Sorry for the delay, I had a really tough quiz and couldn’t release the chapters in its time, anyway, now I am free and the tier is complete
from tomorrow on it will be 2 daily chapters + bonuses.\
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“Durin, I need you to apologize to Lady Suthia for your words just now!” It was the first time Tamik had called Durin’s name without adding “Captain” afterward.
A rare flash of anger appeared on the young knight’s face. For Durin, for his master, Tamik could endure anything, except for Durin’s blasphemy against the Goddess, an insult to his faith.
“Haha, what’s this? Getting angry, feeling tough, want to come fight me? Alright, come on! Let me see if your Lady Goddess can give you the power to beat the shit out of me!”
As the tension between the two escalated, and their emotions spiraled out of control, when it seemed like the situation was about to worsen and head toward irreparable consequences…
Creak…
The door to the hospital room was opened slightly, and a weak-looking golden-haired woman in a patient’s gown walked out. She looked at the two knights who were already furious and shook her head gently, addressing the older one.
“Durin, please… don’t be like this.”
If there was anything that could make this knight drop everything instantly, it would only be his wife.
“S-Susan! Why did you come out? Damn it! It’s all my fault. I must have woken you up with my shouting! Quickly, go back! The doctor said you shouldn’t get out of bed yet!”
Susan didn’t pay much attention to Durin’s anxious words. Instead, the frail but still spirited golden-haired woman turned to the other person in the room. 𝘪.𝘤𝑜𝘮
“Tamic, I’m sorry. Regardless of what your captain said, I believe it must have been in anger. I apologize on behalf of Durin for what he said just now, and I apologize to Lady Suthia for his words.”
Susan coughed at the end of her speech, and it was evident that she was not in good health. She had struggled to come to the door of the hospital room to stop the argument between the two.
“No, no, no, Sister Susan, it’s my fault. Don’t blame captain. It’s me, I got too excited, and I understand too little. I couldn’t grasp Captain Durin’s words.”
“I’m fine now. Please listen to Captain Durin and quickly go back to bed!”
Susan’s status in Tamic’s heart seemed to be slightly higher than Durin’s, judging by the young knight’s immediate cessation of all quarreling at the gentle words of the golden-haired woman. However, at the end of her speech…
“Captain Durin, I won’t disturb you anymore, but I still want to tell you that I won’t give up on investigating that C-grade Tainted item in Callewa and Mr. Renji. If the Knight Order doesn’t allow me to do so, then…”
“I will choose to leave the Knight Order! Even if you strip me of this uniform, so what!?”
“Perhaps what you said is true. Lady Suthia is indeed no longer with us, and Lady Suthia may no longer be able to protect us as she did before. But so what? What I believe in, what I uphold, what I understand, is not the Goddess Suthia herself, but her will, her determination five hundred years ago to drive away the Tainted Miasma and open up a pure land for us!”
“The light may perish, but the spirit of Lady Suthia will never disappear. Even if everyone in the Church forgets, at least… me, Tamic, I still hold onto it! So, the goddess has not left, Lady Suthia still lives in my heart!”
“With that said, Apprentice Knight Tamic, reporting! I take my leave!”
After delivering this speech, the young knight gave Durin a standard knight’s salute and, without giving Durin a chance to respond, left the hospital.
Supporting Susan with care, he quickly returned to her bed, covered her with the blanket, and then Durin’s hand was held by the woman.
“D-Durin, don’t you think… he’s a lot like you?”
“What!? Susan, are you out of your mind? Me, like that brat? What a joke!” Durin lovingly stroked the woman’s golden hair, feigning an exaggerated expression, trying to make her laugh.
And indeed, Durin succeeded.
Chuckle!*
“Hahaha, look at that, saying you’re not alike. Your stubbornness and tough talk, you’re practically cut from the same cloth, hehehe… cough! Cough.”
“Susan, please don’t speak anymore. What you need now is rest. Right! Quickly, take this medicine first!”
Durin saw that his wife started coughing again after just a few words, and his heart was nearly torn apart. He then took out the medicine given by the priest and carefully fed it to Susan.
“Wife, don’t worry! This is a specially sourced, super-effective medicine that I had someone find for us. As long as we keep taking it, your illness will definitely improve! How is it? Do you already feel much better?”
Seeing her husband’s caring face, Susan nodded at first. But soon, she shook her head.
She stared at the hospital room’s ceiling and murmured, “Durin, do you know? During the surgery today, I wasn’t completely unconscious. I could feel that no matter how those doctors tried to help me, the vitality within my body was rapidly draining, like a… punctured balloon. At that moment, I truly felt like… I was going to die. I thought I would never see you again, cough…”
“Wifey, why are you saying such gloomy things! You’re fine now, aren’t you? Trust the Doctors! And please, don’t talk anymore. Close your eyes and rest!” Durin scolded, a bit annoyed.
But the golden-haired woman obstinately shook her head and continued to speak despite her discomfort.
“Let me finish, Durin… when I felt like I was really on the verge of not making it, do you know what I saw? It was the Goddess, it was Lady Suthia.”
“Susan, that was just a hallucination. You should…”
“That wasn’t a hallucination, because… cough… actually, it’s not the first time. Every time I had a relapse… I could see Lady Suthia. She enveloped me in holy light, and every time, she brought me back from the brink of death, saving me… cough.”
“Susan…”
“Durin, do you remember how we met and fell in love? We met under the statue of the Goddess in the church. I still remember I was researching a paper at the time, and the title of my paper was… the love story between Lady Suthia and the Emperor. Cough… looking back now, I was so young back then. Even though it was so embarrassing and childish, I could really immerse myself in it.”
“We used to meet every day at dusk to discuss my paper. I still vividly remember how you blushed and argued with me, saying that your Lady Goddess was pure and would never… fall in love. You also said that Lady Suthia would never like that Emperor. Cough… cough… cough…”
No matter how much she coughed, tortured by illness, Susan couldn’t hide the beauty of her memories when she recalled the past.
“My real crush on you actually happened during our first date. Durin, I don’t know if you remember, but back then, I dressed up carefully and waited for you at the agreed-upon place for over two hours. In the end, what I got was a knight with bandages on his hands, a disheveled appearance, and bloodstains on his clothes.”
“You kept apologizing to me, saying that you suddenly received a report that a family’s child had been abducted by human traffickers. After leading your team to rescue the child from the criminals’ hands, you… remembered that you had a date with me. Hehehe… every time I think of that scene, I want to laugh… cough… cough… cough.”
“Yeah, I was thinking at the time, ‘Oh no, it’s over, there’s no hope anymore.’ But then I couldn’t believe you, you… ” Durin was also caught up in Susan’s words and shook his head while sighing.
“Uh-huh, I kissed you, Durin, because you don’t know how dazzling you were in my eyes at that moment, how handsome you were. This is the Durin I like, the one who argues endlessly with me for the sake of defending the Goddess, the one who doesn’t hesitate to put our first date aside to protect the people.”
“I’m saying all this because I want to tell you, Durin, I’ve read many books and found out that before she met the Emperor, the Goddess was very fragile and incomplete. It was the Emperor who filled in some of the gaps in Lady Suthia. And now, five hundred years have passed, and the disappearance of the Emperor, I believe, will have quite an impact on the Goddess, just like if I were to disappear suddenly one day, how would you feel, Durin?”
“I can feel that the Goddess’s power is waning day by day. Lady Suthia is struggling to support herself. At this moment, we shouldn’t blame the Goddess, who can’t protect us anymore, or expect her to cleanse evil for us. We should go and help the Goddess, just as the Emperor did back then. Cough… cough…”
“Don’t say anymore, Susan, I… I…”
Actually, Durin understood all of this, but he was avoiding it.
The reason he was avoiding it was…
Susan’s hand touched the knight captain’s face, gliding over his cheek, over his beard.
“Durin, if one day, you must make a choice between faith and me, I hope you choose the former.” .
“Because that’s the Durin I like, that’s the Durin I truly love.”
After saying this, Susan’s eyelids began to droop. She had exhausted all her energy from speaking so much, and coupled with the effect of the medicine, her palm slipped down from Durin’s face, powerless.
Susan turned her head to the side and fell into a deep sleep on the hospital bed.
Leaving behind the knight captain in the quiet intensive care unit, clenching his fists, wearing a struggling and bewildered expression on his face.
Updated from 𝑖𝘳.𝒸ℴ𝑚