Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 43

“Charge! Charge! The spirit of freedom will not submit!” a robust voice shouted. As the crowd turned to look, some couldn’t help but cry out in surprise.

In front of a hay bale, an old goat stood majestically at the forefront, flanked by several fierce-looking geese and a hen. Behind these animals, a pair of disheveled young man and woman looked on in bewilderment, trembling incessantly.

“Isn’t that John’s old goat? Why is it speaking?” a bearded farmer asked in amazement.

“It’s the demons! It must be the demons! They’re driving the beasts to attack humans!” an elderly woman shouted shrilly. “Drive them away! Stab them with pitchforks! Burn their bones!”

The two young people, surrounded by the farmers, trembled even more.

At that moment, the old goat called out again, “They’re not demons—just a pair of unfortunate lovers. Just let them pass—”

A sharp-eyed person noticed something. “Is there something in the hay bale?”

“Please,” said the girl among the two young people, pleading. She had a few freckles on her nose, and her long brown hair was braided. If it weren’t for the mud and hay on her, she would look quite charming.

“We’re not thieves, just passing through—please let us leave. I swear to Lord Oelde, we will not take even a single straw.”

“You are not from Horn Village. Why are you in my orchard?” the leading bearded farmer shouted. “If you are from a good family, why are you sneaking around? What are your names? Where are you from?”

The two young people looked at each other, but neither spoke. The brown-haired, skinny boy cautiously pulled the girl’s hand and took a step back.

At this, anyone with a bit of understanding knew what was happening: a young couple appearing disheveled in a strange land—they were most likely eloping lovers.

Unlike the romantic tales sung by bards, rural elopements weren’t about noble ladies or young masters falling in love with lowly commoners and fleeing their families in overly fantastical plots. Instead, they often involved parents displeased with a boy’s family wealth and unwilling to follow their daughter’s wishes, looking to trade for greater benefits.

“Have you betrayed your parents and fled your home?” the bearded farmer bellowed.

The brown-haired boy shook his head, gathering the courage to speak. “We do not wish to betray our families, but my fiancée’s life was in danger, and we had to flee at night to survive. Please open the fence. We will leave immediately and cause no trouble.”

His words made things worse. An inebriated old man jumped up. “Did you offend some nobleman to end up here?! Now those knights will soon flatten our village! You two evil, despicable villains!”

His words were like a drop of water in hot oil. The farmers clenched their pitchforks, their faces turning purple with anger. The leading bearded man took a step forward.

“Noble souls do not fear war!” that strange, highly emotional voice shouted again. “Comrades! The time to charge for justice has come!”

An old woman screamed miserably—a plump hen flew at her, wings flapping hard over her face, frightening her into tripping over her apron and falling to the ground.

The old goat stood up on its hind legs like a steed, with several geese flapping their wings vigorously, charging at the people. The farmers were busy helping the old woman and defending against these animals, very afraid of this abnormal situation and, for a moment, unable to subdue them.

The voice shouting to charge had now moved from the old goat’s back to the hay bale. In the chaos, not many noticed that a little tin soldier lay there, commanding loudly, “Léfou! His weakness is on the left foot! Watch out! Their pitchforks are very sharp!”

The red-haired girl was initially stunned by the scene, but regaining her senses, she quickly bent down to pick up a broken old bucket and slammed it hard onto the head of a man wrestling with a white goose, causing him to stagger and fall. The goose triumphantly stepped onto his chest, stretching its neck and squawking twice.

“Emily…” the brown-haired boy stared at her in shock.

Emily lifted her skirt, speaking with a formidable aura. “Don’t just stand there! Do you want us all to lose our lives here?”

The boy, as if awakening from a dream, hurriedly climbed onto the hay bale and picked up the little tin soldier. He tucked it under his arm while pushing away a woman trying to grab Emily’s arm and dragging her stumbling towards the depths of the orchard.

The little tin soldier’s thin legs dangled under his arm. “Charge! Our souls will never submit!”

Charlie suddenly stopped and looked out the window.

He had just felt something strange. It was indescribable, but odd.

Outside was Mrs. Milou’s small garden, where two pink butterflies danced among the cabbage, all quiet, nothing unusual.

He frowned, withdrew his gaze, and wiped a speck of dirt from his walking stick with a tiny square handkerchief. The Duke’s belongings were of the finest quality, but the drawbacks of not having a professional maid along after a long journey were inevitably apparent—unlike clothes that could be worn and discarded, especially when they currently lacked even the facilities to discard clothes.

Dwight glanced at him silently, clearly displeased, unwilling to continue the conversation.

The Duke was in a bad mood, having not changed clothes for three days. At Brandenburg, clothes Dwight took off were usually not worn again. His estate had a tailor shop serving the Dwight family, and even without counting the new outfits bought annually, the shop’s efficiency ensured the Duke could change into four different sets of clothes daily without repetition for a year.

But that wasn’t feasible here. Although they had ample funds, their quasi-legal status forced the Duke to keep a low profile in most situations, even after a series of escapes, necessitating a temporary stay in an oil-stained, cluttered farmhouse, making him feel itchy all over.

“Alright.” Charlie stood the walking stick upright, examined it, and returned it to the Duke, neatly folding the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Don’t look so grim, Your Grace. I believe Dave will soon bring us suitable horses, and if we’re lucky, we’ll reach the town the villagers spoke of by tomorrow, where you’ll find the bathtub and nightgown you need.”

Dwight grimaced. “Anything made of material other than silk can only be called a potato sack, not a nightgown.”

Charlie shrugged.

The conditions in Horn Village were too primitive for His Grace to bear, so they planned to head to the nearest town to make further plans.

Among the scattered group, Shivers could keep himself safe with either force or looks, Eugene knew various survival skills under extreme conditions, and as for Columbus, as long as he wasn’t thrown into a burning stove, even a bear wouldn’t pose a life-threatening danger.

So Charlie agreed to the duke’s plan, not because he was also fastidious, but out of self-interest, he too wanted to quickly distance himself from the Lamp Bearers of Thorn Manor—the sooner, the better, the further, the better.

Thus, the two devised a compromise. Citing the long-term life of luxury as unbearable for further travel, they gave Dave some money to buy two horses at Thorn Manor on their behalf.

Because the reward was substantial, Dave urgently recruited a few trustworthy people and headed to Thorn Manor in the morning, indeed returning with two horses.

The Duke of Brandenburg was always generous, leaving the remaining money from the horse purchase to Dave as a reward, exciting the burly farmer to the point of incoherence. He insisted on driving them to the main road in a cart.

If one could view Horn Village from above, it would appear as a crescent-shaped, narrow village, surrounded on three sides by slopes, with one side bordered by a river with ample water, the villagers’ crops concentrated in the relatively flat valleys, and many fruit trees planted on the slopes, but with the winter just over, the new buds on the branches were sparse.

Dave, wary of conversing with Dwight, diligently stayed close to Charlie’s side, attempting to introduce Horn Village—but the ordinary little village had little to offer in terms of novelty. Luckily, a piece of recent news barely sufficed as something novel to tell the Lord.

“Just today at noon, something strange happened in the village next door,” Dave said. “A pair of eloping lovers ran into a fruit farmer’s orchard, and the owner of the orchard was furious. That unlucky guy—I’ve seen him during the Boal festival. He has a terrible temper. Anyway, he went to check his orchard and found the couple. He tried to drive them out, but then something bizarre happened—an old goat started talking, loudly scolding him.”

The Duke: “……”

Rabbit-headed shopkeeper: “……”

If it weren’t for his belief that Dave lacked such sophisticated social skills, he might almost think this man was deliberately telling this story in front of his rabbit-headed self.

Indeed, Dave hadn’t noticed the Lords’ odd reactions and thought he’d found a good topic to continue with. “That farmer was terrified. He called for some helpers, wanting to tie up that evil old goat along with the chickens and dogs around it, but the couple and the animals escaped deeper into the orchard. Who knows their own orchard better than the farmer? He gathered more people to corner and capture them all. But guess what?”

Rabbit-headed shopkeeper: “……”

Dave lowered his voice. “The old goat was still there, but out of nowhere, a highly skilled ally appeared and quickly knocked everyone to the ground before they all escaped—even the goat and the hen and geese!”

…Okay. Although it was a love story, the shopkeeper and the Duke, a bit overwhelmed by their own problems, had little interest in rumors that were half fact, half hearsay. The usually gentle shopkeeper managed a polite response. “That’s indeed strange. I hope no one was hurt.”

They were nearly at the end of the country road when Dave, a bit reluctant to end the conversation, hesitated before saying, “Speaking of coincidences, I went to Thorn Manor today and heard that a maid had run away. Several skilled people from the manor were organized to chase her, but they didn’t mention any man running with her.”

If that girl was a runaway serf from the manor, this would be very different from the nature of rural youths freely falling in love, as everyone except the owner and the management at the manor had no personal freedom. Everything about them belonged to the owner. Leaving the owner’s territory without permission counted as escaping serfdom, and according to the laws of most countries, the owner had the right to dispose of their lives—typically they were caught and executed on the spot.

It wasn’t that losing one or two workers would cause any real damage to the owner. It was the direct challenge to the owner’s authority that was deadly. If they encountered an unreasonable noble, it was possible that their anger could extend to the village or town where they hid.

This was precisely why Dave dared not directly suggest that the eloping couple might have come from Thorn Manor, fearing it might bring trouble to the neighboring village or even Horn Village. It was only because he saw that Charlie and Dwight were about to leave this place and would have no contact with Thorn Manor that he ventured to discuss it, showcasing a bit of cunning on Dave’s part.

As Dave expected, the two beleaguered Lords weren’t particularly interested in other people’s secrets. Charlie didn’t make any connection with the absurdity of a talking goat, clearly having forgotten his own entirely absurd circumstances.

Dave courteously saw them onto the main road, savoring the extra fortune these nobles had brought him from the skies, then happily turned back home, soon forgetting about the orchard next door and the rebellious maid’s story from Thorn Manor.

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