Chapter 18
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Parker POV
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“What? Why?” I reflectively shouted
“Can he do it?” Richard asked
“He will learn. That’s why I also asked for your support.” Stella replied. She basically asked Richard to give his position as the highest leader to me. There is even a limit when insulting somebody. What the heck have you done!
“I see. So, that’s the case.“ Richard gave a nod “If it’s about the military, then I am fine. But the management of the city isn’t fully in my jurisdiction and thus, I have to report and asked for his majesty’s permission. If the count and duke governing this territory gave an opposition I will be helpless without his majesty’s decree.” He replied while squinting his eyes. It seems he gets what she meant and readily approves. Could it be, Stella knew more about politics in this kingdom than even I?
“Thank you very much, Richard.” Stella also nodded. I can see Alan was sweating buckets behind the table. The atmosphere was tense when Stella asked Richard to give his position to me. When I looked back at my group, no one gave care except Nana. While she also looked surprised, she calmly accept them. This matter didn’t concern her anyway so she can’t give any rebuttal
“Then, I will be heading to the capital tomorrow. I will leave the defense of this city to you in the meantime Parker. Und, Fay, and Bane. He is the leader for now. Please pay attention to his order.” Richard said while he gets out of the room.
“Well, Parker. May we end the discussion now?” Alan said while sweating. If I were him I would act quite similarly since just a few minutes ago he was interrogating us and was about to give a reprimand and now suddenly I became his superior.
“Okay. Please don’t forget to assign the guards and call us if anything happened. And please inform me if you have any recommendations.” I replied to the best of my abilities. A rule for me is that while it is important to keep face and dignity the first priority is knowledge and skills. So, I purposely left that last statement as a sign that I will accept any advice Alan gave. And thus, the meeting ended. We then spend our free time taking a stroll in the city. As expected of one of the main cities. With the exception of the imperial castle, it was as grand as the capital.
“Hey, I don’t get the meeting at all.” Chloe chatted idly while we were having lunch in one of the restaurants. Only a quarter of the business has resumed. Of course, almost all of them are in the middle of cleaning up. It was lucky that we managed to find this restaurant opened the day it was liberated. The owner was pretty hardworking. After seeing my face, he declared that we can eat all we like for free.
One month passed in a blink of an eye. I was surprised since Stella didn’t make any particular demands when I governed the city. Richard has returned and he bears the news from the king that I am allowed to govern the city until the next attack. The next attack is going to be launched in the next month. The noble that govern this particular city was quite fuming when he heard the king’s order but he gave up without a fight. He is now staying and sleeping like a pig in his residence without any desire to help me govern the territory. The rest of our groups were training from morning to evening but my and Stella’s training ends after 3 hours in the morning. After that, we went to our office for the paperwork in the city. Stella seems particular about the money flow in the city. I have no idea what she wanted by staring at financial report half of her time. Since she seemed to love doing financial auditing and reports, I left that particular job to her completely and worked towards another matter such as a new residence for immigrants from the capital and such.
“Parker,” Richard called
“Yes?”
“Do you want to join our scouts?”
“Ahh, for the attack next month?”
“Yes.”
“I will come,” Stella said.
“Then, I will also come.”
“Then, I will hold the city then. Ahh! But you can’t all go in 1 group. We need to check 3 different places after all.” Richard said.
“Okay.”
“You decide the team okay?” Richard smiled mischievously
“Huh? Wait!” I called him but he immediately run away. “I guess this is also experience.”
“Let’s go see Alan,” Stella said while she tidied her paperwork
Meeting with Alan we were explained that there are 3 paths to scout. 2 of them are a road to the next city in the northwest and northeast and the other one is looking out for ambush spots in the forest between the roads. We don’t even need to ask Alan why we need to check that forest. It was an extremely good choice to ambush armies marching on the road the first thing that came to my mind when I see the map is ‘we can ambush the enemy from here.’
“Stella will scout the Elysion and I will scout Randell. And the rest will go toward the forest. The leader will be Nana.” I said while finalizing the result. To be honest I have some doubts about assigning the task to Stella alone, even though she is the strongest among us, she is still a magician and thus prone to ambushes. Or so I think, she is probably an exception among exceptions. Fay isn’t really that prone to ambushes. And if worse comes to worst, she could just sacrifice several soldiers and counter. It only took a second or two to raise her barrier
“Well, okay. Are you sure you guys will be fine on your own?” Hart accepted his task but he still complained about this unfair distribution
“Well, their job is the easiest. Just walk through the road, see the city, and came back. There is no reason to worry. Maybe he intended this on purpose?” Will replied. His answer hit the mark. In the battle before, they barely get any experience and their reputation is still low. So, I purposely divided it this way. And the forest in itself is quite wide so it would be more efficient to send many people rather than a single overpowered man.
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John POV
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“Okay, as parker said, I am the leader. Our job is to lead and secure the forest. So expect some resistance not only from demons but wild beasts and demonic beasts okay?” Nana gave us a briefing. To be honest, she is just reading a note from Ran, an experienced scout party. We are gladiators, and although we are the ones that make the final decision, the choice and methods are usually left to guys like that. So, Ran is similar to Alan. They are just different in the types and sizes of troops they command.
“We will scout the forest, Parker and Stella’s vanguard army will approach in 2 days. Our job is to secure the road before they arrive and secure their retreat route if they ran into trouble.” Nana said in a loud voice. These boys and girls, even though they are just teenagers, they already understood some politics. I am a pathetic only adult here. Nana and Parker already able to lie with such a straight face are horrifying. Our real objectives are amassing fame and gaining support from the troops behind us. Parker also whispered to us to look further into the forest. Looking for signs of the demons' army counterattack and which city this army went into. This information is even hidden from Alan and Richard
And Stella is very weird, even though she has amnesia she knows something that nobody should know. Parker often whispered to Stella asking for pieces of advice. How the heck she knew there was any demons army beyond this forest
“Enemy sighted!“ Some soldier shouted. And as he described, some beastmen and traitors are coming. They looked like an ambushing army. Only some 20 or 30 people. We have 100 people here and 8 gladiators so they stood no chance.
“Okay! John! Support fire! Riki and Riko, spread out! Soldiers, follow them! Hart! We charge straight ahead!” Nana shouted and we finally engaged those demon factions. According to Nana’s order, I fire some ice balls and ice spears randomly at an enemy. They react accordingly and dodged. But since their formation scattered, Riki and Riko’s team managed to rout them. Chloe sniped the enemy beside me while Nita is doing nothing. She was cowering from the blood and her hands were shaking while she grip her staff so hard.
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I can’t do something like supporting them as parker does so I just ignore her and fired my spells. It’s hard for my spells to kill even common soldiers in one hit but at least I can distract them and if I fired it multiple times, I can still kill my enemies. Will also use ice spears. But unlike mine, his spears were a lot faster and could actually kill enemies. I fired them faster though.
In less than 5 minutes we successfully routed them and the soldiers cheered for a while and continue the scouts. Before dusk, we encountered another 2 ambushes. The soldiers grew livelier each time we succeed and they grew friendlier towards us. I managed to see Will laugh like an evil lord followed by the cheer of the soldiers.
“Sir, your tent is ready!” some soldier saluted. And then pointed to which one is my tent.
“Okay, where are the others?”
“They are having dinner right there sir.”
“Thank you” I smiled and the soldier smiled back. “Let’s eat together.”
“Yes sir!” as I followed him to the bonfire he guided me to the front seat together with Nana and others. We then ate together in front of the bonfire. For us gladiators, there are some blankets for us to sit on and the others sat on the ground. We were chatting quite happily. Mostly about the recent battle.
“Our tent is quite big…” Will said. Our tents were indeed bigger than the rest. With an exception of HQ tents, our tent is bigger than the rest. The girls’ tents are beside us.
“I am quite tired. Want to head straight to bed?” Will asked
“Okay. We are going to stay in this forest for over 7 days. If we get sick then we would be in trouble. Let's sleep early” Hart replied.
“I am not very tired, so I will walk around first,” I said while getting out of my room. Just in front of the female’s tent, I saw Nita sitting alone sulking. She picked some wooden branches and started to doodle on the ground.
“Hello, can’t sleep?” I greet her. She jumped in surprise but when she sees it was me, she sat again.
“Um… yes. Um… I’m sorry…” she said with a downcast expression.
“For what?” I replied.
“I am so useless. Today, I only managed to cast a single spell and they didn’t even hit anything… um… so, I am sorry for being a burden.” She replied. She is just like me when I was in high school. So meek and fragile. I bet she was also bullied in school.
“Just take your time. You were just an ordinary high school girl. So, it’s not like you can get used immediately to killing someone else. We perfectly understood that.” I tried my best to cheer her up. Though it might be fruitless since I also was a loner.
“But Nana and Hart are able to fight them head-on without flinching at all! To think they were that capable even if we are the same age. If this continues. They might leave me…” She started to cover her face while softly sobbing. This girl might have an inferiority complex even worse than me. She also flunked the written test at Academy and she fared no better here.
“Well, you were right on that one. Some of us were definitely more composed than the other but that doesn’t mean you were inferior. Um, you were kind of good with healing magic and barriers right? Why don’t you focus on that instead? That way you don’t have to see blood in the frontlines.”
“But Stella was better at barriers and everyone else was also able to use it to some extend.”
“Stella isn’t here right now and other have other jobs to do. I am a support fire, Will is an artillery fire while Nana is a vanguard.”
“...I see.”
“Um…I just want to say that this job is no less important than the others you know, I work as a salesperson in a company before on earth but I have been helped a lot by some other workers more mundane than I am such as clerks and even office boys.” I replied.
“I see. That’s good then” She mutter with a soft smile. “Thank you… for cheering me. I feel a lot better now. “
“Even if by some chance a lot of soldiers were to scorn or mock you, Nana isn’t such a heartless leader that she will support such a human. So your worries are useless. Relax more and just do your best. We are just ordinary people after all.” I replied. I already accepted a long time ago that somebody was just built to be special and most of us were just ordinary. Parker is a good example that somebody was special and I was a good example of an ordinary office worker
“Yes. Thank you… I feel much better now. Sorry for disturbing your free time. I will go back to sleep.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t have anything to do anyway. And I feel great after knowing that you share the same worry as I do.” I replied. As she went back into the tent, I continue stargazing. The moon here is unlike the earth. It has a tinge of blue and red. And no matter how many days I stare at it, its phase is always a full moon. no crescent moon or half-moon. It is somewhat beautiful but seeing the very same moon each day has made the others bored and I am the only one left to stare at it. I want some alcohol but I don’t want to disturb other soldiers who deserved rest so I just sat and stared at the sky doing nothing.
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Nita POV
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When I came back to the tent, I already found Nana is still awake. She seemed to read the notes parker gave her over and over again. Besides her is a stack of today’s battle reports. Unlike her, I dare not even look nor do I want to hear those reports since I knew for sure that the casualties today aren’t zero. If I am not mistaken, we have around 4 casualties and over 20 injured. And I see with my own eyes today one of the soldiers died in front of me. An arrow, unfortunately, hit his neck.
“Nana… can I help you?” I tried to open a conversation. I am very hesitant in calling her fearing that she would blame and abuse me with words such as ‘do your job in the field’ or ‘why aren’t you firing any spells today?’
“Hmm? Nothing in particular. I was just rereading a battle plan Parker has made for us. Today's battles seemed favorable so we have achieved our objective today. That’s good.” She replied in a very calm manner while folding the note Parker gave her back to her shirt.
“Isn’t the leader Ran? We aren’t following his orders?” I asked her while tilting my head.
“Ah… we follow Ran’s orders. That’s for sure. Parker just wants us to achieve secondary objectives such as prioritizing our own lives over killing enemies, befriending soldiers, don’t look arrogant, and battling in a flashy manner so we can gain reputations. That’s about it. “
“Is… that… all?” I asked doubtfully.
“Hmm… yup, there is nothing to worry about. I am just worried about our retreat path if we got ambushed. But it is just the first day… I am so paranoid sometimes…” Nana said while looking crestfallen. She holds a burden far heavier than the rest of us. I can’t imagine what I would do if I were in her position. I might just leave everything to Ran and cried like mad if something happened. Today’s battle too, the soldiers were rejoicing in their overwhelming victory. But it is a fact that some of us got killed and several others injured.
“Nana… you… don’t blame me…?” I asked
“Blame you for what? Ah! About your performance?”
“Yes… I am sorry…”
“Don’t worry about it. As long as we succeed at the task we were on then it’s all good. All of us do flinch a little when we have our first kill at the battle today. You will need to overcome it too sooner or later. I will help you. We will prepare some weak mobs and you will kill them. Okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, Nana.”
“Don’t worry, that’s why we are here. To train to kill enemies. In fact, Richard or Bane could do this alone but they decided to give this task to us instead so we should use it to the best of our abilities.” she said. just as Mr. John said, she not only didn't scold me but she also tried to help me. I need to say what's been on my mind.
"Um... I can't fight on the battlefield... I can't help but flinch or be outright scared w-w-when the enemy tried to approach me with s-s-such a brutal face. b-but, I want to help. I see that there are a lot of injuries today. can I stay back and help them instead...?" I asked while being fearful of her reproach. my body is literally shaking as it reminded me outright in school when my friends laughed at me for liking pink flowers.
"You are certainly proficient in healing magic. this world is unlike those games where you can heal lost limbs in a blink of an eye. so Parker has neglected its usage and decided to leave most of it to the army. but I personally think it is necessary. Hmm... Very well. from now on you are our white mage. you may stay at the back and try to heal our wounded soldiers." Nana said with delight.
This world of healing magic is mostly in a form of regeneration. when a person is wounded, we tried to connect to the person's mana and tried to direct the body to close the wound. then we stimulate the body to produce what's necessary to heal their wounds. the person's body mass will not change and this method may take months or several days depending on the severity of the injuries. catalysts such as herbs are often needed to amplify or speed up the healing process which made healing spells complicated to use.
"Fay is better at it than me... and Stella also..."
"Fay isn't here now. and I believe you can surpass her if you focus on it. I have studied a little about it. we have some herbs to amplify those healing magic. I will tell the soldiers to give it to you" Nana smiled. Her words resounded in me. not a rebuttal nor ignorance but full support. I unconsciously stared back at her and nodded while leaving. a full smile on my face.
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Parker POV
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“Sir Parker, some of the equipment isn’t ready.” Alan nervously replied.
“We are quite behind the schedule… it’s already been 3 days.” I replied back to Alan. We were supposed to go yesterday.
“There’s been a change of plan… the central nobles wanted to hasten the attack. So we will go to Randell and Elysion in 2 days, and capture it next week.”
“I thought we were supposed to begin the siege next week and this week is focused only on reconnaissance and clearing up traps and ambushes?” I asked back.
“Um…” Alan was tongue-tied.
“Well, the faster you capture the city, the better it will be,” Richard replied while avoiding eye contact. I can assume that the king and central nobles wanted to recapture these 2 cities ASAP and since we met with success in the city of Alpas and Berlin fort they think they can afford to be reckless a little huh?
“Richard, will you be leading the attack?”
“Umm… I’m afraid we will only be leading the Elysion attack. The Randell attack is completely yours.”
“What about the scouting group?”
“Nana, Stella, and Hart will go with you, the rest are going to be at Richard’s,” Alan replied.
“Hmm… why the split up?” I pondered. I am a little worried about the readiness of the second team, but I guess I can count on John when it mattered. And they also got Richard, Und, Fay, and Bane. They are not only a seasoned veteran but they are a rank-A team so I guess I can relax.
“We decided to put the strongest ones into your team. Just in case.“ Alan answered.
“… Okay…” I nodded reluctantly after seeing Stella's nonchalant face. She doesn’t seem to be against it so I reluctantly nod.
“And… Stella? Any questions?” Alan asked.
“How many soldiers do we have?”
“Um… 40 thousand. I thought I already said it a while ago!” Alan said almost shouting.
“No mercenaries? Even though we have already given you some money from Alpas' treasury? How did you use the money?” Stella asked back.
“We used it to buy some rations and siege equipment.”
“Even though the battle will only last 1 week… Do you still need extra rations? And the equipment is brought from the capital right?“
“Um… Miss Stella, the central nobles decided to use that money not on mercenaries but on rations and equipment so we can hasten the attack.”
“So, basically the central nobles didn’t give us any support and we should only attack using our own money? Where is the list and accounting book? I want to see it.” Stella's eyes grew quite menacing.
“Um… they reasoned that it was Alpas’ money and they think it was spent well. And you didn’t specify that we will use them for mercenaries either. I too think that instead of bolstering the number with mercenaries, using them as rations is better.”
“Yes. You are right. You spent them well. Sorry, I was just asking why the central nobles didn’t give any support. I didn’t question your judgment. I have seen the rations and they are barely enough for the attack plus 2 or 3 days.”
“Are you worried that rations aren’t enough?”
“Sorry. Forget if I said anything. Let’s go as your schedule…” Stella apologized.
“Okay. The meeting is then dismissed. We will notify you when we will depart. And I will write a letter to the recon group. Anything else you want to add?”
“Then, that will be all. Thank you for your cooperation. Especially you, Miss Stella.” Alan said.
And thus, the plan to take Randell was finalized.