Morning of Departure (1)

Corkus scoffs that Guts owes his standing entirely to Griffith, whom he calls a rare man watching a wild ambition turn real. Guts holds firm that he wants a purpose of his own to chase and fulfill. Corkus counters that almost no one ever reaches a lifelong goal and that an unmet dream is worthless to him; when Guts asks whether he carries such a dream himself, Corkus simply walks out of the tavern.

Judeau tells Guts that Corkus once headed a gang of thieves before signing on, and admits that his own knife and blade skill never made him the best at anything, so he chose to rise on Griffith's coattails. He cannot fathom trading knighthood and rank for a vague dream, yet concedes he misjudged Guts years earlier, when he assumed the swordsman had found his place among them on the ramparts three years back. Wishing him luck, Judeau agrees to see him off.

Walking through Wyndham, Judeau asks about Guts and Casca, having watched them grow close, and nudges him to act. Guts declines on account of her bond with Griffith, but Judeau argues that bond cannot last: with the Midland and Tudor war ended, Griffith has no battlefield left to earn a crown, so his surest route to royalty runs through Charlotte, now the throne's only heir after Julius and Adonis died. Guts recalls Griffith asking him, after they killed the Queen, to keep their hand in the killings hidden so the band's image of him stays unspoiled.

Judeau presses on: every obstacle before Griffith has fallen, and with the princess smitten, his dream looks all but assured. Casca's fervor, he adds, springs less from love than from worship, gratitude for the fresh life Griffith handed her, and if forced to choose between Charlotte and Casca, Griffith would take the one who advances his aim. Guts says he admires Casca but is no good for her while her eyes stay fixed on Griffith, and they let the matter rest. Then, just beyond Wyndham's wall, before Guts can go far, Casca, Corkus, Rickert, Pippin, and Griffith appear to bar his way, and Rickert asks whether he has soured on the Band of the Falcon.

Guts affirms his wish to leave in search of a dream of his own. Judeau explains why Casca cannot end up with Griffith and encourages Guts to pursue her. Guts recalls concealing the Queen's murder at Griffith's request. The full band gathers at the city wall to stop Guts from leaving.

An early Golden Age Arc chapter, it first appeared in Young Animal issue 8 on April 8, 1994, over twenty-two pages. Charlotte is seen only in flashback.