In the Carian ranks, Horace lowered the spyglass in his hand and sighed softly.
"What a shame. He still got away."
Uriel stood beside him with a complicated expression.
He found it a little hard to accept, and he was not alone. Almost every Inquisitor Knight who upheld the virtues felt ashamed of their lord's shamelessness.
"My lord, this..." Uriel hesitated.
Horace glanced at him. Still such an honest "child"... He patted Uriel's shoulder. "Think I'm shameless?"
Uriel lowered his head without answering, but his meaning was clear. Just look at those Inquisitor Knights-the faces enclosed in their heavy armor had gone completely red.
"Uriel." Horace gazed at the Stormveil army retreating in disarray in the distance, his voice earnest.
"Do you know how many of our lads' lives that volley saved?"
He turned to look at the honest old warrior. "If we fought the traditional way, with both armies charging each other, even if we won, even if we replaced many soldiers with Dolls, how many would still die? A thousand? Two thousand? Or more?"
"Some of those boys have only just come of age. Some still have parents, wives, and children at home. They shouldn't die for this meaningless 'honor.'"
Horace spoke softly, but his words carried immense weight.
"In this world, only the victors have the right to talk about dignity. The defeated don't even have their lives anymore. What good is dignity to them?"
"Our lads' lives matter far more than saving face."
Uriel remembered the comrades of his youth, the brothers who had died on the battlefields of the Wasteland.
Horace had still been a baby back then. Uriel had known all the more clearly in those days that there was nothing civilized about the wars of the Wasteland.
Since when had he, Uriel, started