Chapter 258 — That Topic's a Bit Off
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The dangerous monsters of the wild hills and the magical radiation of the fallen Gundor Empire were not the greatest problem facing an elf ranger far from home—progressive hair loss was the true death of Sogilim Frostleaf.
All right, Sogilim had never said any such thing, but Gaoyang was convinced it must be the most sincere utterance buried deep in that high elf ranger's heart.
He knew Sogilim—or rather, Gaoyang Cecil knew Sogilim—from seven hundred years ago, during the Great Expansion. Back then this elf ranger was a nobody who had left his homeland only a few years before and was wandering the northern part of the continent. Though he already had the strength of a high ranger, he had no grand-sounding title like "Golden-Haired Sogilim," and he was unluckily inside the borders of the Gundor Empire at the time. When the magic tide suddenly rose, the elf ranger found himself trapped in the wastes of the human empire, cut off from his homeland.
The human northern pioneer army rescued this lone elf ranger amid the chaos, and Gaoyang Cecil took him under his own command.
After that the two fought side by side for many years, until only a few years before Gaoyang Cecil's death, when Sogilim left the human army and resumed his wanderings in the north as a free mercenary.
Almost no one knew why Sogilim had left the Silver Empire alone, no one knew what purpose this high ranger pursued in his wanderings across the continent, and seven hundred years later no one knew why this powerful free mercenary never unleashed more than seventy percent of his power in battle. Only Gaoyang knew the secret, because Sogilim wore a wig...
The poor fellow had come out all those years ago simply to find folk remedies for his hair loss...
To be honest, when those memories surfaced, Gaoyang had to clench nearly every muscle in his face to keep from bursting out laughing on the spot. If he laughed, his image would be ruined first of all, and secondly he could forget about rebuilding his friendship with Sogilim—the little boat of their friendship would not merely capsize, it would spin in place more than twenty times before smashing into both their faces, and they would immediately start trying to kill each other...
So he strove to keep his manner calm, and in the unhurried tone of Gaoyang Cecil facing Sogilim, he reminisced with the elf ranger: "Remember how I discovered that secret of yours?"
"How was I supposed to know that one of the top commanders of the human coalition would grab people's hair when he fought?" Sogilim still carried a grudge seven hundred years old over this, and shot Gaoyang a decidedly displeased glare. "We're lucky no one else was around to see it, or I really would have fought you to the death right there..."
Gaoyang spread his hands. "You couldn't beat me anyway."
"Couldn't beat you then. What about now?" Sogilim looked him up and down. "I can feel it—your strength has declined considerably."
"You can't beat me now either," Gaoyang replied with poise, guided by the principle that whether or not he felt shaky inside, the surface had to hold up. "Back when I first woke, you might have had a chance, but I've recovered most of my strength now."
Sogilim fell silent, staring fixedly at Gaoyang, eyes unblinking. He stared hard for a long while, until the latter began to wonder whether the elf's preferences had finally gone astray, before he broke the silence: "I still can't believe you've really come back to life... I heard the news in Typhon, but at first I thought it was a farce manufactured by the Ansu royal house for some purpose. I was cursing that bastard king in my heart for finally abandoning all shame and using his own country's founding hero as a political tool... Never did I imagine you were real."
He paused, shook his head, and continued: "At first I wanted to come straight over and confirm the situation, but I simply couldn't find the chance."