A month after the declaration of war, the three friends along with twenty other boys of around the same age were called by the region to form a regional football team.

They left their villages and entered a training camp at Plum, the regional administration town.

Since the players for the national team would be chosen from this, all regional administrations put extra effort into born more representatives from their region. It is a competition of pride for them.

The war? They did not care. Their systematic and highly capable standing army was doing its job properly. Every day on the news, they won battles. They were gaining ground. So whatever was happening in the land of Goli, they did not concern. For the people in the inner parts of Davia, war was something on paper which they read during their peaceful morning coffee.

Vicka joined as a substitute goalkeeper while Clooney and Dickson were in the first lineup.

Although they did miss their village and its serene environment, none of them regret coming to town.

Every day they would eat breakfast at camp had some training, lunch, and some more training and then by evening it was their self-improvement time. And self-improvement meant_

"Wow, so many cars. So cool."

"Hey look at that girl at three. She is freaking hot."

"Yeah. All the girls here are so pretty."

"Stop staring like that or they will know we are country bumpkins."

"I think she winked at me. Should I go talk to her?"

"Of course. Go!"

Girls, drinks, movies and parties. The time at the camp would become the best five months of their lives.

There was another good thing for Vicka. It was the newspaper. Now he could read it at the same time as others, in the morning, while enjoying a cup of warm coffee and biscuits. From time to time, Clooney and Dickson would ask him to read it aloud. They were too lazy to read on their own. And he was happy to read for them.

"What's new today?" asked Dickson while he stood up to get the pepper for the egg.

"We won a major battle near Vālance. Soon we will control the town." Vicka answered enthusiastically.

"How about that oil field? Did we get it?"

"Yes. At the start of the war. It was the first ground we gained. ... You didn't know?"

Vicka was surprised by how ignorance of his friends about the current situation. It had been three months into the war. For their defence though, they did know everything about the names and stories of war heroes. Those are what they enjoyed.

_Sir Mustard from the armoured division destroyed two entire squads in a battle.

_Sir Edward shot down an enemy tank and annihilated a squad while soaring in Goli's sky like an eagle.

_courageous soldiers freed Davians from Clad, a town where hundreds of Davians are harassed by Goli for being a Davian.

_private Michalson bravely gave his life to free his encircled comrades.

Those stories brought them excitement and inspired dreams to be a hero themselves. And watching them all excited about such a story convinced Vicka to pursue his dream. Unlike other boys, upon hearing those stories, Vicka wanted to be a journalist who could move millions of hearts with an article he wrote.

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"Damnit. It says Goli are driving out Davians from home and forcibly deported to Davia with bare hands. All properties left in Goli were burnt or robbed." Daniel, Vicka's friend from the camp, read the article from the last page aloud. The horror fellow Davians suffered in Goli was reflected on the faces of everyone.

Angered, one of the boys said, "Why don't we do the same to them?" Luckily the coach heard him and stopped his misbehaviour beforehand.

"Are you a barbarian? Because what you said is the act done by such people."

One day, while they were enjoying their self-improvement time as usual, Vicka saw a man in his fifty, some parts of his hair had turned grey, sitting in an alley. He seemed to be angry at something. He was puffing out his pipe violently while reading a newspaper. A cup of tea on a nearby table could not calm him down.

But the reason the man was caught in Vicka's eyes was that the paper he was reading was something he had never seen before. It enticed his enthusiasm. So Vicka approached the man politely.

"May I know where this newspaper is from?" Vicka asked the man. The man did not seem pleased by his intrusion. He raised his eyebrows and asked back grumpily, "What? You police?"

It flustered him. So he had to explain to the man that he was a boy who like reading the news and that from where he came from, there was no newspaper like the man was reading. He explained that he was interested in the paper. Only after that, the man lowered his suspicion.

The man confirmed one thing with Vicka, "so you have been reading news only from one source."

Vicka nodded.

The man shook his head with pity, "then you were reading propaganda. Not news, lad. You aren't getting smarter. You are being molded. See this paper. You have never seen this because they were banned by our civilised government after an anti-war article. Here read this."

The man shoved the paper into Vicka's hands. He read it immediately. The article was as followed_

_Behind every beautiful war story were pointless deaths of men, both armed and unarmed: hundreds of soldiers decimated unnoticed for Vālance, a town where no Davian to be free, while a unit of Davian beheaded residents as an act of revenge_

As it turned out the man was a captain for a commercial shipping line. With his connection to foreign lands, he smuggled foreign newspapers for himself. And through those papers, he found out the truths behind the propaganda.

From that day onward, Vicka did not enjoy his morning-coffee news anymore. The more so he hated reading those sugarcoated war stories to his friends. When he saw the posters or heard stories from the radio, he turned to the other side, while in his head he mumbled, "urg* this repeated propaganda. When will this end?"

For the next two months, he went to the man every evening and together he read the news from all different sources to find out the real stories. And through there he found out how bad the war had turned into. Just in a week alone, thousands perished combined on all fronts; while in local news only victories and small setbacks were covered.

While everyone including his closest friends enjoyed parties and girls, he noticed a whole different life was coming for them soon. After all, where was better to recruit new troops than a training camp full of energetic youths.

His prediction was right.

After six months in the war, prime minister Balling had signed a new decree that would affect them all.

From the radio: Because of the hard resistance from Goli troops in the most ruthless and savage ways, the nation has been in a deadlock to advance. To penetrate through the enemy line, colonel Mckanthy shall open a new front. To embrace our certain victory sooner and return to peace earlier, the brave men of Davia are called upon to join the new recruitment for the great army of Davia. To arm! To victory! Glory to Davia!!

And so a recruitment officer came to their camp the next day.