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((Triple Wednesday -- Page 3 of 3))
‘On the bright side, though, we don’t have any reason to think that Royo and Malast will harm them.’

Hector wasn’t so sure about that. ‘Well... he did say that he was the one who derailed the train, which nearly killed us all.’

‘Okay, so maybe we have a slight reason to think they might harm them.’

‘Mm.’

‘But the unpleasant truth of the matter is that if Royo intends to kill all of the Hun’Sho, then he probably already has. It’s been several hours since he’s presumably had free reign in Himmekel.’

Hector wished he could argue with that point.

‘I honestly don’t think he’ll hurt them, though,’ said Garovel. ‘He seemed... diplomatic with us, there at the end. And the Hun’Sho would no doubt make for incredibly valuable allies, if he can manage to persuade them.’

‘Hmm...’

‘It’s a shame we couldn’t bring any of the Hun’Sho with us back to Warrenhold, actually. Even just one of them would have been great.’

‘What the--? I thought you didn’t trust them.’

‘Oh, I don’t. But they must know all sorts of good shit. Especially the older ones.’

‘I’d rather not live with people we don’t trust, Garovel. And besides, I feel like a Hun’Sho could very easily kill a non-servant, even just by accident.’

‘Eh, I’m sure we could figure something out. Keep ‘em segregated from all the normies, maybe.’

‘Now you’re making it sound like we’d be keeping the Hun’Sho prisoner.’

‘Maybe we would be.’

‘Garovel.’

‘What? They’re sneaky and barely even human.’

‘...I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.’

‘I just mean that if one or more of them happened to do something criminal, then that would justify us keeping them prisoner.’

Hector wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

‘And hey, I’m three thousand years old. I’m entitled to be a little racist, aren’t I?’

‘Wow, Garovel.’

‘Okay, that one was a joke, just so we’re clear.’

‘Was it, though?’

‘Oh, don’t even start. I’m very tolerant of other cultures and ethnicities, I’ll have you know.’

‘Uh-huh...’

‘Like with you, for instance. I decided to take you on as a servant, even though I don’t much care for the blacks.’

Hector coughed up a laugh so suddenly that he nearly tripped and so had to stop running. He doubled over and lost control of his cooling armor as he kept cracking up.

‘I’d say that’s pretty tolerant,’ said Garovel, ‘wouldn’t you?’

When he felt the heat of the Undercrust creeping into his armor, he managed to get hold of himself and fix his armor. ‘Holy shit, Garovel.’ He started running again, seeing that there was still no sign of Capaporo or anything else around. ‘You almost made me fall on my face, just now.’

The reaper laughed.