A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1130 The Next Patrol - Part 1
1130: The Next Patrol – Part 1
1130: The Next Patrol – Part 1
“And yet,” Verdant said.
“I feel new strength from you, my Lord.”
Oliver narrowed his eyes.
“You do?” He said.
He wouldn’t have expected for the sort of strength that he had gathered to be detectable, even by the most astute of eyes.
He’d been in the Third Boundary for long enough that any progress he did make came with magnitudes of effort that far exceeded what it had in the years previous.
So even though he knew he had made strides that week, great strides indeed, and even though he himself could tell that he was stronger, simply because it was a body that he was used to inhabiting, he did not think it was a level of strength that could be perceivable by the eyes of another.
“I do,” Verdant seconded.
“For this not to be a Boundary Break, but for you to make such magnitudes of improvement regardless… It truly begs belief.
You must still have had more space in your cup that you were able to fill.
There can be no other explanation.
This isn’t the sort of progress that a man at the very edge of a Boundary should be able to make – not without falling through head first.”
“Mm…” Oliver said.
“You saying it aloud makes the matter all the more troubling, Verdant.
Could it be that we simply mis-evaluated where I was?”
Miscalculating to that degree would have been more shameful than even the fact of his failure.
From the resistance that he’d begun to feel to his progress, he supposed that he was far closer to the Boundary than he was.
Verdant shook his head.
“I do not think that to be the case either, my Lord.
It seems that rather you have grown in a different direction, rather than just straight towards the next Boundary….
Though that seems like a contradiction in and of itself.
I wonder what to make of that?”
Now it was Oliver’s turn to frown.
With Verdant’s perceptiveness, he’d managed to see the true nature of the progress that Oliver had tried to force about .He’d forced the growth of both Claudia and Ingolsol… But of course, he had neglected to grow his own self.
“Ah,” he murmured, finally realizing the nature of what he had built.
It was a case of integration once more. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
He needed to build his own soul up once more in order to match the two.
He had to find his own source of nourishment.
And then, there ought to be nothing stopping him from achieving that Boundary Break.
“I imagine that you will wish to change, my Lord,” Verdant said.
“Lord Karstly had made his return.
He is in discussions with Samuel.
I do not think they will turn you away if you wish to see them, though.”
“Indeed.
I would rather get this over with sooner rather than later,” Oliver said.
“My Lord,” Verdant said.
“I do not think you need to look so grim.
Even if both men are unable to evaluate the measure of your progress properly, if you know its nature to be significant, then you can trust in the future that it will bring about.
The embarrassment shall only be temporary.”
“Indeed…” Oliver said again.
Chapter 8 – The Next Patrol
Within the hour, a clean and freshly dressed Oliver found himself outside of Karstly’s tent, facing off against the guardsmen that barred his and Verdant’s way.
“Discussions are in process,” the guards told him.
“No one enters.”
“Tell them that it is Captain Patrick,” Oliver said.
“They might well change their minds.”
The two men looked doubtful, but one of the pair shrugged, and went to deliver the message regardless.
After a few moments, the tent flap quivered, and the guard returned, gesturing for Oliver to follow them inside.
The tent was not nearly as empty as Oliver would have hoped.
If he were to be ridiculed, he would have much preferred that there were as few people as possible to be there to do it.
Karstly smiled the second that he laid eyes on Oliver, and leaned back into the chair behind the desk that Samuel had taken care of for him whilst he was away.
“If it isn’t Captain Patrick.
I heard that you’ve been getting up to some rather interesting things whilst I was away, mm?
Would you care to tell me all about them?”
Many of his personal retainers were dotted about the room – men that to Oliver seemed similarly as titleless as Samuel.
He didn’t know where they were knights or Lords in their own right, but from the way that they glared him down, he knew without a doubt that they were nobility.
His only saving grace, he supposed with the absence of too many Blackthorn men.
There was only a single one of them – and that was Colonel Gordry, who stared him down with the same look of disdain that he always did.
“I will fill you in, General,” Oliver said.
“If you would tell me what you already know, I will not have to bother you with the repetition.”
“…Very well.
I know that you picked a fight with three infantrymen,” Karstly said.
“You knocked them out cold.
Blackthorn men, were they?
And Samuel here, he waved off punishment for you, in service of a greater proposal that you offered him.
Something rather interesting, it was.
The ascension to the Fourth Boundary.
The way he told it to me, it very much sounded like a boy leaving his village to slay a dragon.
Well then, boy, did you manage to slay that dragon?
Or were you unable to even find its lair?”
“I would say that I found its lair, and I stole the slightest bit of treasure, and I might even have wounded its wing,” Oliver said.
“But in the end, the dragon still lives, and the hordes of gold that it sits upon are safe from human hands.
In other words, my army knows no benefit, despite the freedom that it has managed to give you in the pursuit of this little goal of yours?” Karstly said.
