Shelly recalled the barbarian priest he had t a few tis in the past.
The way the man oscillated between madness and lucidity had left even him, a wizard apprentice, secretly alard.
Perhaps the priest’s sanity was already on the verge of collapse, and that’s why he wanted to use Grinding Sound Fruit to stabilize himself.
“You don’t need to know about that. Matters of the wizarding world—you're just a regular person—the more you know, the quicker you die.”
“Y-Yes.” Though his curiosity remained unsatisfied, Ruper didn’t dare press further.
Just then, a soldier arrived with five Grinding Sound Fruits. Shelly told him to leave the fruits on the floor, waved his hand, and sent him away.
As Mayor Ruper was leaving, he heard Shelly urgently calling out again.
“Hurry and find a girl—a clean one—bring her here before morning!”
“Y-Yes!” Ruper bowed repeatedly and reached to shut the door.
As he turned back, he saw the soldier who had delivered the fruits standing stiffly at the stairway, head bowed low, eyes fixed firmly on his toes, not daring to look around.
Soldiers assigned to this place were all Ruper’s trusted n.
He walked over and patted the soldier’s shoulder. “It’s nothing. The place just looks scary. You’ll get used to it.”
The soldier forced a grim, ugly smile.
He had also helped with the tower’s renovation, tearing out the floors of the first and second levels and leaving only a wooden staircase spiraling down along the tower’s interior wall.
The two of them descended the stairs one after the other. On the surrounding walls were paintings of grotesque, twisted faces.
If the soldier had the courage to look closely, he might have recognized so familiar features among those faces.
Though Ruper told the soldier not to be afraid, he himself dared not glance at the walls while descending.
He always felt that if he stared too long, sothing terrible would happen.
And while the First-Rank wizard apprentice in Grind Sail Town was desperately seeking a breakthrough to escape the looming threat of barbarian raids, the very barbarians they feared welcod an unexpected visitor that night.
This band of barbarians, wandering the border between the Kema and Kenas, were fast asleep.
So leaned against rocks, others lay directly on the ground.
No one lit a campfire. No one stood watch.
What if they were attacked in the night?
Then they’d simply get up and fight.
At the center of the encampnt stood a crookedly assembled tent.
Around the tent, several corpses were impaled on wooden stakes and nailed to the ground.
Each body had been crudely hacked in half—one facing up, the other down—impaled together on a single stake.
It was their unique form of ritual sacrifice.
Suddenly, a pair of feet landed silently outside the tent. Yet none of the sleeping barbarians stirred at the sound.
The figure gradually erged from the darkness, frowning in disgust as he looked around at the staked corpses.
Then, stepping between the bisected bodies, he lifted the tent flap and entered.
Inside, the barbarian chieftain sat cross-legged in ditation. He snapped open his eyes and assud a defensive posture.
But when he saw who it was, he froze, then slowly sat back down.
“You are… earlier… than agreed. I don’t have… the fruit… yet.” The barbarian priest spoke the common tongue slowly and haltingly.
The visitor looked down on him without responding, his voice stiff and cold: “Kema’s wizard Kira has advanced to Second Rank. She plans to personally purge the borderlands of barbarians. You’re on her list.”
The barbarian priest’s face was painted with alternating red and black symbols, masking his expression. But the twitching muscles around his mouth revealed his unrest.
“Second Rank wizard… We must… leave,” he said. Among the barbarians, he was one of the few who still retained a shred of rationality.
“Migration… requires… food.” The priest looked up at the wizard.
“You’ll have to figure that out yourselves.” The wizard sneered and turned to leave.
After a few steps, he paused.
“Oh, right. Wipe out Grind Sail Town.”
The priest looked up in confusion. “Your… Wizard Tower… doesn’t want the fruit?”
The wizard half-turned his head, voice frosty. “Just do it.”
The priest acted as if he didn’t hear the threat, rely stating, “Yes, Lord Bill.”
“Hmph. Trying to threaten ?” Wizard Bill snorted and exited the tent.
Once he was gone, the barbarian priest slowly pushed himself up with one hand.
He picked up the wooden staff leaning beside him and bit his finger, saring the blood on the top of the staff.
The staff already bore several blood marks—each one clear and vivid.
“The Chieftain walks with us.”
He tapped the ground once with the staff, and an invisible ripple spread outward.
Outside the tent, the previously sound-asleep barbarians shook their heads and began to rise.
The priest stepped out of the tent, raised both arms, and held the staff horizontally above his head.
“Migration!”
“Roar!”
“Slaughter!!!”
“Roar!”
“Roar! Roar!”
If the first command had drawn a simple response, the second one stirred an explosive enthusiasm.
Seeing the barbarians full of energy and eager for blood, the priest nodded in satisfaction.
He looked around, taking a mont to determine the direction.
“Grind Sail Town. This ti—leave none alive!”
“Roar!”
“Roar!”
“Roar! Roar!”
…
Around 5 a.m.
The sky was just beginning to lighten, the surroundings still dim.
Inside the room, Saul stirred from his ditation, sensing soone approaching, and opened his eyes.
At the sa ti, the front gate of the small courtyard was pounded with brutal force.
No matter which room one was sleeping in, waking up and walking to the gate would take a bit of ti.
But whoever was outside clearly had no patience to wait.
Bang bang bang!
With a loud crash, the gate was knocked down.
Ada, rubbing his eyes, had just gotten out of bed.
“Who the hell’s banging so early—damn, the door!”
He rushed out of the cabin in disbelief—only to see a group of n flooding into the yard, heading straight for his house. At the front was Jeff, captain of the town’s guards.
Countless terrifying mories flashed through Ada’s mind in an instant. But his heart resisted the obvious answer.
Penny was so young—how could she be chosen as a Grinding Sound Fruit foster mother? She was blind too, not the image of a pure, beautiful girl at all.
Maybe it’s for so other reason. Maybe they’re here for , Ada prayed to himself.
But things always moved toward the worst possible outco.
Captain Jeff walked up to Ada, looking at the half-grown boy’s face, which was full of confusion and fear. A flicker of guilt flashed across his mind.
But his expression remained cold. He opened his mouth and said the cruelest words with icy calm:
“Ada, your sister Penny has been chosen to be the sacrifice for the Grinding Sound Fruit. We’re here to take her.”
Saul, still seated at the table, frowned and looked toward the large cabinet by the bed.
The cabinet door slowly creaked open, revealing Penny’s small, bewildered face.
Outside, Ada couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
He walked over and grabbed Jeff’s arm.
“Captain Jeff, just yesterday—didn’t you already choose soone? Why are you taking Penny today?”
He clung to any excuse that might get her out of it.
“She’s blind—only seven—too young. Aren’t there other girls in town?”
Jeff remained silent.
Could he say that the town couldn’t find even a single suitable girl?
So under the mayor’s strict orders, he thought of Penny—the pitiful girl who rarely left her house.
Only Ada still naively believed that Penny’s blindness would protect her from being chosen.
How could he know that the wizards didn’t care about appearances at all?
“Ada,” Jeff said in a low voice, “you’ve lived in this town for four years now. In those four years, we’ve fed and sheltered you, kept you safe from disaster and vagrancy. Now, it’s ti for you to give sothing back.”
“The Grinding Sound Fruit’s yield is plumting. We have no choice but to sacrifice another. I hope you understand—and don’t make use force.”
(End of Chapter)
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