Serilef left, taking the young man who had already turned "gray" with her. In the end, Solam still had not gotten the chance to ask the kid's name. By then, Solam had completely forgotten about... sigh... the child's presence was just that faint.
Solam only remembered after returning to his room and preparing to go back to sleep that he had forgotten to ask...
Serilef paid no attention to her companion's dejection. She was still thinking about what Solam had said. His words had struck her deeply, to the point that she had begun to doubt herself.
That was right—why had she come to ask Solam what he had that could draw those people to Athkatla?
They were enemies. Did it really matter what they had come here for? If they had come to buy groceries, would she simply not deal with them? Wasn't that ridiculous? Those people were evil creatures, lunatics, criminals. Their only fate was to be purified in the Holy Light.
What was there to question about that?
Since that was the case, did she need to care about why they had come here? Why not just go up and beat them?
Serilef's doubts were finally resolved when she went to see Makelele again.
"Miss Saililefu, we are paladins! Tell me, what is our most fundamental purpose?" Makelele asked sternly as he looked at the bewildered Saililefu before him.
"Punish evil! Uphold justice!" Saililefu answered without hesitation.
This was the standard answer for nearly all young paladins, and it was also why most of them had chosen this path in the first place. There was nothing wrong with that. After all, without such passion, who would choose the path of a paladin, a path destined to be filled with sacrifice?
But was the path of a