Chapter 25: It’s Good to Be Alive

Night was falling, and the brilliant starlight reflected on the Morning Light River, setting the flowing water with bright colors. The evening breeze hummed softly. The river was serene and peaceful, and even the breathing of the small beasts on the riverbank seemed cheerful and joyful, making people unable to help but praise the beauty of being alive—especially for us, who had just gone through a life-and-death battle.

We released all the Winston soldiers who had lost their will to resist. Of course, before that, we had already pulled out all the intelligence we needed from their mouths: ever since escaping from Kansen Plains, the Winston Western Route Army had been advancing triumphantly all the way and had already taken control of Latudo on the north bank of the Morning Light River, the Port of East Chelt, and the military harbor of Rubizhilin. Kaplan, staying true to his brutal and bloodthirsty tradition, carried out large-scale massacres wherever he captured a city. Wherever his army went, the dead lay scattered across the fields and blood flowed like rivers.

By the time they broke into Rubizhilin, the Golden Rose had been disguised as a merchant ship, replenishing supplies at the harbor. Seeing the crisis, for reasons no one knew, Kelsey loaded all the children of an orphanage onto the ship, then forced her way out to sea amid the flames of war. The arrogant Kaplan refused to let anyone escape his butcher’s blade. He actually seized a Delanmaya warship and recklessly gave chase, handing over all the occupation work to his deputy. Normally, a large warship could never catch up with a swift and agile pirate ship. But the Golden Rose, packed full of children, far exceeded her usual load and completely lost her speed advantage. After nearly a full day of fleeing, she was still caught by Kaplan’s warship. And then, they ran into us.

Most importantly, we got the Winston Army’s next plan from the mouth of one of the officers: the Winston Eastern Route Army and the Central Route Army would join up at Rubizhilin, then cross the Morning Light River and land on the south bank. The battle would be commanded by the commander of the Central Route Army, Duke Uthers de Rivera, General of the Winston Empire. The landing target they chose was Kampnavia—the very place we were supposed to reach one day later.

We had no choice. That was the closest harbor to us. Both Hugh’s merchant ship and Kelsey’s Golden Rose had to resupply there, especially after adding a full ship full of children who needed to eat. Besides, after that fierce battle, both the sailors, most of whom were badly wounded, and the damaged ships meant we had to stay at that port for a while, not to mention the fact that we still had orders to move.

We didn’t have to try very hard to make these grateful Winston soldiers, who had just escaped death, believe that the surprise attack had been launched by the Delanmaya Army’s Seventh Legion Special Mobile Infantry Unit, led by Viscount Frederick Ka Guderian. That was decisive new intelligence for the enemy—and it was also decisive for us. We hoped this false information would buy us enough time. No matter what we wanted to do, what we needed most was time.

A tense atmosphere spread across the two ships traveling together. Merchants, sailors, soldiers, and pirates were all busy repairing the ships and treating their seriously injured comrades. Fred and Dakla had only taken strong shocks and suffered some internal injuries. Most of us had minor cuts and bruises, nothing serious. Only Red Flame remained as cheerful and lively as ever. Half a day after the battle ended, he was already back up on the deck. His sturdy body was probably a major reason he could recover so quickly. His right shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages, and a gauze strip hung around his neck, supporting his arm in a sling. He was just the kind of person who brought a lively, noisy scene wherever he went. But this time, it was different—instead of him going looking for excitement, the excitement came looking for him:

“Stop right there. It’s time to change your bandages.”

“Oh, my dear lady, you have your own ship, why do you keep hanging around over here? Just have mercy on me, will you? Is that what you call changing bandages? It hurts even more than the sword you stabbed me with!”

“Stop your nonsense! Brothers, seize him!”

“Hey… brothers, we usually get along pretty well. Why are you helping a bandit pick on a good man?”

“Red Flame, we don’t want to watch you suffer either, but you know how it is. We’re sailors and she’s a pirate. One day we’ll end up in her hands, won’t we? So just be a little patient. Do it for us brothers, and just go along with it…”

“Go along with what? You bunch of disloyal traitors! Argh…”

“Oh, you got a sword wound and you still dare to drink! Do you want to die?”

“Your temper is exactly the same as my big sister’s. Always sticking your nose in other people’s business.”

“Where did you get the wine? I’ve already told the merchants—if anyone dares to give you wine, they’re asking for death!”

“None of your business. I’m not telling you.”

“You bastard! You actually drank the medicinal wine used for cleaning wounds? You can’t drink alcohol with sword wounds! Don’t you know that yourself?”

“I’m an Elf. Human medical theories don’t work on me!”

“You still dare to talk back? Just watch me sort you out!”

The sound of clothes being torn.

“No, be gentle, please, this isn’t right, I… ah, my wound is torn open again… Help! The bandit is killing someone!”

Just as the wrestling and counter-wrestling was in full swing, one of the two suddenly stopped moving, lowered her head, and let out sobbing noises. The other one immediately panicked and flailed his arms as he turned back to coax her:

“Hey… what’s wrong? I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt at all, don’t worry. I… I’ll let you change my bandages, okay? Please don’t cry…”

The people around them wisely slipped away in silence. Only a couple of nosy ones hid in the corners, peeking to see what would happen next. As for this kind of boring thing, I, Jeffritz Gid, would, of course, never… well… miss it.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. At that time… I was out of my mind with rage. I thought you—” Kelsey threw herself into Red Flame’s arms and said in a soft, gentle voice. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have had a hard time connecting the fragile girl in front of me with the blood-soaked female pirate holding a rapier in the middle of battle.

“I know. I know. I don’t blame you.” Red Flame gently stroked Kelsey’s flaxen hair and comforted her in a low voice.

“You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything.” Kelsey suddenly cried out, and then her voice sank low again. “I’m an orphan. Me and the people on the ship—Hook, Anchor—all of us are.”

“We grew up in the Kindness Orphanage in Rubizhilin. Ever since I could remember, I remembered how kind and gentle the headmistress, Madam Mandy, was. For us orphans, she ran around everywhere raising donations and rushing about for our food and clothes. She spent every last coin on us, feeding us, clothing us, and hiring people to teach us to read. One winter, the orphanage ran out of firewood, so she brought all fifty-something of us to her home. Her house wasn’t big, and there was hardly anything in it, but it was so warm in there. We stayed for two whole months and didn’t go back to the orphanage until the weather got warm.” Lost in those childhood memories, Kelsey unknowingly wrapped her arms around Red Flame’s waist.

“When we grew up, we wanted to go to work, but no one was willing to hire people from the orphanage. We couldn’t even find jobs running errands or doing hard labor. Later, we met Uncle Singer. He was a thief, but he was a good man. He took us in. We robbed boats on the river, but we never touched the ships of honest merchants—only the boats of shady businessmen and corrupt officials. If any ship ran into trouble on the river, we would help them as much as we could.”

“Later, Uncle Singer died, and I became the captain. We gave all the money we stole to the orphanage. We didn’t dare tell Madam Mandy where it came from, so we just said it was donations from others. We only hoped that more children who had lost the warmth of their families could receive care. I hoped they would live better than us. We wanted to help them and repay Madam Mandy for raising us.”

“That night, we were originally planning to go to the orphanage, but suddenly everything fell into chaos. There were fires everywhere, and Winston soldiers everywhere. They killed anyone they saw, especially women and children. What could we do? We had to take the children away. They are our shadows—they are Madam Mandy’s very life.”

“At the dock, I couldn’t hide it anymore. I told Madam Mandy that we were a group of bandits. She smiled. She stroked our heads one by one, just like she did when we were children. She told us she had known all along—she knew everything we did. She said we were all good kids, and that she was proud of us. No matter what we were, she was proud of us.”

“Many people rushed at us. We held them back, and we got all the children onto the ship. But I couldn’t save Madam Mandy. She died right beside me, blood spurting from her neck, her hand still pointing at the ship, at the children on board.”

“She’s dead, and I couldn’t save her. I don’t dare to go see the children again. I’m afraid they’ll ask me where Madam Mandy went. Was it my fault? Did I fail to protect her? I hate it! I hate the Winstons! I wish every last one of them would die!” Kelsey suddenly hugged Red Flame tightly and burst into loud sobs. Naturally, Red Flame’s already ragged clothes became Kelsey’s towel for wiping her tears and blowing her nose.

Red Flame endured the pain of his wounds and gently patted her on the back, speaking softly: “Don’t cry. Don’t cry anymore. You did very well. You saved all the children, didn’t you? You’re a good girl. Madam Mandy wouldn’t like to see you like this. She wouldn’t want to see you hating others. Wasn’t she the one who taught you since you were small? Teaching you to care for others, to look after others. She never said it out loud, I know, but that’s what she did. Come on, dry your tears. Let’s go keep your little friends company. Now you are their Madam Mandy. You have to be their teacher, their mother. You have to pass on to them what you learned from her. Listen, listen, stop crying now. Be good…”

Watching their current behavior, and based on my many years of dedicated study of romance and knight novels for entertainment, I deeply felt that the man and woman of different races before my eyes had already started bathing together in a river named Love (the original expression seemed to be something like “bathing together in the river of love”). To be honest, this news didn’t really interest me. In fact, it brought me some troubling questions in terms of physiology and genetics:

“Can humans and Elves be in love?” Watching the two figures slowly disappearing into the starlight, I was astonished by my own remarkable discovery.

“There is no law against love and marriage between different races. In fact, marriages between humans and Elves can be traced back to the Records of Creation, dating back at least five thousand years. It was only because of the wars and other reasons in later generations that the races became hostile to each other and sealed themselves off, reducing contact with one another. As a result, intermarriage became rare. The occasional cases that did happen were never recorded, so many people have never heard of them.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is.” The realization dawned on me. “Hey, Fred, how come you’re here too?”

“I… I just felt a little tight in the chest and wanted to come out for some fresh air…”

“Could it be that you’re also interested in other people’s private affairs… hehehe…”

“Ah, no way. I just happened to see it.”

“Fred, you’re actually blushing! That’s really a rare sight.”

“What nonsense are you talking about! I… I’m not blushing. It’s just my blood rushing up because of my injuries. I feel a bit dizzy. I’m going to go rest…” He walked toward the cabin door.

“Have you seen the captain?” I watched his embarrassed retreating figure with a smile and asked loudly, just to make conversation.

“I figure no one will be able to wake him up again before we dock.” He walked straight ahead without looking back.

“Are Roll and the others doing all right?”

“They’ve basically all recovered and are resting now. You should get some rest early, too.” He gave me the back view of a figure waving his right hand. From where I stood, countless beams of starlight reflected off his glossy black hair. It seemed as if the entire night sky was an extension of his silhouette, and his hand seemed to be stroking the clear sky, almost about to grab the brightest star in the heavens into his palm. That silhouette made me feel warm and safe, dispelling the last bit of unease in my heart about the future.

By the time that silhouette faded from my mind, I had the most peaceful sleep I had had since the war began.