After seeing that the fight was over, Lin Fan slipped out of the bar because there was still some business that he had to take care of.
Lin Fan made his way through the town to the house of the village chief.
After making sure that there were walls of water prepared around the house, he created a fireball and threw it at the door of the house. As soon as the fireball hit the door, the flames immediately started to spread all over the house.
It didn’t take long before the entire house had gone up in flames.
This was what Lin Fan had promised to do when he left this house. He was going to burn this house and everything that happened in this house, turning all of it to ashes.
That was the only way that he could let the ones that had suffered here truly rest in peace.
Watching the house burn, Lin Fan brought his hands together and prayed that they would live a happier second life.
While Lin Fan didn’t really believe in any gods, he still felt that it was necessary to leave some kind of prayer here.
As the house burned, the sparks flew off from it, but the water walls that Lin Fan had set up prevented them from reaching any of the nearby houses.
But of course, the giant burning house easily attracted a lot of attention, so there many of the men of the village ran over to see what was happening.
When they saw that it was Lin Fan and it was the village chief’s house that was burning, it didn’t take them long to figure out what was happening. All of them just watched the house in a daze for a bit before also bringing their hands together in front of them.
After the house finished burning down, they remained there in silence except for three men who came over to Lin Fan.
One of them took the lead in asking Lin Fan, “Did you find any captured people in the house?”
Lin Fan was surprised to be asked this by them, but he could easily figure out why they were asking this. They were most likely the family members of the girls that he had found in the village chief’s basement.
However, to tell them about what had happened to those girls…He didn’t want to burden them with this hatred…Especially since the village chief was already dead. If they were to know about this, they would be forced to carry this hatred for the rest of their life without ever being able to vent it.
So after taking a deep breath, Lin Fan said, “They were already dead when I found them.”
The three men all lowered their heads and were silent for a while, but when Lin Fan listened closely, he could hear the sounds of sniffling coming from them. However, Lin Fan didn’t say a thing as he let them grief.
It took another while before they finally accepted this with a sigh and looked up to thank Lin Fan for telling them.
He felt a bit of guilt hearing this, but he knew that this was for the best.
So after comforting them with a pat on the shoulder, he headed off to where Lala and Xiao Yue were.
The men saw this and all started to follow Lin Fan because that was also where the women of the village were. They still had to give the good news that the bandits had been driven out to them.
The women were all still anxious when they first arrived, but after hearing the news that the bandits had been taken care of, they all burst into cheers.
For them, it was almost like a dream.
They had been living under oppression for so long that they almost forgot how it felt to be free. But feeling it now, it was like the sweetest feeling in the world.
Many of them broke out in tears and fell to the ground as their legs gave out under them from their happiness.
But there were those that hugged their kids and looked at them with complicated looks. It was as if they were thinking about the kids that they had lost when they looked at these kids that were left.
However, when he saw this, Lin Fan couldn’t help thinking of something.
He had received quite a bit of information from the village chief when he had interrogated him. Among this information was the location of a house that the bandits had used to store some of their goods.
He didn’t say exactly what kind of goods they were, but Lin Fan had a faint idea of what they were storing there.
After all, it was in the village and he had only seen houses in the village…
But if he were to tell the villagers about it now, what would they think? And also, how would the people that were saved react to being saved?
Would they even want to be saved?
No, that wasn’t something that he was to decide.
He had let his emotions take him over when he saw those three girls in the basement of the village chief’s house, so he had arbitrarily decided that this was best for them. Even now, he was still trying to defend his decision…
After a moment of thought, Lin Fan decided to tell the villagers where the other girls were being held.
The villagers all looked at Lin Fan in a daze for a bit before quickly running off to the house that he had told them about.
By the end of the night, there were girls that were rescued and there were girls that were too far gone that they killed themselves even after being saved by their families. But the one important thing was that this was their choice and no one else’s.
When the sun came up and the dust settled, the village had ended its sleepless night of slaughter and now they faced a new problem.
Who would they turn to to lead them?
These people were nothing more than peasants who lived on the very border of the empire, they didn’t have any aspirations or desire for power, they just wanted to live their peaceful lives.
But that didn’t mean that they didn’t need someone in charge.
The village chief might have been a corrupt one, but he was someone who had connected this remote village to the main branch of government and to different organizations, such as the Mercenary Guild or the Merchants Guild. Without the village chief, they would find it hard to get money for their excess crops and would find it hard to buy the things that they would need.
So they still needed someone to take this job.
It was just too bad that no one wanted this job since they knew that it would mean taking on a lot of responsibilities.
So while the villagers were still talking about who should take over, Lin Fan had been planning on leaving.
He wasn’t a part of this village and he had only come here to take care of that request for Tian Tian. He was taking the Fire Eyed Snake away with him, so this mission could be considered finished.
There was no reason for him to stay in this village any longer.
But before he could leave, there was a small figure that walked through the crowd and said something that shocked him.
Duanmu Yi walked right to the center of the crowd and raised her voice to say, “I think that young master Lin should be the new village chief.”
Everyone was confused since they didn’t know who this young master Lin was at first, but following Duanmu Yi’s gaze, everyone’s eyes fell onto Lin Fan. Their eyes immediately lit up with looks of understanding and they all supported this idea.
After all, they had seen how powerful this mercenary was and he was the one who had saved them. If he was willing to stay and protect their village, then they wouldn’t have to worry about something like this happening again in the future.
Of course, after being surprised, Lin Fan immediately started denying this request.
After all, he had his business and residence in Sunset City, so there was no need for him to stay here.
But the villagers kept pestering him to take this position. It was as if they wouldn’t let him leave if he didn’t accept this position.
Lin Fan could easily break free, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone.
However, after a thought suddenly popped into his mind, he stopped struggling.
Seeing this, everyone stopped pulling on him and looked at him with looks of hope in their eyes.
Lin Fan stood there thinking for a bit before suddenly saying, “Alright, I’ll do it.”
Everyone was surprised by this sudden change, including Lala and Xiao Yue, but then they all broke out in cheers. Even Lala and Xiao Yue cheered for this.
They didn’t know why Lin Fan suddenly chose to accept the role of village chief for this village, but they would support him in whatever he did. Not to mention that they felt that with his current abilities, his current status didn’t seem to fit him.
They were happy to see more and more people choosing to follow Lin Fan.
As for Lin Fan, he just had a strange smile on his face as he looked around the village.
It almost made him look like a villain, but the villagers were too happy to notice this.