Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters-Chapter 997 - 53 Golden Friendship
Chapter 997: Chapter 53 Golden Friendship
Although Carlo Aide was advancing in years, his decisive and brisk nature had not changed in the slightest.
Having agreed on a visit to White Eagle and left two reliable servants to run errands and deliver messages, he did not linger any longer and took the initiative to bid farewell to Winters and Anna.
The silver-trimmed black carriage rolled out of the village, and Caman, who had been playing the puppet all this time, coldly asked Winters: “Lies, deceit, and conspiracies… You dragged me here to witness all this, do you intend to confess and repent? Or is it simply to waste my time?”
“Neither,” Winters replied immediately, he solemnly declared: “I asked you to join me in receiving guests because there is a friendship between us, as precious as gold.”
Anna ashamedly looked towards the distant mountains, pretending she had heard nothing.
“Your Excellency Montaigne,” Caman put on a ceremonial smile: “You really aren’t embarrassed in the least when you speak! That’s so typical of you.”
Winters nodded in thanks, completely immune to such attacks.
Caman humphed lightly, lifting his cup to sip some ice water.
Next was Winters’ turn; he also picked up his cup and asked unhurriedly: “I’m curious too, if you dislike eavesdropping, why not simply make an excuse to slip away?”
“It’s because of…” Caman stopped mid-sentence, glancing at Anna’s back, he swallowed back what he was about to say.
Victorious, Winters left his chair, stretching heartily, his spine popping with a series of muffled crackles due to long sitting.
Winters exhaled comfortably. He looked towards Anna and asked with a smile, “Was the sunrise beautiful?”
“It was stunning,” Anna answered softly.
“Come on, Mr. Caman, let’s go enjoy it too.” As he passed by Caman, Winters patted his shoulder: “Even though we missed the sunrise, taking a walk isn’t bad either.”
Caman remained motionless, continuing to savor his ice water.
The devout Priest of Wolf Town had wasted an entire morning, even missing the morning prayers, fuming silently, not in the mood to pay any attention to Winters.
After walking some distance, Winters whistled, and two wolfhounds immediately dashed towards him like arrows.
Seeing the two wolfhounds frolicking and spinning around Winters, Caman was slightly startled. He then stood up, nodded to Anna, and hurriedly followed them.
…
The mountain looks close when you gaze at it from afar, but Winters had walked for a whole hour and still found himself halfway up.
The human village in the center of the valley had become so small it could fit into a portrait frame, while the mountain peak had already disappeared due to the slope’s curvature.
The air was thin at high altitudes, and Winters felt tired, so he stopped climbing further. He found a flat patch of grass nearby and sat down slowly.
The moment his bottom touched the ground, Winters couldn’t help but sigh in contentment. He slapped his sore calves and called to Caman, “Let’s not go any further, let’s rest here for a while.”
“Is that it? You’re done?” Caman’s cheeks were slightly flushed, but his breathing was still steady.
“Stop with the pretenses, I don’t believe you’re not tired,” Winters said, patting the empty space beside him: “Sit down and take a break, we’ll head back once we’ve rested enough.”
Caman was non-committal. He walked directly next to Winters, but instead of sitting, he stood with knees propped, slowly adjusting his breathing rhythm.
The two wolfhounds that had followed Winters up the mountain were also exhausted. The two large dogs lay beside Winters, tongues lolling wetly, panting heavily and still.
The cool air of the late winter was invigorating; Winters leaned comfortably against the wolfhounds, alternately rubbing the heads and chins of the two dogs.
Suddenly, Winters sighed deeply.
This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.
After his sigh, he joked to Caman: “If not for seeing it with my own eyes, I couldn’t imagine there are people in this world who live surrounded by mountains from birth to death—opening their eyes every day to only see mountains.”
Caman asked indifferently, “What, have you never seen mountains before?”
“It’s not about having ‘seen mountains’. [Seeing with your own eyes] and [hearing about] are different,” Winters explained with a smile, choosing his words: “I mean, from the time I was born until I became an adult, wherever I lived, as long as you walked for an hour, you could always see the ocean.”
“And after you became an adult?”
“After I became an adult?” Winters self-deprecated: “After that, I was exiled to Paratu, wasn’t I?”
Touched by Winters’ sincerity, Caman also couldn’t help but sigh.
He sat down next to Winters and narrated softly:
“Montan people would probably find it difficult to imagine a world where ‘an hour’s walk leads to the ocean’. I’ve seen some followers who have never left their parishes all their lives. For them, the world consists of their homes, farmlands, markets, and churches. Life is so meager that they need the existence of heaven, and heaven must exist.”
After Caman’s remarks, both fell into silence.
Sitting quietly for a while, Winters asked, “By the way, have you ever seen the ocean?”
Caman was about to answer when he suddenly stopped.
A moment later, he hesitantly said, “I’ve never seen it…”
But he quickly added, “But I know what the ocean looks like.”
Winters chuckled, speechless: “You’ve never seen the ocean, yet you know what it ‘looks like’. How do you know? Did an angel reveal it to you in a dream?”
“Through books, paintings, and descriptions from others,” Caman defended himself: “I don’t need to see the ocean with my own eyes to know what it looks like.”
