Chapter 459: I Have Something To Say

The rest of the day passed in a blur of laughter and joy that only comes when an entire village decides, collectively, to stop taking itself so seriously.

The younger centaurs, full of ambition and fire, kept coming up to Luca in waves.

"How did you do that?!" They demanded.

"How did you move so fast?!"

"Can you teach us?!"

"Can we learn to go boom like you did?"

Luca, who had absolutely no idea how to train a centaur for speed did his best to offer some rudimentary advice.

"Focus on explosive starts." He said. "Build power in your hindquarters. And honestly? A lot of it is just...wanting it badly enough."

Whether it was the advice or simply the placebo effect, several of the younger centaurs swore they felt faster afterward.

They looked at Luca with stars in their eyes, and he suspected he’d accidentally acquired another batch of devoted followers.

Then the little ones came.

"Evil hero!" Nella shouted, skidding to a halt in front of him with her tiny hooves kicking up a cloud of dust.

Behind her, a dozen other little ponies were jostling for position, their eyes wide and hopeful.

"Can you carry us and run really fast too?!"

"Yeah!" Another filly chimed in. "We want to go boom!"

"Please, please, please, Evil Hero!"

"We’ll stop calling you evil if you do it!"

Luca looked down at the sea of eager little faces.

"You want me to carry you?"

"Just like you ran before!" Nella confirmed, bouncing on her hooves. "But maybe not that fast. I don’t want my eyeballs to fall out."

"Good call." Luca crouched down and scooped up two of the smallest fillies, one in each arm. They squealed with delight, their tiny tails flicking back and forth like metronomes.

"Alright. Hold on tight. Here we go!"

He didn’t run at full speed as that would have been genuinely dangerous for children whose bones were still growing. But he ran fast enough that the wind whipped through their manes.

"FASTER! FASTER!" Nella screamed when it was her turn, her little hooves gripping his shoulders. "I’M FLYING! I’M ACTUALLY FLYING!"

"You’re not flying." Luca laughed.

"I’M FLYING IN MY HEART! THAT’S WHAT COUNTS!"

The little ponies took turns, and when one ride ended, another began, and soon there was a permanent queue of children waiting for their moment in the hero’s arms.

But the one who got the most rides and kept coming back with increasingly elaborate excuses was not a little pony at all.

It was Poppy.

"I’m not doing this because I want to."

She informed Luca primly, even as she was already climbing onto his back.

"I’m doing this for...research purposes. As queen, I need to understand the capabilities of our village’s most important guest."

"Of course, my lady."

"And I’m certainly not enjoying myself."

"Absolutely not."

"This is purely diplomatic."

"Very diplomatic."

"Now GO FASTER, HERO! FASTER! WHEEEEEEE!"

Thea watched from the sidelines, her expression caught somewhere between exasperation and the deepest, most genuine affection Sigrid had ever seen on her face in years.

And when Poppy finally got back she just has to say, "That was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me!" and then, immediately. "Don’t tell anyone I said that."

—

It was a beautiful day and it continued until nightfall.

Since the entire village had gathered near the training grounds, a large bonfire had been lit, and meals were prepared around it. Everyone sat in a great circle, eating dinner beneath the stars.

And then came the apple pie.

Luca had baked it himself, using apples from his own world and a recipe he’d learned from an old woman in a village he couldn’t quite remember the name of anymore a couple of hundreds of years ago.

It came out of the portable oven golden and steaming, the crust flaky and perfect, the filling bubbling with cinnamon and sugar.

The centaurs descended on it like wolves.

"This is the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted." Riley moaned, her mouth still full. "Better than winning! Better than anything!"

"I didn’t know food could taste like this." Juno agreed, tears actually pricking at the corners of her eyes. "I thought I knew what dessert was. I was wrong. I knew nothing!"

"How can he be that fast and make food this good?!" Another centaur demanded. "It’s not fair! Pick a talent, Hero!"

"I refuse." Luca called back from his spot by the fire. "I plan to be unfairly good at everything forever."

"Sigrid." Claudia said, leaning over with a knowing smile. "You’d better hold onto this one tight. Men who can cook like this don’t come around often."

Sigrid, who was currently serving as Luca’s personal seat went very red.

"I’m not...we’re not...he’s just my rider." She managed.

"Uh-huh."

"The covenant! The sacred covenant!"

"Of course, dear."

"Stop looking at me like that!"

But Claudia just smiled and drifted away and despite her protests, Sigrid didn’t move. She didn’t want to move.

The bonfire was warm in front of her, but Luca was warmer on top of her. A solid, comforting weight that had become as familiar as her own heartbeat.

And when his hands absently found their way to her shoulders, kneading the tension from her muscles with slow strokes, she let out a sigh that was far too content for a woman who was supposedly just being a simple steed.

It was Mavis who broke the comfortable silence.

"You know." She said, settling down beside them with her own slice of pie. "This gambling thing could actually be extremely lucrative."

"What—?" Sigrid’s contented sigh cut off abruptly.

"I’ve been running the numbers." Mavis produced a small notebook from seemingly nowhere and flipped it open. "All day, I’ve been adjusting the odds, managing the payouts, tracking the flow of coins. And I’ve realized something."

Her eyes glittered with a light that Sigrid recognized and immediately distrusted.

"If I properly opened a gambling ring using real currency and inviting other races over—we could make an absolute killing!"

"We’re not doing that." Sigrid said flatly.

"But listen, Big Sis, the math is beautiful! Even if the players win sometimes, the house—that’s us—always wins in the long run! It’s built into the system!"

!We could be rich. We could fund new armor, better weapons, that castle Poppy keeps asking for—"

"Castle?!" Poppy’s voice rang out from across the bonfire. "Who said castle?! Are we getting a castle?!"

"No, my lady." Thea said, gently pulling her back down.

"But I heard the word castle! Mavis said castle!"

"Mavis was speaking hypothetically."

"I don’t know what that means but I want a castle!"

Luca couldn’t help but think that Mavis had already grasped the true essence of gambling—not as a participant, but as the one who ran the operation.

Unlike the other centaurs, who had been consumed by the thrill of the game, Mavis was thinking like the house.

She was the predator, not the prey.

But unfortunately for Mavis, the idea was immediately shut down.

"Absolutely not." Sigrid turned back to her sister, her expression solemn. "Gambling is a cursed activity that ruins lives. I allowed it today because it helped everyone loosen up, but I will never allow it to become a permanent fixture in this village."

"—no, hear me out, Big Sis, not with our people! With other races! We’d be bringing the money in!" Mavis tried to change her mind. "The dark elves would come from three territories away if they heard their gambling going on—"

"No." But Sigrid was infallible. "No matter whether it’s us or them, we should never bring harm to anyone. We should always live in a dignified way—earn our food through hard work, not through deceit."

"It’s technically not deceit." Mavis grumbled. "They’re the ones who are gambling. We’re just...providing the opportunity."

Sigrid glared and Mavis immediately looked towards Luca with a pout.

"Dummy Hero, tell her she’s being unreasonable?"

"I’m staying out of this." Luca held up both hands. "I’ve already corrupted your village enough for one day. Any more and the goddess might actually smite me."

"Coward." Mavis muttered before sighing and saying, "Fine, fine, fine. I won’t do anything. Okay?"

Sigrid let out a satisfied smile and then she realized something.

She had just had a normal conversation with her sister.

A completely, utterly normal conversation. No awkwardness. No tension. No unresolved anger.

Just...talking. Like they used to.

She blinked, glancing at Mavis.

Mavis seemed to have realized the same thing. She was staring at her sister with a strange, wondering expression.

Neither of them said anything about it.

But the weight of their fight and the words that had been exchanged between them had mysteriously lifted. And now, without even realizing it, they had reconciled.

Luca noticed it too, and warmth spread through his chest.

’Good.’ He thought. ’That’s exactly what I was hoping for.’

The moment was perfect.

But then—

Whoosh!

A gust of wind swept through the clearing.

It was a normal wind. Cold. Sharp. It carried no dust, nothing that could be seen or touched.

But it made Luca frown.

He looked around, scanning the faces of the centaurs. But no one else had reacted. They were still laughing, eating their pie, completely unaware.

’Is it just me?...Can no one else sense it?’

"Sir Luca?" Sigrid noticed his strange expression. "What’s wrong?"

Luca hesitated. Should he say something? Or just let it go?

"It’s nothing." He started to say, but Sigrid cut him off with a look.

"Whatever it is, just say it. You don’t have to hold back with me."

"Yeah, Dummy Hero!" Mavis chimed in with a smirk, apparently having recovered from her earlier defeat. "Do you have to poop? Because if you need to go, just go. I’m sure my sister wouldn’t mind. Her back has already been through so much today—what’s one more indignity?"

"Mavis!" Sigrid’s face flamed.

"I’m just saying! She’s very accommodating!"

"I will end you."

Mavis snickered into her pie, while Luca cleared his throat.

"...Alright." He said, and pitched his voice so it would carry around the circle. "Actually, there is something I want to say. Something I should have said a while ago."

The chatter died. The little ones stopped wrestling. The mahjong players put down their tiles. Every face in the firelight turned toward him.

"I’ve been thinking about this ever since I arrived." Luca went on. "And honestly—at first I thought I was imagining it. None of you seemed to notice, so I assumed it was just me."

He shook his head. "But it isn’t. I’m certain now. Whatever I’m feeling isn’t in my head, and it’s not going away."

The confusion only deepened.

"Luca, what are you talking about?"

"Please be more clear."

"You can’t just ramble and not explain!"

Luca’s expression turned sheepish.

"The thing is...I don’t know if I can say it. If I do, I feel like everyone here is going to be very offended."

The centaurs immediately protested.

"What could you possibly say to offend us?"

"You’ve helped us over and over again!"

"You gave us back our legs!"

"We could never be offended by you!"

Agnes let out a warm laugh. "Hero, after everything you’ve done for us—healing our legs, making us horseshoes, saving our village from despair—do you really think a few words could offend us? You could call us the worst names in existence, and we would still welcome you with open arms."

"Speak for yourself." Filda muttered. "If he calls me old, I’m throwing a Mahjong tile at his head."

"You are old, dear."

"That’s not the point!"

"Just tell us." Sigrid said softly, turning to look at him over her shoulder. Her blue eyes were steady and warm. "Whatever it is, we want to know. If there’s something we need to change, something we need to improve, we can’t fix it if we don’t know about it."

"Yeah!" Nella shouted, suddenly very awake. "We’re centaurs! We’re strong! Tell us the truth, evil hero!"

"The TRUTH! The TRUTH!" The little ponies began chanting.

Luca looked around at all their trusting faces, their earnest eyes and he knew he couldn’t keep it inside any longer.

"Fine." He said, letting out a long breath. "I’ll tell you."

He looked at all of them.

"The truth is...you guys are actually quite..."

He took a breath.

"...pungent."

Silence.

The smiles froze on their faces.

"Pungent?" Sigrid repeated, the word strange and foreign on her tongue.

"Yes. Pungent." Luca nodded, his expression apologetic. "As in, the waft of your odor is quite strong. It’s very...present. In the air. All around."

He paused, then added, with the air of a man ripping off a bandage.

"What I’m trying to say is...you guys are extremely stinky."