Silence is the plain man's curse, burying what it doesn't end. If he lets the matter rest between them, cautious delay will lead to pained inertia, both set out to eviscerate. Griffith will divert himself with fantasies of worlds where he is a plagued pauper, a simpleton, a madman, a tool of another, greater man's design. He would rot sooner than be lesser or lessened, unwilling to sacrifice his goals or his glory.

"So you work the field a little", he concedes before Griffith can continue down the path of barren considerations that sabotage and stifle his dreams. There's more to life than empty ambition fools chase for want of a full meal and a warm bed. "You get some more calluses. Casca beats you at every road song. No one knows your name."

The losses of a proud man, who can't see the mercy of simple living for the egregious fault of accepting a rare order. Already, Guts can tell the stench of slaughter, where Griffith's dignity dies a thousand deaths, all beneath him.

"So you give up more than you stand to gain." He abdicates greed and reason, willingly and without shame. "What's so bad about it, as long as you choose it?"

The wish and will to hold a sword, to claim a life, to set order where there lay only chaos and injustice — to put down roots, or tear them whole. This is what the war path gave them, as swordsmen who only know their own will. This is what they should aspire to.