Chapter 671 Award ceremony (1)
I spent the night in the castle in the end since I had been kept here by the king, listening to all of his complaints.
When morning came, I didn’t have any time to relax since I had to get ready.
The award ceremony for presenting the awards for the war was today.
Actually, it could have been held much sooner, but I found that the king had postponed it this whole time. All of the nobles had been waiting in the capital for the award ceremony to happen, but the king hadn’t announced when it would be.
I found out last night that it was because they had been waiting for me.
The king had kept all of the nobles waiting just for me.
I really didn’t know how to feel when I heard this, but I did know one thing.
The nobles couldn’t learn of this or else…there would certainly be a riot.
Though the ceremony time was only announced yesterday after my arrival, it seemed that everything had already been prepared. All of the nobles showed up without any problems and they were all dressed immaculately.
I was the one that stuck out like a sore thumb since my clothes weren’t as fancy as theirs.
But there was a different reason why the nobles were all staring at me anyway.
It was because…
“It’s him…the Mad Slaughterer…”
“I heard that he killed over a million people during the war…”
“I’ve heard that he buried a hundred thousand prisoners of war alive in the ground.”
I could hear all of the gossip that they were talking about when I came into the ceremony hall.
It was clear that they had heard rumours about me, but I was surprised to hear some of the things that they had heard. It was clear that someone had embellished these rumours about me.
As I shook my head with a bitter smile, I saw the fourth prince looking at me.
The fourth prince didn’t come over since he was standing there with the other princes, but the look on his face…It seemed like he was proud about something.
Like he had something to do with these rumours that were being spread about me.
It couldn’t be that…
No, that was the only explanation!
I wanted to report the fourth prince or even sue him, but then again…who would I even report the fourth prince to in the first place?
He was part of the royal family that set the laws of the kingdom, so it wasn’t as if I could get him with the laws in the first place.
So the only thing that I could do was glare at the fourth prince to show that I was angry at him.
It was clear that the fourth prince misunderstood this as he gave me a look like he was saying, “Don’t worry about it! I was happy to do it!”
I really felt like punching that look of his face, but I had to think about the time and place.
Since this was an award ceremony, we all took our places and waited for the king to arrive. The places that we would take were all related to our contributions during the war.
I had thought that I would be near the back since the generals who commanded the other armies would take more credit, but I was surprised to find that I was arranged near the front.
I could see some familiar faces, but they were faces that I didn’t want to see.
For example, Duke Yuletide and General Gardner.
They had led the armies that had kept the enemies at bay and even if they didn’t do much, they would still take credit for this accomplishment.
They both looked at me with smiles on their faces as if they were being polite, so I had no choice but to smile back at them.
But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the things that I would do to them once this was all over.
After the nobles gathered, there was a servant of the king that came out and said, “The king has arrived, everyone bow to welcome the king!”
All of us bowed as the king walked in and it was only when he sat down and waved his hand that we stood up again.After sitting down on the throne, the king said, “Thank you for gathering today. We have all gathered here to award those brave men who have fought for our kingdom in this war that we suddenly faced. Those that have risked their lives to defend the people of our kingdom, we are grateful to you for your sacrifice.”
But then he revealed a sad look as he said, “But before that, I would like to have a moment of silence for all those souls that fell in the battle.”
The nobles didn’t really seem that concerned, but they at least pretended like they were sad.
From the fourth prince, I had learned all the casualties that we had suffered in this war.
The main casualties were…civilians.
Because of how some of the nobles only cared about their own interests in the war, the invading armies had turned to the villages that were undefended to ravage them.
They wanted to lure out the nobles that were hiding, but at the same time, they had pillaged for their own gains.
This had resulted in the casualties of many civilians.
These nobles didn’t care about these commoners in the first place, which was why they acted this way.
It really sickened me seeing them like this, but there was nothing that I could do about it.
Maybe in the future, but right now…
After that moment of silence, the king looked back up and said, “Now, let’s give out the awards for those who have achieved merits in the war.”
All of the nobles revealed excited looks when they heard this, but who knew if they would be able to keep those excited looks in the end.