Jesse and Nicholas arrived at the stall with clear signs of sleepiness on their faces. Jesse looked at Ethan with tired eyes and said to him: "Where do you get all this energy from, boy?" Nicholas sat in one of the chairs with his eyes closed from fatigue and said in a somewhat low voice: "Your friend convinced me to leave my sleep to search for you, and in the end we find you eating without us. Shame on you, man." Ethan kept looking at them without reaction and directed his gaze toward the two remaining bowls. He grabbed them and placed them in front of Nicholas and Jesse. Both kept looking at the bowls with surprise without uttering a word. Both grabbed their bowls and began sipping from them at the same time.
After the first sip, their eyes opened wide as they felt all the fatigue in their bodies beginning to slowly disappear. Nicholas placed his bowl forcefully on the table, causing some of it to spill, while expressions of amazement filled his face: "Man, what is this thing? It's incredibly delicious!" Jesse placed the bowl on the table with expressions of fascination and surprise on his face: "What is this thing? All the fatigue I had has disappeared."
The stall owner looked at them and replied: "That's because the soup is made from shiitake mushrooms. This is a special mushroom that grows underground somehow, but it has a unique ability to increase energy." Nicholas replied with surprise and some astonishment: "Where do you find this mushroom?" The stall owner replied with a slight smile: "We grow it in a secret place. I don't have the right to tell you, but this mushroom is what our village is distinguished by. So sometimes people come from different villages to barter something in exchange for a certain amount of this mushroom." Jesse replied with a tone of curiosity: "How many villages are there in this area?" The man (stall owner) placed the bowls that Ethan had finished in a basin full of water to wash them later. He turned to Jesse and replied with a sarcastic tone: "You really don't know anything about this place, boy. Where were you living before you came here? In a cave?"
Expressions of annoyance appeared on Jesse's face. He took a sip of the soup and replied with an annoyed tone: "Just answer my question." The man laughed lightly and replied with a smile: "I'm just kidding, don't take my words seriously. Well, I'll tell you. There are several villages scattered on this small island. Some are hundreds of kilometers away from us, and some are somewhat close to us, specifically two. The first is Willwood village, located inside one of the forests near a mountain. That village is considered the only place that contains a group of nurses and doctors capable of making medicines against diseases and germs. In case of any serious disease outbreak, we head directly to that village to provide us with the necessary medicines in exchange for a huge amount or a certain service. It's considered the only place everyone turns to in case of epidemic outbreaks, so no one wants to get involved in problems with them."
Jesse replied with surprise: "What about Katoran? It seems their reputation isn't good." The man's face began to frown slightly and he replied: "Yes, it's the worst village ever. And unfortunately, they're considered the strongest in the region. They own several other villages, it's unknown how many. Some rumors say it's 5, others say it's 7. The important thing is they own other villages, so they're called the Katoran Empire. Their closest village to us is located in front of the northern river. And for our bad luck, they've controlled the entire river and kill anyone not from their people if they drink from it. So, the remaining villages like us live on groundwater or some small rivers found in the forests scattered around."
Expressions of annoyance and some anger began to appear on Nicholas's features. The man continued his speech with an annoyed tone: "All villages hate and despise that empire, but they can't do anything because of their huge numbers and tremendous power." Expressions of surprise and some annoyance appeared on Jesse's face and he replied with a questioning tone: "Well, I heard from Joseph that they're barbarians and kill anyone in their way even without reason, so how have they never attacked you or attacked any other village?"
The man replied: "Well, it's true they're barbarians, but they're not stupid. They usually send someone to the village they want to attack to present them with an offer, which is simply that the village provides something, let's say for example 3 boxes of wheat monthly to the empire, and in return they won't attack them as long as these conditions are met. If you refuse, they will attack your village and kill every person in it, children, women, or elderly, it doesn't matter who you are. If they attack you, you're inevitably dead. After that, they'll steal everything in the village and burn it in the end. If you're wondering why they don't plunder everything from the beginning, the reason is simply that they prefer to let the original villagers do all the work by themselves while they get part of their wealth without needing to do anything or waste any part of their resources. And this is exactly what our village does. We pay a huge amount of mushrooms and wheat monthly to avoid conflicts with them."
Expressions of annoyance appeared on Jesse's face and a slight feeling of hatred began to fill his heart. The man continued his speech: "By the way, there were two other villages long ago who were offered the same offer I told you about, but they refused it, since at that time the Katoran Empire wasn't known... As expected, they were completely exterminated and they burned their village completely." Nicholas struck the table forcefully with expressions of anger apparent on his face, and said in a tone full of anger: "They weren't completely exterminated." Everyone looked at him with fright and surprise, and he continued saying: "Nerosha village wasn't exterminated."
Jesse replied (trying to calm him): "Calm down, man, say what you want to say but calmly, don't get agitated." The man looked with surprise and amazement at Nicholas, and replied with a surprised tone: "Nerosha village?" He put his hand on his mouth and began to think: "Does he mean the village where the black people live? Wait a minute! He's also black! Could it be?" His eyes widened and he said to Nicholas with a tone of surprise and shock: "Wait a minute, are you one from that village!?" Nicholas calmed down a little, but his eyes were full of hatred and anger, and he replied with an angry tone: "I wasn't born there, but my mother was from there."
The expressions of shock on the man's face increased, and he replied questioningly: "What? This means there are more of you! It's impossible that the remains of the burned village still exist until now, and the Katoran people won't leave anyone alive if they start attacking! What happened? Did you manage to escape from them? Tell me what happened?"
Nicholas took a deep breath and replied: "I wasn't born then, but my mother told me what happened (the story will be explained from the mother's perspective)... A few years ago, when the mother was 15 years old, she was at home playing with her sister, but suddenly she began to hear sounds of screaming and shouting and gunfire everywhere. The mother and her sister remained hidden in the house for hours with terror gripping their hearts. Sound of gunfire, blood seeping from under doors, screams of terror from women and children, and screams of my village's warriors trying to tell others to flee. A few hours passed for the mother to notice that silence had filled the place. She thought it was over, but she couldn't move because of terror. But suddenly the house door was violently broken and behind it appeared a huge tall man with strong muscle mass wearing only pants made from animal skin, carrying in his hands a sword stained with blood. The mother kept looking at him while she was on the verge of dying from terror while her sister kept screaming hysterically. The man looked at her sister with an emotionless face. And in a few seconds, her screaming suddenly disappeared. The mother looked at her to find her head fallen on the ground and her blood began to flow tremendously toward her. The mother kept looking at her sister's severed head, not comprehending what happened, with feelings of sadness, terror, shock, and helplessness possessing her. She remained frozen in place without doing anything while blood flooded all parts of her body. The man looked at the mother and grabbed her by her hair and dragged her out of the house.
Immediately when she left the house, she found the place filled with the corpses of her people. Blood everywhere. Severed heads. Mutilated bodies. The village was completely destroyed. While the mother kept looking at the corpses, unable to do anything, unable to scream or call for help or do anything. The man suddenly stopped and threw her forcefully on the ground, causing some dirt to enter her eye.
She wiped her eyes and opened them to see a group of her people chained and looking at her with looks of sadness and despair. Someone came behind the mother and chained her and began dragging her heading toward some place. And the same thing with the others from her people. Hours and hours passed as they walked on the road, to the point that she no longer felt her feet from pain. One of the women from her people fell from severe fatigue and told them she couldn't walk. The same man who killed her sister came with a black whip in his hand. The man raised the whip high and struck her forcefully with it, then heard the woman's screams echoing everywhere. She fell to the ground and began rolling right and left from the severity of pain while crying bitterly. The mother looked at the whip owner to find a mocking smile on his face as if he was enjoying it. The person who was holding the woman's chain shouted forcefully: "Get up from the ground or do you want more?" The woman put her hands on the ground and began to rise with difficulty, her feet trembling from severe fatigue, her eyes became red from intense crying and pain, and then they continued advancing."
(To be continued...)