The one-month submission period passed quickly, and the church received a total of 132 submissions. The texts included Latin, Common, and even a few in Northern languages. Todd sat at the table, reviewing each submission, growing increasingly disappointed.
Most of the submitted stories praise God the Father and sing of miracles. Some are even folk tales about Todd that have been passed down among the people, such as battles against pirates, exorcism rituals, and heretical trials.
Todd remained silent until noon the next day, when he was almost losing hope in the "story contest" when a submission signed by Hans Christian Andersen caught his eye.
Mr. Hans was a baron in the Kingdom of the Silver Ring. He originally served as a military scribe, accompanying the Southern Legion in their attack on Mussey, and was later captured in a battle against the Cumberland army. Due to his family's poverty, he could not afford the noble's ransom and was forced to become a prisoner, assigned to clerical and numerical tasks at the town's reconstruction site.
For this story competition, he submitted a short story called "The Robin".
The story is narrated from the perspective of a 7-year-old boy.
There was a boy who was frail and sickly from a young age. His mother died in childbirth, and his father barely supported the family by working multiple jobs from dawn till dusk.
The father and son depended on each other for survival.
War broke out, and the boy's father was forcibly conscripted into the army and sent to the battlefield.
The boy lay alone in the damp, cold room, waiting for his father to return, but the father disappeared without a trace and never came home again.
The boy, who was running a high fever, dreamed that he had turned into a bird, flew over the city walls and across the river, and arrived at the battlefield where the two armies were fighting. There he found his father, whom he had been longing for.
At the end of the story, the comrades buried the bodies of the fallen soldiers, only to find a robin dead in front of a tombstone.
With tears welling up in his eyes, Todd quietly drew a circle on the manuscript.
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