Chapter 634: Fortress Wolf

"And those people were, of course, all wearing faces as though everything was only natural: 'We told you before,' 'It is fine, this is very normal,' 'You have already done very well, you just need to accept reality,' 'This job is still more suited to men.'"

Sonia took out her tobacco pouch and began rolling her third cigarette.

"You know, they always sound so justified and full of reason, always so rational, neutral, objective, and sincere."

Sonia's gaze focused on the tobacco in her hands.

"In the end, even I nearly believed it. Perhaps I really had messed it up. Perhaps I really was not suited to be a soldier?"

The Flower of the Fortress turned back and grinned at Thales.

"Right?"

Thales did not answer immediately. He sat on the ground with his back against the observation platform, both hands resting on his knees, his expression deep.

They always sound so justified and full of reason...

At the royal banquet, the scene of Deputy Captain Vogel letting someone actively go to death was still vivid before his eyes.

"I am not the same as you. I did not mess it up."

The young man suddenly spoke.

"I can solve it. I am only working hard, adapting. I need time."

Sonia's motion of rolling the cigarette paused, and she turned to look at Thales.

"Adapting?"

The Flower of the Fortress first smiled, but her face immediately turned cold.

"Sunset above. It seems you really did mess it up."

Thales frowned.

Sonia finished rolling the cigarette and laughed coldly.

"And not just a little. Otherwise, you would not be living in a dead man's house, your father would not have come sneaking to find you, and Jines would not have roared and threatened me into coming to fix you."

Thales had originally been unconvinced, but when he heard this, he raised his head in shock.

"Jines? Lady Jines?"

Sonia skillfully held the cigarette between her lips and took out the flint.

"Are you sure you do not want a puff?"

Thales looked at that rough, ugly rolled cigarette and tugged the corner of his mouth.

Sonia shrugged, lit the tobacco in a few moves, then took a pleasant inhale and sigh.

"All right, brat. Perhaps between the two of us, you are the one who is not suited to be a soldier."

Fuck.

Thales waved away the smoke and shifted his backside aside, his expression poor.

"I know. You have only just returned to the capital. That is equivalent to stepping onto a new battlefield. But every rule that runs on this new battlefield is disadvantageous to you and unfair to you. They make you feel unfamiliar, lost, despairing, and unable to see a way out."

Thales frowned and neither agreed nor denied. Sonia exhaled smoke.

"Contrary to what most people think, fighting with a sword is not difficult. Even so-called risking your life and sacrificing yourself is only a matter of blood rushing to the head, gritting your teeth, and losing focus for a moment. What is truly difficult is knowing why you fight."

Listening to her, Thales suddenly remembered what Mallos had left behind after punishing him.

[When you decide to make a trade, make sure it is your own balance.]

"But when your gaze rises upward and leaves individual concrete opponents, when you see more and see higher, when you discover that the rules of battle were fucked from the start, when you discover that your fight is only a monkey show inside a cage and that you can never change the cage... fighting becomes very, very difficult."

[It was like, like my sword no longer struck flesh and blood or steel weapons, but an invisible wall. No matter how I swung my sword, it was useless.]

For some reason, Thales suddenly remembered what Cohen had said in the Lower City.

The Flower of the Fortress blew on the poorly burning cigarette end and calmly spoke.

"Nervousness, fear, panic, mistakes, regret, wavering, self-doubt, even numbness and giving up. We have all experienced these. There is nothing shameful about them."

The observation platform under the moonlight was cold, quiet, and still. Added to the smoke in Sonia's hand, everything seemed to be in a dream.

"Your attempt to apply as a guard failed just like that?" Thales suddenly asked, expressionless.

Sonia propped up one leg and curled her lips, but shook her head.

"I had dog-shit luck. A great figure just happened to pass by. I received a second chance, stayed here, and waited for the next recruitment."

The Flower of the Fortress' voice was somewhat dim.

A great figure.

Thales looked around Star Lake Castle.

"John Jadestar?"

Sonia gave a light laugh. She held the cigarette in her mouth again, leaned backward, and put both hands behind her head.

"The days after that were not easy. I ate and slept together with the castle guards, trained hard, and prepared to pass the next assessment."

At that moment, something appeared in Sonia's eyes.

"The pretty comforting words disappeared from then on. No one gave me a good face. Everyone isolated me, and I also understood that I had gotten an advantage. I had entered the game without following their rules. This made that group of men feel their rights had been offended: 'the woman receiving special treatment,' 'the one who came in through a shortcut,' 'too unfair to men,' and such."

"From bed spaces and duty arrangements to daily schedules, from frequent emergency drills and increased weight training to cleaning tasks that coincidentally drew me every time, they used every kind of method to make me embarrass myself. Afterward, there was always some 'experienced person' coming to play the good cop and babble: 'They are not targeting you, they just cannot get past it in their hearts,' 'I am very sorry, but perhaps you should give up?'"

Thales listened quietly, but he remembered the moment at the royal banquet when Anker held a hostage and forced a duel before the throne.

At that moment, all the guests at the banquet, all the famous figures in Eternal Star City, had raised their heads and looked straight at him.

"Including every 'friendly match' inside the unit. Sometimes I gritted my teeth and won. They would say, 'Nice luck,' 'I was going easy on you,' 'I was a little tired today, call it letting you win,' or 'You used tricks, come straight on if you have the ability,' 'The result would be different in another setting,' even 'If it were life and death, you would definitely die,' 'Real fighting would not be this simple,' blah, blah, things like that."

"Oh, right, and my favorite line: 'Beating me does not prove you are stronger than men. If you have the ability, go compare with stronger men.'"

Sonia flicked ash from the cigarette and laughed.

"Does every man know that line? I call this the 'shared dick technique.' Every time I beat one of them down, they would say this, as though as long as they said it, the defeated guy instantly shared the big dick of a 'stronger man,' raised his head and chest, restored his masculine glory, and changed from short and limp to an unbending golden spear."

Shared dick technique.

Thales could not help letting out a pfft of laughter.

But his smile faded immediately. On his battlefield, there were also people like this, weren't there?

"And when I lost, they spoke in one voice: 'See, told you,' 'This could not be more normal,' 'Generally speaking, women really cannot beat men,' 'This is already very good by your standards.'"

Sonia's tone fell.

"During that period, everything was depressing. Swordsmanship, combat, weight lifting, long-distance running, javelin, archery. It seemed every item could not match others, especially those men who had received training or even served in the army."

"I did not have their strength, power, speed, explosiveness, build, constitution, the things usually compared in athletic competitions and knight tournaments. I did not have everything they were proud of."

A dark cloud covered the moonlight, leaving the young man and the woman in darkness, each dim in their own way.

"But you won," Thales said softly. "Under these unfair rules."

Sonia was silent for a long time before fiercely taking a large drag and slowly exhaling smoke from her nose.

"I did not win. I only survived."

The Flower of the Fortress' scattered gaze slowly gathered again.

"Just as the days passed one by one, the next recruitment date approached, and my heart was nearly dead, almost abandoning myself, someone asked me: 'Why, Sonia? Why be on their chessboard?'"

Hearing this, Thales raised his head.

"Their chessboard?"

Sonia smiled and nodded, as if thinking of something happy.

"I was asked: 'Soldiers have many ways of fighting, and there are many ways to kill. Why must you learn from them, use muscles, rely on build, resort to strength and explosive power, and learn to make noise and fuss all day? Why must you pursue the strength, roughness, dominance, masculinity, and aggressive nature that they pursue, worship it as the standard, and use it to prove yourself? Why learn these things from them and compete with them in them?'"

Thales narrowed his eyes.

Sonia sighed.

"'Because,' the foolish me back then said, 'because these things are useful, because the officer said so. These are all things tested in competitions, things that have withstood the trial of history, and even more, good things that every soldier who goes to the battlefield needs.'"

At this point, the Flower of the Fortress chuckled.

"'That is because the earliest competitions only allowed men to participate,' I was told. 'So of course they competed in events they knew. When have you ever seen them compete in giving birth?'"

Thales' expression changed.

"And 'soldiers need these things not only because these things are good,'" Sonia sat cross-legged, even forgetting to smoke, letting the rolled cigarette burn slowly in her hand. "That person told me, 'but because they are already soldiers, and they like, are used to, and are good at these things: strength, roughness, dominance, masculinity, aggression. Most of the time, these are all they know and all they use. So these things become useful and good, and then are passed down into the hands of later people. When there are more and more later people, and fewer and fewer doubters, everyone accepts by default that this is common sense and truth.'"

Sonia recited this with rapt attention, as if returning to that moment many years ago.

"'Because this is a competition they control, a battlefield they define. And one of their most cunning tricks is to allow you to enter the field and join the game, then defeat you within these rules and events that are not allowed to be doubted, and then tell you: look, you did not win. You cannot do it.'"

Thales subconsciously opened his mouth.

"But..."

But the Flower of the Fortress did not let him continue. She spoke on by herself.

"So why, Sonia? You are already disadvantaged everywhere on a chessboard men know better than anything, one they have dominated for thousands and tens of thousands of years. Since that is the case, why? Why follow the rules they set, the competition standards they are used to, the survival principles they established, and compete with them in habitual items they know better than anything? When the armor and weapons you can get are all made according to men's conditions, how can you expect to rely on these things to contend against them?"

Why follow the rules they set, the competition standards they are used to, the survival principles they established...

Thales' gaze gradually drifted away.

"...When they even take dick size as a standard competition event and demand that everyone compare length with them, how are you supposed to win? Install a fake dick and pretend you are a man?" Sonia sneered.

Thales came back to himself and realized he had missed a section.

"Is this a metaphor?"

Sonia turned her head and gave an evil smile.

"Depends on you."

Thales raised his brows.

At that moment, the Flower of the Fortress before him had eyes like torches, piercing through the hazy smoke.

"'Do not listen to them,' I was told. 'Even if you want to win their prize, do not follow their standards, do not walk according to their words, and do not put on a fake dick, even if only that can prove something to them. Because if you do, you have truly lost.'"

"Only that night did I realize how stupid I had been before."

She turned toward the thinking young man.

"Thales, do not be stupid. Do not listen to them. Do not put on a fake dick."

Thales clenched his fists.

Do not listen to them.

At that moment, he inexplicably thought of Quick Rope, and the words the latter had once said to him.

[Do not play against him on the same chessboard, Thales, because you do not know how deep his methods are in this game, how many hidden cards he has, and those who are toyed with in Father's palm without knowing it are incomparably sad.]

Immediately after, Thales thought of Chapman Lampard.

"I did not. I am fighting, in my own way."

Thales subconsciously spoke to refute her, almost at the same moment that he remembered the man whose gaze was like ice, yet within that ice burned fire.

"Physically, of course you have not. But in your mind?" Sonia gazed at him and reached out to tap Thales' chest. "What about here?"

Thales said nothing. On his chest, the scar burned by a silver coin in childhood seemed to grow faintly hot.

"Dicks originally grew only in one place." Sonia raised the cigarette again and said sarcastically, "But the reality is, after thousands and tens of thousands of years, they became other things. They are everywhere now, not naturally grown, but artificially attached."

Thales pressed his lips together.

"What happened later?" he asked hoarsely.

Sonia's eyes moved.

"Later. Later, I no longer fought to arm wrestle with them with all my life, compete in weight lifting, or match speed."

"'There must be something,' I thought." She narrowed her eyes, as if recreating her thoughts from back then. "On this chessboard, there must be something that they had long overlooked, abandoned, and dismissed, yet could be picked up and used by me. Although this was very difficult, because this chessboard had belonged to them for far too long, and the rules of play had been made for them for far too long, so long that everyone felt it was born this way."

"But I could not give up, no matter how loudly they laughed, how nastily they cursed, what they used to obstruct me, or how vulgar the jokes they made about me were, things like how many people I had slept with to get close to the duke, and how I had nearly worn myself raw down there. What a joke. This old lady was the number one fierce woman of six villages and towns. What dirty jokes have I not heard? What ugly dicks have I not kicked?"

Without anyone noticing, the dark clouds gradually scattered. Moonlight fell, and blue smoke coiled around the observation platform.

Sonia snorted lightly.

"I stayed. I persisted. I trained hard, studied, observed, and lost again and again in contests against men, against those so-called strong people. Then gradually, in the most inconspicuous, most ignored, most mocked places, I discovered certain interesting things that most people disdained."

"I had a better sense of balance. I could trot across a single-log bridge where they could not even stand steadily, and move briskly over broken, pothole-filled roads."

"I was small and light. I could squeeze into smaller gaps, hide in narrower bushes, and use different kinds of mounts."

Sonia rounded her mouth and lightly exhaled a hollow smoke ring.

"I had more coordinated and nimble fingers and wrists. The straps on my weapons were tied finer, tighter, and easier to adjust than theirs. My longbow was tuned more accurately than theirs, handier and firmer."

"Smell, sight, hearing. I had keener senses than many people. For a while, John said my nose was even sharper than his hounds'."

"I could endure pain, cold, and hunger better than quite a few soldiers. Probably inherited from my mother. When I was little, after she finished farm work, she still had to earn money for the family. She would squat by the river for several hours, washing endless basins of clothes, and I still do not know how she did it."

"In harsh environments, I could lie hidden and keep at it for a very, very long time. Although my strength was small, my consumption was also lower. Even after exhausting all my strength, I only needed half their rest time and half their food to stand up again, alive and kicking."

"In a run longer than the longest long-distance run, or rather, cross-country, I might not be faster than them, might not be as conspicuous, but I was steadier, more precise, less likely to become fatigued, dazed, dizzy, or lost."

Thales listened, entranced.

"Just like this: endurance, balance, adaptability, memory, detail and delicacy, toughness and recovery rate. Low consumption, high sensitivity. And do you know, I only recently discovered that women live longer than men, even in peacetime."

The Flower of the Fortress curved her lips.

"So I learned to exert my ability to withstand pain, use more reliable parts of my body to receive attacks, and when they were astonished, 'How are you still not down?' grit my teeth and counterattack. I learned to choose battlefield environments more suited for me to perform, rather than sit down on flat ground and noisily arm-wrestle them. If none of that worked, then simply avoid the front, fight a war of attrition, hide myself, move the opponent, and bet that he collapsed from exhaustion, froze, or fainted from hunger before I did."

She patted her thigh and sighed.

"Of course, the men would rather die than admit I was better than them at any of the above qualities. There was always someone to refute it, always someone saying, 'Go compare with the Royal Guards then?' But there was only one point they admitted..."

Sonia blinked and pointed at Thales' head.

"My brain."

"Although I think that was because John first said, 'She is smarter than all of you,' and no matter how unwilling they were, they did not dare offend the duke."

Thales laughed softly.

Sonia became enthusiastic as she spoke, holding the cigarette in one hand and waving the other, not caring that spittle flew.

"You know, people always think men are smarter, more rational, calmer, better at hiding emotions, more resolute and sensible, while women are duller, irrational, weaker, emotionally unstable, and only know how to be hysterical."

"But in my long military career, I have not discovered this. You know, nearly every common soldier is violent, irritable, and impulsive. If he does not fuck for three days, he cannot resist jerking off or getting into a fight. It does not seem much better than women."

Sonia shook her head.

"I do not know where the conclusion that men are more rational came from."

"From men," Thales suddenly said. "You know, the more people lack something, the more they brag about it."

Sonia first froze, then laughed loudly.

"Wait. You are not angry hearing this?"

The Flower of the Fortress stopped laughing.

"Most men, when they hear this, become ashamed into anger, deny everything, and jump in fury. At least they solemnly say something like, 'You cannot overturn an entire boat with one pole,' right?"

Thales shrugged.

"Wouldn't that play right into your hands, 'men are irrational'?"

"Oh, bad. You really react quickly." Sonia frowned. "In the future, if I want to bring this up again, someone will definitely refute me: 'Look, His Highness Thales is also a man, and he is very rational.'"

"No need."

Thales politely waved a hand and leaned back. "I have no intention of sharing dicks."

Sonia burst into hearty laughter again.

She raised her head, looking at the bright moon surrounded by stars, her tone full of feeling.

"In short, bring out strengths and make up for weaknesses. I am me. I have to do my own things, not follow their standards and do what they want me to do, pointlessly proving to them that 'I can become a man.'"

Thales suddenly felt that the bone ring in his front lapel did not seem so heavy.

"The guard assessment. Did you pass it?"

At that instant, Sonia's smile faded.

"While I waited for the next chance and tried to overturn the rules, the assessment arrived unexpectedly early."

The Flower of the Fortress stood and took a deep drag.

"A group of bandits entered the royal hunting forest to settle. The Star Lake Guards brought recruits to suppress them, but the intelligence was wrong. They were not ordinary bandits, but advance scouts from the Blade Fief rebels."

Her words were somewhat lonely.

"We were dragged in the forest for a full month, suffered heavy losses, had our lines of communication cut off, and could neither advance nor retreat."

Sonia slowly nodded.

"It was in that campaign that I passed the assessment."

Listening to her light and calm words, Thales suddenly realized what a thrilling story was hidden behind them.

"But I also understood one point. On a true battlefield, when the people on both sides charge at each other like beasts, when your enemy only wants to stab his knife and hand together into your stomach, when your comrade's intestines leak out mixed with blood..."

The Flower of the Fortress' face turned cold, and she raised the almost-burnt-out cigarette.

"No one gives a shit whether you are male or female."

Her words made Thales remember countless bloody scenes he had experienced. His expression dimmed, and he likewise stood.

"I am sorry."

Sonia shook her head, not caring.

"Just like that, I discovered another advantage of mine: my mind. No matter the environment, I could grit my teeth and calm down, endure what others could not, force myself to think, summarize, consider how the battlefield situation was, where each of our squads was, what state every person was in, what the enemy might do next, what we should do next, and make more advantageous and rational decisions..."

Thales' expression was strange.

"But I remember that earlier, you said that at Broken Dragon Fortress, you just fought blindly like hell?"

Sonia chuckled and slapped her thigh.

"That is because I do not have a dick!"

Thales froze, unable to answer for a moment.

"Another example. During the Bloody Year, we and the Eckstedt people fell into a tug-of-war along the Pasture River."

The Bloody Year.

Hearing this term, Thales' smile withdrew.

"Arracca and his Fury Guards were the vanguard. They fought without regard for their lives, fierce and unafraid of death, daring to clash in the field against Eckstedt's army. Countless Northland warriors died by his hand. For a time, the Wrath of the Kingdom became famous throughout the Western Continent. It is said that the first question King Nuven asked every day after waking was, 'Is Arracca Murkh dead yet?'"

The Flower of the Fortress shook a finger and curled her lips.

"And just as Arracca's name grew greater, and more and more Star people died, becoming more desperate and more fanatical, when your father was even going to conscript young soldiers and perish together with the Northlanders, I calmed down. I thought, we cannot continue like this. Then, then I went and did something."

"What?"

Sonia took a deep breath.

"Before Arracca's mad-dog one-for-one fighting style killed him and all his subordinates, I bypassed the main battlefield, went deep behind enemy lines, suddenly entered the Northland occupied by the Eckstedt people..."

"And took back Cold Castle."

Her tone when she said this was just as light, as though it did not matter.

During the Bloody Year, taking back Cold Castle...

But Thales connected this with his memories, and after understanding it, his expression changed.

"What?"

"What, you do not believe it?" Sonia raised her brows.

Thales blinked hard, trying to recall his historical knowledge.

"No... wait. As far as I know, two hundred years ago, Elika the North Conqueror mobilized the entire country's soldiers, laid a three-sided pocket, used countless schemes and endless fighting, and even relied on luck, before finally taking Cold Castle, the largest and richest place in the Northland, forcing the Eckstedt people back to the Northern Plains and Black Sand Mountain..."

He stared at the Flower of the Fortress in disbelief.

"But during the Bloody Year, you went north alone without reinforcements or response, and had to face the threat of an army of one hundred thousand. How did you do it? Why have I never heard of this at all?"

But Sonia merely smiled mysteriously.

"According to old Sodor, one of the preconditions for King Nuven's willingness to negotiate was not publicly revealing the truth of Cold Castle's loss. A dignified one hundred thousand Northland sons, brave, unstoppable, and invincible, had their ass stabbed by one woman."

Thales remembered King Nuven's face and voice, and his expression immediately became strange.

"You doubt me?" Sonia was dissatisfied with his attitude. "Hey, why do you think that arrogant fellow Val Arunde has been so respectful to me these past ten-odd years, and never shorted supplies by even a pound? And why was his daughter Miranda willing to serve under me? Because I was the one who took old Duke Dylan's head down from Cold Castle's gate and returned it to the Arunde Family!"

"And conversely, why did your dad send me to guard the fortress instead of the more famous Arracca Murkh, who could scare the Northlanders more?"

Sonia held the cigarette in her mouth and crossed her arms.

"Could it be because I am good-looking?"

Thales thought about it and nodded.

"You are indeed very good-looking."

In that instant, Sonia's expression stiffened, and the rolled cigarette fell from her mouth to the ground.

Thales reacted and hurriedly explained.

"I mean, well, when you fight, you look very good. Your cigarette fell."

Sonia seemed very unused to this answer. As she bent down to pick up the cigarette, surprise, suspicion, secret delight, self-reflection, and denial constantly changed across her face for several seconds.

"Tch, good-looking? You mean including these?"

She snorted lightly, straightened, lifted her clothes to reveal the skin over her ribs, then pulled open her collar to reveal her shoulder and collarbone.

"And these?"

Thales was suddenly startled.

Those were... scars.

Gods.

Beneath Sonia's clothes, from side abdomen to back, from shoulder to neck, there were pitted marks everywhere, full of crisscrossing knife scars, arrow scars, burn scars, and sun marks. New and old skin twisted together, light and deep in uneven patches.

Was this the price of transforming from a farmer's daughter into the Flower of the Fortress?

Thales stared blankly at the scars on her body. Only after a good while did he realize something and embarrassedly turn his face away.

"Yes. Including them, you are also very good-looking, by another standard."

The Flower of the Fortress frowned. She tied her clothes and examined Thales again.

"Strange. You do not seem to be politely smoothing things over, like saying 'you look very heroic' or 'you are very distinctive' in that roundabout way."

She scratched her head.

"Ever since my parents passed away, no one has praised me as beautiful. The madam even advised me not to care about appearance. Damn it, being praised as beautiful feels really strange. Is this Williams' daily life in the Western Desert?"

Thales' expression darkened.

No. He dared guarantee that in the Western Desert, no one dared praise the Wings of Legend as beautiful.

At least not to his face.

Thales coughed.

"You, well, actually, just saying thank you is enough."

But he thought of something.

"No wonder."

Thales sighed.

"No wonder during the Bloody Year, that stubborn old man King Nuven was willing to sit down and negotiate with Stars. It was not because Gilbert's tongue bloomed like a lotus, not because the Wrath of the Kingdom was terrifying, and even less because of my father's young soldiers."

"It was because of you." Thales gazed at her. "Because of Cold Castle, King Nuven made the final decision, and in the end brought about the Fortress Treaty."

"Countless people in the Kingdom of Stars owe you an enormous debt."

But Sonia merely smiled lightly and waved a hand.

"John once said reputation is like shit from the Eastern Continent... cough, cough. All right, mm, being praised occasionally still feels pretty good."

She scratched her chin, enjoying the last few puffs.

Looking at her like this, Thales could not help feeling emotional.

In comparison, his mission to Eckstedt seven years ago and his stopping the war... perhaps did not count for much.

"I have a question." Thales frowned. "All of you were promoted and granted titles during the Bloody Year and commanded standing armies for the royal family. Why did the Wrath of the Kingdom and the Wings of Legend become barons, while you, Sonia Sasere, who made world-shaking contributions, are only a lady?"

"Yes, I am curious too." The Flower of the Fortress' face was full of sarcasm. "Not only that, I am also ranked last among the so-called three great commanders."

Speaking of this, she seemed full of complaints.

"And Flower of the Fortress. Fuck, what person who fights wars likes being called a flower? Waiting to be fertilized, pruned, picked, taken to confess love to someone, or waiting to blossom and then wither?"

"Why don't they call Arracca 'Flower of the Kingdom' and Roman 'Flower of Legend'? Truly, if you have seen that pretty boy, you will understand. That should be his nickname, all right?"

Thales nodded repeatedly at her evaluation of Williams.

"Then what do you want people to call you?"

This truly stumped Sonia.

"Mm, let me think. Uh, Fortress Wolf?"

Thales burst out laughing.

"Good." The Flower of the Fortress looked at him for a good while, then suddenly smiled openly. "Now you make me feel that you are still the child who first arrived at the fortress, saved a deserter, was carried on my shoulder, and cried loudly because he was afraid of heights."

Thales' smile stiffened, and his expression became embarrassed.

"Of all my impressive deeds in the past, you insist on bringing up this one."

Sonia shook her head, her words carrying meaning.

"To me, this one is far more impressive than that lousy business of you raising a sword and forcing your way into the palace."

Thales fell silent, thoughtful.

Sonia continued smoking, her expression likewise deep.

Several seconds later, Thales abruptly spoke.

"Can I have a puff?"

Sonia first froze, then understood something and smiled evilly.

"Oh? Where did 'children cannot smoke' go?"

"By imperial custom, men are adults at fourteen." Thales showed no shame.

Sonia and he looked at each other and smiled. The former extended the hand holding the cigarette.

"Take it easy. Smuggled goods from Dragon-Kiss Land. Very expensive."

I am paying for your food and lodging.

"Relax. Only sharing smoke, not sharing dicks with you... right, I still remember that slap you gave me just now. Fuck you."

"Hey, if you want to fuck me back, I am ready anytime."

"Forget it. I would not dare fuck the Fortress Wolf."

Thales impolitely took the Flower of the Fortress' cigarette, put it in his mouth, and inhaled deeply.

"Cough! Cough! Cough, cough, cough!"

With only the first mouthful, Thales was choked by that peculiar spiciness and coughed repeatedly, trembling in the cloud and mist he had exhaled. He hurriedly handed the cigarette back and swore he would die before trying a second puff.

"Yo, I misjudged you. You cannot be a soldier," Sonia said with delight in his misfortune as she took back her cigarette, "but being a smoker might work."

Thales was busy coughing and had no choice but to raise a middle finger in response.

"What is that? I think I saw that mute do it to Miranda."

"This is a Northland... mm, southern Star people's universal friendly greeting gesture."

Sonia smiled slightly, inhaled the last mouthful of smoke, and raised her middle finger back at him in the same way.

"Hello there, you little bastard!"

"In short, thank you." The prince finally recovered. He turned and faced the mountain forest beyond Star Lake Castle. "I figured out many things and feel much better."

"Really?"

"Really."

In that instant, the weight of Kortaksa was no longer like a thorn in his back.

Thales raised his head and welcomed the gentle moonlight, sighing.

"I suddenly realized that compared with what you faced, once faced, and are still facing, the battlefield I am about to walk into does not seem so difficult, nor so terrible."

And as the newcomer and challenger of the game, he could not attach a fake dick, could not pretend to be like them, and could not follow their rules.

Never.