Chapter 261: Chaotic Peace
The moment the newly knighted girl walked into the dining hall with her father, she was engulfed in cheerful noises that she hadn’t heard in such a long time.
It was easy to forget that she had so many fun times with the knighthood when the past couple of years had been the heaviest she had ever known.
What a beautiful moment it was to be a survivor and get to witness knights with smiles on their faces that made Irene forget about their scars. She recalled how each person looked, covered in monster blood since that was a nearly every day occurrence. If it wasn’t monster blood, they were merely filthy because there wasn’t a real chance to bathe oneself in a place like that.
And the constant noise.
While the dining hall’s present loudness was full of laughter and impassioned conversation, she recalled a different loudness at the encampment at the ancient wall segment.
If she sat and listened for a few moments during the war, there would be coughing. Someone wheezing. Sounds of pain constantly. People working on various tasks could always be heard. Walking, rustling, always some kind of movement.
Nighttime at the tent encampment, when the sound of constant movement should have been gone, many had gotten used to the sound of others coughing and could sleep through it, but she never gained that skill. The ability to sleep in the cold and ignore coughing. Was it merely something inside of her that made it impossible?
It was so nice to see all of these people smiling and enjoying themselves rather than merely living and surviving.
Even Felix, who had become someone more reserved after the war, sat there in the dining hall with a faint smile on his face and his hands around the base of a mug full of ale. Since he was the one she was closest to, she broke away from her father and sat down next to the new second-in-command.