Chapter 44
*** Trigger warning! – Please note that in this chapter there will be depiction of suicide, think carefully before deciding if you want to read it or not. ***
If he were to perish in battle, the thin string connecting him to her would be broken overnight. Then, she would forget his face completely in just a few years: he would be vaguely remembered by her as a monstrous man who had brought her unpleasant and painful experiences.
Riftan hid his bitter expression, wiping the ale from his lips with the back of his hand. He could tell just by her refusal to go to Calypse Castle how lowly she saw him. Perhaps, she even hoped for him to never come back. A sharp pain came over him, a pain he had gotten used to feeling now.
"Enough of the dreary talk." Hebaron suddenly interrupted the conversation, sitting with his long muscular legs stretched out in front of him. "Let us rest for a day or so. Discuss the reinforcements or the dragon subjugation while on the road, can you not? We still have time."
"Are you talking about just having a drink or getting wasted?"
Hebaron laughed at the sarcastic remark thrown at him.
"It's the first time we're tasting ale in 9 months. I don't want to hear any more stories deviating from the taste of alcohol." He shuddered and yelled over his shoulder. "Hey, does no one here know how to tell merry stories? There should be some enjoyment at a drinking party."
"This is a vital expedition that will determine the Western Continent's fate! An enjoyment...!"
Hebaron disregarded Uslin, who was vehemently shouting, and pointed to one of the apprentice knights sitting around the bonfire. "Harman, tell them a bit about that time you travelled to the South, when you were tricked by three harlots, robbed of all the money you had, then thrown out on the streets stark naked."
"Sir, you have just told the whole story." The concerned knight murmured, as if Hebaron's suggestion was absurd.
"It's a whole lot funnier when you tell it. Stop hesitating, you'll never know when you'll get another chance to brag about your experiences."
Harman hesitated at Hebaron's urgings, but eventually stood up. Riftan nodded at him with a sigh after the young man looked at him as if asking for permission. Then, the 20-year-old lad, who was a son of a merchant, began telling exaggerated stories and experiences he had while travelling around the world.
Riftan quietly watched as the soldiers got immersed in his stories, as if they were trying to forget the fears from their minds and the exhaustion of their bodies. Just as Hebaron said, Harman was good at telling stories. Laughter, jeering, and booing erupted from everywhere as he told the story of how he fought off a hundred thieves.
"Who are you fooling? You couldn't have even fought two of them!"
"Just see and listen 'til the end of the story. I'm telling you, hundreds of Southern Pagans cried out the name of God while running away from me because I outwitted them with my superior brain."
Riftan's lips pulled at one corner: a hundred became hundreds. One of the knights scoffed at Harman. "People from the South don't believe in God, instead they believe that whenever people die, they become gods."
"They believe that virtuous people get reincarnated as gods." Harman corrected. "People from the South believe that humans are reincarnated every time they die. You may be born as a king or a beggar, depending on how you have lived your prior lifetime. They also believe that those people who committed terrible sins are reborn to suffer terribly as livestock."
