What the hell did this bitch say? Kaisel couldnt believe what he heard.

He couldnt believe this, he specifically ordered her to poison the man, but she didnt do so, and the question was why? Was she in love with him? Or there was another particular reason behind this kind of insubordination, he needed to know.

He then started glaring at her. “Why didnt you do so, Gizelle?” His voice may be sweet while asking the question, but his face told another story.

She meekly looked at him. “I.. I. hated him… From the bottom of my heart. I just cannot let that man have a painless death, like you have ordered. I just couldnt. So.. i.. Instead of giving him the poison, I gave him a paralyzing agent.”

His anger started shaking mana in the air. “You gave him a paralyzing agent?”

“Yeah. I wanted him to suffer.” It was then her scared face vanished and was replaced by a savage look. “I wanted him to feel the pain of being burned alive by the flames. I wanted him to feel everything as the fire slowly melted his skin. I wanted his last moments to be as agonizing as possible.”

Kaisel wanted to kill that woman there and then. He didnt care about the deep grudge that she carried in her heart, nor he was interested in knowing why she harbored such hatred. Because of her stupidity, that man got away, and killing her would only ruin their operation.

He turned towards Patrica who was standing by the side, with a blank expression on her face. “You are in charge of punishing her. Make sure that the punishment is agonizing enough to last 1 week. But not so much that she could not work.”

Hearing his command she nodded, it was then he left the room. He couldnt care less what Patrica would do to her, he had a lot of other things to worry about, Gloria was back, and she would be having a lot of rage fits in the future, they would go away with time, but it would take a lot of time, and till then he needed to be there for her, to make sure that she stays under control. He had a lot of work to do…

***

Adui looked at the broken axel before him with anger, everything was going smoothly, and they were ahead of schedule, but this morning, one of the rocks on the road got between the wheels and broke the axel, making them come to an abrupt stop.

There were a total of two carriages in their little caravan, and both of them were equally important, other than passengers, these carriages were also carrying the supplies of the caravan, all the luggage of the mercenaries, along with necessary supplies like food and pots, the carriages were carrying everything.

As one of them was out of commission, they were stuck, it came to him that they should probably leave this one behind, but when he realized that the other carriage dont have enough space to carry all the luggage, he threw that idea out of his head. They have to repair the carriage, as soon as possible.

With mercenaries by his side, he looked at the axel, thinking of a way from which he could repair it. But without proper tools, they could not do anything. It was then they started hearing the sounds of horses galloping towards them, he looked to his right to spot the two scouts returning after surveying the surrounding area…

“What did you find?” one of the scouts then spoke. “There is a village around 5 km south from here. They could have a blacksmith with them.”

“How big is the village?” He knew that small villages dont tend to attract people of skills, like blacksmiths, but big settlements tend to attract a lot of talents

“Around 70-100 houses. It is pretty big.”

He nodded. After thinking for a while, he looked towards the carriages and the mercenaries, and then he looked at Clair and the children, who were peeking out from their carriage.

‘I cannot leave Clair with this bunch. Till now they have not shown any sort of ill intent towards us. But still, I cannot trust them completely. Then should I send one of these men to bring a blacksmith here?’

He was about to give out an order to the men to bring blacksmith here and have him repair this carriage, but it is then he felt that they should not be so hasty, CLair and the girls had been traveling and been locked in the damn thing for few days, they surely would love to stretch their legs.

It is then he decided what to do. He turned to Ben and asked him to take one of the carriages, with their supplies off the road, and hide it, they could not afford any mishaps to happen to their supplies. He then left Ben and some mercenaries by the carriage and took four escorts and the ladies to the village, he would himself go and meet the blacksmith there.

Diane and Julia were happy that they were going to the village, while Clair on the other hand didnt show any reaction. It is only when they started riding to the village, he realized the first mistake he made, he didnt know how to ride a horse, also with his physique, he couldnt possibly ride a horse. So he has to share a horse with one of the smelly men of their caravan, whose smell was more revolting than what he imagined…

“What happened here?” the mercenary on his back asked, and he had a similar question in his mind, what happened here?

Before them was an empty village, the houses of the neighborhood were well-built, but everything was abandoned. In such a huge village, there was no one in sight, at first, he thought that the village had been the target of the Vampas, but that wasn't the case as the houses were in good condition, and there were no traces of monsters ever visiting the place.

As the place was very creepy, he instructed the girls to stay near him, he feared that someone might ambush them out of nowhere. When they moved deeper into the village, they eventually came across a few people, who were all very surprised to see them, it is then one of the mercenaries went to talk to some of the villagers.

After talking around a little bit, they realized why was this village abandoned. As it turns out people have started abandoning the place, it had become too cold for people to survive, it had been very hard to grow anything in such temperature, and the cattle of the villagers have either died out of starvation or cold, thus there was nothing to do in the cold.

As most of the people in the village were mostly poor, they decided to move away from the village and started moving to the nearest city to look for work. But some of them stayed, they were too attached to their houses to move.

The mercenaries introduce the girls and him as noblemen, and they were here to look for a blacksmith. And they were willing to pay generously for their service, and the villagers agreed immediately. As there was practically no source of income in this place, they were too eager to earn some coin.

All the people left in the village started coming up to them, giving them different services, and trying to earn coins. Some women approached mercenaries, trying to sell them their bodies, those people were so desperate that women approached him as well, even with his revolting face. Currently, he was looking like a monster, that came straight from hell, still, as these women considered him a nobleman, they were eager to have his seed or do some other service for him…

Seeing Julia and Diane running around the small inn, he could not help but smile, a mercenary had taken the blacksmith to the carriage to fix it up. At the same time, he and the girls decided to stay here and rest for a moment, and they desperately needed it.

As the village was empty, there was no one in the inn at the moment, except for them and the barkeep, who went down to the basement to fetch some bottles of whiskey for the road. While Clair and he sat on one of the tables, keeping an eye on the girls.

“Adui.” He turned towards Clair. “I feel bad for the people of the village.”

“Me too.” he added.

She then leaned forward. “Is there anything that we could do to help them?”

“I would pay them very generously for their services.”

She was not convinced. “With that, I think we should give them some of our food to them as well.”

He quickly responded. “No,” he said in a hushed tone. “And do not bring the matter in front of the villagers.”

She looked confused. “But we have so much. It wouldn't hurt to give them something.”

He looked at her weirdly. He didnt know how could she say something so idiotic. “No. Do you even understand what you are trying to say?”

She took offense at his tone. “Watch your tone Adui!”

He sighed. “Clair look around you. People are dying left and right around this place, because of hunger. We have food, but we have to look after needs first, then help someone else. Do you want your daughter to sleep on a hungry stomach?”

She scoffed. “If you hadn't kidnapped us, we would still be living in the city. Where there was plenty to food for us.”

He then leaned forward and came close to her. “Mark my words. The capital city, the place you think is paradise on the island, will fall. It may happen today or it may happen tomorrow. But it would happen. And that day you will realize why I took the steps that I took.”

Before she could say anything else, the door of the inn was opened and the mercenaries that took the blacksmith came back. Soon after them, the middle-aged blacksmith came in. “Is the carriage fixed?” he asked the blacksmith.

The blacksmith shook his head, “I would is in bad condition. To fix it completely I would need to start fire and forge a new piece. It would take some time.”

“How long?”

“Two days.” He didnt have that amount of time to spare, so he decided to test the waters. “Know this, the faster the work is done, the more I will pay. So how much time will you need now?”

The blacksmith looked confused, he looked around but no one came to his aid, so he thought about it for a moment and then said. “One day?”

“Good man.” He said. “If you manage to complete the task in one day, I will pay you double the agreed amount.” A smile bloomed on the face of the blacksmith, he then bowed and then ran away to fix the axel as soon as he could…