Hercules paused and laughed, shaking his head.
"At that time, when the doctors and nurses suddenly smiled, I did not understand anything. But now that I say it out loud, I understand it clearly. Hannah did not smile. She did not cry. The first sound she ever made was a sneeze."
He wiped his eyes, still smiling, before continuing.
"After she sneezed, the nurse picked her up and started walking toward me, but maybe he was still scared of me. He stopped halfway, placed her on the bed beside June, and practically ran out of the room. That annoyed me a little, but when I turned to Hannah, she was smiling at me.
She had tiny fingers, tiny legs, a tiny nose. Yet her eyes were huge, staring at me with a little curl of a smile on her lips.
June let go of my hand and lifted Hannah gently. She caressed her with such confidence, as if she had held our daughter a thousand times already. I just stood there, a giant reduced to a statue.
After a while, June looked at me and said, 'Stretch your hands forward.' I did not know why, but I obeyed. She placed Hannah in my arms and smiled.
She asked, 'Why is the strong royal knight scared of touching his baby?'
Only then did I realize that I was terrified. All my life I held weapons, big or small, heavy or light. But never anything as fragile as that tiny human.
My thoughts raced wildly. Will my strength crush her. Will she find me frightening. Will she cry. Will she think I am cold, or cruel, or something worse.
But she did not feel any of that. She smiled again and placed her tiny hand on my beard. When her small fingers brushed my lips, I burst into tears. My heart felt like it would explode from joy.
I cried while my lips smiled, and they stayed like that for a long time. My face was a strange mix of joy and helplessness that I had never felt before. When I finally calmed, I placed Hannah beside the sleeping June. The two of them lay there on that bed, breathing softly, wrapped in the quiet glow of the hospital lights. And I remember the words I whispered to myself while watching them, words that etched themselves deep into my bones. I said, 'I should protect them, no matter what happens, I will protect them until my death.'
After Hannah was born, I became the captain of the king's guard. Yet compared to the happiness I felt while playing with her, compared to the sense of completeness I felt at home, the title meant nothing. I held the rank, but the joy of being a father outweighed the pride of serving the throne.
Every day, I walked Hannah to school with June. Every day, no matter how busy I was, I picked her up afterward. Even if a banquet was happening, or a meeting was held in the palace, I excused myself. When she ran to me shouting 'Dad' in her sweet voice, I felt happier than I ever did receiving praise from the king.
Once, June's father teased her and asked, 'Which prince should your dad bring for you to marry?' Hannah answered immediately, 'I do not want a prince, I will marry my dad.' That was the proudest moment of my life. I repeated that story to my colleagues for an entire week until they finally begged me to stop.
But when Hannah turned ten, everything began to change.
Across the continent, kingdoms were strengthening their military power. Our kingdom's ministry insisted that the Beetle rank, which had been left vacant for centuries, must be filled again. As a result, the king ordered me to take that position.
Serving as a Beetle ranked officer meant living at the wall. It meant leaving my home, leaving Hannah, leaving June. It meant spending years far from the kingdom, unable to know what dangers or troubles my family might face. Because of my greed to remain with them, I declined the king's command. I was prepared for punishment.
But unexpectedly, the king made a proposal. He offered me two months of vacation for every one month other forces received. He said it would allow me more time with my family than any officer had ever been given.
I tried to refuse again, but the Ministry was not something a man of muscles could win against. Their words wrapped around me like ropes. Every argument they made tightened the knots. In the end, I was cornered into accepting. Before I even processed it fully, my name was changed to Hercules Beetle.
Somehow, I managed to leave the kingdom without making Hannah cry. As for June, she did not utter a single word while standing beside the van. Only when I sat inside, ready to leave, she spoke quietly. 'Do not worry about us.'
Her voice trembled, though she tried hard to hide it.
Three days passed in the van as landscapes changed like turning pages. Before I realized it, the journey had ended. I stood in front of the gate of the military base.
I still remember what I saw when I stepped through those gates. The Wall. A structure nearly 100 meters tall, stretching into infinity. Even from miles away, its presence was overwhelming. That was the first time I truly saw the Kingdom's Wall, the legendary masterpiece of the Great King, and the heart of the kingdom's defense.
I had spent my entire life hearing of the Great King's greatness. I sang the songs everyone sang. I read the stories written about him. I worshipped him as everyone did. But I never understood his power until I saw the wall with my own eyes. The sheer scale of it, the weight of it, the impossible beauty of its construction, made me feel small. For the first time, I understood why he was called the Great King.