One-Eyed Monster

The carriage creaked along the road leading to Luona, and the steam car following behind always managed to attract the attention of people on the road.

Igor watched the people outside preparing to welcome the Farewell to the Old Festival, and couldn’t help but feel emotional. They were getting closer and closer to Luona, and also closer to his home.

The journey over the past two days seemed to have passed very quickly, almost without notice. Before he knew it, he was nearly at the gates of the Imperial Capital.

They didn’t converse much over the past two days, most of the time it was Perkins sharing his experiences, but no one could fully grasp Perkins’ explanations, not because Perkins wasn’t detailed enough, but simply because these experiences largely exceeded their cognitive scope.

The complexity and freshness of these matters require them to digest, and digesting takes time.

So most of the time, they were deliberating with puzzled expressions, which made Perkins feel quite frustrated.

Perkins loves sharing; he’s always eager to spill out his experiences. But he spoke too quickly and sometimes too disorderly, making it hard for people to catch the main points as there’s no clear cause and effect.

But Perkins himself wasn’t aware of this. He always thought his storytelling wasn’t vivid enough. To attract others, he talked more about magical things, thinking others were just as curious about them as he was, eager to know. But in reality, people didn’t understand Perkins’ words at all, and looked utterly confused. Moreover, the more magical things he talked about, the less people understood, often mistaking him for a fraud...

Initially, Perkins cared too much about being seen as a fraud, which was beyond his comprehension. Perkins felt he didn’t resemble a fraud in any way, yet why did people think he was?

This issue puzzled Perkins for a long, long time, and he even felt quite sad about it for a while.

But later, a friend advised him, saying he should just be himself and not mind what others said.

Then Perkins had an epiphany. He felt there was no need to live under others’ criticism; he should walk his own path, letting others talk. As long as he had a clear conscience, it was fine.

This is Perkins’ attitude now; he’s quite carefree and doesn’t pay much attention to these disturbances anymore.

The only thing that can excite him is finding resonance.

In a way, Perkins is lonely, as he’s carried all this forward on his own.

Now, his hope is for more people to know his experiences, and for more people like him who cannot become Adventurers with Class to have a way to protect themselves.

This is his true goal.

But he’s never been able to express what he wants to convey.

This is quite a tangled matter, as Perkins continuously fails to understand why his intended words always translate into something else; he feels he has many things he wants to say but can never find a complete narrative to encapsulate them.

Originally, he thought he was good at communicating with others, but in reality, it turns out that this was all just his imagination; he is indeed weak in this regard.

Nonetheless, Perkins still enjoys sharing with others. He believes that only by sharing what he’s acquired does his adventure hold meaning.

Now, they are about to arrive in Luona, and Perkins is contemplating how he will share his experiences once he gets there.

Whether to go to a tavern, or to a square, or maybe the Twin Star Grand Hall, or even the Yonder Travel Academy...

He starts to hesitate again, but when he left there was no Twin Star Grand Hall or Yonder Travel Academy. Throughout his travels around the world, people often mentioned these two places, making him itch to visit them.

Now he’s finally back and can fulfill this wish.

Perkins also wonders why he isn’t a Wandering Bard; if he were, he wouldn’t be troubled about sharing his experiences.

Wandering Bards have a good voice, and Perkins feels his voice isn’t bad either!

Thinking to this point, Perkins considers himself a genius, imagining sharing his experiences in the manner of a Wandering Bard – it’s indeed a brilliant notion.

Picture himself sitting in the square, plucking the strings, with beautiful music floating in the breeze. As he starts speaking, he captivates the audience, and the stories he brings to the crowd gradually drift to distant places along with the melodies...

”Hahaha...” Perkins laughed as he imagined all this, thinking how beautiful and promising the future was!

This sudden laughter made Hustace look at him as if he were a fool. Raising his head, he found the person laughing was his brother, and he couldn’t help but palm his forehead, feeling a wave of sadness...

Igor also looked at Perkins in surprise: ”What are you laughing at? Are you so happy to go back to Luona?”

”Um, hehe, let me tell you, I just thought of something really good.” Perkins couldn’t wait.

Perkins’ foolish laughter made Nakasha a bit anxious, since he always considered the adopted son of Governor Rostov might retaliate against him. On this journey, he’s been extremely cautious, afraid of making any mistake. As a League Guard, he was indeed being very, very careful, having acted impulsively back then.

”What did you think of that made you so happy? Was it something you like?” Igor asked, filled with doubts, just waiting to return to Luona to ask the teachers at Yonder Travel Academy for answers.

Originally, he was counting on Perkins, but frankly, Igor couldn’t grasp Perkins’ main points at all.

”I thought of the Wandering Bard. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to express my experiences in the way a Wandering Bard does?” Perkins said, thinking this method was truly marvelous, eager to stop and find a nearby market to buy a lute.

”Haha, but then you’d have to organize your thoughts well and give them to a Wandering Bard.” Igor remarked scornfully.

”Hmm?” Perkins puzzled, how could the response be like this – turning his idea of becoming a Wandering Bard into organizing his stories for a Wandering Bard? Shouldn’t it be him becoming a Wandering Bard?

”Think about it; look at what you’ve been saying these past two days – none of it is thoroughly understandable, jumping from one topic to another. I don’t even want to comment on it.” Over the past two days, Igor and Perkins had communicated quite a bit, completely familiar now, so he was no longer addressing Perkins as ”senior, senior”.

Perkins propped his chin, reflecting on how Igor’s points weren’t entirely unreasonable. He often fails to express what he wishes to convey, just like this time; he wanted to say he would become a Wandering Bard, yet ended up articulating something else entirely.