Fierce

After hearing his father’s account, Wu Qingchen’s first reaction blurted out, “If that’s the case, go find the cowherd!”
How could they not have looked for him?
The moment Old William noticed the cow’s injury, he quickly sought out Idra and Grace, and the three split up to ask around.
From the villagers’ words, all signs pointed to the cowherd. Without a moment’s hesitation, the trio, anxious and restless, rushed toward the cowherd’s house.
Along the way, their hurried steps and uneasy hearts saw that the cowherd’s allotted land on either side of his house had already been almost completely tilled. Just as they arrived at his door, Idra spotted a large pile of straw ropes at the corner of the wooden cottage. The top two bundles still bore fresh bloodstains that hadn’t quite dried.
There was hardly any need to ask further!
The three immediately burst into the cottage, but facing Old William’s furious interrogation, the cowherd—seemingly prepared—remained calm and denied any connection to the cow’s injury.
As for the bloody ropes Idra pointed out, as well as the miraculous speed with which the cowherd had finished tilling his land, he claimed it had nothing to do with Old William, not even bothering to invent an excuse.
“And then?”
Then... Old William and his sons simply returned home.
“This...”
Such a serious injury, such glaring evidence, and yet this result—it was almost unbelievable...
Wu Qingchen’s brow furrowed deeply. “This... this is too much... Is that it? He just denies it and that’s the end? If someone refuses to be reasonable, there’s nothing you can do?”
A solution?
Hearing Wu Qingchen’s words, Idra’s face flushed deep red.
Back at the cowherd’s house, after half an hour of arguing, the cowherd used the excuse of needing to eat, shoving William and his sons toward the door. Blood surging, Idra rushed forward, ready to use his tightly clenched fists and the rope snatched from beside him to “reason” with the cowherd in a way that reached both flesh and soul.
But, as with several previous impulsive moments, Idra’s actions were once again stopped by Old William.
It was resignation, but also reality.

From the villagers and the carter, Old William had learned about the cow’s injury. He already understood that, regarding this matter, he likely had no recourse at all.
Unable to contain his anger, Old William still brought his sons to confront the cowherd, but the outcome was no surprise.
Ignoring their rage, the cowherd flatly denied any connection to the cow’s injury and didn’t even bother to concoct a story for the evidence Idra found. He was completely unafraid.
And the cowherd had every reason to be confident.
In Acreley village, the one with the most authority was, of course, the master of the village, the owner of everything visible—the Baron John Ackford, the lord of the manor.
However, the lofty lord had little to do with the villagers’ daily lives. Most of the time, he resided in his formidable castle, surrounded by thick stone walls and vigilant guards, shutting out all admiration, curiosity, prying, coveting—whether well-intentioned or not.
Of course, though the lord was hard to meet, if the villagers were lucky, they might occasionally see officials like the Farm Steward or Forest Steward, accompanied by several servants, patrolling the area—important figures appointed directly by the baron.
On ordinary days, the villagers could only interact with the two village giants: Ifrit Fair, the steward responsible for village affairs, and John Playa Ackford, the parish priest.
One was recommended by the castle’s chief steward and approved by the lord; the other was the baron’s relative, appointed by the parish church. Both were undisputed nobles, sitting at the top of the village’s social hierarchy.
Below them in Acreley were Espiel, the constable in charge of security; O’Connor, the headman responsible for organizing labor; the rare clerk Tor, who could keep accounts and write; and young Andre, the future priest—all respected figures among the villagers.
The rest were mostly men like Old William, Richard, and Freeman, barely able to feed themselves, exhausted from farm work, living with little hope or future. Lower still were slaves—those who, because of crime or captivity, worked from dawn to dusk, their status forever unchanged, never clothed or fed properly, unable to leave the village without permission, or face disaster if they tried.
Among the village’s free peasants, there was a small group: the brewer, messenger, ploughman, carter, baker, miller, cowherd, and others in charge of specific tasks.
Whether brewer or messenger, their titles showed that each had their own skill. Besides tending their allotted land, they could earn extra income through their trade.
Clearly, compared to Wu Qingchen’s family, the cowherd’s household was noticeably better off.
Just look at the cowherd’s fields, mostly concentrated near his house and road, and already almost fully tilled in half a day. For Wu Qingchen’s family or other ordinary villagers, their fields lay scattered around the village. They wasted countless hours just traveling, and even with twice the livestock, it would take three to five days to accomplish the same amount of work.
—Of course, to someone from Earth like Wu Qingchen, in this medieval world, even kings hardly deserved to be called “well off.”
But Old William’s concerns weren’t about wealth.
In the medieval world, where fertilizer was scarce, nothing—neither rotting stalks, muddy riverbanks, nor ashes from burnt plants—matched the manure produced by livestock.

The most important resource was, naturally, reserved first for the lord—er, for his use. Thus, in the medieval world, except when villagers needed their own animals for work, cattle and horses had to be handed over to the cowherd for unified care, grazing in the lord’s pastures to avoid eating crops, and their manure ended up—er, in the lord’s lands.
In such circumstances, even if all the animals were abused, even if the cow was injured, even if they suffered a thousand injustices, Old William had to swallow his grievances when faced with the cowherd who handled his cow nearly every day.
“So... what do we do now?”
After listening to his parents and brothers vent their anger and frustration, their explanations filled with sobs and sighs, Wu Qingchen’s spirits sank, sighing silently.
What do we do...
Utterly at a loss, despair thickening the air, Old William gently stroked both sides of the cow’s wound, his eyes red, his arm trembling. In the medieval world, if a household had two pillars, one was the adult men, the other was a large animal; their status was nearly equal, and they often shared the same wooden hut.
Now, one pillar was damaged.
Alas...
Beside the cow, agitatedly flicking her tail and breathing heavily, Old William’s distress was even more apparent. Idra’s anger burned brighter, Grace clenched his fist in the corner, while their mother Jacqueline and little Nina’s tear-stained faces grew more pronounced.
Hearing the cow’s occasional mournful lowing, the smallest siblings crying in the corner of the hut, Wu Qingchen let out a heavy sigh.
“What... what should we do now?”
Jacqueline, sobbing, tears streaming down her face, every syllable thick with misfortune and sorrow: “...the cow is so badly hurt... no matter what, she’ll need more than ten days’ rest... tomorrow we’re supposed to till... we can’t delay the tilling any longer... we still need to fulfill the summer labor... what... what should we do now?”
What to do?
Old William’s eyes hardened; Idra straightened his back; Grace’s veins bulged suddenly on his arm.
Unanimously, the six eyes of the three men flashed with fierce determination.
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