the brink of loneliness.

Vilya was hardly an ideal travel companion.

“It wasn’t always empty here.”

Vilya spoke only after hearing my words, then added, “Many monsters.”

She likely meant there were many monsters here, which meant the people inhabiting this region must have endured immense hardship, constantly facing a multitude of creatures. Before this land was thoroughly purged, humanity must have suffered greatly from monster attacks.

No wonder the townspeople harbored such intense aversion to monsters.

“What does it feel like to fight monsters?”

I looked at Vilya, curious whether she would speak of her past battles. What kind of past did Vilya truly have? Her fights with monsters must have been incredibly thrilling. I wanted to talk with her now; I also felt a certain interest.

“Normal.”

Vilya’s immediate reply stunned me.

“Normal?”

“Not hard to kill.”

Vilya truly wasn’t a good travel companion. I had actually made an effort to start a conversation, but Vilya’s thought process was so direct, and her answers were simply impossible to follow up on.

“Do you have any particularly memorable stories? You know, walking like this is rather dull. Why don’t we chat?”

I decided to be blunt. For Vilya, only such straightforward questions seemed to yield a response.

Vilya tilted her head, pondered for a moment, then said, “No.”

“Hmm… really none?”

“Pointless.”

Vilya’s replies remained as brief and unengaging as ever. I turned away with a bitter smile, saying nothing more, almost wanting to wake Lia.

Vilya looked at me, her brow furrowing slightly. Then, she suddenly spoke, “That city, it was once besieged. Many people died on the walls. The walls were slippery, covered in blood and brains. Corpses lay everywhere; you’d slip if you stepped on them. The monsters shattered the city gates, killing all the soldiers stationed there.”

“What…”

Her sudden words startled me. Vilya looked at me, perplexed. “Weren’t you the one who wanted to chat with me? I… I thought for a long time, and this is all I could think of.”

“What happened then?”

Although such a gruesome story wasn’t good for Lia, Vilya’s sudden willingness to speak made me feel a touch flattered. I eagerly awaited her continuation. After all, it was a hero’s battle story; it surely held some intrigue.

“Later, I led my squad and charged. There was a particularly large troll leading them. I charged, and I killed it.”

Vilya looked straight ahead again, closing her mouth.

After five seconds of stunned silence, I tilted my head in confusion. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“How did you kill that troll?”

“I just went up and cut it down with one strike.”

“It was that simple?!”

“Yes.”

It was that simple for you? The leader of the monsters that breached a city, and you just charged at it and killed it with a single sword stroke?! What kind of story is this? There’s no dramatic ebb and flow at all. The war between monsters and you was completely unbalanced. What are you, Vilya, the One-Sword Girl?!

The battle stories of Vilya, the One-Sword Girl, seemed incredibly dull. Moreover, Vilya clearly had no desire to speak further. It wasn’t due to psychological trauma on her part; rather, I suspected the monsters she had fought were the ones with psychological trauma. It was simply because Vilya didn’t want to talk, nothing more.

****

Although my efforts to chat with Vilya had utterly failed, we soon spotted a white city wall, which appeared remarkably new. Yet, according to Vilya, this very city had once suffered a massive monster attack, nearly falling.

However, now, the city was surrounded by another group of people. These individuals were gathered outside the walls, blocked from the city by a wooden fence. No, it would be more accurate to say that the wooden fence formed a colossal pasture, and these people were essentially livestock penned within it.

However, this pasture contained no food, only dilapidated tents. The soldiers on the city walls watched them warily, their crossbows poised, ready to fire at any moment. Although wisps of smoke curled upwards, there were no cooking pots over the fires.

The queue to enter the city snaked through a narrow passage between two “pastures.” The people within the fences resembled zombies, pressing against the wooden barriers, gazing expectantly at the line of those entering the city.

Though it was expectation, it felt more like despair. The faces of these individuals were almost devoid of flesh, their skin appearing stretched taut over bone. Their eyeballs seemed to have receded, utterly lacking any light.

Their clothes were ragged and torn; it was unclear if they offered any protection against the cold. In such a frigid northern region, they were like kindling, ready to be consumed by the flames.

“Papa, what are these people doing?” Lia asked, looking at the people on either side, puzzled.

“Refugees,” I said softly.

“Refugees?”

“They are people with no food, no shelter, no money. Their homes were destroyed, or they ran out of food, so they have to wander.”

“Why? Didn’t the war already end?” Lia asked, looking around in confusion.

“For humans, wars against external enemies are actually beneficial. Once there are no foreign threats, humans themselves become terrifying.”

“Like my brothers and sisters wanting to kill me?”

“Something like that. It’s also self-destruction.”

I nodded, then looked to both sides. One child, about Lia’s age, had only half of her padded jacket left; the other half was gone. She was wrapped in mere rags to ward off the cold.

Her face was grimy and covered in chilblains, yet her eyes still held a spark of spirit. Her hands, cracked like an old person’s, gently clutched a piece of wood. Through a gap in the planks, she gazed enviously at Lia, who noticed her stare and looked back in surprise.

“Papa… she… do we have any food?”

“No, Lia, we cannot give her food.”

Lia turned back to me and asked. I gently turned her head away and covered her eyes, but I hadn’t yet had a chance to explain why.

Beside me, Vilya pulled a piece of dried meat from her embrace and gently extended it through the edge of the fence. It was as if a bomb had been dropped into a calm lake, startling the entire school of fish. Countless adults lunged forward, pressing the small body beneath the crowd.

The very people who seemed to struggle with movement now erupted in a violent brawl. For a single strip of meat, they were even willing to beat a child to death.

“Everyone scatter! Scatter!”

The chaos among the crowd also startled the people in line. Soldiers in the watchtower shouted loudly, and fully armed guards rushed into the fence, using their long spear shafts to forcibly break up the mob.

Once the crowd dispersed, the girl’s body lay still on the ground, her eyes vacant as she stared at the desolate sky. Her limbs were bent at grotesque angles, as if her small body had been flattened into a piece of paper.

In simple terms, she had suffered a two-dimensional strike, instantly collapsing from three dimensions to two. She hadn’t bled much, but she was gone.

The guards picked up the girl’s body as if she were a dead chicken, carried her away, and tossed her into a distant pit.

Vilya stared blankly in that direction. I kept Lia’s eyes covered, preventing her from seeing the girl’s corpse. But Lia trembled with fear, clutching my chest tightly and whimpering.

I looked at Vilya. Her expression remained unchanged, but she spoke, asking, “Why?”

“I told you not to. Giving food to that little girl was killing her. These people will do anything to survive, and of course they would fight for that single piece of dried meat. For these people, humanity has already vanished.”

I sighed, then looked at Vilya. “One could even say you killed her with your own hands. Giving wealth to someone who cannot protect themselves is no different from harming them.”

Vilya said nothing. She merely lowered her head slightly, then showed no further reaction. Vilya didn’t care that she had caused a death. Perhaps she was confused as to why she could kill without a blade in her hand. She had clearly been trying to help, so why had that person still died?

“You cannot save everyone here, nor can you save anyone here. This is not something you can fix. Such matters are for Queen Sisi to manage, and we should not interfere. We are not the lords of this place. Do not try to save these people. We will buy provisions and leave as quickly as possible.

“Above all, do not get entangled in troubles that do not concern us, Vilya. Refugees are like a raging fire; if mishandled, we will be burned alive.”

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