Game of Thrones: From a deserter to a high-ranking official

Chapter 14 Cannibalistic Family

Jules raised his torch and looked at the "prisoner" with a solemn expression.

This was a burly man who was constantly struggling and roaring: he was thick and muscular, with skin as pale as if he had never seen the sun, and his facial features were squeezed together; when Vito pinned him down, he still made strange hoarse noises. Tiberius saw that his teeth were yellow and black, uneven, and his breath smelled terrible.

More like a wild beast than a human.

Upon seeing this sole prisoner, the knights' faces revealed extreme disgust.

"Damn it, what kind of god does this idiot believe in? No, does he even believe in any god?" Vito cursed under his breath. He had almost had his wrist bitten by this ugly guy who had nightmares.

"If I were God, and I woke up to find this thing praying to me, I'd strike it dead with lightning!"

"He doesn't seem to be able to speak?" Jules had his men try several times, switching between different languages, but the other person didn't respond. "Could he be mute?"

"No, Uncle." Tiberius raised his torch and looked at the corpses of the unfortunate men who had been killed by Jules and his men.

"This is terrible!" Tiberius muttered to himself, torch in hand, staring at the corpses' faces. "Robbers? No, these guys deserve to die even more than robbers!"

"What do you mean?" Jules asked, his face full of confusion.

"Uncle, look at these guys!" Tiberius pointed with his javelin at the faces of the corpses: without exception, their faces revealed a dullness and savagery characteristic of inbreeding, with pale skin and yellowed, blackened teeth.

"The product of inbreeding, I suspect." Tiberius said gravely. "And they probably lived in caves, which explains their pale skin, but the most alarming thing is this!"

Tiberius ripped the "ornaments" off the corpse.

"Uncle, can you take a look and tell me if this is a human bone?"

Jules held it in his palm and examined it carefully for a few moments, then his eyes gradually filled with anger.

"They're all human bones!" Jules muttered under his breath. "And some of them are children's bones! This one, this one, this one—they're all children's finger bones!"

Jules then quickly looked at the prisoner who was being held down by Vito.

Sure enough, the man also had similar "ornaments" around his neck. He wore a necklace made of small bones; his wrists were also wrapped with several strands of ornaments woven from different hair colors, one of which, a bright silver-gold strand, stung the eyes of everyone present—it was very likely the hair of a missing person.

"So..." Jules felt his throat go dry. "These guys, they took those people..."

"I suspect they probably ate..." Tippilo said in a low voice, holding up his torch and looking at the "dried meat" on the corpses.

"These guys probably belong to the same family. Look, their hair is a consistent black. However, long-term inbreeding has completely distorted their faces, and their food is likely those missing people!"

The knights Jules brought were mostly battle-hardened mercenaries, but after hearing Tiberius's speculation, the color drained from their faces, and their joy at solving the case was greatly diminished.

Upon hearing Tiberius's speculation, Zera let out a scream.

"Then...the young lady was captured by them..." she said tremblingly, pointing to the prisoners and the corpses.

Vito's face looked particularly ferocious in the firelight. He spat and pressed his knee down harder, causing the cannibal beneath him to groan in pain.

"Damn it, you bunch of beasts..." Vito cursed, pointing at the prisoners. "Pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, of all things to eat, why eat people!"

Of course, the prisoners could only make incomprehensible noises.

"The only problem now is," Tiberius said to Le, "where is their lair?"

This is a big problem. Rhys has conducted a thorough search of Bloodwave Cape more than once before, but he just couldn't find their lair.

Besides, Miss Serafina is definitely in their lair!

After a long while, Jules asked Vito, who was busy at work, "Can't you get him to talk? Does he even know how to speak?"

Vito put down the red-hot dagger in his hand and said helplessly to Le.

"No, Boss Jules! This guy only knows a few words of Common Tongue, he can't even speak a proper sentence!" After saying that, Vito pressed the red-hot dagger against the prisoner's skin, ignoring the prisoner's screams. "Can't you talk?! I'm asking you!"

However, Tibi made some new discoveries.

"Uncle," Tiberius said, pointing to the linen "clothes" on the prisoner's body (if that pile of rags could be called clothes).

"The salt stains on the hems of their clothes indicate they came from the coastline, and their nest must be near the coast!"

Jules was somewhat surprised by Tiberius's sharp investigative abilities, but made a decision on the spot.

"Alright! Let's head to Bloodwave Cape now!"

Jules and his party rode their horses to the coast, circled around with torches, but found nothing.

"Damn it, where the hell is your den of beasts?!" Jules searched high and low but couldn't find it. Furious, he drew his longsword and pressed it against the man's throat, demanding, "We've been wandering around this place full of cliffs and precipices for so long, where is your blasphemous family?!"

Unfortunately, the prisoners couldn't understand a single normal sentence, let alone Jules's questions.

"Uncle, wait a little longer." Tiberius was anxious, but his expression remained calm. "Just a little longer!"

In reality, he was also anxious: if he couldn't find Lisandra's daughter, how could he extricate himself from the impending war in Valanthi?

Failed on the very first step? No way!

Tiberius's calm remarks impressed everyone present, and Jules secretly admired him.

[Tiberius is indeed displaying the demeanor of a commander at this moment... Yes, calmness and patience are qualities a commander should possess.] He thought to himself. [It seems he has indeed improved greatly after killing!]

As Zera looked at Tiberius, whose expression was calm and composed under the moonlight, and who was giving orders with unwavering resolve, a ripple of emotion stirred within her.

Tiberius's demeanor was nothing like the weak, poetic, and prose-skilled male slaves in the manor. He was brave, skilled in battle, and adept at cultivating relationships…

Zera had completely forgotten who had thrown her into such a dangerous situation.

"Gentlemen!" Tiberius said to the knights who had returned to report. "Don't worry about whether there are houses on the mudflats, and don't go searching in the woods! If they were in those places, they would have been found long ago! Look for caves between cliffs and reefs, especially the kind that get flooded when the tide comes in!"

Soon after, news came from Vito's side.

"Master Jules, Tiberius, there's a hole here!"

When the group arrived at Vito's place, they saw that there was indeed a cave entrance at the foot of the cliff.

"I see, I see," Jules murmured to himself.

The location of this cave entrance is indeed tricky: at high tide, the entrance and even most of the cave are completely submerged by seawater, making it impossible to spot from the outside. And when the tide recedes and the entrance is exposed, the area is full of sharp reefs, making it extremely well hidden from the land.

There was already a little seawater at the entrance of the cave, but it was only enough to wet the boots.

When the cannibal prisoner saw the stone cave in front of him, his face turned even paler.

How did these meats discover this burrow?

Jules was overjoyed. "Tiberius, you've done a tremendous service this time!"

Tiberius, however, thought to himself, "No, Uncle, I just don't want to be cannon fodder... and finding Rojar's daughter is only the first step."

Next, all you need to do is enter the cave.

"We have twenty men," Vito said in a rough but confident voice, patting the crossbow and longsword at his waist.

"How many could they be? We've killed three and captured one. They can't reproduce like rats, can they? Tiberius, there are enough of us to slaughter them all! Let's wipe these maggots out of their burrow completely!"

Jules and the twenty-odd knights he brought with him, like Vito, were filled with rage and needed to vent.

What happened before their eyes was something these battle-hardened veterans could not tolerate; it was a complete destruction of moral principles: cannibalism, and actively cannibalism at that.

"No, don't kill them all." Although Tiberius was also disgusted by the cannibalistic family's disgusting behavior, he quickly calmed himself down.

"We need survivors. At least a few who can speak; first, we need them to identify any other... 'storage' locations. What if some escaped? Second, we need to hand them over to Lord Risangor. Living monsters who can confess their crimes are more convincing than a pile of dead flesh. So, leave a few alive! The most important ones! Understand?"

Vito paused for a moment, then understood the deeper meaning behind Tiberius's words.

Jules added, "Think about it, Vito. Lord Lisandro lost his daughter, and then found her again. But what else does he need? He needs to vent his anger, to demonstrate his authority, to let everyone see the consequences of offending the Rogal family. What could better demonstrate his power and the satisfaction of revenge than a public trial, executing these cannibalistic monsters with the cruelest punishments?"

Following his uncle's train of thought, Tiberius explained to the knights, "Moreover, the Rogal family has solved the mystery of Bloodwave Cape. What an honor that is! It's another 'gift' we're giving him, which will bring him far more prestige and satisfaction than simply finding his daughter."

"So, Tiberius," Vito chuckled, "just tell us directly, old man Lisandro will give us more money!"

"Absolutely right, Vito!" Tiberius exclaimed.

"So, let's go, let's go in." Jules handed Tiberius a javelin, and then gave him a long sword.

"I'll go in first!" He drew his twin swords from his waist, put on his breastplate, and was the first to enter.