Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 491 Rebuilding the Nation (Part 7)
Winters and Colonel Gaisa left the courtyard side by side and walked along a cobblestone path toward the riverbank.

Winters often takes this path to walk along the river and feed the cats.

Passing through hedges, walls, and sentry posts, the Anya River suddenly appeared before Winters and Colonel Gaisa.

Standing still and gazing, the gently flowing river reflects the lights of the houses on the opposite bank, like fireflies appearing and disappearing in the night.

But Gaisa Adonis is not as calm and undisturbed as the "Mother River".

On the contrary, the colonel was so angry that he was trembling.

After repeatedly trying to convince and console himself, Colonel Geza finally couldn't contain himself and angrily exclaimed, "Whose little girl is this? She's so rude!"

"You heard everything?"

"It's just separated by a door!"

Winters smiled and bowed: "I apologize on her behalf."

“No need.” Colonel Gaisa took a deep breath. “I don’t argue with children.”

The two walked aimlessly along the river.

Winters tactfully changed the subject: "You came to see me about Kai Morland?"

“If I wanted to deal with that guy, I could crush him anytime.” Colonel Gaisa dismissed the name Winters mentioned with disdain: “A Kai Morland isn’t worth me making a special trip.”

"Is there something else important?" Winters replied with great poise.

“Yes, it is important.” Colonel Gaisa stopped and stared into Winters’ eyes. “But it’s not about Kai Morland, it’s about you.”

“Me?” Winters also stopped in his tracks.

“Yes, it’s you,” Gaisa replied, enunciating each word clearly.

Between the officers' quarters wall and the Anya River was a paved road wide enough for two carriages to travel side by side. To prevent carriages from accidentally entering the river, a fence slightly higher than knee-high was also built along the riverbank.

Winters gestured for Colonel Gaisa to sit down on the nearby fence.

A gentle evening breeze dissipates the summer heat; the bright moonlight soothes the restlessness in one's heart.

If not carefully observed, the two people, dressed in casual clothes, would look no different from ordinary citizens going out to escape the summer heat.

As the two sat down, a soft rustling sound came from the bushes on the other side of the road.

A kitten, about two months old, peeked out from among the green leaves, tilting its head to look at the two people sitting on the fence.

Winters heard the noise, turned around, and his eyes met those of the kitten. He clicked his tongue, beckoning the kitten closer.

Kittens at this age are exploring the world. Although they don't recognize another human who looks a bit strange—of course, all humans look strange to cats—they can't resist their curiosity.

So the kitten raised its tail, took a step back, then two steps forward, and approached the two humans sitting on the fence.

"Where's your mother?" Winters held out his hand, letting the kitten sniff his fingers, and said apologetically, "I didn't bring any food with me when I went out today."

"Where did this cat come from?" Colonel Gaisa exclaimed in surprise.

Unlike the Venetians, the Parat people rarely rely on cats to catch mice, and they do not have the habit of keeping cats as pets.

The Parat people preferred to use small terriers to deal with rodent infestations. In the sparsely populated land of the galloping horses, there were plenty of natural predators of rodents, such as weasels, snakes, and owls, outside the granaries.

Therefore, cats are rarely seen in Paratú; even owls are more common than cats.

Colonel Gaisa's voice startled the kitten, which staggered away and tilted its head to look at Winters.

“From the stables, a mother cat and three kittens,” Winters answered quietly as he called to the kittens. “I asked the stableman, and he said the mother cat moved into the stables sometime during the day and even made a nest. There were probably too many rats stealing the horse feed.”

As Winters gently called, the kitten slowly came back.

Although it didn't get any food, it didn't leave. Instead, it circled around Winters' legs, meowing and rubbing its cheek against Winters' boots.

"How could it be so intimate with you..." Colonel Gaisa stared in disbelief.

“I always come to feed him,” Winters replied succinctly.

After saying that, Winters simply picked up the kitten and placed it on his lap, gently stroking the kitten's cheeks and chin.

The kitten didn't resist; instead, it purred contentedly and eventually closed its eyes and took a nap.

"Would you like to touch it too?" Winters asked the colonel enthusiastically.

"Never mind." Colonel Gaisa was quite tempted, but still didn't dare to try: "Don't bite my hand—in the old saying, if you want to say someone is capricious and unpredictable, you would describe him as a cat."

Winters smiled, neither confirming nor denying.

After sitting quietly for a while, Colonel Geza asked lightly, "This seems to be the first time the two of us have sat down and chatted like this?"

“The second time,” Winters reminded with a smile, “it was the same last time, we were sitting facing the Anya River, but far upstream.”

“That doesn’t count,” Colonel Gaisa recalled, waving his hand. “That time, we were enemies; now, we’re speaking as friends.”

That was the first time.

“Sigh, we should chat more,” Colonel Gaisa sighed, feigning anger as he lectured, “and you should be the one coming to me to chat! Instead of the old man taking the initiative to come to you like this.” “Okay,” Winters readily agreed.

"Good my foot!" Colonel Gaisa was both angry and amused. "I've seen through you long ago—you're cold-hearted to the core. If I don't look for you, you'll never take the initiative to see me. Take the officers' quarters, for example, we've been living in the officers' quarters for so long, just across the street, have you ever come to ask me anything?"

Winters blinked guiltily.

In fact, both Mason and Charles had suggested that he should choose a suitable time to visit the residences of several officers and other friendly officers.

However, Winters never wanted to go out again once he got home, so he vetoed Mason and Charles's proposal.

As a result, he never heard similar opinions again.

Realizing this, Winters quickly admitted his mistake: "It was my fault for being impolite. I will..."

"Forget it, it's too late. It's pointless to wait until I tell you before you act." Colonel Gaisa, adopting the tone of a wise elder, earnestly imparted life lessons to Winters: "If you only focus on business and neglect personal relationships, you'll suffer sooner or later, and it will be a big loss..."

"Mmm." Winters nodded repeatedly as he groomed the kitten, his eyes filled with unwavering sincerity.

"You..." Colonel Geza was furious at the sight, but he quickly deflated, saying self-deprecatingly, "That's true. Your comrades are absolutely loyal to you, and your subordinates practically worship you as a god. Protected by people like that, how could you possibly be like us—having to worry about these social niceties? Forget it, forget it!"

Winters didn't know how to answer. The world fell silent for a moment, with only the sound of the flowing river.

Colonel Gaisa remained silent for a long time before finally getting to the point. He said guiltily, "Actually, many of your ideas are excellent, and we understand that, but... in the end, we still don't trust you enough..."

Winters was baffled by the colonel's sudden "confession".

He remained calm and waited for the colonel to continue.

“Of course, it’s mainly that guy Skul Mecklen.” Seeing that Winters didn’t react, Gaisa quickly added, “I personally trust you quite a bit.”

Winters nodded. "I understand."

"No, you don't understand." Colonel Gaisa, enraged, abruptly stood up and waved his hands wildly. "You simply don't understand!"

The kitten, half asleep, was startled awake by the sudden loud noise. It jumped off Winters' lap and hid.

“Even if you are more greedy, more selfish, more despicable…” Colonel Gaisa looked down at Winters, almost touching the latter’s forehead: “We can understand you and accept you.”

The colonel clenched his fists, his expression one of extreme pain: "You simply don't understand. Matthias Corwin, Skul Mechren, and me, and everyone else... It's not that we don't believe you, it's that we don't understand you! We don't understand what you really want!"
You were tolerant, compromising, and reasonable, but we simply don't understand why you did this! We still don't understand why you didn't just kill Mecklen and Corwin, and then turn around and kill me. At your age, you should have been more reckless, more arrogant, and more inclined to solve problems with violence.

But you insist on dragging us into 'rebuilding the republic.' That's why we don't understand, that's why we're afraid. We're afraid that your apparent lack of ambition is because you have a bigger scheme. Do you understand? Do you understand?!

“I see.” Winters calmly countered, “Have you ever considered that your misunderstanding of me might simply be because I’m a good person?”

“A good man.” Colonel Gaisa felt humiliated and glared at him. “A good man?”

“A mendicant monk once told me that people always like to come up with base motives for great figures, which ultimately serves as an excuse for their own despicable behavior.” Winters said humbly, “I am not great, but I do not believe that selfishness and greed are the only things that drive people to act.”

Colonel Gaisa's face flushed red and then turned pale.

“Or I can explain it in a way you can understand.” Winters looked directly at Gaisa Adonis without flinching.
"I am not using force to deal with Colonel Skul and Lieutenant Colonel Matthias because I believe that the United Provinces will inevitably intervene in the Paratú civil war, at which point a devastated New Reclamation will not be able to survive. Therefore, I need to preserve the strength of the New Reclamation to deal with the United Provinces' army. If possible, I also hope to avoid internal strife with the United Provinces' army."

Winterston paused for a moment, then said with sharp eyes, "My forbearance, compromise, and reasoning are indeed driven by a greater purpose: to preserve as much of the Alliance's strength as possible in order to deal with our true enemy—the Empire."

Colonel Gaisa froze, his expression blank for a few seconds. Then, as if he had heard the funniest joke, he burst into breathless laughter: "The Empire... the Empire... we're in some godforsaken new settlement, and you're talking to me about the Empire that's so far away... young man, you're thinking too far ahead! Too far ahead!"

“I knew you would react this way.” Winters wasn’t surprised at all. He calmly replied, “I also knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told the truth.”

"How can I believe these reasons you've given me?" Colonel Gaisa's smile vanished abruptly, and he asked through gritted teeth, "What are you trying to tell me? Are you trying to tell me that everything you've done is to protect the Alliance from the Empire?"

“Because of what I have seen, heard, and known in Taniria, the Hed Wastes, and the Mountain Country,” Winters said with unwavering conviction, “the Oathbreaker has never accepted peace. He is preparing a war, a war that will utterly destroy the Alliance, and he has been preparing for it for a very, very long time. He is sowing discord among us and supporting our enemies. From the sea to the land, from the grasslands to the mountains, his spies are everywhere. He is only waiting for the right moment to accomplish what his father could not, to completely wash away the shame of the Empire.”

After hearing Winters' words, Colonel Gaisa was taken aback for a moment, then chuckled: "The false emperor wants to take back the Two Mountains Narrow Land... Isn't that common knowledge?"

“But we’re still killing each other,” Winters retorted coldly. “I even wonder why anyone doesn’t want to kill each other.”

Gaisa Adonis fell silent, and after a long pause, he said sadly, "Sometimes, we hate our own brothers far more than we hate our enemies. When a formidable foe is before us, we kill our own people first... that's how it is..."

“I will do everything in my power to prevent this tragedy from happening, whenever possible,” Winters said.

“What if the United Provinces attack?” Gaisa asked with a wry smile. “What if there’s no way to avoid it, no way to hide?”

“I will wipe them out.” Winters’ gaze remained unwavering. “If blood must be shed, I will not shirk my responsibility.”

Colonel Gaisa sat wearily back on the fence, staring silently at Winters for a long while: "Now, I understand you a little, Winters Montagne."

“Then it seems we should chat more in the future.” Winters smiled and nodded. “Colonel.”

“Yes.” Gaisa laughed too, brushing the dust off his knees and perking up again: “I’ll help you resolve the issue of ‘command authority’.”

"Great!"

However, Colonel Gaisa changed the subject: "But I can't openly support you in the four-person committee. That would make Skul Mekren and Matthias Korwin think they've been sidelined by you and me, which would be detrimental to the overall situation. Do you understand what I mean?"

“I understand. Colonel Skull and Lieutenant Colonel Matthias are already in a weak position. Forcing them to agree would only create discord within the four-person committee.” Winters raised an eyebrow. “But how do you plan to ‘convince’ Lieutenant Colonel Matthias without going through the four-person committee?”

"Don't worry, I have a plan." Colonel Gaisa stroked his smooth scalp and smiled slyly: "I guarantee that Matthias Korwin won't be able to utter a single word."

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