Jesse and Nicholas arrived at the stall with clear signs of sleepiness on their faces.
Jesse looked toward Ethan with tired eyes and said to him: "Where do you get all this energy from, kid?"
Nicholas sat in one of the chairs with his eyes closed from exhaustion 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 toward them without any reaction, and directed his gaze toward the two remaining plates.
He grabbed them and placed them in front of Nicholas and Jesse.
The two kept looking at the plates in surprise without uttering a single word.
The two grabbed their plates 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 starting to fade slowly.
Nicholas put his plate down forcefully on the table which caused some of it to spill, while expressions of astonishment filled his face: "Man, what is this thing? It's delicious to an unbelievable degree!"
Jesse put the plate on the table with expressions of amazement and surprise on his face: "What is this thing? It's delicious in an incredible way."
The stall owner looked toward them and replied saying: "That's because the soup is made from shiitake mushrooms. This is a special mushroom that grows inside the ground somehow, but it has a special ability to increase energy."
Nicholas replied with surprise and some astonishment: "Where do you find this mushroom?"
The stall owner replied to him with a light smile: "Trade secret."
Joseph said "The soup is so good that we use it in trade with the other surrounding villages."
Jesse replied to him in a tone that had a kind of curiosity: "How many villages are there in this area?"
The man (the stall owner) placed the plates that Ethan had finished into a basin full of water to wash them later.
He turned toward Jesse and replied to him in a sarcastic tone: "You really don't know anything about this place, kid. Where were you living before you arrived here? In a cave?"
He took a sip of the soup and replied to him in a serious tone "Just answer my question."
The man laughed a light laugh and replied with a smile: "I'm just joking, don't take my words seriously. Alright, I'll tell you. There are several villages scattered on this small island. There are ones that are hundreds of kilometers away from us, and there are ones that are somewhat close to us, specifically one. The first is Willowood Village, that village is considered the only place that has a group of nurses and doctors capable of making medicines against diseases and germs. In case any dangerous disease spreads we head directly toward that village to supply us with the necessary medicines in exchange for a huge sum or a certain service. It is considered the only place that everyone turns to in case of epidemics spreading, so no one wants to get into problems with it."
Jesse replied to him with surprise: "What about Katoran? It seems its reputation is not good."
The man's face began to frown a little and he replied to him: "Yes, it is the worst village of all. And unfortunately, they are considered the strongest in the region. They invaded several other villages, it is unknown how many. Some rumors say it is 5, and others say it is 7. The important thing is that they own other villages, so they are called the Katoran Empire. The closest village of theirs to us is located in front of the northern river. And to our bad luck, they have taken complete control of the river and kill any person who is not from their people if he drinks from it. Therefore, the rest of the villages like us live on underground water or on some small rivers existing in the forests scattered around."
Expressions of annoyance and some anger began to appear on Nicholas's features.
The man continued his speech in an annoyed tone: "All the villages hate and detest that empire, but they cannot do anything because of their huge numbers and immense power."
Expressions of surprise and some annoyance appeared on Jesse's face and he replied to him in a questioning tone: "Alright, I heard from Joseph that they are savages and kill anyone in their path even without a reason, so how have they never attacked you or attacked any other village?"
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The man replied to him: "Well, it's true they are savages, but they are not stupid. They usually send someone to the village they want to attack to present an offer to them, 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 will not attack them as long as these conditions are met. If they refuse, they will attack your village and kill every person in it, children or women or elders, it doesn't matter who you are. If they attack you, you are dead for sure. And after that, they will steal everything in the village and burn it in the end. If you are wondering why they don't loot everything from the beginning, the reason is simply that they prefer to leave the original village people to do all the work by themselves while they get a portion 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."
The man continued his speech: "By the way, there were two other villages a long time ago that were offered the same offer I told you about, but they refused it, since at that time the Katoran Empire was not known... As expected, they were completely annihilated and their village was burned entirely."
Nicholas hit the table forcefully with expressions of anger visible on his face, and said in a tone full of anger: "They were not completely annihilated."
Everyone looked toward him in terror and surprise, and he continued his speech saying: "Nerosha Village was not annihilated."
Jesse replied to him (while 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 toward Nicholas, and replied to him in 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 moment! He is also black! Could it be?"
His eyes widened and he said to Nicholas in a tone of surprise and shock: "Wait a moment, are you one of that village!?"
Nicholas calmed down a little, but his eyes were filled with hatred and anger, and he replied to him in an angry tone: "I was not born in it, but my mother was from it."
The expressions of shock increased on the man's face, and he replied to him questioningly: "What? This means there are more of you! It's impossible that the remnants of the burned village still exist until now, and the Katoran people would not leave any person alive if they started the attack! What happened? Were you able to escape from them? Tell me what happened?"
Nicholas took a deep breath, and replied to him: "I was not born at that time, 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 in the house playing with her sister, except that suddenly she began to hear sounds of screaming and shouting and the sound of gunfire everywhere.
The mother and her sister remained hidden in the house for hours with terror controlling their hearts.
*The sound of gunfire, blood seeping from under the doors, screams of terror from the women and children, and the screams of my village's warriors trying to tell the others to escape.*
A few hours passed for the mother to notice that calm had settled over the place.
She thought the matter had ended, but she was unable to move due to the terror.
Except that suddenly the house door was smashed with force and behind it appeared a huge tall man with a strong muscular build wearing only pants made from the skin of one of the animals carrying in his hands a sword stained with blood.
The mother kept looking toward him while she was about to die from terror while her sister kept screaming hysterically.
The man looked toward her sister with a face empty of emotions.
And in a few seconds her screaming sound suddenly disappeared.
The mother looked toward her to find her head fallen on the ground and her blood beginning to flow massively toward her.
The mother kept looking toward her sister's severed head unable to comprehend what happened, and feelings of sadness and terror and shock and helplessness controlling her.
She remained frozen in her place without doing anything while the blood covered all parts of her body.
The man looked toward the mother and grabbed her by her hair and dragged her outside the house.
Directly when she exited the house she found the place filled with the corpses of her people.
Blood everywhere.
Severed heads.
Mutilated corpses.
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 onto the ground which caused some dirt to enter her eye.
She wiped her eyes and opened them to see a group of her people bound in chains looking toward her with looks of sadness and despair.
A person came behind the mother and bound her in chains and began pulling her heading toward some place.
And the same thing with the others of her people.
Hours and hours passed while they were walking on the road.
To the point that she no longer felt her feet from the pain.
One of the women of her people fell from extreme exhaustion and told them she could not 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 to then hear the sound of the woman's loud screams everywhere.
She fell to the ground and began rolling right and left from the extreme pain while crying bitterly.
The mother looked toward the whip's owner to find a sarcastic smile on his face as if he was enjoying that.
The person who was holding the woman's chain screamed forcefully: "Get up from the ground or do you want more?"
The woman put her hands on the ground and began rising with difficulty and her feet trembling from extreme exhaustion and her eyes had become red from extreme crying and pain and after that they continued advancing."
(To be continued...)