Entertainment options were scarce in this world, or rather, for commoners. After nightfall, everyone obediently went home to sleep.
Normally, Roya had a curfew. Apart from church priests and the defence army, no one else was allowed out after dark.
Of course, there were a few exceptions, such as special festivals or when an execution by fire was carried out. Only then would the night be open to ordinary people, and most would revel in the nearby streets, smelling the aroma of roasted meat in every sense of the word.
When Adam returned after fetching water, he heard Maggie calling him.
"No need to buy pickled vegetable pancakes today. Help me make more meat pies. We should earn a lot tonight." The Cooper family was not wealthy; their main income usually came from pickled vegetable pancakes and some wooden items made by Arlis. Occasionally, both of them had to do some odd jobs to supplement the household income.
In an era where commoners struggled to survive and had some free time at night for revelry, no one cared who the person being burnt at the stake was.
For the even more diligent Maggie, the curfew being lifted tonight was a rare opportunity, making it easier to sell meat pies and other snacks to everyone. She didn't care about anything else.
Adam, however, was interested in the person on the stake, as they were all people the church called 'Beasts'.
He believed that he wasn't the only Otherkind trying to go from Roya's border wall to the Kingdom of Loken, so the city should be hiding quite a few Otherkinds. If he could contact them, he might have more options, although Adam hadn't yet figured out how to make contact.
He also wondered if they would go to watch the execution by fire.
After placing the meat pies into the woven basket, the sky outside had already darkened. Arlis and Maggie were ready, each carrying a basket, and told Lina to follow them towards the intersection.
There were already many people on the street, gathered in twos and threes, chatting and laughing about various neighbourhood gossip and anecdotes. The atmosphere was very harmonious.
As Adam walked along, carrying his basket, he noticed that there were also some soldiers maintaining order among the crowd, and some people's gazes were searching for something within the crowd.
Seeing the situation, Adam felt that the possibility of him encountering Otherkinds this time might be very low.
After all, not every Otherkind could be like Adam, appearing no different from an ordinary person in their daily life.
Under the church's inspection methods, most Otherkinds found it difficult to conceal their abnormalities.
For example, the bane of werewolves is silver. In Adam's transformed state, his self-healing ability is extremely abnormal; blood would just begin to spurt from a cut, but the wound would already start to regenerate
But if the wound was caused by a silver weapon, not only would his regeneration be suppressed to its lowest, but the silver would also poison him.
If it was a post-transformation werewolf, even touching silver in their transformed state would cause a burn wound. Therefore, many soldiers carried some silver items on them, which left many werewolves with nowhere to hide.
"I guess no Otherkinds will appear." Adam wasn't too disappointed. He had almost no contact with others of his kind, and all his information came from books.
Without sufficient strength, rashly contacting others might not be a good thing.
Soon, the sky darkened, and people began to gather at the intersection.
Under the crisscrossing light of numerous torches, Adam's face alternated between light and shadow. Perhaps one day, he too would be placed on that stake, watched by people in the same manner.
Various smells mingled at the scene, but when the person wrapped in a burlap sack was brought forward, Adam smelt an herbal scent.
"A witch doctor?" Adam frowned. Witch doctors were considered a grey profession, mostly human practitioners who could use various strange materials to concoct miraculous potions.
Because the potions produced had good effects, the church priest turned a blind eye to the existence of witch doctors.
Generally speaking, only those who had committed heinous crimes would be executed by fire, and witch doctors were not usually brought to the stake, unless the witch doctor had been stripped of their qualification as a human.
Watching the soldiers tie the suspected witch doctor to the wooden frame, a white-bearded old man in a priest's robe stood in front of the woodpile and began to read out the crimes of the person to be executed by fire.
"Sinner Hodd, for concocting demonic potions through evil means, a heinous crime, the southern district church sentences you to execution by fire!"
"Burn him! Burn him!" After the verdict was announced, the surrounding crowd began to roar.
The person tied to the stake was still struggling, but a priest holding a torch had already come to the edge of the high platform.
Adam, blending into the crowd, watched the flickering flames on the torch, suppressing the strange feeling in his heart, and shouted along with the others.
As everyone's attention was drawn to the thrown torch, Adam saw someone push their way out of the crowd.
That person's eyes glowed green, and as they lunged forward, black-grey fur grew, and their muzzle elongated, transforming them into a giant humanoid wolf, tearing their upper clothing completely.
With huge paws, the werewolf swatted away the people in front of him and howled as he charged towards the high platform.
Adam vaguely felt some kind of impact, causing his bloodline to stir slightly, as if he could transform at any moment and let out a howl.
"Is my control over transformation weakening as my bloodline approaches maturity?"
The werewolf's sudden outburst terrified the surrounding onlookers. Adam was about to scream along with the people around him when he heard the white-bearded priest who had previously read the verdict shout.
"Calm down!"
The voice was like hearing a drop of water in the silent night; that sound became your everything, and you involuntarily followed it. The crowd, who had been panicking because of the werewolf's sudden appearance, instantly quieted down.
And that werewolf, seemingly unstoppable, lunging towards the high platform, had not yet touched the person tied to the stake when a young priest rushed out from the side. The ceremonial sword in his hand, glowing with golden light, was drawn, and in a daze, Adam even heard the faint sound of piercing wind.
The angle of the sword strike was incredibly tricky, piercing straight through the werewolf's throat.
A large amount of black smoke billowed from the werewolf's throat. His huge palms flailed twice, and as the young priest pulled out the ceremonial sword, he had already collapsed onto the high platform.
"Priest Fra."
That young priest was precisely the one who had previously thought highly of Adam and lent him "The words of God".
Adam truly hadn't expected priest Fra to possess such strength. His gaze flickered twice, then moved away from the young priest to meet the werewolf's wide-open eyes on the corpse, which still seemed to hold despair.
From the wound in the corpse's throat, a large amount of black smoke dispersed, and the werewolf's corpse rapidly shrunk, transforming back into a human wearing only underwear and naked from the waist up.
Seeing the person's appearance, Adam lowered his head, seemingly daring not to look directly at the corpse, but in reality, he was hiding the uncontrollable curl of his lips.
He had indeed felt a pang of sympathy for his kind before, but the other party's despair allowed him to grasp onto hope.
As Adam had known before, most Otherkind could not hide their abnormalities, but facing the church's relentless searches, Otherkinds had not gone extinct, naturally meaning there were ways to evade detection.
"The so-called demonic potion concocted by that witch doctor should be a potion that suppresses abnormalities." Adam recognised that werewolf; the other party had even bought a few pickled vegetable pancakes from him. At the time, Adam had no idea the other party was a werewolf.
Adam had collected information on most of the people he could contact. This werewolf had lived in the southern district for many years, and it was precisely because of this that he didn't choose to flee after the witch doctor selling abnormality-concealing potions was caught.
He had adapted to life in the southern district and was completely unable to accept a future of fleeing, which was why he so desperately charged the execution ground.
Perhaps there were other ways to conceal the werewolf's abnormality, but for a werewolf whose current life had been shattered, it was already meaningless. This charge was merely a plea of death.
Adam was delighted because this was an opportunity for him. He didn't understand how to excavate bloodline power, but he was very familiar with how to conceal bloodlines, such as certain secret rituals.
"Those Otherkinds who have lost their way of concealing abnormalities and are unwilling to flee must need a new umbrella of protection."
"And I can become that umbrella!"
The execution by fire proceeded as scheduled. The gagged witch doctor did not disturb this bonfire party, and the aftermath of the werewolf's attack was cleared by the priest's holy magic.
Adam, selling meat pies, gradually moved away from the stake behind him.