The instant Lang stepped through the door, Ye Tang already knew exactly what she needed to do.
She rushed upstairs to find Angeline, who had already been awakened by the commotion outside. She grabbed Angeline’s velvet cloak and draped it over the little girl.
“Angeline, go find Ginny. Tell her I need her and everyone’s help, and make sure she tells everyone that when they come to help, they must wear a crucifix. If they don’t have one, then make a crucifix on the spot with any stick-like object bound together!”
“Mm! Mommy!”
Angeline didn’t ask “why?” or “what happened?”. Loving and trusting her mom, she dashed downstairs with her. The little figure vanished into the night under the cover of darkness and bushes. Ye Tang fetched some firewood, whittled it into thin sticks with two swings of the knife, and bound them with hemp rope.
With the crucifix in hand, she picked up the black hunting gun. Ye Tang dug out the remaining bullets, loaded five rounds into the gun, and then lifted the black hunting gun as she opened the door.
By the time the lazybones Ginny arrived, several villagers were already facing off against the Cross Knights with hoes and plowshares. The villagers had all been roused by the knights’ racket.
The bolder ones got out of bed, threw on clothes, grabbed whatever could serve as a weapon, and headed outside to check. The timid ones first hid their children in wardrobes or basements before peeking toward Ye Tang’s house, the source of the noise.
When the villagers realized the knights were besieging Lang, everyone flew into a fury.
The first arrivals hadn’t yet heard about needing to wear crucifixes; they simply couldn’t stand by and watch these Cross Knights who had barged into the village assault Lang.
The situation unfolded just as Ye Tang had anticipated. Before the Righteous Knight could order the other knights to seize the villagers as hostages, Ye Tang yanked a small cloth bag from her waist and tossed it toward the villagers.
“Catch! Put them on!”
The bag contained the crucifixes Ye Tang had just made—that was why she hadn’t rushed out immediately to help Lang, focusing instead on crafting the Cross Knights’ one weakness.
The villagers had no concept of the Cross Knights’ doctrines. But out of trust in Ye Tang, the one who caught the bag promptly distributed the crucifixes to every companion present.
“Sir, what do we do now?”
A close-combat knight who had lost his nerve sidled up to the Righteous Knight.
“Damn…! That wretched witch…!!”
The Righteous Knight cursed under his breath, his mind in turmoil as he failed to come up with any plan.
In his hesitation, a child who had trailed after their parents picked up a stone and hurled it at the Righteous Knight’s face. “Let go of Lang! Get out of our village!”
“What!?”
The stone struck his forehead squarely, its sharp edge drawing a bloody gash above his brow. The furious Righteous Knight couldn’t fathom why these villagers would shelter evil. He even began wondering if evil had infiltrated the entire village, whether he should deem the whole place an enemy of the Lord.
“You foolish mortals! Don’t you know we Cross Knights scourge evil like this to protect the Lord’s domain on earth from corruption?! You’ve been bewitched by evil!”
“Who’s the real evil here!?”
Ginny, out of breath and seething with rage, snapped, “You know nothing about Mary and Lang, yet you call them evil?!”
“Exactly!”
“So many in this village have been helped by Mary and Lang!”
“Lang fixed the roof on my house!”
“Mary taught us how to make hamburgers!”
“Lang watches our kids when we’re busy! Our children love Lang the most!”
“Mary isn’t the evil you claim! Mary is an angel! A saint! How dare you slander her!”
“My mom’s night blindness was cured by Mary!”
As more villagers gathered, their fervor spontaneously formed them into a C-shaped encirclement around the knights.
Since all the villagers wore crucifixes, the Cross Knights could only retreat step by step, huddling together.
Lang, pinned to the ground by the knights, felt dazed. He began to suspect that everything he saw and heard was a hallucination induced by the poison.
‘This world is always so cruel to beastmen and to humans who show kindness to beastmen. How could a fairy-tale-like happy ending like this possibly happen in reality now?’
Ah… Mary…
Had the real her escaped to Ginny’s place? This illusory Ginny speaking up for him and Mary felt so lifelike…
“‘The Lord establishes a domain on earth, and the Lord shall protect the people upon that domain from the encroachment of evil.’… I recall the holy scripture says as much. I don’t remember it stating that werewolves are inherently evil.”
Ye Tang spoke as she descended the stairs from her doorstep.
The Righteous Knight, stunned that the witch knew the scriptures, had no choice but to shift his leg off Lang’s neck with Ye Tang’s gun barrel pressed to his forehead.
“‘All aberrant forms are enemies of the Lord, and you shall vanquish all aberrant forms for the Lord.’ The scripture has that line too!”
“Oh?”
With the gun barrel jammed under the Righteous Knight’s chin, Ye Tang continued, “Do you know the ‘aberrant forms’ in the scripture don’t refer to physical deformities, but to perverse evil thoughts in the human heart? Otherwise, by a literal reading, dwarfs, giants, harelips, double pupils, or heterochromia would all be enemies of the Lord to be eradicated… And not only that—”
Her left hand tore the necklace from the Righteous Knight’s neck while her right held the gun. His pupils contracted, but Ye Tang went on:
“Humans’ appearances vary by nature. Today you hunt werewolves, tomorrow you exterminate beastmen. Then what? Will you wipe out humans born with disabilities next? Or those with different skin colors, heights, or builds?”
“The Lord warns in the scripture to love thy neighbor. Will your Lord reward you for whitewashing the slaughter of other races as a holy war? If your Lord praises such inhuman butchery, then what is your Lord? A demon? Satan? No, even Satan, ruler of demons, never proclaimed the extermination of entirely different beings.”
“So you, who judge solely by appearances whether to purge, are worse than demons—worse than Satan?”
Ye Tang’s expression wasn’t particularly fierce, nor was her voice shrill. Yet every word pierced the knights’ ears like needles, making their minds ache and their faces burn.
The knights, who blindly believed the scripture equated to justice without question, had never seriously pondered Ye Tang’s questions. Worse, it was only her accusations that made them realize the issues.
Ignoring the speechless knights, Ye Tang crouched down with the necklace, pried it open, and fed the antidote inside into Lang’s mouth.
Lang’s vision blurred in his delirium, but his ears keenly caught Ye Tang’s voice. Unable to move, he felt her body heat and struggled to lift his eyelids, only to find her stroking his muzzle.
“Who dares barge into Abe Village in the dead of night!? Unforgivable!!”
A large group of sturdy adult men charged into Abe Village, wielding pickaxes and coal shovels—they were clearly miners from the Lem Mine.
Roused by the signal fireworks, the miners immediately realized something was wrong in Abe Village. Some went to fetch the new mine manager, others shook awake their companions. Everyone grabbed nearby tools and raced to Abe Village—for them, the village that had saved them from starvation held special meaning. It was not just their cafeteria but a place to soothe their souls. In the miners’ hearts, Abe Village symbolized warmth and comfort.
Even though prices in Lem Town had normalized, most miners still preferred the hamburgers from Abe villagers and Old Otto’s wine. Some even came specifically on holidays to hear Lang sing.
Now that the ropeway was complete, travel between Abe Village and the Lem Mine—or vice versa—no longer took much time or effort. Thus, the miners arrived quickly.
Nor were the arrivals limited to miners.
Hoofbeats approached from afar: Ulysses leading his men in a gallop.
Ye Tang had once jokingly told him that if he ever saw signal fireworks rising from Abe Village on a non-holiday, trouble had come to the village.
Today was just such a day.
Moreover, only Ye Tang would think to use signal fireworks as an alert—and have the guts to do it. Ulysses was nearly certain the trouble involved not just Abe Village, but Ye Tang herself.
“Get out of our village!”
The furious villagers shouted from the left.
“Get out of Abe Village! Stop harassing its people!”
The seething miners bellowed from the right.
Even without crucifixes, which Cross Knight wouldn’t feel guilty raising weapons against the crowd after hearing Ye Tang’s words?
“How can you bully Lang?!”
Children hurled mud balls and stones.
“Scram, you self-righteous idiots who know nothing!”
Adult villagers brandished their farm tools.
The glory the knights had imagined never came; every face showed only humiliation and rage.
“We, we only came here on a commission to purge the evil werewolf and vile witch! Otherwise, who would…!”
A knight tried to explain, only to get a mouthful of filthy mud from the children’s globs, choking on the taste.
“…Oh? Is that so? Then can you tell me who commissioned you?”
Ulysses dismounted, too winded to catch his breath evenly. The unrepaired roads were treacherous at night, but his horsemanship was solid, and his night vision exceptional.
“You, you’re…!”
Not all knights recognized the Grant family crest, but they all knew the royal emblem. The Righteous Knight, a scion of decayed nobility himself, dropped to one knee the instant he made out the pattern on Ulysses’s lapel pin.
“I am Ulysses Grant, head of the Grant family.”
“The head of the Grant family?”
The Righteous Knight blinked in shock. The Grant earl he knew was a vigorous middle-aged man, not some delicate, clear-featured young girl.
His dumbfounded look betrayed his thoughts. Ulysses pinched the bridge of his nose with a long sigh, truly thinking the Cross Knights’ headquarters needed electricity. At least with power, they could install telegraphs—and with telegraphs, they’d know the previous earl, his father, had been called to the Lord nearly two years ago.