Cornelia continued to cry for about an hour near Marco’s corpse, while Avian was uncaring for most people he wasn’t entirely emotionless as he also had someone he loved like his mother, but as time went on and Avian continued to wait, he noticed how the people were slowly starting to reorganize themselves and bury the dead.

Cornelia on the other hand still continued to cry, Avian had been quietly watching her cry for the past hour and seeing her not about to stop any time soon, irritation started to form within his mind as enough was enough.

Standing up, he firmly walked towards the crying Cornelia, a normal person in this situation would probably tried to comfort the individual who had just lost a loved one and given them some space, but Avian really didn’t care as he had no obligation to do so.

The promise he made to Marco was that he would keep Cornelia safe for 3 years to the best of his ability, as long as she was well and breathing for the next 3 years, he didn’t care what she would do meaning Avian could do whatever he wanted as well.

(SLAP!)

-OWW!

Feeling the sharp pain of a hand slapping her cheek, Cornelia momentarily didn’t know what was happening as the world suddenly started to swing around as she slammed on the ground getting covered by even more mud and dirt.

The physical pain was momentarily enough for her to forget about her emotional pain as she wondered what just happened, dizzily looking up she quickly discovered Avian standing over her, staring at her with his cold brown eyes that far darker then she remembered, quickly understand that he had slapped her, she didn’t understand why he had hit her, in her entire life Cornelia had never been hit before, having lived a pampered life until today, she didn’t even understand 1/10 of the suffering an ordinary person goes through.

Avian was not about to make her understand as it was simply impossible without experiencing it through time, he instead just wanted her to stop crying and stand up.

-Shut up and get up, we need to bury Marco’s corpse before leaving.

-NO! I WON’T DO THAT I AM NOT GOING TO LEAVE MARCO! LEAVE ME ALONE YOU UNCOUTH BRUTE!

She shouted back, still clinging onto a person who wasn’t here anymore but only left a corpse, her stubbornness was a mix between her own upbringing and her anger towards Avian who unreasonably hit her, it seemed as if even now she didn’t understand the current situation, but back in her mind she knew what was going on and simply refused to accept it.

Avian saw through her right away and gripped his fast harder before walking up to her again having made a decision, Cornelia continued to cry, but as soon as she saw Avian’s shadow over her, her emotional pain was suddenly starting to get overshadowed as she started to fear Avian who now was a completely different person to her.

Within the next moments the peopled around witnessed how Avian utterly and ruthlessly started to beat on Cornelia who was crying and sobbing as she was being hit, slapped and kicked on the ground.

The women were all terrified of what they were seeing not understand what was going on, while the men all felt indignant and some righteous fury for seeing a male beat on a helpless young girl, Cornelia also wasn’t any girl either, she was extremely beautiful even with the mid and dirt covering her body her beauty still couldn’t hidden away.

This caused some of the hotheaded males to consider going over and stop this, but upon really seeing who it was that was beating Cornelia, everyone immediately stopped in their tracks as they all recognized Avian, and how couldn’t they as he was the one who had saved them, the memory of him controlling those vicious crows while mercilessly slaughtering the bandits all by himself was still very clearly imprinted onto their memory, for how righteous they were, the men couldn’t even go up against ordinary bandits, how could they possibly go up against Avian who had killed them all by himself, everyone had limits, and if you aren’t a Hero then you are not likely going to save a damsel for the cost of your life.

And as for Cornelia, Avian made sure to only inflict pain and not real injuries as he controlled his attacks.

At the beginning Cornelia had been extremely defiantly crying and sobbing as she was being hit with no ability to resist, but after 20 minutes of unadulterated and harsh violence she quickly learned to be more obedient and quiet as she shakenly stood up at last with tons of bruises and dark spots covering her face and body.

She looked horrible, everyone was pale as they watched Avian beat Cornelia until she became unrecognizable, Cornelia herself didn’t know what was happening, she was still incredibly sad inside, but the earlier violence inflicted on her quickly made her fear the pain Avian inflicted more than the sadness she felt making her obey him, her mind also mysteriously became much clearly as she looked down not daring to look at Avian who stood over her with a cold look in his eyes.

Seeing that Cornelia had finally stood up, he felt satisfied and decided to continue as he came closer to her making her shiver in fear as she stepped back not daring to face him.

-Come with me and start digging, we need to bury Marco before leaving.

-ah…Marco…bury…

Hearing this, Cornelia immediately started to act more emotional, but Avian was sick of it as he curbed the problem before it could sprout again as he shouted at her.

-SHUT UP AND DO WHAT I TELL YOU, from today on I will be your replacement for Marco, but don’t even think that I will be like Marco and become your servant, I will take care of you for 3 years, I don’t care about what you think of me, but you will learn to listen to me, why? Because you don’t have any other choice, that’s why, while I don’t know even a speck of the circumstances that brought you here I can already guess from the earlier conversation that from wherever you came from you can’t return and the only person you could rely is now dead, of course if you really hate me that much you can always just go on your own, go ahead I won’t stop you but beware about something.

Not giving her a chance to react, he grabbed her hair as he dragged her around the field towards the corpses that were about to being buried.

Cornelia felt suffocated and helpless as she was being dragged, she wanted to cry, but she knew that if she cried Avian would hit her again which is why she didn’t as she was too scared to do so, eventually they reached the corpses, seeing those dead bodies of mostly men a few women, Cornelia cried in shock as most of them had died a very gruesome death with eyes wide open.

They weren’t rotting just yet, but the stench of death was evident with so many of them present, Cornelia didn’t even want to get near them, but Avian kicked her knees forcing her to kneel as he shoved her face near the face of a female corpse within a centimeter from each other who had an extremely deep axe wound covering her making her look very much grotesque as her eyes were still wide open looking as if even in death she didn’t find peace.

Her hair was blonde as well somewhat resembling Cornelia even as she couldn’t help but feel as If she was looking at herself scaring her even more.

This woman was one of the more courageous women who had resisted, calling her foolish though was more fitting as she cut a bandit’s arm causing the bandit to ruthlessly stick his axe into her skull.

Avian wanted Cornelia to really see what the end result of her resistance was, but he wanted to tell her was even more important.

-Do you see this women? She is one of the women who resisted and foolishly died while accomplishing nothing, you were lucky to be alive you know since you didn’t resist you didn’t get killed but don’t think you were lucky, think about what would have happened if I didn’t come to save you, Marco would have likely died regardless, but you, you would have been captured by those Bandits turned into their plaything and be violated day in and day out, eventually when those bandits get tired of you, they sell you to a slave merchant, and once you are a slave your life is basically over since you would never be able to get rid of the [Slave Mark], you would be sold the next highest bidder and then once again turned into a plaything, but don’t you think for even a second that it’s going to be the same as those bandits, people who are high up and wealthy usually have some very distinct tastes, they will torture you, cut you, make you eat their shit even until you break and then get sold again to be bought by the next freak who will do the same only worse, finally you will end up like this women, accomplishing nothing just because of your own stubbornness.

-…

Cornelia was quiet, digesting everything Avian was saying to her, terror was only something now she truly understood as she stared into the eyes of the dead women who died a meaningless death, even now she could somewhat feel the sensation of the bandits who were tying her up and groping her body, and how they spoke about playing with her and tell selling her off, she knew everything Avian had just said was correct, she wanted all of this to just stop, she wanted to life to return to how it was, but Avian continued as he dragged her hair, pushing her towards a tree as he pushed her back against it.

Cornelia yelped in pain as she crashed into the tree with her back, she was quite a bit taller than Avian as she was 185 cms tall, in fact Cornelia was 19 years’ old and close to turning 20 this year, in all honesty Avian beating Cornelia from a outsiders perspective looked a bit awkward because of their age and height gap, but neither Cornelia or anyone else thought it was strange because of Avian’s earlier show of power and his imposing aura, to Avian on the other hand it was a bit awkward as he needed her to be slightly shorter then him for him to do what he wanted to do.

Feeling like he didn’t have a choice he kicked her in the knees again causing her to kneel, crouching down to get to equal level, Avian directly stared into Cornelia’s face as they were finally face to face with only a few centimeters apart from each other but enough to feel each other’s breath.

Cornelia was absolutely terrified of Avian and didn’t have even a speck of courage to look him into his eyes, but being forced like this, she had no other choice but to look as she felt her chest go cold the longest she looked at him.

Cornelia wanted to run, escape, hide, she wanted to be anywhere but here, she prayed to god, hoping he would rescue her, but her prayers were useless as not even god could help her right now.

-In the end, on your own you will die like a fool, without something in return no one in this world will help you, skills you can’t earn money, without money you can’t buy food, without food you will starve to death, to live in this world means to do everything you can to survive, but no one can live without relying on others, right now the only person you can rely on is me, but I am not your friend nor your companion, again I will take care of you for 3 years, I don’t care what you think of me, but you will learn to listen to me, do you understand?

-…yes…

She nodded, fully understanding now that she truly was all alone, Cornelia only now understood that she truly had it good all this time, that Marco truly cared about her, and that she didn’t want to die, that she was scared.

She feared Avian, but at the same time for some in explicit reason she felt safe in his presence as he looked down at her, never before did she feel such conflicting emotions.

A shovel suddenly dropped near her legs as she was lost in thought.

Looking at the shovel and back up she found Avian holding another shovel as he pointed at the ground before saying.

-Dig, we are burying Marco.

-Yes…

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