Chapter 738: *I did collapse!*
Even though the scenery was extremely beautiful, Zak couldn’t take his eyes off Esmee. For him, there was nothing more beautiful than her. He then kissed the hand he was still holding, and Esmee caressed his cheek with her other hand.
"How have you been doing, Zak?" Esmee finally asked him, as Zak seemed a little lost in his thoughts.
Zak smiled at her and said proudly, "I have worked hard these past few days. Soon I will become a Priest, and I will finally be strong enough to protect you."
He added, "Thanks to Colin, my innate fighting skills have developed tremendously, and I learned a few new powerful spells. This training is really the best I’ve had so far."
Esmee smiled back at him but still said, "I know that you want to prove yourself, but remember that even if you become a Priest, you still have the choice to fight or not in this war. You are just 18 years old; nobody will force you, and no one will say anything if you choose to withdraw."
Zak nodded, saying, "I know; Miguel and Elias explained everything to us. And even if they are in great need of powerful Mages, they won’t force us to fight. We have the choice until the very end to go or not."
Esmee sighed, looking at the lake and the flowers surrounding it. She said to him, "I guess that I don’t need to ask you what you’ve chosen... Of course, you will go fight, right?"
Zak then did something he had never dared to do before. He embraced Esmee from behind, encircling her waist with his arms and resting his head on her shoulder so that his cheek touched hers.
He said to her, smiling, "My Goddess, it is my duty to go fight against those Ancient Gods and Titans. Back then, 10,000 years ago, it was the same. How could we just watch and do nothing?"
Esmee then tightened her grip on Zak’s hands and asked him, her heart beating wildly, "Do you remember? Zak, what happened?"
Zak suddenly kissed her cheek. It surprised her so much that she forgot to breathe. Then his lips moved down, and he kissed the crook of her neck and then her shoulder before whispering close to her ear, "I do! I do remember, my love."
Esmee then turned her head to look at him, shocked, and he explained to her, "I met a lot of Warrior Spirits from the past. It triggered my memories. At first, it was as always; I could only see flashes of my past life. I was seeing them in different places with different outfits. When I grew curious, they didn’t hide anything from me. It was quite taboo in our home world; no one responded to my questions, and you too were always saying that when the time came, I would understand."