Chapter 39

Nola had grown stronger very quickly since Divine had started to help her.

But after rising to the knight level, the growth of her strength had immediatly slowed down considerably.

For a time, she had thought her strength would quickly and continuously rise throughout the whole winter, maybe even reaching the level of a Great Knight.

Then she would’ve been strong enough to take care of her revenge herself.

With that kind of strength Nola would’ve dared to journey through the dangerous forest, too.

Sadly, that was only a pipe dream.

She had to be realistic.

Nola pondered long and hard about what to do.

Then one day, not long after the winter had arrived, Nola made up her mind.

She didn't know if it was day or night outside, but in the cavern, it was sleeping time.

Nola had spent this day like every other.

Waking up, brooding, eating, training, brooding, training with the goblins, washing, eating and now it was bedtime, or more pelttime.

The cavern was very quiet, at least relatively.

The first goblins had already fallen asleep and were snoring softly.

Exactly like Beorn and Torm, they were snoring too, only louder.

Nola rose from her pelt and sneaked to Divine's cave.

She was glad that 'Scarface', or whatever that goblin woman was called, slept in the little goblins' cave by now.

Nola was the most scared of being seen by that goblin woman.

She was relieved when she stepped into the short passage to Divine's cave without alerting anyone.

But with every step, a new nervousness built up inside of her.

Nola hadn't been here before, so she was surprised about the rope blocking the path inside the cave.

Divine wasn't sleeping, he was sitting in the middle of the cave in his special meditation position.

He didn't seem to notice her.

She stopped before the rope barrier and just looked at Divine, questioning her decision again.

She noticed a strange giant book next to the goblin.

Not a single symbol on the book cover could Nola understand.

And she had only seen such symbols at one other place, on the wall in the cavern next to Divine's drawings.

She really wondered what kind of language it was and where it came from.

When her eyes wandered back to Divine, he had already opened his eyes and was now looking at her.

Their eyes met and the rope barrier fell.

Nola steeled herself.

"Can I talk to you?" She asked nervously.

Divine only answered by gesturing in front of him.

The whole floor was laid out in pelts, so she could sit down comfortably and still keep some distance.

"In our lessons I always skirted around the topic, but I want to tell you my identity now. My full name is Noelani van Geroge of the noble house of Geroge. I told you about the town Geroge in the Holy Lumodian Empire, bordering on the Witching Forest, west of here. The town and the surrounding land including five villages all have belonged to my family since my grandfather’s generation." Nola waited for a surprised reaction, but the goblin just kept on looking at her, as if waiting for her to get to the point.

"One of our knights, someone we treated like family, killed every member of my family one after another. First, my father died of what we thought was an illness. Then my oldest brother died in a skirmish with some bandits and my second oldest brother died in an accident shortly after, making my younger brother the Lord in the end. He wasn’t ready for such a responsibility, especially after the deaths of most our family, and he lost himself in alcohol. Because he was constantly drunk and often talked nonsense, I didn’t believe him when he told me about his suspicions against our families’ ‘loyal’ knight, who was ‘selflessly’ picking up the responsibilities of the lord, that my young brother left unattended.” There were tears in Nola’s eyes and she was clenching her fists so hard her knuckles had turned white. “Only after my last brother died too, did I realize that he had been right and our knight was responsible for my families’ tragedies.”

That still didn’t tell Divine what she wanted, but he left her a moment to gather herself again.

Seeing that Divine still hadn’t said anything, Nola got to the point.

She lowered her head a little and stared with soulful eyes into Divine’s.

“Lord Divine, please, I beg you, please help me take revenge for my family!”