Garret slowly swirled the tankard between his hands, then continued in a lower tone of voice:
"It might sound cliché to tell you this, but you don't have to keep everything bottled up inside. Know that with me you can open up and be honest about everything. There are no secrets between us. So, tell me: the death of your teammate… his blood… did they paralyze you because they reminded you of something? Maybe… what happened in your grandparents' village?"
Blake flinched almost imperceptibly, gritting his teeth, while his mind was inevitably dragged back to that cursed night of April 26th, 1410.
He remembered all too well how the entire continent had come to call that catastrophe…
The Red Night!
A sudden and enormous explosion that had reduced an entire village of peasants a few kilometers from Raerno to ashes, leaving in its place only that desolate, charred wasteland that everyone now called the Black Plain.
And among the victims of that tragedy were also Blake's maternal grandparents, who were living there at the time…
It was a memory he always forced himself to keep at a distance, buried under years of silence.
But all it took was for someone to mention it, even in passing, for those old sensations to come flooding back intact: the crackle of red flames, the heat scorching his skin, the acrid smell of smoke and ash…
Sensations so vivid they made his body tremble imperceptibly in front of the old guard, who didn't miss that reaction.
"Yeah, I figured as much…" Garret went on, reading that tremor and the boy's silence as a painful confirmation. "Watching a life be snuffed out right in front of you tears open old wounds, I get it. After what happened to your parents and your grandparents… Or when the news came that my brother Derek had gone missing… Believe me, I know exactly how that feels."
As he said the old blacksmith's name—the only member of his family he had left—the guard's usually gruff voice cracked for a split second.
Garret let out a heavy sigh, his gaze lost for a moment in the dark reflection of his beer, as if trying to drown that flicker of melancholy.
Then, with the composure of a man who had learned to live alongside his own ghosts, he straightened his shoulders slightly and turned his focus back to the boy.
He reached a broad hand across the table, gently gripping Blake's forearm in a reassuring gesture.
"Listen to me carefully, Blake: what happened to you is completely normal," the guard finally resumed, finding his usual steadiness again. "Losing your composure can happen to anyone, even the most experienced."
Blake kept his eyes down.
He simply clenched his teeth, steadying the tremor shaking his body and smothering any other intrusive thought the moment it surfaced—keeping total silence about whatever else was truly tormenting him…
"Easy for you to say…" the boy murmured, lacing his fingers together on the table. "But if something had happened to someone on the team because of me…"
"So that's what's really tormenting you?" Garret cut in, his voice suddenly deeper, almost hard, but charged with a protective firmness. "Heh, I should have figured… You've always had a tendency to worry more about others than about yourself. And there's nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong. The fact remains, though, that you're an Explorer, not a fighter. Even if you hadn't frozen from the shock, you wouldn't have been able to contribute to the fight anyway-"
"That's exactly the point!" Blake exclaimed, slamming his hands on the table.
His voice momentarily interrupted the chatter of the tavern, drawing the attention of those present to them.
Garret was just as taken aback by the boy's sudden reaction.
Caught off guard by his own emotional outburst, Blake clenched his jaw, breathing heavily while the anger suddenly gave way to total exhaustion.
He let his arms fall to his sides and sank back against the bench, his chest still heaving.
"I'm… too weak… The 'Weakest of the Weak'!" he muttered bitterly to himself. "I couldn't protect anyone even if I wanted to… My life revolves around this curse: watching the few things I care about slip through my fingers and not having the strength to stop it…"
Garret stared at him in silence for several seconds.
The murmur of the tavern slowly began to fill the room again, but at their table the tension remained palpable.
The old guard looked at that hollowed-out boy, so unlike his usual self, and the gruff expression on his face softened slightly beneath his grizzled beard.
"This blind rage, that fire burning inside you… You remind me so much of your father, you know?" murmured Garret.
Those words immediately caught Blake's attention; he stared at him, as surprised as he was confused. "W-What do you mean by that?"
Garret huffed before answering:
"Rodrig Adson… That man was obsessed with strength. Even though he was an Incompatible without any Syntony, his swordsmanship was on an entirely different level. From the very first years of his career, he had nothing else on his mind but hunting monsters nonstop! That immense talent and that indomitable character should have guaranteed him a radiant future ahead of him… And yet, against all odds, he ended up disinherited and disowned by his own House…"
Blake immediately caught that unexpected word.
"Wait a second!" the boy interrupted him, eyes widening. "You said House? Are you saying that my father… was a noble?"
Garret nodded slowly. "He was the one who asked us to keep you in the dark about his past, because he didn't want the shadows of his old life to stretch over yours. On the contrary, he wanted you to be free to build a future all your own."
Blake remained staring at him for a few moments, speechless, letting the weight of that revelation settle.
The old guard's words remained lodged in his mind, unable to find an immediate place.
A noble…
His father, whom he could barely remember, had belonged to that world of privilege and wealth that he had always only seen from afar!
His mind started spinning in circles, struggling to piece back together the scattered fragments of his childhood.
Then, with a sudden slowness, the reality of the situation seemed to slap him in the face, tearing a bitter whisper from his lips:
"Disowned by his own House… So that's why he and I carry my mother's surname…"
"Exactly," Garret confirmed. "And I imagine you're now wondering what your father did that was so serious it drove his family to reject him so thoroughly…"
Blake nodded in silence.
At that point, he wanted to make the most of the opportunity and learn as much as he possibly could!
The old guard ran a hand over his beard, thoughtful.
He wasn't just searching for the right words: he was carefully weighing what he could say and what he instead had to keep to himself, faithful to the promise he had made to Rodrig years earlier.
Only when he had decided how far he could go did he begin his story:
"Well, I don't know the exact details, but I know it happened after he met your mother. Your paternal grandfather, who was the head of the family at the time, fiercely opposed the idea of his heir marrying a simple peasant woman. Your father tried to convince him in every way, but the old man simply wouldn't hear of it. So, without a moment's hesitation, your father made his choice: he abandoned his prestige, his wealth, his family name, and all the fame he had built for himself to go live with the woman he loved. Put that way, it almost sounds like madness, doesn't it? And yet, that's exactly how it went. In the end, his entire obsession with prestige had simply dissolved in the face of something priceless…"
The old guard then pointed his massive finger at the boy, his expression serious yet warm.
"And it's precisely from that mad act of love that you were born."
Blake sat there with his mouth hanging open, his gaze fixed on the wooden tabletop.
He didn't know exactly how to react to everything he had just discovered.
He knew his parents mostly through fragmentary stories and old faded photographs. But the real memories—their voices, their gestures, the way they laughed and took care of him—had almost completely faded, leaving behind only the blurred outline of two figures he had never had the time to truly bring into focus.
On top of that, for years no one had been willing to tell him much about them.
After his mother's death and his father's disappearance, the adults around him had chosen to remain silent or gloss over the details, convinced that silence was the only way not to reopen that wound.
And so Blake, from an early age, had stopped asking questions or bringing up the subject, finding it simpler to keep everything locked away in a corner of his mind rather than dredge up unnecessary pain.
For that reason, hearing someone speak of his parents that way now—and discovering certain details about their relationship—had stirred something inside him that he would never have expected.
But as tender and moving as it was, in practical terms, the story hadn't changed anything.
Blake still felt like the "Weakest of the Weak"…
Or, as he preferred to call himself, the "Most Useless of the Useless"…
"It's… It's a beautiful story, Garret. Really. Knowing what kind of man my father was means a lot to me," he murmured, his voice trembling just slightly. Then he clenched his fists on his knees, and his tone hardened, charged with a bitterness he couldn't hold back. "But I don't understand what you're getting at by telling me all this…"
Garret stared at him for a few seconds, as if he had been expecting exactly that reaction.
"You don't understand because you keep looking at it from the wrong angle," the old guard began. "You spend your time despairing because it feels like you're losing everything, and you're convinced that not being able to hold on to what you have is a sign of weakness. But certain things don't slip away from us because of anything we've done… It's simply the natural order of life. When we gain something, something else slips away. And when we lose something, sooner or later something else arrives. No one in the world is strong enough to bend this balance to their own will. And the true strength you're looking for lies in accepting even this cruel aspect of life, my boy. Always remember that."
Blake remained motionless, rooted to the spot.
Garret's words swirled through his mind like stones in a stream, heavy and uncomfortable, impossible to dislodge or make any sense of.
He didn't know what to think.
He didn't even know how to feel.
Watching the boy's lost gaze and slumped shoulders, Garret could tell an emotional storm was raging inside him.
With a heavy yet calm sigh, the old guard reached out and tapped the table lightly a couple of times, drawing Blake's attention.
"Hey! Don't force yourself to draw any conclusions right now," Garret told him, in a noticeably softer, almost paternal tone. "It's a bitter pill to swallow, I know that well. Feeling lost, or even angry, when faced with these truths is the most natural reaction in the world. No one expects you to digest all of this in a matter of minutes."
The man picked up the tankard, weighing it between his knotted fingers.
"It'll take time. Maybe days, maybe months. It took me years…"
He murmured the last part almost to himself, his thumb moving with infinite slowness over the base of his ring finger, as if searching for a touch that was no longer there.
But it was only a flash of vulnerability.
Garret immediately clenched his jaw, banishing that shadow away before Blake could notice it, and met the boy's gaze once more with his usual resolute expression.
"In any case, I'm sure that sooner or later you'll also manage to make peace with this cruel and merciless side of the world, instead of fighting it or blaming yourself for it," the old guard continued in a firm, deep voice. "After all, anyone who finds a way to keep going and even smile after losing everything… well, in my opinion they possess a strength no blade could ever hope to match."
At those final words, almost by instinct, Blake slowly lowered his shoulders, letting some of the tension that had been stiffening his muscles since he sat down drain away.
The old guard's words had not magically erased his sense of inadequacy, nor had they healed the pain of his shortcomings.
That bitterness was still there, clinging to his stomach.
And yet, for the first time, that pain no longer felt like an irrevocable sentence.
It was no longer an insurmountable wall, but a mountain he could climb.
Steep, unfair, but a climb nonetheless.
And perhaps one day, one step at a time, he would manage to reach the top.
"I see…" Blake finally murmured. "What you're asking of me is tough, and I'm not sure I can do it…"
His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, but it had lost most of that desperate tremor.
He took a deep breath, feeling the knot tightening his throat loosen, if only a little.
He still didn't have the strength needed to change things…
"...but I'll try! I promise you," Blake stated in a firm tone, raising his gaze with a resolute nod and meeting the old guard's eyes.
Garret remained silent for a moment, caught off guard by that fragile yet sincere determination, before his gruff features softened into a faint, knowing smile.
And in the end, inevitably, Blake's rigid features softened too.
In a completely natural way, the corners of his lips slowly curled upward in a small, gentle arc.
It was a weak, tired smile, but finally free of the anguish that had been choking him until moments before.
"Heh! That's more like it, kid," Garret grunted, breaking the silence with his gruff but satisfied voice.
After that, he finished his beer in one long gulp and wiped his beard with the back of his hand.
He stood up from the bench, making the heavy wood creak.
"I really hope I've helped you clear your head a bit," the man began, adjusting his belt.
Blake looked at him and gave a timid but sincere nod. "Much more than you can imagine…"
At those words, the old guard added nothing more.
He simply answered him with a knowing look and a proud nod of the head, then turned and strode toward the counter to settle the bill.
Blake followed him with his eyes, watching the guard's massive silhouette recede across the tavern toward the innkeeper's counter.
Left alone at the table, the boy let out a long breath, staring at the bottom of his now-empty tankard.
However, that brief moment of peace was abruptly interrupted when Garret came hurrying back.
The old guard stopped in front of the table, clearing his throat a couple of times before meeting the boy's confused gaze.
"So… there's a small problem," Garret grunted, lowering his voice and rubbing the back of his bald head with a visibly embarrassed air. "Rushing to the hospital… Well, I must have accidentally left my wallet on the desk at the barracks. So…"
Blake remained motionless for two full seconds, staring at him with raised eyebrows.
The deep, melancholy mood that had settled over them just moments earlier vanished instantly, shattered by the most predictable and annoying of clichés.
'Damn skinflint!' Blake cursed inwardly, while a nervous tic made his left eye twitch slightly. 'It always ends like this with you!'
Barely holding back a resigned sigh, the boy stood up from the bench and slipped a hand into his trouser pocket, pulling out his own wallet with obvious displeasure.
"And to think you wanted to treat me to lunch…" Blake muttered, preceding him toward the innkeeper's counter.
Garret let out a booming laugh, giving him an affectionate slap on the back that nearly sent him flying over to the other side of the counter. "Hah, don't worry! Next time… Promise!"
Under the amused gaze of the waiter, who by now knew the peculiar dynamic between the two all too well, Blake counted out the necessary banknotes and settled the bill—not before casting one last reproachful glance at the guard.
Once outside, the cool afternoon air washed over them, carrying with it the everyday hum of Raerno's streets.
When they reached the first major intersection, Garret stopped, planting his fists on his hips and giving the boy a gruff but satisfied look.
"Well, duty calls now! I have to hurry back to my post before the boys on patrol cause some disaster in my absence."
"I still wonder how they ever entrusted you with a role like that…" Blake needled him. "They must have been pretty desperate to hire someone like you."
The man chuckled, a crooked smile spreading across his face. "Jeez! You're really ruthless…"
Without adding anything else, the old guard turned his back and strode off toward the western walls, his imposing figure quickly blending into the crowd.
Blake watched him for a few moments.
Then, turning in the opposite direction, he set off toward his home.
The streets of Raerno flowed around him as always—the chatter of the merchants, the creak of carts on the paving stones, the scent of freshly baked treats drifting out of an open bakery—and yet everything seemed to feel slightly different from usual.
Different, but pleasant.