Stray

After leaving from his father’s memory, Godwin clenched the book in his hand and didn’t speak for a long time.

Oliver stood in place a little nervously, holding his breath.

“I once thought that maybe he was ‘wrong’ from the beginning, but I never thought that he was so ridiculously wrong.” Godwin’s eyes were a little red.

In the shadow of the crime of killing his father, he once thought that he would never be able to reconcile with himself.

By the end of his father’s life, he was still not good enough, not perfect enough— Godwin was somewhat aware of his father’s almost pathological paranoia and tried to break the chain. Unfortunately, that chain had been rooted in his soul for too long, engraved with order and justice, and he was unable to do anything about it.

Until today.

His father was just another “person”. An ordinary human with bloodstained hands, confused and small just like himself.

“Brother…” Oliver seemed to want to pat him, but he didn’t know how to reach out naturally.

“Thank you, Oliver Ramon. The apology he left… is very, very important to me.”

For the first time in a long time, Godwin found himself able to breathe freely. The burden with spikes on his back was removed in an instant, and his feet were a little soft. Sadness and anger still stayed in his chest, surrounded by soft relief, no longer making his heart ache.

He would still use the holy sword to defend mankind, but now, all that existed would be his own will. The spirit of his biological father, who was raving in his nightmare, finally left. After a long period of emptiness and falling, his pain finally hit the ground and came to an end.

In this gap between pain and ease, his thoughts were like being soaked in wine. Godwin slowly exhaled. “We can continue, Oliver, about your plan.”

He paused for a few seconds, trying to adapt to this new way of addressing for a while*.

*Clarity: He’s now addressing Oliver more familiarly, by calling him by just his first name instead of Mr. Ramon or Oliver Ramon ect.

“It’s only been half a month, yet you already have a ring on your left hand. It’s a wedding ring, right? You don’t seem to be the type who will be so quick to jump to another lover, so I can guess—”

“Nemo’s not dead.” Oliver had no intention of concealing it.

In any case, Oliver couldn’t force himself to pretend to be in grief in front of Godwin, and he didn’t plan to use his unsuspecting cousin to complete his plan.

If it were the current Godwin, it would at least give him time to explain seriously.

“Looking at how you look like now, I’m not surprised. To be honest, I have never heard of a superior demon who has lost self-awareness, but if Mr. Light’s body is strong enough and his consciousness can withstand the destruction array, there is indeed a little possibility of survival.” Godwin nodded.

Then he frowned. “You’re wearing that ring… Wait, after that, have you met again?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Oliver, there is something I have to make clear. I am very grateful to Mr. Light for his dedication to the surface, and I won’t take this back, but if you want to sacrifice a human so that Nemo Light could use his flesh and return to the surface by demonic summoning—”

Godwin’s expression became serious, and he stared closely at Oliver’s eyes in front of him.

“No, no, no.” Oliver quickly shook his hand. “This is what I want to discuss with you. In a few years, Horizon will definitely be selected to participate in the expedition.”

“Well, that’s true,” Godwin responded neatly.

“I may need your help.”

“…What does this have to do with Mr. Light?”

“He is what you call the Demon King.” Oliver licked his lips nervously.

“……”

Godwin took a step back and began to seriously think about whether it was a mistake to drink that bottle of wine. It may not be a bottle of light alcohol fruit wine, but maybe it was accidently misplaced, and he was given something from a different shelf.

This must be the only possibility, otherwise he would not be able to explain the absurd sentence coming out of Oliver’s mouth right now.

The commander of Horizon turned his head stiffly. The guys in Tumbleweed must have heard it too, but the laughing and joking continued far away and no one even batted an eye as a result.

“I told you, if you lie to me again—” Godwin said dryly, reaching out to hold the table beside him.

“I’m not lying to you. You can tell Debby that Nemo’s still alive. As for Nemo’s identity…”

“Karapan of the Mooney Sect felt Ulysses under there. Although I am not familiar with the aura of Ulysses, I can at least tell that it’s extremely powerful.”

The voice of the commander of Horizon was mixed with bewilderment and suffocation.

“Clearly there is already a Demon King active at the bottom of the Abyss. Light is the Demon King? This is impossible—”

“He is.” Finally, a few steps away, Adrian Cross, who was aware of Oliver’s predicament, spoke calmly.

Godwin suddenly hoped that Oliver was really lying to him this time, but it was a pity that the other party’s emerald eyes, which were very similar to his own, were full of terrible sincerity. Godwin subconsciously lowered his gaze and saw the wedding ring again— ‘Well, the world might have gone crazy a long time ago,’ he thought numbly.

He could accept that his father was a paranoid murderer, and he could accept that Flint, the hero he had been chasing for more than ten years, was a phantom from the beginning. He could accept that the person in the prophecy wasn’t himself, and he could even accept the fact that he could no longer surpass Oliver Ramon in this life.

But to get him accept that his cousin was engaged to the Demon King…

Godwin’s hand shook a little.

“That prophecy said, ‘His sword will bring the real end’ Oliver. It’s a ‘sword’, not a ‘wedding’. You— Okay, let’s not talk about the thing at the bottom of the Abyss. Let’s assume that Light is really the Demon King. Now what? You even told me this and it’s still only ‘part of the truth’?”

“The remaining truth is not related to the safety of the surface— I can swear with all my heart that Nemo will not attack the surface. I have already made a pact with him, and he will definitely not take the initiative to take action on the surface.”

Oliver rubbed his hands, unable to hide the happiness on his face. He took out a gleaming crystal and changed the subject slyly.

“This is a phonetic crystal with Nemo’s words recorded. I hope you can give it to Debby. It might make her better. Yes, the sound is real. Nemo’s body is still there. That’s him…uh, as the Demon King.”

Godwin grinded his teeth, and suddenly felt the urge to beat up this cousin. Under this terrifying topic, his thinking was like a rusty gear that could stop at any time, but the other protagonist of the dialogue behaved like a happy newlywed man.

“Your plan.”

He squeezed these words out of his teeth, one word at a time, full of chill.

“Your strength, your plan, show me now immediately. Otherwise—”

……

As it turned out, that “otherwise” couldn’t even do anything to Oliver Ramon.

Just like the legendary Tin Soldiers Mercenary Regiment, after that, Tumbleweed rose at a terrifying speed. Countless subsequent intelligence proved that the strength that Oliver Ramon had shown in front of him was just the tip of an iceberg.

In people’s rumors, Tumbleweed destroyed everywhere it went. No matter how unrealistic the task sounded, the team of only four people had never failed.

Pulling himself out of his memories, Godwin rubbed his temples fiercely and drank all the cold juice in the cup.

Approaching summer, the night came very late. It wasn’t long after dinner time, but it wasn’t completely dark, yet all the magic lights had been activated in the tavern he was in. Several mosquitoes flew around the lampshade, hitting the thin glass lampshade from time to time.

Tumbleweed truly became the terrifying “team of calamity” in people’s mouths. Two years have passed since the day when the shocking news was received.

Two years.

At the beginning, under the serious guarantee of Adrian Cross and the demonstration of Oliver Ramon’s strength, he reluctantly accepted the message that “Nemo Light is the Demon King of this generation”, and it took three months to digest it before he returned to his senses.

“Captain?”

A plate of fried potato chips sprinkled with coarse grains of salt was placed in front of Godwin, and Godwin looked up to the docile hand.

Debby Light had grown a little taller, but her hair didn’t grow long. She looked a lot more composed than the lively and spontaneous image she had when she first joined Horizon.

Two years ago, according to Oliver, he gave the phonetic crystal to Debby. At the beginning, Debby only regarded it as a fake artifact forged by Tumbleweed to keep her from being too sad, and she firmly expressed her unwillingness to accept this kind of comfort.

And when he explained the terrifying information to the young female mage a little, Debby Light didn’t refuse and was shocked.

At the beginning, she did show the same bewilderment as he had at the beginning, but that bewilderment didn’t last long, and was replaced by a smile.

Goldwin, who was still in a daze, was a little scared by that smile.

“Debby, he—”

“Is the most powerful demon. I heard you, captain.”

“You…”

“I’m glad you decided to tell me the news instead of blocking the news and announcing that you are an enemy of Oliver Ramon.”

“…” The premise was that he still had the ability to fight Oliver, Godwin thought silently. In a sense, he was quite eager to beat Oliver up.

The problem was that Debby Light wasn’t a naive little girl. She had seen no less blood and corpses than anyone else in the world. In any case, this acceptance speed was too fast, and he couldn’t figure this out at that time.

“Well, my attitude may be difficult to understand. I know. Maybe I should take a stand and struggle with my conscience.”

Debby Light rubbed her eyes that were red and swollen from crying for several days in a row.

“Captain, I was a very annoying little bastard when I was a kid, did you know? Every time I recall my childhood, I want to hang that child up and beat her to a pulp.”

Godwin frowned, wondering what this had to do with the topic they were talking about, but he still closed his mouth politely and listened quietly.

“Once, Jenna, who lived next to the Light Orphanage, had an extra dress. Her family was in the fabric business and is pretty rich. That dress was really beautiful— At least for me, who only had hand me downs from my brothers to wear, the attraction was irresistible. So I ran to Nemo and threw a tantrum, just asking him to buy me the same one. Of course, that is to say, I acted coquettish, but in fact, I didn’t have any hopes myself.”

“At that time, Old Patrick was on a long trip, and big brother was exhausted just from feeding a group of us children. If I was him, after seeing such a thing howling and rolling around in front of me, I would beat them up first. At that time, he was only in his teens… Well, now it seems that he should be in his teens.”

The young female mage rubbed the tip of her flushed nose and smiled embarrassedly.

“Nemo just told me to get up, stop making trouble, and hurry up to help peel the beans. He would find a way about the dress… Captain, my eldest brother went to Jenna’s house as a porter for a few days and asked Jenna’s father to get a high-end cloth. Nemo stayed up all night for a week and sewed one for me seriously.”

Godwin thought about Nemo Light’s true identity for a few seconds, and found that he didn’t know how to evaluate it.

“But when I was a kid, I was a complete asshole. The dress was great, but the style was completely different from Jenna’s. Now that I think about it, that color and style suited me… But I was wearing that dress and started rolling all over the floor again, screaming that I wanted the same dress, even the gem buckle must be exactly the same.”

Debby covered her face with both hands and let out a low sob.

“Nemo still didn’t get angry. Instead, it took him a long time to fix it. During that time, our family’s money was tight. He was working for people everywhere and he was obviously very tired. I… I cried and told him not to continue, but he still persisted to fix it– Although it was still different from Jenna’s, it was indeed a perfect dress. Until now, I have never seen anything more exquisite than it.”

“He told me that crying is not a good behavior, and he won’t respond next time.”

“’But this is a birthday present, Debby. I know Old Patrick made up our birthday, and it doesn’t count at all, but I still want to give it to you. You’re a genius, not destined to wear our old clothes and attract the attention of others by crying and acting coquettishly. You can go to higher places. I asked Jenna’s dad, that skirt is worth ten gold coins— I’ll sew it for you once, and the next one, I hope you can buy it for yourself.’ …He told me so.”

“Captain, that was the first time I touched something that didn’t belong to my world. It made me realize that there is at least one person in the world who thinks I am worthy of such a good thing and can even achieve something.”

“Whether he’s a demon or a Demon King, I don’t care. As long as he’s still him, then he will always be my family.”

“He’s still alive, right? I’m really… really happy.”

Debby Light in his memory had never smiled so brightly.

Godwin put the empty cup to his mouth, and then was instantly pulled back to reality by a sound of fingers in front of him.

“Captain, you are distracted again. The cup is already empty.” Debby retracted her hand, grabbed a piece of fried potato nuggets, and carefully stuffed it into her mouth.

“I was recalling the past for a while.” Godwin pressed his temple again.

“I understand, I understand.” Debby, who was dressed in casual clothes, voice became lighter, and she tuck the hair hanging to her cheeks back behind her ears. “After all, I haven’t seen them for two years. I still miss Oliver and the others.”

“They should be here by now.” Godwin glanced at time.

“How do you suppose they’ll get here?” Debbie smirked, playing with the ends of her hair. “If they just put a banner of Tumbleweed—”

Her voice was a little higher, and when they heard the word “Tumbleweed”, several of the men who were drinking around choked and looked around vigilantly.

“If they hear that Oliver Lopez, the ’Knight of Ash’, is coming here, the people in this tavern would run out.”

“The Knight of Ash.” Godwin, who was also in casual clothes, smiled wryly. “If he hadn’t sent me those pile of unlucky letters like a sightseeing diary, I might be able to take this name more seriously.”

“Whose letters are you saying look like a sightseeing diary?” a smiling voice intervened.

Oliver Ramon was wearing a simple linen clothing. His soft hair was a little long, but his face remained unchanged.

“Hi, brother,” he greeted happily. “Now that the date of the expedition is set, it’s time to start planning.”

The author has something to say:

Nemo will definitely not wait dryly for two years, don’t worry XD

Kinky Thoughts:

Two years!?!?!?! I’m happy that Oliver and Godwin had a similar relationship like their fathers but at least Godwin is upright and isn’t jealous. So cute that Oliver sends him letters about his adventures.