Spoils, Family, and a Midnight Secret

“We’re rich, we’re rich.”

Noren threw open a large oak chest reinforced with iron, revealing it to be brimming with silver coins.

Gripping the edges of the chest, she dragged it a few steps, then rushed from the back room to the shop to lift an anvil.

By comparison, she estimated the chest of silver weighed at least fifty pounds!

In another chest, she discovered valuable furs and assorted goods, likely worth dozens of deniers, while a corner of the back room was piled with armor, weapons, and clothing stripped from corpses, along with unsacked coin pouches still attached to leather belts.

She counted from when the sun began to dip until the twilight of dusk, as owls in the forest started their incessant hooting and small grey mice emerged from their burrows, scurrying around her feet.

With a single stomp, she crushed a mouse into a pulp, then rotated her neck, muttering, “My back aches so much. Finally, I’m done counting.”

She had one chest of silver, nineteen coin pouches containing nearly three hundred deniers in total; one chest of assorted furs, including prime red fox and deer hides, alongside tattered pig, cow, and wolf pelts; five rolls of coarse linen and knitted wool fabric, rough to the touch, and one roll of finely spun velvet, a rare commodity; several sacks of flour mixed with bran, and wilted cabbage—she truly couldn’t fathom why they carried such provisions; a few small bags of salt, a dozen or so wineskins filled with red wine, sour fruit wine, and drinking water, and several large cloth-wrapped blocks of smoked meat and dark, hard strips of jerky.

Her inventory also included ten four-paneled leather helmets, five round iron helmets with leather straps, fifteen sets of foul-smelling tanned leather breastplates, fifteen sets of lightweight linen padded armor, five short axes, five twenty-inch shortswords, four thirty-inch longswords, four riding whips, and one spear; along with a chaotic pile of hoods, short-sleeved tunics, blood-stained leather belts, and reeking long boots.

Pinching her nose, Noren picked up a dented iron helmet only to toss it aside. “Did they really strip the spoils this thoroughly? Leaving them with nothing but their undergarments? These clothes, leather armor, and padded armor are all blood-stained, some even torn. It would be better to just burn them all. This helmet is so caved in, I can still see brains on the inside.”

Despite her disgust, some items could be washed and mended for reuse, and the helmets could be hammered back into shape.

“Sister, Father’s calling you home for dinner!” came Frey’s voice from outside.

“Oh, I know!” Noren called back.

She lifted the iron-reinforced oak chest, closed the door, and only after the Bloodstone’s ethereal membrane passed through the gap to secure the iron bolt from the inside, did she finally leave with peace of mind.

****

At dinner, the four of them ate white bread accompanied by celery and meat stew.

Noren waited for the other three to finish eating before swiftly devouring all the remaining food.

Wiping grease from her lips, she asked, “Old man, what do you plan to do with those fourteen horses?”

Svein pondered briefly before replying, “We’ll select the two strongest ones for you and Frey, and sell the rest in Hradec.”

“Perhaps we could keep them all and let them breed foals,” Noren suggested.

“Noren,” Svein met her gaze, “we have neither flat, expansive pastures nor abundant grain here. It’s impossible for us to run a horse farm.”

“I didn’t say establish a horse farm,” Noren clarified. “Just keep them. They’d be useful for plowing or riding, and if we’re lucky enough to breed foals, we could sell those too.”

The man poured a bucket of cold water on her idea: “Aside from the eight horses used for pulling carriages, none of the others have ever worn a yoke. Training them for plowing might be very difficult. However, I respect your choice, but you will bear all the expenses for keeping the horses.”

Noren agreed, then inquired, “What about the four four-wheeled carriages? Are we keeping those too? And the other spoils of war? The silver coins?”

“Keep them all. Half will be yours, and half Frey’s.”

“Hooray, I’m rich!” Frey exclaimed, raising his hands in triumph.

The young woman’s lips twitched; what would Frey do with money, he had no use for it. Yet, equal distribution among children was a Norse tradition, and she found it difficult to argue against.

“There’s one more thing,” Noren continued. “Uncle Sithi wants Knutr to come to the village to receive your education, old man.”

No sooner had Noren spoken than Aunt Anna slammed her hand on the table and shot to her feet. “Absolutely not!”

Svein set down his wine cup, but before he could speak, Anna continued, “Unless Svein, you go to Hradec.”

Anna’s eyes burned as she stared at Svein. In that moment, Noren felt as though the mayor and his wife were performing a ‘double act’ (TL Note: A Chinese idiom, ‘shuanghuang,’ referring to a coordinated effort where one person acts while another speaks, often to deceive or manipulate), solely to persuade Svein to move to the city.

The man picked up his wine cup, took a sip, and wiped away the white foam clinging to his beard. “No, I won’t go. I’m too old, and I no longer have the energy to teach children…”

“Brother~” Anna suddenly cooed in a sickly sweet voice, sending shivers down everyone’s spines. Svein, startled, trembled, dropping his wine cup to the floor where its contents spilled.

He propped a hand against his throbbing temple, enduring the discomfort as he refused again. “Indeed, I am no longer young. Educating children is far more exhausting than smelting iron or forging. Moreover, Noren and the others still need me.”

Anna was about to speak further, but the man raised a hand to stop her.

Seeing his resolute stance, Anna finally ceased her insistence.

****

Midnight.

On the large bed in Noren’s bedroom, the young woman and the older woman slept embraced. In an iron basin by the bed, embers glowed red beneath a layer of grey ash, while flying insects crept through the gaps in the wooden window, fluttering around the light and emitting an irritating buzz of wings.

After circling the young woman twice, a mosquito swooped down, landing safely on her smooth, inviting neck. Its proboscis poised to strike, but the enticing red glow of the embers diverted the female mosquito’s attention.

The mosquito flew towards the Bloodstone, instantly captivated as if it had discovered an endless reservoir of blood. But in the next moment—

A strange membrane pulsed continuously on the gem’s surface. A micrometer-thin tentacle shot out in an instant, coiling around the mosquito. The tentacle’s tip pierced its body, draining all its blood.

Once the mosquito was drained of blood, the tentacle brutally dismembered it. Several fragments of its corpse drifted into the fire basin, where they burned to ash.

‘Smack, smack,’ the young woman smacked her lips in her sleep, a sound that startled Anna, who was tiptoeing out of bed and fumbling for the door.

After smacking her lips, Noren rolled over, sprawling out in an ‘X’ shape, her pert breasts bouncing resiliently.

Anna, startled by the false alarm, pressed a hand to her chest, secretly catching her breath.

The bedroom door creaked open, then closed.

Faint footsteps faded away, and suddenly, a pair of luminous green eyes pierced the darkness. The young woman abruptly sat upright, staring fixedly at the closed wooden door.

She had a bad feeling…

The charcoal in the iron basin had long burned out, and her aunt still hadn’t returned. Noren climbed out of bed, half-lying on the floor, bending her knees and using the friction of her feet against the ground to drag her body forward, ensuring not a single sound was made.

She pushed open the bedroom door, traversed the second-floor corridor, and reached the top of the stairs.

Relying on immense fingertip strength, she gripped the cracks between the wall bricks to alleviate pressure on her feet, carefully descending the wooden staircase until she finally arrived at Svein’s bedroom door.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar, a sliver of light escaping from within. She took silent, deep breaths to calm her racing heart.

After several breaths, the young woman finally steeled her resolve, and with a sense of trepidation, she peered through the crack in the door into the room…

But what Noren never could have imagined was that this accidental glimpse would change her life forever.

With just one glance, she froze. A sensation of muscular rigidity spread from the back of her head, down her spine, and outward to her limbs; only her fingertips continued to twitch.

Moments later, she clasped her trembling fingertips into her palm, but her chin and lips quivered, forcing her to bite down fiercely on her lower lip with her pearly teeth.

She understood that she couldn’t make a single sound at this moment.

Noren slowly retreated from the doorway, leaning against the wall. She couldn’t articulate her current feelings.

Heartache? Fury? Mortified rage? Disgust?

Her mind a chaotic mess, the young woman helplessly sat by the door, hugging her knees. Her long hair obscured her face, yet through the strands, her vacant eyes were visible.

But the people inside the door would remain oblivious to all this; only the creaking of the wood responded.

Noren—Stress +100

Level One Stress!

Trait: +Outsider (TL Note: This refers to a game-like character trait or status effect, often indicating a shift in identity or perception.)