Chapter 89: The Count’s Convoy Returns. Part-6.
*DING!* *DONG!!* *DING!!* *DONG!!*
Standing on a wooden box for a better view on the left side of the street among the dense crowd, Paul looked towards the city gate along with the other people as he heard the sound of the distant bell ringing loudly in the city.
The Grand Bell, which is located near the Count’s mansion in the core area of the city, is modified with the powers of Pathwalkers and is a family heirloom of the Ilma count family.
It’s not only used to alert the soldiers during wartime situations; it is also used on special occasions like festivals and welcoming ceremonies like today!
Today the Count was returning after three long months!
This was the first time the count had left the city for such a long time!
And with Alex creating all that chaos in the city deliberately, everyone in the city knew that this trip was for the count’s son to get accepted as an official paladin of the church of the goddess of war and combat.
Many of the citizens, including Paul, came to this welcome ceremony today just to know if the count has really succeeded in getting his son accepted by the church or if he has failed.
There were whispers and speculations everywhere, but after the bell rang, everyone went silent as all people looked toward the same spot simultaneously!
*NEEEIGGGHHH!!!!* *THUD!* *THUD!*
The neighing of the horses rang out around the entrance gate as the sound of horse footsteps entered everyone’s ears.
Under everyone’s confused gaze, the convoy of the count finally returned to the city of Ilma, but unlike when it had departed, the convoy seemed to have become much smaller in size!!
In front were four Pathwalkers leading the convoy while riding on thin and weak-looking horses; then there was the luxurious carriage of the count, which had damage everywhere over it; and after that were other Pathwalkers that were on foot!
To everyone’s shock, those famous Pathwalkers were actually walking on the ground with only a few dozen soldiers following behind them.
Not a single Pathwalker had a smile on their face, and all of them seemed to have dark circles under their eyes and a tired look on their face!
It was as if they hadn’t slept in days and were lacking energy and enthusiasm to respond to the loud and cheering welcome of the city folk!
In fact, the ordinary soldiers seemed like they were in an even worse situation, as several of them seemed like their eyes had gone hollow and had lost their light!
Some were even walking with their back curved forward as if they were too tired to even take a single step forward!
The luxurious carriage of the count had the feature of opening its roof.
The count slid open the roof and stood on a retractable platform built inside the carriage for this exact purpose with his son.
As the carriage moved, the count smiled at the citizens with his son and waved his hand at everyone to show that he had returned!
"Hoh... they have prepared a rather pleasant welcome ceremony this time it seems..."
Hearing his father’s words, the count’s son smiled and spoke.
"That idiot brother of mine finally managed to do something right today; I might let him off the hook today for organizing this..."
The welcome ceremony was indeed much better organized today compared to the ones that the count was used to.
Seeing such a good welcome, he felt pleased.
But he didn’t know that all this was a trap prepared by Alex with the help of Zeil.
People feel the most disappointed and lose the most trust in someone when they have high expectations for the other party and yet the person ends up betraying their expectations!
This is a natural psychological phenomenon, and many people follow it unconsciously.
Alex had made this plan by revolving it around this particular phenomenon.
Zeil had already received the message of the count from the messenger about the exact date of when he would return to the city.
The messenger had informed Zeil that due to unfortunate circumstances, the convoy got entangled with a lot of troubles on their way back, and quite a few of the soldiers ended up losing their lives.
Although this was just an irrelevant topic to the count, and he only mentioned it in his letter just to vent his frustration, Alex saw an opportunity in this.
He asked Zeil to make the welcome ceremony as exaggerated as possible to raise everyone’s expectations.
Make it so exaggerated that people almost end up assuming that the count was returning victorious! And his son was really accepted in the church right away!
When in reality things were completely different, not only had the count lost a lot of his soldiers, but also his son wasn’t even accepted in the church as of yet, and everything was just a disappointing pile of failures stacked one upon another!
And to make this plan foolproof, Alex added an extra touch of flavor to it.
...
The moment Paul saw the situation of the troops and Pathwalker of the convoy, he started whispering to people beside him in a quiet voice.
"So many soldiers are missing and all of them look so tired... It seems the rumour is true..."
"The count really wanted to make his son defeat that black magician and show off... that’s why he deliberately got his best men in dangerous battles..."
"Look how badly exhausted they look... moreover, the strongest soldiers of our city are nearly all wiped away!"
"This way if the black magician appears now... there won’t be anyone to stop him, and then the count can use this opportunity to let his son show off!"
"What a clever trick! They killed our precious protectors of the city just for their own selfish motives!"
Not only just Paul, there were dozens of members of the organization all over the main street that were mixed with the crowd, and they all started spreading deceitful rumors on the spot without needing any signals at all!
Without the count even knowing, he stepped right into Alex’s trap the very moment his convoy returned to the city!
