My head is pounding right now. Part of the reason for this is my sword. I have suppressed it as much as I can, and still, I can feel the effects of the damn thing. I can feel the sword steadily chip at my vital mana like a leech draining me of blood.

  Now, I normally would have had the sword as far away from me as possible. While this doesn't stop the cycle, it at least reduces its intensity. (Not as much as you would expect it to.)

  The problem is that I need to keep the sword in hand. After all, you can't really go to a funeral without a sword. Well, you technically can, but that would be insulting the person who had died. (There is plenty of that going around already.)

  I might consider these soldiers as idiots, but I am certainly not in the mood to disrespect them. Any soldier should be given that bit of respect at the very least.

  Anyway, their leader is already doing plenty of that. Well, speaking of Anthony, he is the second reason for my headache, you see. There are not many people in my life who have managed to irritate me as much as this idiot. I guess that I should focus on the funeral for now. After all, we have worked quite a bit for this funeral. It would be a pity to waste it due to one fool. (My arms are still aching from bringing that tree down.)

  The funeral is actually in the style of the legion. Well, it wasn't a pleasant experience to convince Anthony to do it in our style. The idiot has some stupid idea about how we are doing this to insult him. We cannot do it in the style of the guard corps. It is just not meant to be done in a combat zone like this. Any person attending a guard corps funeral is supposed to give up their weapons.

  When undead creatures could attack from any place, that is a risk that we cannot afford to take. That is why we are doing it in the style of the legion. Well, we are at the tail end of this funeral, if I want to be precise. The reason I have started this recording is because of how awkward the situation is right now.

  You see, at the end of every funeral, you are supposed to speak a few words about the deceased. The problem is that none of us had any idea about these men. What can we speak about men that we have barely interacted with?

  The only time that we have seen them is when they are in action. That is why, for the last half an hour or so, we have all been praising their ability to fight. Every speech is basically the same thing. They are so similar that nobody is listening to the Mayfires (who are speaking now.). We have heard (and said) some variant of the same speech.

  Well, this would still have been bearable if it were not for Anthony. Let's just say that the man has completely let himself go in the last couple of weeks. That is especially the case today. The man has gotten a bottle of alcohol from somewhere. (I certainly don't tend to keep stuff like that for missions.) Let's just say that the man has been wasted since the morning.

  Nobody would have expected that the man would have even come to the funeral. All the signs pointed that the man had drunk himself to sleep. That is why John was holding the torch. He would have put these bodies to rest if Anthony had not bothered showing up. Now Anthony has taken that as an attack on his authority.

  Let's just say that the man has been getting on all of our nerves. Even with that, we would have adjusted to it somehow. That is what we have been doing till if we are honest. Even now, the man has not allowed us to do our rituals properly at all. His snide comments have been a part of the funeral.

  The only reason that John has not picked a fight with the man is that you are not supposed to fight at a funeral. It is supposed to be a serene and respectful process. The man has lost his soldiers after all. You certainly don't expect the man to be happy. On top of that, we forced the man not to send off his soldiers in the way that he had wanted to. We certainly don't expect the man to be calm after doing something like that. At least that is what I am telling myself.

  The problem is that this is all a lie. The man is certainly not distraught about losing his soldiers. You can hear it in the way that the man has been cursing his soldiers for the last couple of days. Those are certainly words that a man sad over losing his soldiers would not have.

  We are still trying to be polite with the man. After all, we are at a funeral. The thing is, I do not have an infinite well of patience. There is only so much insult that we can take before I can't take it anymore. The weird thing is that I have not seen any of the Sentinels show any signs of getting angry. They have, after all, been taking the brunt of the comments of Anthony. (Most of it is directed at John, who is performing the funeral rites for the men.)

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I have not seen even Emilia lose her calm. The lady is not the type to let anybody speak to her in that way. Well, I don't know how they are remaining calm, but I can't emulate them today at all.

  Well, I guess that I should focus on the funeral. After all, Alfred Mayfire has finally completed his speech. With that, everybody's speech has been completed except Anthony's. I am actually kind of dreading hearing the man speak. After all, every snide comment till now has been a whisper.

  You can ignore it as long as you put your mind to it. Now that he is taking center stage, it is going to be much harder to ignore. I already feel like punching the man even now. Even as I am recording this, the man takes his place in front of the four funeral pyres.

  "I don't know why you bothered to waste so much of your time on all of this." The man starts, even as I hear my blood pound in my ears. "As the legion has been so kind to point out, we are in a combat zone. We should get the damn thing done already. If the great John could just give me the torch, I would have already burned these pyres."

  Hearing all of this, I can feel a heat spread in my body. I feel like jumping from my present position and just slapping the man a couple of times. It feels like somebody has put springs in my legs. Right now, I have suppressed myself from doing anything. The problem is that with each word that the man utters, this restraint of mine is being challenged.

  As this happens, I look at the four people who are the target of the insults that he speaks. I can't really believe what I see, though. All four of them hold a respectful and calm expression. Even Emilia, whom I had expected to be in a similar situation to me, looks calm. If I didn't know better, I would have thought these people were listening to a bard. That is how calm these people are.

  By the way, Anthony has not bothered to shut up while I was recording all of this. I won't bother to repeat what the man said in this while. It won't be helpful to anybody for such stuff to be repeated.

  From the Sentinels, I turn to look at the other people. The searchers are looking at this with alarm in their eyes. Even they realise that what is happening here is dangerous. The Mayfires just looked confused. They have never seen such open hostility among us after all. They don't know what the result of this could be.

  Well, for all my attempts to ignore the man and his words, I can't do so.

  "Captain Anthony, you are supposed to speak about your soldiers. I would request that you return to the topic at hand." I speak. "After all, as you have pointed out, we are in a combat zone."

  It takes me painstaking effort to make sure that my speech is polite. Even now, there is enough anger in my voice that the man does notice it. It is enough to pierce through his drunken stupor.

  "As you say, Antonio. Anyway, I have wasted enough time on this sham.", the man speaks. "Now I have to speak about my soldiers. Well, I guess one word to describe them would be useless. They spent years cultivating and fighting so that they could defend me. Still, they all ended up snuffing it after I called for their help once. Well, there you have it. Do you want to hear more about how useless they are? Will you give me the damn torch already?"

  The man gestures to the torch that is presently in John's hand. Even while hearing the request of the soldiers, John gets up from his position. He does so in an absurdly calm manner. Even then, I can see the man's eyes. The man is also angry. He is just suppressing it with a supreme force of will. He goes to the man with the torch in his hand. Anthony snatches it out of John's hand and rushes to the first pyre. Even as he goes to set fire to it, John is there to hold him back.

  "Before the dead are put to rest, you have to speak their name, Anthony." John speaks. "You have been guarding their names quite jealously since the beginning, but they are dead now. They deserve to be remembered. Don't let politics get in the way of this."

  "Well, I have been following your fucking rules since the beginning, you idiots." The man growls. "I have heard you blather for hours on end. Still, you waste my time with something this stupid."

  "Well, then consider this another of our rules, then." John replies, as cool as a cucumber.

  "Well, they don't have any names." Anthony growls back. "They hadn't earned any yet. If they had survived this mission, they might have earned their names. They died before that could have happened."

  As I hear this, the sound of blood pumping in my ears threatens to overpower me.

  "There must have been something that you have called them by." John continues speaking.

  His calmness suddenly feels like a mockery. How in the hells can the man remain calm after hearing that? He knows what that means for me.

  Even as I begin to quiver in rage, the two men continue speaking.

  "Fine, you fool." Anthony snaps, the irritation in his voice increasing the pounding in my ears.

  "Here you go then." John speaks even as he gives the torch to the man.

  With that, the man begins to go to each pyre.

  "Soldier number 32." He speaks as he sets the torch under the pyre.

  It takes a few moments for the fire to catch as he continues on to the second pyre.

  "Soldier number 27."

  "Soldier number 15."

  "Soldier number 7. Not that it helped him, though."

  I don't know how I managed to keep myself seated throughout all of this. Let's just say that it took a monumental amount of will to do so. I might even have succeeded at it, too, if the bastard had bothered to keep his mouth shut.

  "Now that stupid thin......" The man speaks, even as I reach him.