Finding Contentus

Chapter 32: The R&R Tale (1)

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"How many Racaans do you think remain in this country, this world now?"

Ramsis stared at Renero thoughtfully before blinking three times for his answer, having felt a disturbing amount of lives evaporating into thin air by some other wordly force of nature. The day Pharaoh found the remaining Racaans, secluded and hidden in Mootlakeng.

Renero took notice of this and nodded. "Yes, only three. Only three left. Myself and my twin children. That I know of at least but... I can't even entertain the false hope of there being others out there."

Renero paused to gather himself for why such a reason was so strong in plausibility. "Do you know how many Racaans there were around the time my father and the previous chief passed on from this world?"

Ramsis didn't bother to venture a guess since Racaans were always a rare minority race to humans that were the vast majority.

Until, he thought of the particular number of people in Metro that he had failed to protect.

"Two million. More or less. The number of human lives that were lost during your 365 days of rampage and revenge," he answered with a flat tone of voice, like he was used to such figures that the large numbers didn't phase him anymore.

"I... suppose you could call that retributive justice for your people and the limitless lives you lost and kept losing."

Renero paused again to gain his bearings upon hearing such a high number of human people that he had slaughtered be stated in such a dull manner.

T-two million?

In all his years he had tried to recall just how many lives he had taken, only to be reprimanded at each turn by Minaleese who would get upset every time he kept trying to purposely punish himself for things that he could not control.

What else could he do after all? Forget about everything and act like nothing happened? No of course not. To do such would be to degrade the term of cowardice to its lowest degree imaginable. Sure he could not bring back the dead like he could not bring back his fallen race.

But in the same way he could never forget his people, he could never forget or escape from his monstrous atrocities that tormented him daily even though they only appeared to him in flashes of red. Only red that came with the screaming voices of hell, consisting of men, women and children.

Whether or not some of them were his and his people's enemies was irrelevant to him. Every enemy still had a family, and those families had innocent victims and those victims suffered from that, just like they did their entire lives with the decreasing Racaan numbers.

Regaining his composure, he finally answered the question he posed.

"Close, but no. The answer is half that, one million more or less. Yes, there was a time when there used to be around one million Racaans in all of Constantia," Renero said, hearing how much incredulous disbelief was in his own voice in recalling such times and such numbers.

"In his long strenuous lifetime, my father O'Tata Reoro was known as 'Reoro The Strong Kind', due to him being one of if not the kindest Chief in our history and the one who proposed the new Racaan way for future generations to follow. Which was that of 'Peaceful Defense.'"

Renero let his eyes wander around the room to fix themselves on a burning light to derive brightness from it in the way the Amo spirit fueled him.

"You see, although I loved and looked up to my father very much, truth be told I didn't spend that much time with him growing up due to the numerous responsibilities he had in being Chief to larger numbers of Racaans back then."