The rain gradually let up.
In the air, still thick with dampness, lingered a faint fragrance mixed with the scent of earth and grass.
But those slowly cooling corpses, and the crimson pools of blood rippling under the breeze, added a blood scent to the air that would not disperse.
After the great battle, people's first reaction was excitement and joy.
They no longer had to worry about having their heads smashed in by wooden sticks, nor did they have to consider whether they should end themselves before being captured alive by Goblins and dragged back to their nest.
When Xia Nan returned carrying the head of the last Goblin in the village, which had been found in the pigsty gorging itself on a piglet that had only just died, the villagers' cheers and applause proved that point well enough.
But after the passion came the cooling.
The villagers were grateful to have survived, but the mangled corpses on the meadow, the wounded groaning softly in pain, and the charred ruins of houses burned by fire washed away the elation in their hearts, leaving only a few empty strands of melancholy.
The atmosphere was not as lively as imagined, either.
Without the sharp, clamorous howls of the Goblins, the injured villagers supported one another as they bandaged their wounds. Middle-aged men with blood still on their faces gathered up the bodies with numb expressions, and from time to time, deliberately muffled sobs could be heard from some corner.
Cold, damp currents of air brushed across their cheeks, and the entire field seemed exceptionally quiet.
Xia Nan stood at the edge of the field, his gaze turning toward the doorway of a wooden house in the distance.
A plainly dressed middle-aged woman, her body covered in mud, was crying as she