My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

Chapter 459 - Humble Beginnings

Riding shotgun with my dad was never the most sentimental memory I cherished of the countryside. Looking back at it now, I wasn't exactly fond of it either… 

Why that was, well, I was wondering that too myself - that was until I buckled myself into the passenger seat, that's when I finally remembered why.

It's 'cause the truck freaking stunk to high heaven. 

The moment I made the rookie mistake of breathing, I was blasted with tear gas. The smell of ash, of smoke, the lingering trace of nicotine soaked into the seat paddings… I haven't a clue how Sammy bears it, always wanting to sit next to him.

His truck was his mancave. I'd catch him dead before I ever caught him smoking inside the house. Anytime he was nowhere to be found, I could always count on seeing that faint cloud of white seeping out from the driver-side window.

Right now he looked to be midway through his second piece if the singular swirl of smoke wafting from one of the many crushed cigarette butts strewn across the dashboard was anything to go off of.

Once he saw that settled in quite comfortably and quietly choking, he lip-held his cigarette, and placed us following the directions of a single dirt road.

He drove, and I watched… quickly falling back into the motions of our daily tradition. Even back then, we didn't talk much on our commute, and if we did, any longer than half a minute would be considered a double rainbow phenomenon.

Yet if there was ever a time I wished he'd just open his mouth other than to exhale a puff of smoke, it would be now.

Talk.

"So did you really roam in red, or is that just a name that stuck?" 

I watched him from the reflection of my window, how he turned to me briefly, the way the tip of his cigarette glowed brighter, and the resulting smoke after… thicker than ever.

"Red is for initiates," He said, smoldering ash scattering down at his lap. "Most die before they can ever get the chance to advance past being red."

He spoke the same way he brushed away the ashen pile to the ground - with indifference.

"In my time, magic was still crude, weapons were mostly inefficient… instinct was most commonly the difference between dying or living on another day."

Each word he spoke was its own twisty, windy branch of questions I could ask. But getting an answer to them all would be impossible, so for now, I focused on the more important ones.

"So why become one? Why hunt Elves for a living?" 

He finished his second quickly and promptly fished out a third from a pack in the glovebox. 

"My father was just a farmer, and my mother, every day she would take his harvest, sell them at our village market, that's how they made a living. It was simple, peaceful, quiet. I liked the quiet. I always had. I still do."

The spark of a lighter paused him in-between his words, leaving me wrapped up in what was already said, deep in wonder and thought, speculating.

My mind went instantly to the worst-case scenario, and I had to ask, quietly, "Did they…?"

"Die?" He plopped the lighter down, blowing out another heavy one. "Not yet, not then, they were fine and healthy as can be… but by the time I was fifteen, that was the last time I ever saw them that way."

More thoughts, grimmer thoughts.

"What happened?"

"Nothing," He said, plainly. "At least nothing you're probably thinking of. Elves didn't ransack my village, they didn't murder my parents in front of my eyes. Everything was just fine."

I found myself roundabout-ing back to the original question. "So why did you become an initiate?"

"Because I wanted to keep that quiet for them. Simple as that."

"And hunting Elves was your solution to that?

"Son, Elves aren't harmless creatures that only attack when provoked, that's what you need to understand. Your Elf-Knight has skewed your perception. If you grant one even the slightest mercy, they will reciprocate it with death. It is just in their nature." 

I realized arguing back would just be me being ignorant. After all, he was right. What did I know? I've only ever known the one, whereas he's had an entire lifetime worth of encounters under his belt.

"The Church honed my skills, my senses… apparently, I took to their training very well. I was told I was a natural. The farmer's son, amongst children of prestigious warriors, noblemen, sorcerers… three years was the standard training regiment before you are allowed to don the red cloaks. The Church decided I only needed one."

"You were already hunting and slaying Elves at sixteen?" I asked. 

"I just wanted to go home. I was told that I could, that Elf-hunters were allowed to hunt where they chose. Everything that I did, the harsh training I underwent, I just wanted to protect my home."

Not so indifferent now, he spoke. There was a bitterness I could sense somewhere through his dense mist of white.

"But I wasn't allowed the same privilege. According to the Church, I had a higher calling to answer, my life was meant for more. How was I to refuse them? I believe them. I was given impossible orders, told to scour the more dangerous regions, I was delegated the tasks that others could not do, all in the name of the Divines… and for years, I adhered to their demands. I was promised that once I had done what was needed, I would finally be free to do what I wanted. But for the time being, there was always one more mission, one more problem, one more Elf to be slain..."

"Didn't you get tired of it?" I asked, hearing the weariness in his voice.

"Why? Why would I?" He asked me back. "If for the Divines, if for the good of the realm, why wouldn't I be happy to do as told? They praised me for my accomplishments, I was saving countless lives, I didn't get what I wished for, sure… but I was doing what I was meant to do, what I was born to do. It's what they've been telling me the whole time, what reason did I have to question anything?"

For some time, he just drove in silence… a long narrow stretch of road with the occasional passing vehicle. Gray ash crumbled down atop his lap again, but it didn't seem like he noticed it… or maybe he just couldn't be bothered.

"I killed my first human when I was nineteen," He finished his third, he didn't take another. "The Church told me that it was right, that it would be just, they told me what they've always told me… but then when I plunged my sword into her chest, saw the life leaving her eyes, when I had to wash the blood that dripped onto my shoes… it didn't feel as right or as just as they had claimed it'd be."

I heard myself swallow. "Who was she?"

"My mother," He turned to me, his stark blue eyes reflecting the shock in my expression. "For suspicions of attempting to conspire against the Church. My mother. The crop seller."

"Then, what? Then why did you believe them?" I sputtered out, breathless. "That's a lie, they lied! Don't tell me you couldn't tell! You're smarter than that, come on." 

"Was I?" He asked, his voice going soft. "I was raised my whole life to believe the Church's decree was absolute. That if not for them, the whole world would have been plunged into ruins long ago. My mother told me stories of past heroes from under them, how their noble actions had shaped the world ultimately for good, that it was thanks to the wisdom of the Church, they were always able to do what was necessary of them." 

"So you killed your mother just because they told you to?" 

"I did what was necessary," He said. "They said it was necessary." 

"What happened to protecting their quiet? Didn't you once consider you were going against what you did all this for in the first place?" 

"I found documents in her bedroom exposing the Church's secrets to the kingdom in the province," He turned the wheel, turned his gaze away from me. "Of course, you can say that they were planted there..." 

"They were planted there," I interjected, nearly spitting out the words.

"And you'd likely be right," He said. "But to me, raised the way I was, told what I was told, it was reason enough for me. I didn't have an outsider's view, I didn't have an outsider's judgment. I only had myself, and I only had what I know… and regrettably, back then, I just simply didn't know enough to know any better..." 

None of this was unfolding the way I thought it would. I thought I knew how this was going to go, but just like him, I clearly didn't know any better. In cold blood, without a word, he killed his mother. 

He shattered his own quiet. 

"And what happened to your father?" 

"He died while I was away training," He answered. "I never found out, I was never told." 

It was like I had different eyes now, a different view. Suddenly the figure I was seeing driving now, was diffrent from the man I got into the car with before. 

But it wasn't over yet. There was more to be told, more that needed to be said… the drive to town wasn't over yet, and like it or not, this was my father as he truly was… and truly is. 

I just have to accept it, I just have to know.

The Hero of the Realm, Leonardo.

"Tell me more."