Read Novel Full Chapter 323: It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere
Chapter 323: It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere
For the next thirty minutes, Vale, Salome, and thirty or so Akkuron soldiers sat at a table, drinking ale…
With the sun not even halfway through the sky, one might take the sight as insane, especially in a war zone; and yet Grady allowed it. He allowed it even knowing the underlying threat of letting it happen.
The threat that Vale was destroying the painted picture of a Vice.
He looked no different than a human, and had now shown he acted no different than a human.
At first, when he’d suggested it, nobody made any motion to respond; however, Eric simply shrugged and mentioned they had a reserve that Grady would allow them to use to entertain their guest. At that, a small portion of the crowd let their fears mercilessly drown in a puddle so they could drink on the job.
That small portion led to another portion who grew curious about Vale.
Before he knew it, there were nearly thirty soldiers drinking with him. During that time, Vale made some horrid jokes that were so bad they were good. He also revealed he’d killed an Apostle, which caused the mass to cheer wildly. Finally, Eric went and recounted his time in Vale’s dungeon.
By the looks on the faces of the listeners, it seemed they were expectant of that group to all be miserable and weary of being ambushed or abducted by Lust… but to be given a cozy welcome? Playing games with the Master of Lust?
It was an odd sort of bliss in the abyss.
Especially so when Eric detailed some boons Vale hadn’t ever considered.
The dungeon smelled nice, they never had to worry about waste…
‘Yay…’
And they could sleep in relative peace due to the darkness.
There was also the constant looming threat of Celestia paying them a visit or being invaded by another dungeon, but Eric posed an odd trust that Vale would deal with any threat.
Quite the one-eighty from their first interaction.
‘Maybe [Charm] has been slowly changing their view.’
Yet Vale had been very careful about not using it around them, so it may have been his own charisma.
As for Salome…
She, unlike Vale, was very obviously inhuman. Wings, horns, tail. But despite that, the human part of her overpowered her other aspects. Even without [Charm] activated, she was simply too beautiful to hate.
‘Beauty is a sin!’
The soldiers were off-put initially, but all their fears died to their curiosity as they all begged for an explanation of her wound…
Mainly, the sheer weirdness of the stump.
Where a normal wound would be rounded as it healed, Salome’s had been mystically healed right after breaking off. So it had a few jagged pieces that looked like the split point when one snapped a twig.
She usually kept it hidden, as Jaune’s shirt covered it, but she wasn’t wearing it.
Oh, Salome also started a Ximena hate club.
She spun the story to be that another Champion of Lust turned on her because she was jealous of her beauty, and tried to kill her. Even going as far as reasoning it to why she wasn’t there to greet the soldiers.
Vale didn’t exactly know what to say about that, but an ale-fueled Eric did chime in, saying that the “[Champion] at the entrance is scary” and that “Queen Salome speaks the truth!”
‘I guess it’s simply her fate to be hated.’
Ximena did say the soldiers looked at her funny.
‘Maybe if she smiled more, at all, then she’d have an easier time being liked.’
Then again, smiling while living in her situation was a herculean ask. She was the one person with a fate more cursed than Vale.
Not that Vale knew the extent of her cursed life.
And while he might say Salome was in that running too, all of what he heard of her story had sounded entirely preventable had she been a little more understanding. She did commit a genocide on a whim, after all.
In any case, after their drinking escapade ended, Vale now found himself at the cool trucks. Specifically, he was behind the wheel of one. Salome was sitting on top, resting, unaware of what the thing even did.
Perhaps due to his Aether constitution, he wasn’t inebriated — or at least didn’t feel like he was. However, his instructor at the moment, Eric, was. Most definitely.
Vale pointed at one of the four pedals.
“So this one makes it go?”
“Probably! Press it!”
Tentatively, Vale did just that.
The engine roared to life, slicing through the open air and scaring the unaware half of the camp into thinking there was an attack.
Yet…
“Nothing happened.”
Eric laughed, then pointed at the floor, then at a knob extended behind the wheel.
“It’s in park. You juzt gotta press that one down and move this thing.”
“What thing?”
“The clutch!”
‘That didn’t… whatever.’
Vale looked down.
‘I think he was pointing to this left one.’
As Eric had gracefully instructed, Vale pressed down the clutch, then shifted the knob.
The drunk crowd watching the fiasco cheered.
“Woo hoo!”
“Yeah!”
“He did it!”
Eric laughed, then said:
“Press the gas. Lightly.”
‘Alright…’
Soon, it became clear that Vale had an entirely different definition of lightly. Despite feeling that he only pressed it down a little, the truck shot forward.
Eric grabbed onto the handle and screamed:
“Woah, fuck!”
Salome, who’d gotten thrown off, was gliding in the air while mystified by the moving contraption.
Vale, on the other hand…
“How do I stop this!”
He’d taken his foot off the gas, but it hadn’t slowed down at all. In fact, so as to not crash into the other vehicles, he began driving in circles.
“The middle one!”
‘There’s two middle ones!’
In too much of a panic to clarify, Vale slammed his foot into the left one.
In a fraction of a second, the wheels seized and ground to a halt. And Vale, who’d unknowingly been yanking the wheel, caused the vehicle to flip.
Hanging upside down, having strapped himself into the safety mechanism Eric had called useless, Vale was holding Eric with one hand while the crowd erupted in cheers.
“Baha!”
“Hey, he’s a better driver than Carlo!”