ATAPOW Chapter 81
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Chapter 81: Sister
In the early morning, several prisoner transport vehicles cruised down the main street at an excruciatingly slow speed. There were two or more people in each wooden railing lying and leaning against it.
They were leaning against the railings with their hands tied behind their backs and no emotions in their eyes. Their greasy hair was messed up, while their face and their bodies were covered with bloodstains. They closely resembled the beggars begging for food in the streets.
The long motorcade had naturally attracted the attention of nearby pedestrians. When they saw the signs on top of the prisoner transport vehicles, every single one of them looked on with hatred and resentment.
“Trash that betrays humanity!” It was unknown who started it, but one was able to see a fresh egg fly out from the crowd, smashing against the wooden railing and shattering into pieces. The egg yolk then landed at the vacant expression of a prisoner inside the car.
“You leeched off of us while helping our enemies! Degenerates!”
“Great! If the knights association is so great! Then I suggest we execute these uneducated orphan curs with a thousand cuts!”
“Hey, son of a b*tch! Did a demon screw your mom? Why did you help that bunch of brutes?!”
“You lot can’t even defend the city walls properly. Even if your granddaddy were to defend it alone, he would definitely be a hundred times better than you guys!”
“You’ve taken our money, yet you didn’t do anything decent! Ha, this is the consequence of knighting a bunch of poor and lowly orphans and putting them in charge of frontier defense. These dregs of society should have been exiled to the wildlands a long time ago!”
Torrents of abuses, mocking, and ridicule. Every form of intolerable words used to ‘greet’ their family attacked the dispirited, injured knights in the prison transport vehicles.
All of them were on their last breaths; They had not seen a drop of water these past two days, and their wounds were not attended to in time. As they vacantly looked at the faces outside the vehicle, filled with anger, resentment, hatred, and contempt, they were hardly aware of the eggshells that had hit and scattered all over their numb faces. The reason behind that was simple: Their apathetic hearts had been turned to dust long ago.
“Leader, are you alright…” Inside the prisoner transport vehicle, Ol’ Kong worrying looked at Landi at his side whose eyes were without a soul. As he wanted to stretch his right hand out of habit, he recalled that his right arm had already been chopped off in the battle that occurred the day before yesterday. None of the over fifty comrades that were with him had escaped; They had all perished during the battle.
The remains of the small knight squad that experienced life and death, trials, and tribulations together were, as of this moment, only his crippled self and his squad leader…
Landi didn’t respond in any way. Leaning against the prisoner transport vehicle, he quietly looked at everything that was happening outside. He didn’t express his anger or sorrow even when a can flew over and mercilessly hit him on his face.
“You bastards! Give me back my mommy! Uhuhu…” Struggling free from an adult’s embrace, the puerile hands of a small boy were hitting against the wooden railing with all his might.
Landi slowly lowered his head and met the boy’s hate-filled gaze.
“…I’m sorry…”
…………….
“Ra… Please have a cup of tea, my lord.” The obese man Rodo was servilely standing in front of Ji Bai, holding a teacup in his hands.
The honor knights surrounding them responsible for the reception ceremony were extremely puzzled as to why their normally arrogant and domineering superior was currently so out of character. ‘How high is his position to be able to enjoy this treatment from that Fatty Rodo?’
“What ‘my lord’? You’re the only lord in this place, understand? If you were to slip up later…” Ji Bai took over the teacup as a trace of coldness flickered past the seams of his helmet.
“Yes, yes! My lord, everything will be at your disposal…”
“Are you making fun of me right now?” Ji Bai really wanted to smash the teacup in his hands on this meat lump’s head.
“Reporting!… My… Uh. My lords! The members of the tribunal court dispatched by the Temple Headquarters are already at the gates!” The messenger was about to say something before his eyes swept past the young master that was currently sitting in the seat of the Hall Master sipping some tea. He then quickly changed his form of address.
“Mhm? They’re here pretty early. Lil Rodo, is the pre-procedure paperwork completed?” Ji Bai passed the teacup back to Rodo, whose appearance in front of him was like a student bitterly hard at work.
“Reporting to… Mhm, it’s ready.”
“Mhm, there better not be any slip-ups occurring later. Otherwise… Well, I won’t do anything. After all, we aren’t demons, am I right? Just that money you’ve saved up for retirement and that villa…” Ji Bai smiled as he patted Rodo’s shoulder.
If one’s heart structure could change shape and contract at will to express their emotions, the shape of Rodo’s heart right now would definitely resemble that of a sea urchin.
‘I originally thought that just losing my job would be the end of it. I didn’t know that this person has also taken a fancy to the retirement funds I have accumulated through corruption…’
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes…” Rodo nodded his head like a chick pecking some rice.
“Be ready.” Ji Bai and Rodo switched positions, with Rodo restlessly sitting on the master seat and Ji Bai standing at his side in a happy and content manner.
Ji Bai had actually made a lot of preparations for today. He was even prepared for the possibility that someone would recognize him based on his figure and specially wore a full set of knight plate armor that resembled an iron fort when looked at as a whole. As long as they didn’t lift up the helmet, no one would know who he was.
With two rows of solemn and grave-looking honor guards at their sides, three people entered the palace. There were now only the disorderly echoes of footsteps in the massive cathedral.
The figure in the lead had dense and fine hair. Her white and gold-trimmed ceremonial robes that signified her identity as a temple knight weren’t able to cover up her well-developed chest as a short, silver skirt wrapped itself around her long, silk-like legs. A crucifix-shaped hair-clip adorned the bangs of her forehead.
The cold, young lady leading the group was taking a series of small, unhurried paces while her entourage was like stars surrounding the moon, revolving around and protecting her. With violet irises resembling a myriad of twinkling stars in the night skies, her delicate, jade-like face of ice was now the focal point of everyone’s attention.
As a beautiful young lady exhibiting both the properties of a loli and a mature woman, her dignity hadn’t diminished in the least from the presences of the two lofty knights at her side.
“…It’s her.” Ji Bai sucked in a mouthful of cold air and narrowed his eyes.
It had been right to be on guard today.
The person who had arrived was, unexpectedly, his ‘sister’ in name.