A Journey Unwanted-Chapter 413 - 402: Once again a savior

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: China Country]

Reaching—and getting in—the porcelain city was a quick affair, even with the Cowardly Lion shadowing them like a guilty stain that refused to wash away. The plains were dead and quiet, the porcelain walls rising from them, and as they drew closer the Lion did at the very least prove he wasn’t entirely stupid. The moment the first porcelain structures appeared on the ramparts, the Lion slowed, then slowed again, then all but folded himself into the low terrain and stone as if trying to become part of the landscape.

He made himself scarce.

A given, seeing as he was responsible for nearly destroying it.

Grimm did not comment on it, nor did he look back. He didn’t even acknowledge the Lion’s retreat into shame. He simply kept walking while Puck drifted beside him, hovering just above shoulder-height.

The gates were already opening.

The porcelain people were already watching.

The moment Grimm stepped through, voices rose immediately.

"They’re back!"

"So soon."

"Do you think they succeeded?"

The words didn’t come from one place. They came from everywhere. From windows, doorways, alley mouths, balconies, and street corners. It was as if the entire city was alight with speech.

The porcelain people all around lit up in conversation as Grimm carefully moved through their delicate streets, and it struck him—again—that it seemed to be a habit. They yammered when he was here. They filled silence with chatter, as if silence was eerie or dangerous, as if it invited something terrible to step in.

Grimm kept his stride controlled. His every step was light despite his armor, placed with the same care he would place a foot on a battlefield littered with traps, broken weapons, and bodies. Porcelain streets were not meant for men like him—men who wore heavy armor. But he did not stumble, bump into walls, or brush against a single delicate post.

The princess probably told most of the city she had enlisted Grimm’s help in eliminating the Deseruit Beast threat.

And now they all looked at him like he was something bright.

They all seemed hopeful.

Those painted faces held expectation, and something else too—something pure, something almost painfully unguarded. They stared with wide eyes that didn’t narrow, didn’t harden, and didn’t flinch away from his form. They looked at him the way people look at sunrise.

And when one was so accustomed to violence—when you excelled in it to the point most would dub you a reaper of war—there came only certain expectations with that.

Expectations were a kind of chain.

When you slaughtered thousands, led armies to conquer lands in the name of your empire, you were treated as a weapon. Not a person. The only expectation held for you was to be aimed at the opposition. The masses expected pure violence from you, and they expected it with a hungry certainty—as if your cruelty was something that belonged to them, something they had paid for, something they were owed.

To Grimm, when he was sent out with his troops, they expected victory. A slaughter. Another nation to conquer in the name of the Vel’ryr Empire. They expected the map to change color. They expected cities to burn. They expected the screams to become stories, and the stories to become songs, and the songs to become propaganda.

Grimm was many things, but sentimental he was not. Nostalgic even less so.

Even so, Grimm compared these delicate porcelain faces to those agitated and fearful expressions he was used to seeing.

He’d walked through conquered streets before.

He’d heard whispers before.

But they were never like this.

In the Vel’ryr Empire, the civilians did not stare at him with hope. They stared at him with something closer to relief mixed with dread—relief that he fought for them, dread that a man like him existed at all. In conquered lands, they stared at him with hate, with terror, with that thin trembling rage that had nowhere to go.

Here?

Here they looked at him like he was the answer.

He would question the difference again.

He did not stop walking. But the thought rose anyway, uninvited.

Was he really the type of man to deserve such hope placed in him?

He did not know the answer to that.

But if he were being honest, he did not particularly care.

People were fundamentally different from one another. Even those who seemed similar on the surface were different layer by layer. The same applied here. The porcelain people were merely different. Their world was different. Their rules were different. Their understanding of what violence meant was different.

They were oblivious to the horrors he committed as a General.

Oblivious to the horrors he would still commit.

That and they were naïve.

There was no deep answer here.

He did not know why he would grasp at one.

Perhaps the disappointment with the Lion had made him so bored he had allowed his mind to wander.

Puck noticed his silence, of course. Puck always noticed it seems.

She drifted a little closer, her eyes scanning the porcelain faces that leaned out of windows and clustered at the edges of the street. Their bodies were delicate, their movements careful and their excitement bright. Some clasped their hands together. Some pressed palms to their cheeks. Some looked ready to cry just from seeing him alive.

Puck’s mouth twitched.

"Look at them," she murmured, not loud enough for the porcelain people to hear, but loud enough for Grimm. Her tone was strange. Not even particularly amused, merely just observant. "They’re staring at you like you’re a hero. That’s the second time now."

Grimm did not answer immediately.

Puck continued, because she couldn’t help herself.

"And you’re even being considerate and watching your step so you don’t crack the street," she added, her voice now holding a teasing tone. "I didn’t think you had that kind of consideration in you."

Grimm’s helm turned the barest fraction.

"It’s common courtesy," he stated, flat as stone.

Puck’s smiled lightly. "If you say so."

"I do not enjoy an unnecessary mess," he said. "And I have no interest in being blamed for breaking a city that is not mine."

Puck snorted softly. "Wow. That’s almost responsible."

Grimm did not dignify it with a response.

The porcelain people kept talking anyway, voices overlapping, excitement bubbling.

"He really came back!"

"I knew he would!"

"Look, look—he’s not even hurt!"

"Is the fairy with him? The fairy’s with him!"

Puck’s expression shifted at that last one, her lips pulling into a quick grin before she caught herself. She looked away as if she hadn’t enjoyed being recognized.

Grimm kept moving.

And yet his mind kept moving too, dragged by boredom into places it didn’t normally go.

("Boredom truly is a deadly killer,") Grimm internally mused as he continued his careful stride. The thought came dryly. ("The opinions of the masses never truly mattered. They throw labels around easily because it’s convenient.") His gaze tracked the porcelain people as they stared. ("I gather I’ll be known as a savior here.")

He could already see it. The way the story would form. The way the princess would tell it. The way the city would repeat it until it became myth.

("Perhaps a devil elsewhere.")

He could also see that. In another place, another land, another set of mouths, the same actions would be twisted into something monstrous.

("Maybe nobody somewhere else.")

And perhaps that was the most honest possibility of all. In some corner of the world, his name would never be spoken. His deeds would never be known. His existence would be irrelevant.

("It doesn’t matter.")

The thought ended there, bluntly.

Puck, watching him from the side, studied the way he walked. Studied the way his silence sat on him—she could not see his face, but she could see enough.

She could see the way he didn’t look at the porcelain people for too long, she could see the way he didn’t lean into their praise and she could see the way he carried himself like he was already elsewhere.

And for a moment—just a moment—her usual lax attitude didn’t come

"You know," Puck said, voice low, "they’re probably going to remember you for this."

Grimm’s pace did not change.

"Let them," he replied.

Puck’s eyes narrowed slightly. "That’s all you have to say?"

Grimm’s answer came after a beat, and when it did, it was not cruel.

"I have been remembered before," Grimm said. "And I have been forgotten. Neither has ever changed what I am."

Puck’s expression softened for the briefest instant, then hardened again into something more stern—because softness was dangerous after all, and Puck hated feeling like she was about to care.

"Ugh," she muttered, folding her arms tighter. "You’re impossible." She huffed, turning her head away but still stealing glances at his armored form as if expecting a retort.

Grimm did not argue. There was no need for it at the moment; his ideals were set. The praise of the masses meant little.

So he simply continued walking.