Vast earth slumbered in darkness, all was silent, the quietness seemed to be mourning the souls that had perished on this land. The starry sky hung down, meteors streaking across the purple-red half of the sky, vanishing in an instant, as if symbolizing those names that once shone bright in the river of history.
Breson stood silently in the cold night wind, issuing commands one after another, the guard team galloped through the ruins of Qing Village, eliminating the remaining enemies, all undead must be purified, all of them.
The young guard captain felt that only by doing this could he feel a bit better.
He checked the time; he had half an hour left.
Zeto watched from afar, shaking the glass flask in his hand, nudging the young man beside him: "You, are you called Essen?"
Essen was slightly startled.
"I'm Zeto, want some?" He raised the flat flask: "Pure Che Lake fire wine, Lains and I found it in a wine cellar. Sadly, after this war, I don't know if we can drink it again..."
He paused for a while.
"You know, I once had a dream, I wanted to be the best scout."
"But now I kind of regret it."
Essen felt this person was extremely strange, but he was a bit curious about why the other party would regret. After all, people do not just regret for no reason, right?
"Why?" he asked.
"My biggest goal was to discover the enemy, because discovering the enemy was my value. But now, what I want to do most is to hide those villagers. Hiding them, at least they wouldn't be killed, but you know, I am powerless, I can do nothing—"
"It's not your fault."
"I am a soldier." Zeto took a sip of wine: "When I saw that girl crying, I wished I could die on that battlefield like Coffinto. But I am still alive, I cannot escape."
The young man fell silent, for some reason, he instinctively thought of Brand, he had an illusion that the young man who had led them out of trouble time and again would lead them out of the shadows this time as well.
Perhaps the premonition was true, all difficulties would be resolved—
I hope so.
he thought.
...
Brand and Frey sat together.
To be honest, Brand felt he wasn't good at comforting people. He thought someone else here could probably have better results, but that damn Breson actually left with a sullen face, and Essen was staying far away and wouldn't come over— hey, isn't this your captain?
Luckily, Frey quickly adjusted her emotions, but she kept staring blankly in a certain direction, her once bright eyes now filled with desolation.
Brand recognized that desolation, he had seen the same look in the one called Valkyrie— that quiet sorrow that seemed to never dissipate.
But he suddenly felt it was a bit of a pity, compared to that, he preferred the simple, soft-hearted, and somewhat persistent Frey, the Frey who could get angry over little things.
But how should he start? He hesitated for a long time, but when the words came to his mouth, they felt pale and powerless, he had prepared several lines, but none seemed fitting.
Just when he was having a headache, the girl spoke first:
"Mr. Brand," she called.
"Hmm?"
"Why do we have wars?"
Ah, he hadn't really thought about this question seriously before. In the game, great guilds fought wars over the distribution of benefits, fame, and sometimes even just for the sake of face, while between nations, they fought for interests, sovereignty, and territories, with flames of war ready to spread across the earth at any time.
In the past, he might have answered, because humans as beings are always driven by desires, yearning for conquest and plunder, and therefore always wage wars against each other.
But after everything today, especially Frey's soft cry that forever imprinted in his heart, indelible, he suddenly realized such an answer was ridiculous, because no one can transcend their own kind, humans— both weak and strong.
"Wars will always happen, we can only choose to accept it."
"We are born in a very bad era, we cannot choose our times. But we can try to change it," Brand replied, and as he spoke, he suddenly felt open-minded because of his own words: "Perhaps we can't change much, but at least we once struggled with many people to achieve it— such memories, are already incredibly precious."