"Father." Sidlifa called softly.
"Huh?" Robert was surprised.
It seems that this child has never called him "father" since he came back. This means that this is the first time...
"Do you know how your mother died?" Sidlifa asked in a low voice.
"Sally?" Robert was slightly stunned, while William next to him slowed down his horse and showed a thoughtful expression.
"She died in the attack by the lord's tax collection team." Sidlifa looked at the ground, her tone seemed a little ethereal, "That night, I was practicing with my battle axe outside, and suddenly I saw fire and thick smoke above the village."
"I returned to the village and found warriors wearing nose helmets everywhere, hacking and killing the villagers... They were wielding butcher knives like they were slaughtering livestock, and there were broken limbs and arms and pools of blood everywhere."
"My mother was knocked to the ground while trying to save me, and she clung to the murderer's legs. I could only run towards the sea for my life, not daring to look back, and I didn't even have the courage to remember the face of the murderer who killed my mother."
"Sidlifa," Robert comforted her, "I'm sorry I wasn't with you at that time..."
"I am a coward," Sidlifa interrupted.
Medea's voice rang in her mind through the Law of Manipulation, but Sidlifa seemed to be deaf to it and continued in a low and firm voice:
"If I had just looked back at that time, it would have been great. At least I would have known the face of my enemy in my future life. But unfortunately, I didn't do it."
“So, I hate my cowardice.”
"Cowardice..." William also sighed, as if recalling something, "In this world, cowardice is the norm, and courage is the exception."
"We don't need to worry about what the majority will choose, we just need to ask our own conscience," Sidlifa said. "Even if I used my age as an excuse, I really didn't dare to look back at that time... Just like those villagers who were hacked to death, even though they were slaughtered like livestock, they didn't think of gathering to resist."
"Then I became a pirate."
"Just like the Norman warriors who massacred my village, only this time I took up the butcher's knife myself. We patrolled the sea routes that caravans often took, robbed merchant ships and killed those who dared to resist. Watching them fall at my feet, wailing, crying and dying in despair, I thought that this would help me get rid of the shadow of the past and wash away my humiliation and regret."
"But it's just self-deception."
The triumphant procession was still advancing, but the atmosphere around it seemed to have changed a little.
Sidlifa held the reins with one hand and placed the other hand on the Axe of the North Wind at her waist. Robert and William seemed unaware, but the spiritual power of the demigod had already spread secretly.
"Of course, every sin must be paid for." The horse shook uneasily, but Sidlifa still calmly held the reins with her left hand and continued, "During a rest stop in a port city, we were ambushed by the local guards. Because we were drunk in the tavern the night before, we couldn't even organize an effective resistance."