The squadron had already prepared everything to leave for the capital as soon as dawn broke; the group captain had come to wake Selena with cold water collected from a stream. The poor elf had clearly not recovered enough energy during her night; her eyes were red, she had dark circles, shaking from her hands and was a little more clumsy than usual.Hector didn"t think her magic would make her so amorphous, if he had known, he would have stopped her. This was for two reasons, the first because she was not going to be effective at her job; the second: because she snorted all night, keeping him awake. He had tried to change huts, but the riders on night duty had asked him to stay in the one a.s.signed to him.
In other words, Selena and Hector both had corpse heads, which had earned them some nice mockery from the other riders. Instead of getting upset, Hector preferred to laugh about it, but the elf, who seemed not to be a morning person, did not.
"Come on, don"t pout, just laugh a little." Hector had fun with other members of the squadron.
"It"s your fault that I"m in this state... if I didn"t have to heal your wound, I would be-"
"Yes, maybe, but you treated me and I owe you. There"s nothing wrong with that, is there?" he said, pointing to his neck from which the st.i.tches had been removed. "Thanks to you, it"s already healed, we can say it"s a blessing in disguise."
"Besides, you"re still tense and distant, it wouldn"t hurt to laugh a little, you know." said one of the riders who was chatting with Hector while eating her breakfast.
From what Hector had been able to learn, Selena was quite lonely. It could be explained in different ways, but the most logical was the one Balam had explained to him while he was trying to get to sleep.
In the past, the Elves tried genocide attempts on different peoples such as half-man and dwarf tribes, brilliantly succeeding for the dwarf tribe, making them disappear, leaving no survivors to date. Seeing the threat that these people were, the men had decided to sign a non-aggression pact between the two peoples, however, after several political disputes, the Elves decided to ignore the non-aggression pact, and attacked humanity, killing and imprisoning more than one million men and women. This had put an end to the era when Elves were seen as wise and mature beings; a hatred from all nations then made its wrath heard.
The Elven repression was orchestrated by Dentelia who was at this time, a country newly built. That"s how the rest of the elves disappeared in turn. All this happened on the ashes of the war and had only brought even greater anger an fear, which had now turned into racism.
Selena suffered for the past actions of her ancestors. She didn"t want to be looked down on or thrown out of the army, she knew where she would end up if that ever happened. Be ready to do anything to be important to others so that you can lead a dignified life. Remembering all this, Hector stroked the dark elf"s head with a little smile.
"Yes, she"s right, you should laugh a little."
The elf"s childish reaction made the other riders laugh, while everyone was packing their equipment to leave. It was after a short while when the captain — who was much more beautiful with a rested face — gave the order to leave.
The capital was more than six hours away, much more than Hector thought. The villagers who had fled from Vaine had really walked such long distances? It was after two hours on horseback that Hector got an answer to his question. A small village was on the way; men and women were busy with their daily tasks. The squadron greeted the guard present on the scene and entered to make the horses drink and eat.
Many of the villagers were surprised by the squadron"s arrival, but others were even more surprised by Hector"s presence. A young girl and her little brother walked towards him with a questioning look.
"Mr. Weiler...?" she asked.
"Um... Yes, what is it?" Hector replied with a tender smile.
"My little brother told me that he saw you lifeless when we fled... he was very shocked... he told me you weren"t moving, your eyes were empty, so..." she paused while looking at her brother hiding behind her. "He thinks you"re an undead... so I wanted you to tell him you"re not..." explained the little girl as Selena listened carefully.
"Well, if I were one, what difference would it make?" Hector replied with a deliberately scary look as he stared at the little boy. "Ahahah, I"m kidding, I"m kidding. Of course not, I"m not an undead, but, on the other hand, the fact that a survive to this it"s a miracle!" he concludes, trying to rea.s.sure the boy who didn"t dare look him once.
Hector knew very well that he would eventually have to confess who he was to someone other than Selena, but saying it now was unnecessary and risky, so he had chosen another option. The elf, on the other hand, looked at Hector with a thoughtful look.
"Are you going to confess it to someone other than me?" she asked, looking at the two children who had returned to their family.
"I intend to admit it to people I will decide I can trust." he replied, stroking the horse"s mane, the one he was riding with Selena. "For the time being, I"ve decided that only you meet that criterion."
"Yes... but why?"
"Because I"m impressed by you, and I know I can trust you. An Elf who arrives by herself so high on the social scale despite the discrimination against her and this only thanks to her will and courage, this is the first time I have seen this. It may be immature, but that"s why I decided to confide in you."
She kept silent again, her eyes lost in the vague. It was after a half-hour break in this small village that the squadron decided to head back to the capital; a little more than three hours of driving were still waiting for them and it didn"t please many people. Just before leaving, Gregory had sent a falcon with a roll of paper on one leg. Hector had learned that he was sending information directly to the Congress in Elees, the capital.
The landscapes the squadron crossed were quite similar, but sometimes, in the distance, tropical trees appeared or mountains emerged from behind the horizon. But more generally, the squadron was surrounded by oaks, chestnuts, and poplars, with the sound of their leaves striking against each other creating a soothing melody.
Selena had gotten used to the presence of Hector"s hands on her hips, it was not to displease him either, he had only touched one woman before. The elf, for her part, had begun to like the tactile and honest personality of the young man, it was something that Balam managed to read through her. The influence of the Gremory demon only made this process even faster. However, Zepar"s energy was asleep, as if it"s been waiting for something to manifest itself, which disturbed the demon a little. It was impossible for him to imagine that the energy of a demon as powerful as Zepar would only manifest itself after the energy of a demon like Gremory, who was a much gentler demon.
He shared all this information with Hector, who then had fun squeezing his hands around Selena"s hips a little more. As he thought, she said nothing and just enjoyed the moment.
The four hours of driving pa.s.sed faster than expected. As soon as the elf and the young man had finished their discussions on the culinary specialties of their country, a huge wall appeared in the distance. Balam had inherited just a little of memories of the Capital, he had only very vague memories of it. Krein seemed to have come in the capital only at very rare opportunities, three or four times at most... So the demon could not say anything about what was inside these walls, but just outside were many farms with fields of several hectares that were going away as far as the eye could see.
People would return home after their hard work as the sun was at its Zenith and the bells rang. Some of the peasants looked at the squadron from afar and waved to them before to go home to their thatched cottage.
After another ten minutes, they arrived, at last, in front of a large drawbridge already lowered, but whose metal gates were closed. One of the guards on one of the watchtowers asked for the name of the squad.
"Here, Captain Lena of the Lyre Squadron." said the leader in a loud voice, showing her badge.
The guard waved at other people above the wall and after a few moments of waiting, the last barrier that prevented them from seeing what was on the other side of the wall disappeared.
They all rode back and saw a huge city, probably what could be called a medieval metropolis. Many houses followed one another on a huge hill, among them were hotels, inns, bars, shops of all kinds, two large markets, etc. Higher up, there were more important buildings, probably for the n.o.bles and even higher on the hill, buildings of an impressive size overlooked the city. These ones are used by the clergy and elected officials of the country; Congress, a cathedral, a high school, etc. And all this was, despite the size of this city, completely surrounded by a five-meter-long wall.
The people watching the squadron pa.s.sing through the city surprised Hector. They were all women, without exception, looking more specifically at the young man who was a little uncomfortable.
"A man? He must have come from outside, it"s very rare to see them around here."
"No, look at his clothes... and his neck. It must be that famous Krein Weiler."
"But rumors are that he died... this throat was slit."
"Yes, well, he"s still visibly alive, the scar he has on his neck shows us that he managed to survive his injury, so..."
"Incredible..."
Hector scratched his forehead with an embarra.s.sed smile. It was impossible for him to ignore his environment. In addition to all this, Balam was laughing at him, without him being able to say anything. His discomfort was extreme and amused Selena, who decided to talk to him to free him from his torments.
"Don"t mind them, three-quarters of the women here have never seen a man before."
"What do you mean? I saw men in your squadron and there were even some in Vaine, why not here?" he looked briefly around him and whispered so low that no one could hear him. "And then, many of these women are young..."
"The Capital is democratically governed and many women voted against reintegrating men into their society. So there are camps or cities where men are allowed to live, but this isn"t the case here or in any other major city. In general, the men of this country are waiting for permission to join the army, to become a researcher or for the luckiest, waiting for permission to become a Seeder... Given that you are a n.o.bleman and that you are soon of age, you will soon be able to choose what you want to do..." explained Selena with an amused tone. "Consider yourself lucky not to be in Jal, in there, you couldn"t even have gotten in, n.o.ble or not."
"Oh. Interesting... Why?"
"They are amazons, they live only by themselves and even refuse to help the other states of Dentelia." she took a short break. "I think we"re going to have to stay in the Capital for a while, I advise you not to go out too much, you might become an attraction if you do." she concludes before laughing with charm.