Chapter 41: Chapter 41 - Introductions
I have to say, the cute reactions Julia had when her past came out, definitely made me feel a hell of a lot better than I had.
The way she had looked at me when I said that she was even more amazing than I thought, almost had me melting right there.
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at her reactions.
Which of course led to a small fist smashing into my chest.
Luckily for me she was still way too close to do real damage, because the look she gave me when I burst out laughing suggested she really wanted to punch me.
I pulled her back into my embrace and looked over to a smiling deserter, whose name I had still not known.
But before I could ask him I heard Julia’s muffled whisper from my chest.
"My past really doesn’t bother you?"
I leaned down slightly to kiss the top of her head.
"Of course not, I love you." I whispered back.
Which led to her tightening our embrace significantly, I swear I had to work to be able to breathe.
I finally looked back at the leader of the deserters.
"By the way, what’s your name?" I finally asked.
For a moment the man looked shocked, until a beaming smile appeared on his face, clearly he had just realised that we had never made introductions.
"The name’s Erick." He answered, extending a hand.
"Daniel." I said as I shook his hand.
"And if you hadn’t known her real name, this is Julia." I said as I pointed down at the golden hair still snuggled in my chest.
I looked around at the five other still unconscious men laying around.
"How long do you think it would take for them to wake up?" I asked.
Erick looked back at his men still sprawled all over.
He brought his right hand to his lips, and in the next moment an ear piercing whistle erupted from him.
The results were immediate.
Like one entity all five of them sprang to their feet.
They looked around clearly searching for the enemy that had caused their leader to make that much racket.
I couldn’t help but be impressed with their reactions.
I knew for a fact that I would not react that well if I was woken up like that.
I suppose it came with training.
The men seemed particularly surprised to see the position Julia and I were in.
But I didn’t really care about what they thought, we were their new employers after all, why should I care what they thought about the relationship between me and my wife.
I only cared about what they would think about their working conditions, and the jobs they would do.
"Let’s head back to our camp." I said to Erick, as I gently pried myself from Julia’s embrace.
I was surprised to see small diamond-like tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Why are you crying, my love?" I asked as I cupped her cheeks with my hands, gently wiping the tears away with my thumbs.
It was at that moment I got an expression that I had never seen on her face, but one that was so beautiful, I would pay money to see it every day.
She pouted.
The sheer beauty almost blinded me.
Seriously.
You should see it.
"I thought you would hate me." She answered.
I burst out laughing again, and leaned over to press my lips to the trails the tears made on her cheeks.
"I could never hate you." I answered. "Now let’s go, the men are waiting."
And that garnered me another reaction I had never seen.
A blush.
Dear god, at that moment I had to do everything in my power not to drag her back to our tent.
She dropped her gaze, came to my side and gripped my arm tight enough that I was wondering if she might break it.
I could see all of the men sneakily smirking, but doing their very best to hide it.
Even Erick was trying to hide his behind a hand rubbing his beard.
I was just glad that none of them were stupid enough to laugh at her, because honestly her emotions had probably been up and down enough that she might just snap.
And I really didn’t want to lose my first employees on their very first day on the job.
That might’ve just tanked the reputation of my mercenary company before it even got off the ground.
I led everyone back to our camp, where I had finished setting everything up hours ago.
The fire I had started was now only embers.
Without me even having to ask, the men started to gather some more wood all around the clearing, and minutes later we had a pile of firewood large enough to probably keep it burning until the next morning.
I showed off my amazing magic skills and relit the fire again.
Which of course garnered me the reactions I had expected.
A few minutes later we were all sitting around a very cozy camp fire, eating the meals we had brought from the inn.
With the time we had shaved off our trip, we could afford to share the meals with the men.
They were practically inhaling them though.
It seemed that they had been surviving off beasts that they hunted in the forest, but a diet of only meat with no seasonings tended to become bland pretty quickly.
Erick told me some more about them, where they came from, and why they had deserted.
It seemed that they were once soldiers in the army of a kingdom called Dellroy.
From what he told me it seemed that the kingdom was known to be extremely cruel, and hated by almost everyone.
Their king had corrupted all of the nobles with ideas of conquest.
They had been warring with almost every kingdom surrounding them.
When I asked how they could possibly contend with all of the kingdoms surrounding them, he told me that they had drafted nearly all of their citizens that were able into their military.
Which meant that they had a massive military force.
"Doesn’t the king know that by doing this he is economically crippling his own country?" I asked, shocked by the stupidity of the man.
Erick could only smile at my reaction.
"The people are already suffering these effects, those of them who were not drafted into the military, are in their cities and villages starving."
"Because of the taxes he has implemented to fund his military campaign, most of them can’t even feed themselves anymore."
The absolute idiocy, and inhuman way of leadership stunned me.
On Earth corruption was also pretty bad in some countries, but it had been years since anything as bad as this had happened there.
Or at least that I knew of before my death.
We sat in silence for a while after Erick said that.
Julia had leaned her head on my shoulder a while back, her breathing had become even, and deep.
This brought a smile to my face.
"You should go get some sleep, we’ll keep watch." Erick said when he saw Julia asleep.
"Thank you," I said, gently picking her up.
"You guys can come with us tomorrow, we’re heading to the closest border town, I have some business there." I said, as I made my way to the tent.
I paused at the flap, and turned back to them.
"It’ll probably devolve into another test though, so prepare yourselves for that." I said with a smile.
