After a much deserved punishnt executed by Alice herself, the group dragged along the young man to his hotown which was about fifteen minutes distance from the so called 'Devil's cross'. It was exactly enough ti for Luna to comprehend the reason why, after going through the trouble of defending him out of pity, Alice ended up beating him.
"He wanted to take advantage from you." Luna's explanation was followed by a sarcastic clap from Uriel, though she took it as a complint and carried on her rry way without noticing.
"I thought people in Europe were loaded." Uriel said after taking a quick glance at the town in front of him. He still resented the overpriced breakfast at the coffee shop in Gibraltar and the sight of such a shabby town made him suspect he had been conned.
"It's not that we're poor, this was caused by the Devil's cross." The kid explained.
"Stop saying that na!" After praying on a foul symbol, Nika felt dirty inside and hearing that na only amounted to that feeling.
The doors to many houses were broken and there were few passerby on the streets, most of them looked anxious when they noticed the group of hunters. The fact that the kid was battered didn't ease their fears and everyone ran for cover.
"What a nice town." Uriel muttered to himself.
"It's not always been like that, this was caused by..."
"Say it again, I dare you." Nika glared at the kid causing him to flinch and apologize profusely until they reached his ho. Calling it a shabby cottage would have been a complint, but despite each of the Dungeon Raiders being considered wealthy, none showed any signs of discomfort or disrespect towards their host.
Nika seed particularly happy when an old man greeted them in spanish and was happy to speak in her native tongue for a while, but then Luna cut their conversation short.
"You are leaving us, uhm... out of the conversation."
"It's not my fault he doesn't speak english." Nika shrugged.
"I thought the world governnt turned english into the global tongue." Luna pondered out loud to which Uriel had a reply at the ready.
"That is true, but this man is way older than the world governnt. Sothing similar happened at Easter island, rember?"
"Right..." Luna let out a sigh.
"I'll translate what he's saying," Nika asked the man to tell the story of the strange shrine outside the town, then she faked a cough before telling the story as she heard it. "a very long ti ago, when people would carry knives and swords out in the open to protect themselves... now that I think about it, it must have been pretty similar to how things have been going in the world right now.
Anyway, in the ti of castles... but there are still castles around..." The man looked confused for a mont and Nika giving voice to his ramblings made Uriel chuckle.
"dieval tis?" He said and the man nodded frantically after recognizing the word, then Nika continued translating for the group.
"There lived a man, a knight, that upon coming back from the crusader returned to his castle with great wealth. He was a man of honor and he shared his wealth with the village, making it prosper into a town in just a couple years. He married a lovely lady with whom he had always courted and she moved into the castle."
"That doesn't sound bad." Uriel nodded, receiving a prod on the ribs by Luna who despite the circumstances caused by them speaking different languages had beco invested in the story.
"Little did his wealth do to earn him the favor of the now townsn and they always spoke behind his back, claiming that he committed the most atrocious sins in the crusade in order to acquire his seemingly endless fortune. Not long after marrying and before a child being born, the wife fell sick and little did his wealth help despite him being able to call the best doctors.
He prayed and cried, but god paid a deaf hear to his pleas for help which only caused the townsn to murmur even more about his alleged cris.
"The newly widowed man remained shut inside his castle for years until most people believed him to be dead.
Eventually, they tried to barge inside his castle to get their hands in the wealth amassed by this man and great was their surprise when they not only found him alive, but fully dressed in his battlegear, a black luster armor and a two handed sword that killed all but two of the n who entered the castle.
After that, he started going out often to check on his fief and oppress the villagers to work harder, turn in more of their crops and tax them. But the strangest thing was that, despite him receiving his share of the crops and cattle, he was never seen eating and no matter how many copper coins he collected, none was actually spent.
He would just roam the land and terrorize people for the sake of it." The man made a pause which Nika took as her cue to add her own comnt. "I don't like where this is going."
"I was just thinking the opposite. Sure, it sounds bad to be on the side of the 'evil doer' of the story, but the villagers were glad to take his money and then talk shit behind his back. If they wanted to live a peaceful life, then perhaps they should have stayed clear of his way. Also, they had no right to grab their stuff, even if he was dead." Uriel said.
"Isn't taking dead people stuff sort of your entire career?" Nika lifted an eyebrow.
"Wow, it seems you really are affected by the devil's cross. Luna, I think we lost her, we should put her out of her misery." Uriel said jokingly, though whether Luna did understand it was a joke or not remained a mystery.
"Co on, don't play with that!" Nika pouted. After their exchange, the old man continued his tale. "As years passed the knight went back inside his castle and this ti even more people attempted to steal from him, only this ti they went prepared to fight against their lord saying that even a bad lord was better than an absent one.
They carried swords, pikes and knives, bows and arrows too, but when the knight appeared he broke through their ranks like they were nothing. Stomping them, crushing their skulls with his bare hands and laughing every ti a bullet bounced off his armor. The battle lasted for days as more people joined in until eventually the armored knight stopped moving.
"They, of course, wanted to do right by him and bury him at the cetery, mostly because they feared he would sohow find his way out of the grave and start killing again, but the local priest refused saying he wouldn't let a criminal rest along with the good people of their town.
This is why they decided to bury him near the top of the hill and place the biggest stone cross they could make on top of his grave to make sure he wouldn't be able to lift it even if he was to return from the dead. You could say that is the end of the story, but it is actually how it all began.
"From that mont onward, pilgrims and travelers would mistake that grave with a holy symbol and would usually pray or to entrust themselves to god. However, instead of the blessings they hoped for all they received was bad luck and the cross was eventually deed as a bad on, but so people eventually forgot about it.
But that was until an unsuspecting hunter decided to pray in front of the symbol and well... his reign of terror began." The old man started weeping and without anything to translate Nika was finally able to understand the aning of the words she had just spoken.
The fact that a man would return from the grave was bad enough, but when she realized what she did was the sa as pray to a man like that turned her stomach.
"What do you think Luna?"
"I think, this is likely the work of a cryptid and I also think I know the reason why it didn't work on Nika, but the only way we have to put my theory to the test is to go back there and pray."
"You can't! It's too dangerous!" The kid cried.
"I know it's dangerous, but it's the only way we have to save this town." Uriel said, followed by his silent thinking 'and get our hands in that knight's wealth'.
Moved by his offer, the kid explained his grandfather what Uriel just said and a smile was brought to the old man's face and he even accompanied them to the exit despite his advanced age and waved goodbye towards the hunters who were now on a quest to save his town without so much as asking for a reward.
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