Chapter 460: Stinky Centaurs

Sigrid’s body went rigid beneath him. He could feel every muscle in her back lock up at once, as if she had been turned to stone.

Around the fire, the other centaurs had frozen in identical poses of shock.

Spoons hovered halfway to mouths.

Jaws hung open.

Eyes went wide and glassy, staring at Luca as if he had just announced that he was personally responsible for the decline of mana.

Luca pressed on, because he had already committed and there was no going back now.

"Look, when I first met you lot, I was overwhelmed by two feelings. The first was how visually beautiful and majestic you all were. When I saw you lined up in your armor, facing me with such honor, I was genuinely taken aback. You’re stunning. All of you. Genuinely."

This did not seem to make anyone feel better.

"The second feeling." Luca continued with a difficult look on his face. "Was...well...the smell. The stench, if I’m being honest. At first I thought it was just because you’d been fighting me and you were all sweating from the effort. Perfectly natural."

"But then, as time went on, I realized the smell wasn’t going away. It was the same no matter where I went or who I was near."

He looked around at the pale, horrified faces.

"And honestly? I don’t think any of you even noticed. I think you’ve all gotten so used to it that it just became...normal. Like how you don’t notice the smell of your own house because you live in it. You adapted. Your noses adjusted and became nose-blind. And you forgot it was there at all."

Someone let out a tiny, strangled whimper.

"Now, personally." Luca added quickly. "I don’t mind it at all. I actually kind of like it. There’s something very...primal about it. Very real. It’s the smell of warriors who train hard and fight harder, and I respect that."

This was apparently not the right thing to say, because several centaurs looked like they wanted the earth to open up and swallow them whole.

"But." Luca continued awkwardly. "I don’t know if other races would feel the same way. If you were to visit another village—the elves, the beastkin, the dryads and they caught a whiff of this..."

He shook his head.

"I don’t think they’d be as...appreciative as I am."

He let out a breath.

"Anyway. That’s what I wanted to say. It’s been weighing on me since I got here, and I feel much better now that it’s out in the open. Thank you all for listening. I’m glad no one overreacted."

Unfortunately, he spoke way too soon.

As the moment every single centaur around the fire, in almost perfect unison, lifted an arm to her nose and sniffed...

...they exploded into mayhem!

"OH MY GODS!"

"WE STINK!"

"WE ACTUALLY STINK!"

"I KNEW IT!" One of the mothers shrieked. "I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG! EVER SINCE THE CLEANSING SPELLS STOPPED WORKING I KNEW I WASN’T GETTING CLEAN PROPERLY BUT EVERYONE SAID I WAS BEING PARANOID!"

"WE SAID YOU WERE BEING PARANOID BECAUSE WE COULDN’T SMELL IT EITHER!" Another centaur wailed. "WE WERE ALL NOSE-BLIND!"

"WHAT DOES NOSE-BLIND EVEN MEAN?!"

"I DON’T KNOW! THE HERO SAID IT!"

"THIS IS A DISASTER!"

The scene around the bonfire descended into absolute pandemonium.

Some were running in frantic circles, as if they could somehow outrun their own smell. Others were desperately trying to sniff themselves from angles that centaur anatomy simply did not allow, twisting their bodies into increasingly absurd positions.

A few had actually grabbed sticks and were attempting to scrub their lower halves with the kind of frenzied energy usually reserved for life-or-death emergencies.

"I’ve been talking to the Hero ALL DAY!" One young centaur moaned, collapsing to her knees. "He’s been smelling me ALL DAY! Every conversation. Every bet. Every time I cheered for a race. He was STANDING RIGHT THERE, BREATHING IN MY STENCH!"

"I shared a blanket with him!" Another wailed. "At the picnic! I thought we were bonding! HE WAS SUFFOCATING!"

"Ladies, please—" Luca tried to interject, but no one was listening.

"This explains everything." Riley said, her voice hollow. "The way the elves always stood a little farther away from us at diplomatic meetings. The way the beastkin kept making excuses to open windows. I thought they were just being polite..."

"...THEY WERE TRYING TO BREATHE!"

"The dark elves." Juno whispered, her face ashen. "Oh ancestors, the dark elves. We had that trade negotiation last spring. They kept smirking the whole time. I thought they were just being smug. THEY WERE LAUGHING AT US!"

"WE’RE THE STINKY RACE!"

"THE STINKY RACE!"

"THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN BEING THE SHORT RACE OR THE HAIRY RACE!"

Luca looked around desperately for someone, anyone who might still be calm. His eyes landed on Sigrid below him.

But Sigrid was the opposite of calm.

"SIR LUCA!" She shouted, her voice pitched somewhere between fury and despair. "ALL THIS TIME! YOU’VE BEEN SITTING ON MY BACK! FOR HOURS! FOR DAYS! AND I’VE BEEN—I’VE BEEN—"

She couldn’t even finish the sentence. She just kicked out with both hind legs, launching Luca off her back and sending him tumbling into the grass.

"I’VE BEEN STINKING ON YOU!"

"And I told you, I don’t mind—" Luca started, but Sigrid was already galloping in circles around the bonfire, her face buried in her hands.

"What do I do?! What do I do?! He’s been smelling my stench for days and I didn’t even KNOW! I shared a bed with him! I—"

She cut herself off, apparently realizing mid-sentence that she probably shouldn’t announce that particular detail to the entire village.

Too late. Several heads swiveled in her direction.

"Did she just say she shared a BED with him?"

"THE COMMANDER?!"

"SIGRID?!"

"I DIDN’T SAY THAT!" Sigrid screamed. "I SAID SOMETHING ELSE! YOU MISHEARD!"

Luca picked himself up off the ground, brushing grass from his clothes. He turned to Mavis, who was the only centaur not currently running in circles—surely she would be reasonable.

He took a step toward her.

But Mavis recoiled.

"Don’t come near me."

Luca blinked. "Wait, Mavis—"

"I said don’t come near me!" She scrambled backward. "I don’t want you smelling my stench either Dummy Hero!"

The little ones had also joined the chaos. Nella was frantically sniffing her own tail before she let out a wail.

"I SMELL TOO! "I’M A STINKY PONY! THE EVIL HERO HAS BEEN SMELLING A STINKY PONY THIS WHOLE TIME!"

"I don’t want to be stinky!" Another little pony sobbed. "I want to smell like flowers! Like the elf children! Apparently, they always smell like flowers!"

"WE’RE NEVER GOING TO SMELL LIKE FLOWERS! WE’RE CENTAURS!"

"I’M GOING TO LIVE IN THE LAKE FOREVER! I’M NEVER COMING OUT!"

Even Poppy, the queen of the entire village, was not immune. She had clambered off Thea’s back and was now running around, her horn wobbling dangerously.

"I’M A STINKY PRINCESS! I’M THE STINKIEST PRINCESS IN THE ENTIRE DEMI-HUMAN CONTINENT!"

"WHAT WILL THE OTHER ROYAL FAMILIES THINK?! THEY’LL CALL ME PRINCESS STINKY! PRINCESS STINKY OF THE STINKY CENTAURS!"

"My lady, please calm down—"

"I CAN’T CALM DOWN, THEA! MY REPUTATION IS IN RUINS! THE CASTLES I WAS GOING TO BUILD WILL BE STINKY CASTLES! NO ONE WILL WANT TO VISIT THEM!"

Luca turned in a slow circle, taking in the full scope of the catastrophe he had unleashed.

The elders had abandoned all pretense of dignity and were huddled together, speaking in urgent whispers.

The young warriors had formed a support group, taking turns sniffing each other and confirming, with increasing horror, that yes, they all smelled exactly the same.

The little ponies had escalated from sniffing themselves to trying to wash themselves in the nearby water trough, which was definitely not large enough for that purpose.

"Luca..."

He turned. Thea was standing beside him, her expression caught somewhere between sympathy and profound exhaustion.

"Thea. Thank the gods! Someone who’s still rational."

"I wouldn’t go that far." Thea said. "But I’m accustomed to managing crises. Comes with the territory."

She glanced at Poppy, who was now trying to cover herself with leaves for some unknowable reason.

"Though I admit, this is a new one."

"I didn’t mean for this to happen." Luca groaned. "But what can I do? They were the ones who said they wanted the truth! So, why are they reacting like this?! It can’t be that bad, right?!"

Thea sighed again.

"You don’t understand, Hero. This has actually been on everyone’s mind for quite some time."

Luca frowned. "What? What do you mean?"

Thea looked at the panicking centaurs.

"The truth is...while having a horse’s lower body comes with many advantages, it also comes with many downsides."

Luca nodded. "Sigrid told me—harder to wear clothes, harder to move around, tasks they can’t do."

Thea nodded calmly. "One of those tasks is brushing one’s own body when taking a bath."

Luca listened carefully.

"Normally, any other race can simply brush their entire body and use herbs and aromatics to clean themselves. When they come out, they’ll be clean and smell proper. But us centaurs..."

She gestured at herself with a tired, embarrassed expression.

"We can’t exactly do that, can we? The most we can manage is scrubbing our upper halves. Our lower halves are completely off-limits. We can’t reach them no matter what."

Luca realized she was right. The most a centaur could reach was perhaps the area where the human half met the horse half. Beyond that, no amount of yoga or contortion would help.

"At most, what a centaur can do is enter a lake and pray the water cleans them properly. But our bodies are covered in fur—we sweat constantly from training. Fur and sweat are not the best combination."

Thea shook her head.

"No matter how much we swim, or pour water over ourselves, or use long brushes to scrub, it’s just not the same as properly washing with your own hands. For any normal race, cleaning properly is easy. For us, it’s nearly impossible."

Luca nodded slowly, understanding dawning.

"Of course, in the past, when mana still existed, we had no problem. We could create a small cleansing spell that would instantly remove all dirt and sweat. We wouldn’t even need to bathe."

Thea took a step back subtly, as though she didn’t want him to smell her.

"But ever since mana declined...we couldn’t even do those simple spells. We were left with long brushes and hope. Apparently, it wasn’t enough."

Luca considered this. "I’m still surprised that not one realised it till now."

But Thea immediately shook her head and said,

"The truth is...we did know. Many of us inherently knew. We still gave off odor even after bathing. There were complaints long ago—worries about how we could possibly stink so much. But..."

She paused.

"When one person stinks, everyone notices. When the entire village stinks, and that smell is always in the air...everyone gets used to it. It becomes normal. Over the years, we completely forgot. No one said anything that is until..."

She looked at the chaos around them.

"...now. You brought the truth back, and everyone is panicking as they realize they’ve been stinking for years. They don’t know how to process it."

Luca realized, with growing horror, just how badly he had messed up.

The stench had been an insecurity buried deep within them, a knowledge they had pushed down and ignored because acknowledging it was too painful.

But Luca had dug it up. He had forced them to confront the truth.

And for women who cared about such things, regardless of whether they were warriors, that was devastating.

’Damn, I really messed up didn’t I?’