Chapter 228
Roina watched this and carefully pulled Ethan’s sleeve, looking at him. Since she and the others looked like people from the empire no matter how you looked at them, she thought it would be better for Ethan to speak to him.
Ethan, sensing Roina’s thoughts, nodded heavily and approached him.
“What happened?”
“Keuh… You heard everything, why are you asking?”
He muttered that and held his head. He seemed to think his appearance looked pathetic even to himself.
“Even so, things might be a bit different if you hear it directly.”
Ethan sat down heavily next to him. The man glanced at him.
“I have a younger sister too, so I’m concerned.”
“…You have a sister? Then take good care of her. Unlike me, don’t lose her.”
Ethan just looked at him with sad eyes. Perhaps reading something from that silence, the man’s eyes widened slightly.
“…Could it be that you too?”
Ethan opened his mouth calmly.
“I can’t see her now.”
“Damn it, those imperial bastards!!”
The man seemed to get angry again, frowning and huffing. He clenched his fists tightly and turned to Ethan.
“Those damned bastards dragged away all the able-bodied men, and now they’re even taking the women… They’re not even human!”
Ptooey! After spitting once, the man introduced himself as Aljan. Looking closely, he was limping, and he explained that he wasn’t taken because his leg was injured and he had paid tribute to the empire.
“I paid all the money they asked for, did everything they said, even smiled obsequiously, but even then, I thought it would be okay if only my family was safe…”
He was in agony, holding his head again and bowing down. His brown, curly hair was tousled and disheveled by his thick fingers. His expression looked extremely painful.
“My daughter Neilla has disappeared… Even though they said they wouldn’t touch her…”
He burst into tears again. It was a cry that felt like a piercing pain through his chest.
“That bastard, Count Icardo, is definitely the one… He’s been coveting my daughter for a while now.”
According to him, Count Icardo was not only greedy for money but also a notorious womanizer. When he first came to Castrello as an administrator, he seemed to be cautious at first, but when the official document ordering all able-bodied Castrello men to be sent to labor camps was issued, he revealed his true colors.
He began to summon all the citizens who looked even slightly beautiful. He pretended to make exceptions for the families of those who paid large sums of tribute, but the beautiful women in those families invariably disappeared.
After hearing the whole story, Ethan clenched his fist tightly, Jason, who had been listening from the side, cursed as usual, and Rager offered a silent prayer. Roina, filled with pity, looked at Aljan.
“That’s…”
The man glanced at Roina and said, as if muttering to himself.
“Listen, you look like naive imperial citizens who came here for sightseeing, but being innocent is a sin. That priest Mana’s claim that the empire is doing this for our sake is all lies.”
“…The leadership of the empire has changed. The Crown Prince who ordered the exploitation of Castrello has been deposed. Count Icardo no longer has the authority to act like that.”
Aljan, hearing Roina’s words, widened his eyes and looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot.
“Is that, is that really true?”
He grabbed Roina’s hand with trembling hands.
“How do you know that?”
“We,”
Roina opened her mouth to speak, then looked at Ethan. He nodded calmly. It probably meant that he supported everything Roina did. Roina turned her head back heavily and said in a small voice.
“We came to restore Castrello.”
The man opened his mouth slightly, as if he couldn’t believe it. Roina reached out her hand to him.
“Please get up now. This doesn’t seem like a good place for a long conversation.”
“Ah…”
Aljan was dazed for a moment, then, as if regaining his senses, he propped himself up against the wall and stood up abruptly.
“Let’s go to my house. It’s not far from here.”
Roina and her group supported the man and moved away.
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