Chapter 108: The Arrival Of Uninvited Guests

The Village Head swept his gaze over the two youngsters, his many years of experience telling him that they weren't a threat to them. However, their sudden appearance had ruined the sacrificial offering meant to pacify the water spirit.

"Yes, this is the Budh Village. Who are you and why did you ruin our ceremony?" He asked in a cautious manner.

"We are travelers from town. The City Lord ordered us to go to the Bansi Village for an official matter. Unfortunately, we encountered a beast horde in the Eastern Reaches and escaped with great difficulty. Forgive us if we interrupted an important ceremony, but it was not intentional."

Crown Prince Lail humbly replied, not wanting to start a scuffle. From the angry expression on the Village Head's face, he could tell they interrupted a private ritual. But a night of battling wild beasts exhausted him. He didn't have the energy to get into an argument with well-rested natives.

"From town? They came from town!"

"I also heard that. But they are headed for the Bansi Village. How unfortunate."

"Shhhh...did you forget? Discussion of the Bansi Village is banned in the Budh Village."

"Look at me! I hope the Village Head and elders didn't hear me."

"Forget about that! The water spirit offering ceremony was interrupted. What do you think will happen to our village now?" 

"At least we know that they're only martial artists and not magicians."

Silent whispers and hushed murmurs drifted in the air, making Crown Prince Lail and Princess Qamari look at the limp girl by the lakeside. 

"Youngsters, we understand your situation and don't have any problem with you passing through our village. However, you interrupted an important ritual of our village, of which our Budh Village will suffer the consequences. What do you have to say for yourselves?" The Village Head raised his voice to cover the chattering of his fellow villagers.

The Budh Village was just a minuscule settlement in the East Minions Faction. It was so insignificant that it wasn't even included in the list of village names. The yearly village gatherings, where every village head relayed the struggles his villagers went through for the year, took place without their presence.

As such, they were left to fend for themselves and solve their own issues on their own. The water spirit ceremony was one such solution that they came up with to resolve the issue of drought.

Now that the ceremony was intercepted, the Village Head trembled in fear of the consequences. Finding a scapegoat was the only solution to the problem!

"Again, it was unintentional. However, since the ceremony of your village was disrupted by us, we will compensate you. Tell us. What can we do to compensate you?" Piecing the ins and outs of the matter together, Crown Prince Lail directly went to the heart of the matter.

Compensation.

His calm and composed attitude caught the Village Head off guard. Since the two before him were only youngsters, he expected them to panic upon hearing his cold interrogation. However, the exact opposite happened.

He was the one panicking instead.

"Compensation? Do you think that this is something that you can compensate for? You doomed our entire Budh Village to another year of drought!" Shamed into anger, the Village Head roared.

"Yes, yes. The Village Head is right. Since the ritual didn't complete successfully, we will be facing another year of drought. How will we survive an entire year without water?"

"This cannot be compensated. Our crops will wither and our fields will dry. Without water, we won't have crops to sell. Without water, we won't have food to fill our bellies. This is driving us to our deaths!"

"Definitely! We are all going to starve to death. The water spirit will unless its wrath upon our village. The little water we have left in our lake will wither and die out as well."

The villagers started moaning and crying in despair, some even falling on their behind as they held their heads and wailed like their parents had passed away. Their discordant cries grated on Princess Qamari's ears, making her wince in pain.

"Enough!"

Her cold voice was like a sharp blade, instantly slicing through the cacophony and silencing the brawling crowd.

Sweeping her freezing gaze over the stunned group, Princess Qamari coldly continued.

"You don't want compensation? Fine, we will not compensate you. But what do you want us to do? Your ceremony is ruined and there is no way to undo what has already been done. If you are thinking of making us your scapegoats, you can forget about it! We are officials from town on an official business. There is nothing you can do to us. But if you are thinking about using underhanded methods, I suggest that you discard the idea."

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Crown Prince Lail's heart quaked. His eyes went blank as the woman's voice and tone superimposed with that of his wife. On the night before their wedding, when she addressed the objections of the Amaya ministers, Princess Qamari's voice was just as domineering and unshakable as that of the woman's.

"If we go missing, your Budh Village will immediately fall under the radar of the Laining City officials. Right now, you might just be facing a natural disaster. Once the city officials get involved, your entire village will face a man-made disaster. You will be exterminated to the last child."

Cold sweat went down the Village Head's back the moment her final words fell. Like a hot pan splashed with an ice water, the crowd boiled in shock and disbelief.

"Village Head, is what she said true? Will we get exterminated?"

"That can't be! They were the ones to interrupt our ritual!"

"Will we truly face retaliation from the city officials?"

"Village Head, say something! Is this the end of our Budh Village?"

With a pale face, the Village Head swallowed with difficulty before focusing his frightened eyes on the white-robed woman. In his reckless quest to find a scapegoat, he had almost invited his death and implicated the entire Budh Village to the last generation. Although the youngsters before him were not magicians, that didn't make them any less dangerous.

Crown Prince Lail, startled by the shouts of the frightened crowd, finally returned to his senses.

"What in the seven realms am I thinking? She is not my wife!" He reproachfully whispered to himself.

"Did you say something?"

"No, nothing, just exhausted. You handled this well. However, we did crush their last strand of hope by arriving uninvited and interrupting their ceremony. So we need to find a solution to their problem before we leave."

Since he spent most of his younger days on the battlefields and traveling the Amayan lands, Crown Prince Lail understood the struggles of the villagers. Estranged and ostracized by other tribes and villages, in the face of natural disasters like droughts and earthquakes, there was no one they could turn to.

Sacrificial ceremonies and unorthodox rituals were their only source of hope.

"Ceremony...?" Princess Qamari was noncommittal.

Her eyes went back to the helpless girl laying by the lakeside, her vacant eyes proof of her shattered faith. If they hadn't arrived in time, she would have long drowned to death, sacrificed in her villagers' quest to please a nonexistent water spirit.

"Village Head, we understand your difficulties. We will not hold your earlier behavior to heart, since you were only looking out for the best of your villagers. However, as my companion asked, how do you expect us to compensate you? What's done cannot be undone."

"But our offering to the water spirit went unsuccessful because of you! How will we survive this year without water?" Now more clear of the type of people he was facing, the Village Head no longer tried to use force. Instead, he changed tactics, putting on a sorrowful and hopeless expression.

After all, everyone sympathized with the weak and pitiful, right?

Unfortunately for him, he encountered Princess Qamari. 

She was already disgusted with the villagers for their barbaric act of cruelly sacrificing the life of an innocent, young girl in their mad belief of pleasing some water spirit. Now that the same individuals put on the masks of despair, an eerie smile graced her golden orbs.

"Oh, is the ritual you are talking about the sacrificing of a maiden? But that ritual is banned in the entire Eastern Minions Faction, is it not? Anyone found practicing it, will be sentenced to immediate death by beheading. And all other compliances will receive punishments of equal status!"

"Yes. Our ritual was supposed to bless our village, but...huh?" The Village Head paused mid-sentence, his eyes rapidly blinking in confusion. The cold words he heard were not the ones that he was expecting.

"Miss, what did you say?" Thinking that he misheard, he confusedly asked the woman again.

The eerie glow in Princess Qamari's eyes intensified as she continued in a dangerously low voice.

"Anyone found practicing the ritual of sacrificing a maiden will be sentenced to an immediate death by beheading. All other compliances will receive punishments of equal status. Your Budh Village dared to cruelly sacrifice an innocent, young girl. Tomorrow, under the City Lord's name, every single individual present here will be sentenced to death by beheading. We will personally report your crimes in writing to Laining City's City Lord."

In order to cure a disease for good, one needed to cut off the ailment from its root.

This was a principle Princess Qamari understood very clearly.

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