Kingdom Bloodline

Chapter 637 Fortress Wolf
“And those people, of course, acted as if it were perfectly normal: ‘I told you so.’ ‘It’s okay, it’s normal.’ ‘You’ve done a great job, you just have to accept reality.’ ‘This job is more suited to men.’”

Sonia took out her pipe and began rolling her third cigarette.

“You know, they always sound so confident and eloquent, always so rational, neutral, objective and sincere.”

Sonia's gaze fell on the tobacco in her hand.

"In the end, I almost believed it—maybe I really messed up, maybe I really wasn't suited for the military?"

The fortress flower turned around and grinned at Thales:
"Right?"

Thales did not answer immediately. He sat on the ground with his back to the watchtower, his hands on his knees, his expression deep.

They always sound so self-righteous and articulate...

The scene at the royal banquet where Vice-Captain Vogel made DD willingly commit suicide is still vivid in my mind.

“I’m not like you, I didn’t mess it up.”

The boy suddenly spoke:
"I can handle it. I'm just trying and adapting. I need time."

Sonia paused in rolling her cigarette and turned to look at Thales.

"adapt?"

The fortress flower smiled at first, but her face immediately turned cold.

"Sunset, it seems you really messed up."

Thales frowned.

Sonia rolled her cigarette and sneered:

"And it wasn't just a little bit smashed, otherwise you wouldn't be living in a dead man's house, your father wouldn't be sneaking around looking for you, and Ginny wouldn't be yelling at me to come and teach you a lesson."

Thales, who was initially unconvinced, looked up in surprise upon hearing this:
"Ginny, Ms. Ginny?"

Sonia skillfully held the cigarette in her mouth and took out a flint:

Are you sure you don't want a bite?

Thales stared at the crudely made cigarettes and gave a wry smile.

Sonia shrugged, lit a cigarette in a few quick movements, and took a leisurely drag.
"Okay, kid, maybe between the two of us, you're the one who's not suited for the army."

Hold.

Thales waved away the smoke, shifted his position to the side, and looked displeased.

“I know you’ve just returned to the capital, which means you’ve stepped into a new battlefield. But every rule in this new battlefield is against you and unfair to you. They make you feel unfamiliar, confused, desperate, and unable to see a way out.”

Thales frowned, remaining noncommittal, while Sonia exhaled smoke.

"Contrary to what most people think—fighting with a sword is not difficult. Even the so-called 'risking one's life' is just a matter of getting carried away, gritting one's teeth, and losing one's mind. What is truly difficult is knowing why one is fighting."

Hearing her words, Thales suddenly remembered what Marius had said after punishing DD:
When you decide to trade, make sure it's on your own scales.

"But when you look up, away from individual opponents, when you see more and see higher, when you realize that the rules of combat have been so messed up from the beginning, when you realize that your fighting is just a monkey show in a cage, and you can never change the cage... then fighting becomes very difficult, very difficult."

It was as if my sword was no longer striking flesh and blood or steel weapons, but rather an invisible wall, rendering all my swings futile.

For some reason, Thales suddenly remembered what Cohen had said in the lower town.

The Flower of the Fortress blew on the half-burnt cigarette butt and calmly spoke:
"We've all experienced tension, fear, panic, mistakes, regret, wavering, self-doubt, and even numbness and giving up. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

The observation deck under the moonlight was calm and serene, and with the smoke from Sonia's hand, everything felt like a dream.

"Your attempt to enlist as a guard has failed just like that?" Thales suddenly asked, his face expressionless.

Sonia crossed one leg, curled her lips into a smile, but shook her head.

“I got incredibly lucky. A big shot just happened to be passing by, and I got a second chance to stay here and wait for the next round of recruitment.”

The voice of the Fortress Flower was somewhat subdued.

A big shot.

Thales looked around Starlake Castle:
"John Star?"

Sonia chuckled softly, put the cigarette back in her mouth, leaned back, and supported the back of her head with her hands.

"The days that followed were tough. I ate and slept with the guards in the castle, and trained hard to prepare for the next test."

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

"The comforting words disappeared after that. Nobody gave me a kind look. Everyone was isolating me. And I realized that I had gotten a good deal by not following their rules to get into the game. This made the men feel that their rights had been violated—'a woman who was given special treatment,' 'someone who took a shortcut,' 'it's so unfair to men,' and so on."

“From bed and duty arrangements to daily routines, from frequent emergency drills and increased weight training to the coincidence of always being assigned cleaning work, they used every possible method to embarrass and humiliate me. After it was all over, there was always a ‘veteran’ who would play the good cop and nag: ‘They’re not targeting you, they just can’t get over it.’ ‘I’m sorry, but maybe you should give up?’”

Thales listened quietly, but he recalled the moment at the royal banquet when Anker took hostages and forced a duel at the palace.

At that moment, all the guests at the banquet, all the prominent figures in Yongxing City, raised their heads and stared at him.

“Including every ‘friendly match’ within the team, sometimes I would grit my teeth and win, and they would say, ‘You were lucky,’ ‘We were just letting you win,’ ‘You were a bit tired today, so we let you win,’ or ‘You cheated, if you’re so capable, let’s face it head-on,’ ‘The outcome would be different in a different setting,’ or even ‘If we fought to the death, you would definitely die,’ ‘A real battle wouldn’t be that simple,’ blah blah, and so on.”

"Oh, right, and there's my favorite line: 'Beating me doesn't prove you're stronger than a man. If you're so capable, go and compete with an even stronger man!'"

Sonia flicked off her cigarette ash and chuckled:
"Does every man say this? I call it the 'sharing technique.' Every time I beat one of them, they say it, as if by saying it, the defeated guy instantly shares the 'greater man's' huge 'sharing technique.'"

Shared technology.

Thales couldn't help but chuckle.

But his smile quickly faded: there were people like that on his battlefield, weren't there?

"And when I lost, they all said in unison, 'See, I told you.' 'This is perfectly normal.' 'Generally speaking, women really can't beat men.' 'That's enough, by your standards, it's already very good.'"

Sonia's tone softened.

“At that time, everything was very frustrating: swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat, weightlifting, long-distance running, javelin throwing, archery, it seemed that I couldn’t compete with others in any of them—especially those trained men, or even those who had served in the military.”

“I don’t have their strength, power, speed, explosiveness, physique, constitution—the things that are usually compared in sports competitions to jousting—I don’t have anything they’re proud of.”

A dark cloud obscured the moonlight, leaving the boy and woman in darkness, each feeling dejected.

“But you won,” Thales said softly, “in this unfair rule.”

Sonia remained silent for a long time before taking a deep drag and slowly exhaling smoke through her nose.

"I didn't win. I just survived."

The fortress flower's scattered gaze slowly returned to focus.

"As the days went by, and the date of the next recruitment drew near, and I was on the verge of despair and giving up, someone asked me: 'Why, Sonia, why are you on their chessboard?'"

Upon hearing this, Thales looked up.

"Their chessboard?"

Sonia smiled and nodded, as if she had thought of something happy:

“I was asked: ‘Soldiers have many ways of fighting and killing, so why must you learn to use muscles, rely on physique, resort to strength and explosiveness, and be as loud and boisterous as they are all day long? Why must you pursue their strength, rudeness, domineering nature, masculinity, and aggressiveness, and regard them as the standard to prove yourself? Why must you learn these things from them and compete with them?’”

Thales squinted.

Sonia sighed:

“‘Because,’ I naively said back then, ‘because these are useful, because the officer said these are things that have been tested in competitions and have stood the test of time, and are the good things that every soldier going to the battlefield needs.’”

At this point, Fortress Flower chuckled.

“‘That’s because the earliest competitions only allowed men to participate,’ I was told, ‘so of course they would compete in what they were good at—when have you ever seen them compete in giving birth?’”

Thales' expression changed.

“‘And soldiers need these things, not just because they’re ‘good,’” Sonia sat cross-legged, even forgetting to smoke, letting the cigarette burn slowly in her hand. “That guy told me, ‘It’s because they’re soldiers now, and they like, are used to, and are good at these things—strong, rough, domineering, masculine, aggressive. Most of the time, they only use these things, so these things become ‘useful’ and ‘good.’ Then, as more and more people come and fewer people doubt them, everyone accepts it as common sense and truth.’”

Sonia recounted the story with such passion, as if she had returned to that moment many years ago:
"Because this is a tournament they control, a battlefield they define, and one of their most cunning tricks is to 'allow' you to enter and participate in the game, then defeat you within these rules and events that cannot be questioned, and then tell you: See, you didn't win, you're no good."

Thales blurted out instinctively:
"but……"

But the Flower of the Fortress didn't let him continue, and spoke on her own:
"So why, Sonia, you're already at a disadvantage on the chessboard that men are so familiar with and have dominated for thousands of years? If that's the case, why bother following their rules, their tournament standards, their survival guidelines, and their habits that they're so familiar with? When the armor and weapons you can get are all made according to men's standards, how can you expect to fight them with those?"

Why should we follow their rules, their established competition standards, their survival guidelines...?

Thales' gaze drifted into the distance.

"...When they even treat penis size as a standard competition and require everyone to compete with them, how are you going to win? Pretend to have a fake penis and pretend you're a man?" Sonia sneered.

Thales snapped out of his daze and realized he had missed something:
"Is this a metaphor?"

Sonia turned her head and gave a wicked smile:
"It's up to you."

Thales raised his eyebrows.

At this moment, the fortress flower before him shone with piercing light, piercing through the hazy smoke:
“‘Don’t listen to them,’ I was told. ‘Even if you want to win their prize, don’t follow their standards, don’t do what they say, don’t pretend, even if that’s the only way to ‘prove’ to them—because then you’ll really lose.’”

"That very night, I realized how stupid I had been."

She turned to the thoughtful boy:
"Tales, don't be stupid, don't listen to them, and don't pretend to send a fake email."

Thales clenched his fist.

Don't listen to them.

At that moment, he inexplicably thought of the rope and what the latter had said to him.

Don't play chess with him on the same board, Thales, because you never know how deep his schemes are, how many cards he has up his sleeve. And those who are manipulated by their father without even realizing it are truly pitiful.

Immediately afterward, Thales thought of Chaman Rumba.

“I didn’t. I’m fighting, in my own way.”

Thales instinctively opened his mouth to refute, almost at the same moment he remembered the man whose gaze was like ice, yet burned with fire within.

"Physically, of course you don't have it, but what about mentally?"

Sonia gazed at him, then reached out and tapped Thales' chest: "And here?"

Thales didn't speak; the scar on his chest from being burned by a silver coin when he was a child seemed to be slightly warm.

“Originally, the basil only grew in one place,” Sonia said sarcastically, raising her cigarette again. “But the reality is, thousands and tens of thousands of years have passed, and they have become something else, everywhere—not naturally grown, but artificially placed there.”

Thales pursed his lips.

"And then?" he asked hoarsely.

Sonia's eyes flickered.

"Later, later, I stopped trying to arm wrestle with them, compete in weightlifting, and race against them."

“There must be something,” she thought, squinting as if reliving the way she had pondered so intently back then. “There must be something on this chessboard that they have long ignored, abandoned, and taken for granted, but that I can pick up and use—though it is difficult, because this chessboard has belonged to them for too long, and the rules of the game have been set for them for too long, so long that everyone feels they were born this way.”

"But I can't give up, no matter how loudly they laugh, how nasty their insults, what they use to stop me, or how vulgar their jokes are, like how I slept with so many people to get close to the Duke that I'm practically worn out down there—what a joke! I'm the number one shrew in the six major villages and towns. What dirty jokes haven't I heard? What ugly bar haven't I kicked!"

Unbeknownst to them, the dark clouds gradually dispersed, moonlight fell, and wisps of smoke swirled around the observation deck.

Sonia gave a soft hum:
“I stayed, I persevered, I worked hard to train, learn, and observe. Time and time again I was defeated in the contests with men, with those ‘strong’ men. Then, gradually, in the most inconspicuous, most overlooked, and most ridiculed places, I discovered something interesting that most people would disdain.”

“I have a better sense of balance, so I can run across the log bridge where they can't even stand properly, and walk briskly on the bumpy, broken road.”

"I am small and light, which allows me to squeeze into smaller gaps and hide in narrower bushes, and I can be equipped with different kinds of mounts."

Sonia opened her mouth wide and gently exhaled a hollow smoke ring.

“I have more coordinated and flexible fingers and wrists, my weapon belt is tied more finely, more tightly, and easier to adjust than theirs, and my longbow is more accurately, more comfortable to handle, and more secure than theirs.”

“My sense of smell, sight, and hearing are far more acute than many people’s, to the point that John once said my nose was even more sensitive than his hound’s.”

"I can endure pain, cold and hunger better than a considerable number of soldiers—probably inherited from my mother. When I was little, after finishing her farm work, she still had to earn money for the family. She would squat by the river for several hours, washing countless basins of clothes, and I still don't know how she did it."

“In harsh environments, I can hide and stay hidden for a very long time—I am not strong, but I also consume less energy. Even after I have exhausted all my strength, I only need to rest for half the time they have and eat half the food they have to eat before I can stand up and be lively again.”

"In long-distance running, which is longer than the longest long-distance running, or in cross-country running, I may not be faster or more conspicuous than them, but I am more stable, more precise, and less prone to fatigue, exhaustion, dizziness, and getting lost."

Thales listened intently.

"So it is, patience, balance, adaptability, memory, detail and dexterity, resilience and recovery rate; low consumption, high sensitivity—and you know what, I only recently discovered that women live longer than men—even in peacetime."

The fortress flower curved her lips:

"So I learned to use my ability to endure pain and take the hits with more reliable parts of my body. When they were surprised and asked, 'How come you're not falling down?' I gritted my teeth and fought back. I learned to choose a battlefield environment that was more suitable for me to perform, instead of sitting on the ground and wrestling with them. If none of these worked, I simply avoided a head-on confrontation and fought a war of attrition, hiding myself, maneuvering my opponent, and betting that he would be exhausted, frozen, or starving before me."

She slapped her thigh and sighed:

"Of course, men would never admit that I'm better than them in any of the above qualities. There will always be someone to argue, someone to say, 'Why don't you go and compare yourself to the royal guard?' But there's one thing they admit..."

Sonia blinked and pointed at Thales' head:

"My mind."

"Although I think it's because John said 'she's smarter than all of you' first, and no matter how unwilling they were, they didn't dare to offend the Duke."

Thales chuckled softly.

Sonia got carried away, holding a cigarette in one hand and waving it around in the other, not caring that spittle was flying everywhere:
“You know, people always think that men are smarter, more rational, calmer, better at hiding their emotions, and more resolute and rational, while women are more dull, irrational, weak, emotionally unstable, and only know how to be hysterical.”

"But in all my years of military service, I haven't noticed that—you know, almost every soldier is irritable, easily angered, and impulsive, not much better than women."

Sonia shook her head:
"I don't know where the conclusion that 'men are more rational' came from."

“It comes from men,” Thales suddenly said. “You know, the more you lack something, the more you brag about it.” Sonia was taken aback at first, then burst into laughter.

"Wait, aren't you angry to hear that?"

The flower of the fortress silenced its laughter.

"Most men, upon hearing this, would become enraged, vehemently deny it, and jump up and down in anger, or at least feign seriousness and say, 'You can't generalize and condemn everyone'?"

Thales shrugged:

"Wouldn't that be exactly what you wanted, a living example of 'men are irrational'?"

“Oh dear, you’re quick to react,” Sonia frowned. “If I bring this up again, someone will definitely argue, ‘Look, Prince Thales is a man too, and he’s very rational.’”

"It's not necessary."

Thales politely waved his hand and leaned back: "I have no intention of sharing the bar."

Sonia burst into another hearty laugh.

She looked up at the bright moon surrounded by stars, her words tinged with emotion:
"In short, play to your strengths and make up for your weaknesses. I am who I am, and I will do my own thing instead of doing what they want me to do according to their standards, which is pointless to prove to them that 'I can be a man.'"

Thales suddenly felt that the bone ring in his front pocket didn't seem so heavy anymore.

"You passed the guard's test?"

At that moment, Sonia's smile faded.

"As I waited for the next opportunity to try to subvert the rules, the assessment came unexpectedly ahead of schedule."

The Flower of the Fortress stood up and took a deep drag on her cigarette.

“A group of bandits entered the Wang family’s hunting forest and settled down. The Xinghu Guard led new recruits to suppress the bandits, but the intelligence was wrong. They were not ordinary bandits, but advance scouts of the Blade’s Rebellion.”

Her words carried a hint of melancholy.

“We were stuck in the forest for a whole month, suffering heavy losses, cut off from all communication, and unable to move forward or backward.”

Sonia nodded slowly:
"It was during that battle, that annoying recruiter who happened to be our instructor, that he apologized to me before he died, and then smiled and said: Congratulations, soldier, you have passed the test."

As Thales listened to her nonchalant and calm words, he realized that the story behind it was thrilling and full of blood and tears.

"It was there that I understood something: on a real battlefield, when both sides pounce on each other like wild beasts, when your enemy only wants to stab you in the stomach along with his hand, when your comrades' intestines and blood are spilling out together..."

The Fortress Flower's expression turned cold as she raised the few cigarettes she had left:

Nobody cares whether you're male or female.

The other person's words reminded Thales of the countless bloody incidents he had witnessed, and his face darkened. He too stood up:

"I'm very sorry."

Sonia shook her head, unconcerned.
"And so, I discovered another advantage of mine: my mind. No matter the environment, I can grit my teeth and stay calm, endure what others cannot, and force myself to think, to summarize, to consider the battlefield situation, where each of our squads is located, what state each person is in, what the enemy might do next, and what we should do next, in order to make more advantageous and rational decisions..."

Thales' expression was strange: "But I remember you just said before that you were just randomly attacking at Dragon Fortress?"

Sonia chuckled and slapped her thigh:

"So I didn't send it!"

Thales was taken aback and was speechless for a moment.

“Another example is the Year of Blood, when we were locked in a tug-of-war with the Exter people along the River Shepherd.”

A bloody year.

Upon hearing the word, Thales' smile vanished.

"Arakka and his Wrathful Guard were the vanguard, fighting fearlessly and daring to charge into open battle against Exter's army. Countless warriors from the North fell at his hands. The name 'Wrath of the Kingdom' became famous throughout the Western Lands. It is said that even the first question King Nunn asked himself every morning was, 'Is Arakka Mu dead yet?'"

Fortress Flower shook her finger and pouted:
"And just as Arakka's reputation grew, and the Star People died more and more, becoming more desperate and fanatical, and your father even wanted to conscript boy soldiers to fight the North People to the death, I calmed down. I thought, we can't do this, and then, then I did something."

"what's up?"

Sonia took a deep breath:

"Before Alarca and his men were wiped out by his one-for-one mad dog tactics, I bypassed the main battlefield, penetrated deep behind enemy lines, and set foot on the northern border occupied by the Exter people..."

"We have recaptured Coldhold."

She said it in the same nonchalant tone, as if it were unimportant.

In the bloody year, the Cold Castle was reclaimed...

But Thales connected his memories and understood, and his expression immediately changed:
"what?"

"What, you don't believe me?" Sonia raised an eyebrow.

Thales blinked hard, trying to recall his historical knowledge:

"No... wait, as far as I know, two hundred years ago, 'The Conqueror of the North' Elijah mobilized the entire nation's army, laid three traps, and engaged in countless battles and schemes. She also had a lot of luck to do in order to capture the largest and richest castle in the North, the Cold Castle, and force the Exter people back to the northern plains and the Black Sand Mountains..."

He stared incredulously at the fortress flower:

"But in that bloody year, you marched north alone, without any support or assistance, and faced the threat of an army of 100,000. How did you manage to do that? Why have I never heard of this before?"

But Sonia just smiled mysteriously.

"According to old man Sodor, one of the preconditions for King Nunn's willingness to negotiate is that the truth about the loss of Coldburg be kept secret—100,000 brave and invincible soldiers of the North were betrayed by a woman."

Thales recalled King Nunn's voice and smile, and his expression turned strange.

"You have doubts?" Sonia was very dissatisfied with his attitude. "Hey, why do you think that arrogant guy Val Aarond has been so respectful to me for the past ten years or so, and has never shortchanged me on supplies? And why is his daughter, Miranda, willing to serve under me? Because I am the one who took the old Duke Dylan's head off the gates of Coldcastle and returned it to the Aarond family!"

"And conversely, why did your father send me to guard the fortress instead of Arakka Mu, who had a bigger reputation and could intimidate the northerners more?"

Sonia, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, crossed her arms:
"Could it be because I'm good-looking?"

Thales pondered for a moment, then nodded: "You are indeed very handsome."

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

Thales realized what was happening and quickly explained:
"I mean, you look really good when you're fighting—you dropped your cigarette."

Sonia seemed quite unaccustomed to such an answer. As she bent down to pick up the cigarette, her expression shifted between surprise, doubt, smugness, self-reflection, and denial, lasting for several seconds.

"Tch, looks good, you mean it includes all of these?"

She hummed softly as she straightened up, lifted her clothes to reveal the skin on her ribs, then pulled open her collar to reveal her shoulders and collarbone.
"There are more of these?"

Thales was suddenly startled.

That's... a scar.

Oh my goodness.

Beneath Sonia's clothes, from her side to her back, from her shoulders to her neck, lay a patchwork of crisscrossing scars—knife marks, arrow scars, and burn marks—as well as sunburns, with old and new skin intertwined in varying shades.

Is this the price of transforming from a peasant girl into the flower of the fortress?
Thales stared blankly at the scars on the other person's body. After a while, he realized what was happening and turned his face away in embarrassment.

"Yes, including them, you are very good-looking—by other standards."

The fortress flower frowned, pulled up her clothes, and looked Thales over again:
“That’s strange. It doesn’t seem like you’re trying to be polite and smooth things over, like saying ‘you have a very dashing appearance’ or ‘you have a very distinctive look.’”

She scratched her head.

“Ever since my parents passed away, no one has ever complimented my looks, and my nanny even advised me to ‘not care about my appearance’—damn, it feels so strange to be complimented on my looks. Is this what daily life is like for Williams in the Western Wilderness?”

Thales's expression darkened.

No, he was certain that in the Western Wilderness, no one would dare to praise the legendary wings as beautiful.

At least they wouldn't dare praise him to his face.

Thales coughed and said, "Well, actually, just saying thank you would have been enough."

But then he remembered something.

"No wonder."

Thales sighed:
"No wonder that stubborn old man King Nunn was willing to sit down and negotiate with the stars during the Bloody Year. It wasn't because Gilbert was eloquent, nor because the Wrath of the Kingdom was terrifying, nor because of my father's boy soldiers."

“It’s because of you,” Thales gazed at the other man, “that King Nunn made the final decision after the unexpected loss of Coldhold, which ultimately led to the Treaty of the Fortress.”

"Countless people in the Star Kingdom owe you a debt of gratitude because of you."

But Sonia just smiled and waved her hand: "John said that reputation is like poop in the East - cough cough, well, um, it's nice to be praised occasionally."

She scratched her chin, savoring the last few puffs of her cigarette.

Seeing the other person like this, Thales couldn't help but feel a pang of emotion.

By comparison, his mission to Exeter seven years ago to stop the war seems insignificant.

“I have a question,” Thales frowned. “Both of us were promoted and ennobled during the Blood Year, becoming generals commanding the royal standing army. Why, why did the Wrath of the Kingdom and the Wings of Legends become barons, while you, Sonia Sathere, who made unparalleled contributions, are only a lady?”

“Yes, I’m curious too,” Fortress Flower said with a sarcastic expression. “Not only that, I’m also ranked last among the so-called three commanders.”

Speaking of this, she seemed to have a lot of complaints:

"And the fortress flower—damn it, what soldier likes being called a 'flower'? Is it waiting to be fertilized, pruned, picked, or given as a gift for a confession, or is it waiting to bloom and then wither?"

"Why don't they call Arakka 'Flower of the Kingdom' or Roman 'Flower of Legends'? Seriously, if you'd met that pretty boy, you'd understand that these are the nicknames he should have, okay?"

Thales nodded repeatedly in agreement with her assessment of Williams:

"So what would you like to be called?"

This really stumped Sonia.

"Hmm, let me think... uh, Fortress Wolf?"

Thales chuckled.

“Very good,” Fortress Flower looked at him for a while, then suddenly smiled. “Now you make me feel like you’re still that little kid who rescued a deserter when you first arrived at the fortress, who was carried on my shoulders and cried loudly because of his fear of heights.”

Thales' smile froze, and his expression turned awkward.

"You just had to bring up this one of all my glorious past achievements."

Sonia shook her head, her expression suggestive:
"To me, this is much more impressive than your ridiculous act of wielding a sword and forcing the emperor to abdicate."

Thales fell silent, lost in thought.

Sonia continued smoking, her expression equally profound.

A few seconds later, Thales suddenly spoke:
Can I have a bite?

Sonia was taken aback at first, but then she understood and smiled wickedly: "Oh? Where did 'children can't smoke' go?"

"According to imperial custom, men reach adulthood at fourteen," Thales said without a hint of shame.

Sonia smiled at him and held out her hand holding a cigarette: "Take it easy, these are smuggled goods from Dragon's Kiss Land, they're really expensive."

Then I'll provide you with free food and lodging.

"Don't worry, it's just sharing a cigarette, it's not like I'm sharing with you... Oh right, I still remember the slap you gave me just now."

"Hey, I'll be waiting for you anytime you want to come back."

"Forget it, I wouldn't dare."

Thales unceremoniously took the cigarette from Fortress Flower, put it in his mouth, and took a deep drag.

"Cough! Cough! Cough cough cough!"

After just the first puff, Thales was choked by the strange spiciness and coughed repeatedly, shivering in the cloud of smoke he exhaled. He quickly handed the cigarette back, vowing never to take a second puff.

“Oh, I misjudged you. You’re not good for the army,” Sonia said, taking back her cigarettes with a smug look. “You could be a chain smoker, though.”

Thales, busy coughing, had no choice but to extend a middle finger in response.

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

"This is the common friendly gesture used by people from the North—well, the Southern Stars."

Sonia smiled slightly, took the last drag of her cigarette, and gave him the middle finger as before:
"Hey there, you little bastard!"

"Anyway, thank you," the prince said, finally calming down. He turned around and faced the distant mountains and forests of Starlake Castle. "I've figured a lot out, and I feel much better now."

"Really?"

"real."

In that instant, the weight of "Gortaksa" no longer felt like a thorn in his back.

Thales raised his head, facing the gentle moonlight, and sighed:

“I suddenly realized that compared to what you have faced, what you have faced, and what you are facing now, the battlefield I am about to enter doesn’t seem so difficult or so bad.”

As a newcomer and challenger to the game, he can't pretend to be someone else, pretend to be like them, and follow their rules.

Never.

I'm a bit tired, and there are probably quite a few grammatical errors. I'll go back and revise them tomorrow.

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(End of this chapter)