The news of the count's death has already spread in the whole Whelpstrother even before Alaric's troop got out from the manor.
Alaric allowed the count family to cremate him according to their beliefs.
After Alaric met the count's family, he went out of the manor with Freki. The son was already down by now, for some reason he didn't want to gain any attention from the people, so instead of taking his horse, he decided to walk by the crowd and briefly inspect the market area of Whelpstrother. Freki brought a full body hood for both him and Alaric, they covered their selves with it, especially Alaric's hair which is quite remarkable in the whole Werewolf Clan.
Covering their faces the two of them decided to go to a tavern first. The tavern was full of people, drinking and eating with friends and family. The two went into a corner and sat at an empty table, a girl around the age of fourteen, came with a notepad in her hand.
Alaric turned his face to the other side to avoid her gaze.
"Two mugs of fresh bear.", Freki ordered.
The girl went away from there noting down the order.
"Everything feels normal here.", Alaric said as he didn't find anything abnormal.
"It seems so.", Freki replied.
"I think we should go somewhere else, there's nothing useful.", Alaric said.
"But I already ordered some bear for us, let's just drink and then leave from here.", Freki said smiling.
Alaric understood that Freki wanted something, and that's why he is asking for him to stay.
Alaric tilted his head shooting glares at him and he mind-linked with him and asked.
"Why?"
Freki said out aloud.
"What! Why?"
"Why did you drag me here? do you intend to show me something?", Alaric said in mind-link.
"Nothing like that.", Freki said aloud.
"Then what is it?", Alaric was still using mind-link to talk.
This time Freki replied to him through mind-linking.
"You must have known by now that the news for Count Rodriguez spread like fire everyone in Whelpstrother knew about that I just want to know what citizens have their opinion about that."
"Here's your bear.", the words between the two suddenly interrupted when the waitress girl came with two mugs of bear in her hands.
Alaric covered his face a bit more, turning his head to the opposite side.
"Thank you!", Freki said smiling at the little girl.
She put the two mugs in front of them each and then left from there.
"Then why dragging me?"
"Just because we have some time in our hands, and it's better to find out ourselves.", Freki used mind-linking to answer these, and he smiled cheekily while saying these in mind-link.
Freki took the mug and chugged it down.
The two try to focus on what other people are talking about. They heard a few men talking among themselves about the incident.
"Do you heard of the count who died today?", one of them said.
"Yes, I heard. Do you know what exactly happened? There are two many stories for this.", the second one said.
"Yeah! I heard that too. I heard that the vampires sucked down all his blood.", this was the third one.
"I did hear about that from one of my friends who were there to run an errand.", the fourth one said.
"What he said?", the second one said.
"That darn prince is damn merciless. He said he tore the count's body and then through him to become the feast for those filthy vampires.", the fourth one said.
"That prince is thrown to our town from the capital, yet he didn't get any brain.", the first one said.
"I heard he was even killed by his parents and his cousin, that's why the king send him here to keep him away from himself.", the second one said.
At his words, Alaric clenched the bear mug tightly. Freki noticed his reaction he was listening to the same group of men.
"He demon didn't deserve to be a prince, he should have ripped down from his title.", the fourth one said.
A creepy smile formed on Alaric's face.
"Hey! that is just a rumor and if that's to be true he has already been executed instead he was given our territory to rule.", the third one said
"It's true that's a rumor, but there's no smoke without a fire.", the first one said.
"I still don't believe it, and about the count's death, I heard that the count was caging a lot of vampires in his manor and that's why the grand duke raided his manor and found them.", the third one said to oppose him.
"That's true my wife's brother was saying that the vampires were a lot to suck out all the kids of Whelpstrother, and the count used them to work in his mine. What if one of them got out of control and ran away, that can be fatal.", one more man said who was silent the whole time.
"Yeah! I have my brother in the duke's knight he said that the duke isn't that bad of a person. And on one point he did all this to protect us, and it may be the case that count died his own death.", the third man said.
A little smile formed on Freki's face.
Alaric was a bit astounded now, he never heard any good words for himself.
The two continued to roam in the city market, everything was alright. As usual, there were hurtful blabbering mouths for Alaric but this time there were some mouths with good words.
After roaming around they went back to the castle.