The bees that were fleeing started to turn back and attack soldiers in a frenzy, the queen must have sensed the death of his king and personally ordered her children to attack us. I held Silver edge with both arms but my left arm malfunctioned and let go of the sword, I can only use my right hand now

"Five, damage report" I looked at the Guardian kneeling on the Ground

"Sustained heavy damage, Energy blade is at 0%" Fives replied as it grabbed the arm that was torn off

"Return to our tent and try to patch yourself up, once the ship returns, immediately get yourself repaired" I ordered

"Roger!"

Fives left

"Is he okay?" Cynthia approached me with a worried look

"Yes, don't worry he's ok" I replied

Cynthia looked at me with a saddened face, something tells me that she's blaming her own weakness.

"Don't worry, we're all ok" I patted her head before running off to kill the bees that kept attacking

It took us a while, we lost 40 soldiers, 30 are injured while 10 are currently struggling between life and death.

"Your arm..." Cynthia looked at my arm that was releasing a few sparks every now and then

I quickly wrapped a cloth around it

"I'll get this fixed once Alissa comes back" I replied

"Hmm? what's wrong with your arm Zeno?" Brunhilde covered in sweat and bee blood approached us

"I just took some hits while taking on that guy" I pointed at dead king

"Oh... that guy, I saw a glimpse of your fight earlier... it was... eye-opening, I must train harder" Brunhilde stated

"Hmm, how do you usually train?" I asked

"I always do a one thousand rapier thrusts in the morning, after that I run laps around the house or have a spar with my peers"

"Peers?" I didn't see anyone with her

"They're all royal guards back at the Kingdom"

"Oh, then how about this, I'll train with you someday"

"Really? I'll be looking forward to that day. Well then, I'll excuse myself... Cynthia, wanna come with? we're both covered in sweat"

"Yeah, I'm coming" Cynthia replied

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The two women left, I saw Gram sitting in the corner so I approached him

"Something on your mind?" Gram seems to be troubled so I asked him

"...What did you first think" He asked me

"Sorry what?" I didn't get the question

"What did you first think when you first saw a human explode in front of you, I mean, although I'm a soldier, I only saw people get stabbed or get brutally beaten to death but someone exploding right in front of your eyes?"

"To be honest, I didn't know what to think, I was young back then when were attacked... it all happened so fast but one thing's for sure, all there was in my mind was the need for strength"

"Yes, the need for strength, so you can avenge your fallen comrades"

"No, I needed strength to protect other people from the same fate I suffered" I pat his back

"Funny how a youngster like you is more mature than I am"

"War forced me to grow up"

"War huh" Gram looked at the dead men before standing up and stating " I'm going to clean up this mess, you go have your arm looked up"

Gram noticed me gripping my cloth-covered arm

I did as I was told and headed for the tent, I sat down on the bed, I saw Five just beside the entrance on standby mode

'Zeno, Zeno, can you hear me?' I received a message from Alissa

'Yeah, loud and clear, everything went well?' I asked

'Perfect but you know, I saw smoke rising from the city when I was landing, everything okay there?'

'Yeah, Fives and I are a little damaged though, can you get Guardian 2 ready so he can repair Five asap?'

'Got it, we're in the forest just south of the city, meet us there'

'Alright'

Guardian Five and I walked for a few minutes before reaching the forest, Alissa sent me the location of the ship and Lilith guided us.

The moment Five went in, he was quickly taken to the repair room where Guardian Two will repair him, as for me, I was pulled in the examination room

I took off DK, Lilith was responsible for DK's self-repairing system while my arm was being taken care of Alissa. She carefully removed my arm started repairing it, I fell asleep without noticing it

I woke up five hours later and noticed that Alissa was asleep in her own table, my arm was beside her head on the table. I re-attached it and a pre-recorded message played on her computer

"Zeno, I don't know when you'll wake up so I just left this message in case I fall asleep. The cracks in your arm have been fully repaired but at the cost of using most of our materials... this war is really taking a toll on me and whenever I see you seriously injured I... just please stay safe okay?"

I can't promise anything, I can only strive to survive each battle much like what I did in the past, only difference is that I now have someone waiting for me

I carried Alissa to our room and laid her on the bed, I ordered Guardian 1 and 4 to guard the ship while Guardian 3 will be patrolling outside

I left the ship and returned to the city, all the corpses have been cleaned up, they're currently burning the corpses. I returned to my tent and saw Azazel beside Cynthia who was currently sleeping, I didn't want to disturb her so I left after taking Azazel with me.

Julius and Gram were back at the tent where we held meetings, it's what the soldier I asked said

I went to the tent and saw Julius who seems to be in a good mood

"Something happened?" I asked

"Yeah, people back at our city sent us reinforcements" Gram answered my question

"That's good" I nodded

"Indeed, because we lost half of our troops in the last battle" Julius remarked

"You guys planning something?" I asked

"No, we're taking a break, please come and join us" Julius replied

"No, I'm going to walk a bit, get some things off my mind" I replied

I left the tent and just started wandering off, I'm still thinking about the specter stone that Vicereine owned. What is happening here?

How did Vicereines necklace get here? was she taken here just as what happened to us? no, if so then she would've died when the bomb exploded, as for the necklace... it could withstand the blast. I must know the origin of that necklace, that bomb would've probably had a large blast radius, I can go an ask Gram, something big couldn't have missed his ears right?

I returned to the tent but was surprised at the "Guest"