‘Sir, what do we do? They're walking toward us.’ Oran looked to the side.

‘Just wait and lower your profile.’ Ethan picked up his radio from his chest.

The soldiers on his team were nervous as the Lavan soldiers came closer to their position. They started to look at one another as Ethan put his radio next to his mouth.

‘Blue, this is red, Lavan soldiers going deeper into duchy territory, close proximity.’ Ethan spoke softly.

‘Red, this is blue; drop them.’ Egor's voice came from the radio.

As Egor’s voice came to an end, Ethan got the radio back on, looked at his team with a serious expression, and noticed that they were unaware of what they should do now, but in a second that uncertainty vanished as his mouth opened.

‘Pick your target.’ Ethan looked at the Lavan soldiers.

Like they did every time they trained together, aiming for the one to the right, Ethan pointed to the farthest to the left, Oran to the right of that, and so on. That was not something they learned from Alon or any other superior; for them, it was just common sense.

‘Hold’ Ethan locked in on the soldier's chest.

They came closer with each step. Asher was surprised at how the Lavan soldiers couldn’t see them, maybe because of their uniforms or the foliage, but the mixture of both was the right call.

‘Fire at will.’ Ethan pulled the trigger.

He noticed that the sound startled the kingdom soldiers, but it was for nothing; his count Asher missed one, but at the same time he didn’t because it dropped the guy behind him. The one with leather armor looked towards them; maybe he saw the blue trace. In the end, it didn’t matter as they all prepared for the next shot, pulling the bolt almost at the same time and pulling the trigger again, and only one scream was heard at the end.

‘I missed.’ Samal punched the ground.

‘Asher missed too; let’s go.’ Ethan stood up.

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Asher spoke while looking at Ethan.

‘No problem, soldier; it was my first time too.’ Ethan nodded at him with a smile.

Even with a smile on his face, he felt a strange feeling; all of his teammates were feeling the same. It was like they took everything from these people they killed. What made it worse was that it was true. Did they really need to kill these soldiers? They will never know. That was on their minds while they came closer to the bodies of the lavan soldiers.

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‘What do we do, sir? One of them is still alive.’ Asher pointed at the soldier holding his leg.

‘I will deal with it.’ Ethan came closer to him.

As the soldier on the ground extended his hand toward Ethan, he just took a deep breath and looked at him in the eye, and his expression was filled with sadness.

‘Why didn’t you turn back?’ Ethan pulled the trigger.

‘What now, sir? I don’t think we can let root here.’ Caleb stood next to Ethan.

‘Let’s drag them next to the goblins and orks; they killed each other, sounds like a good story.’ Ethan pointed at the monster corpses.

‘Oh no…’ Oran sigh.

‘Less complaining and more lifting bodies, brother.’ Samal put his rifle to the side and lifted the body of one of the soldiers.

‘No one finds strange how quickly he accepted that we are going to just lift bodies; what is happening?’ Asher put his hands behind his head and turned away from the others.

‘Asher, calm down and help me grab this one. Look at Samal; he already threw his body on the ground; these guys are heavy.’ Ethan pointed at Samal while grabbing someone’s foot.

Asher helped Ethan lift up a body while looking up, and while Ethan was holding their feet, the others did the same, with Samal coming closer to Asher and looking at him, finding his behavior strange.

‘I’m glad that your line was killing these soldiers at cold blood, Asher.’ Samal shook his head.

‘It is everything; your idiot, don’t talk to me.’ Asher tried his hardest not to look at the body.

It took some time to get all of the bodies into place, and when they dropped the last one, Ethan’s radio crackled.

‘Red, this is blue; we are coming from the south into your position.’ Egor’s calm voice came on.

Ethan turned around, looked around, and saw at the distance that the blue team was approaching. He signaled to the others and pointed in Egor’s direction. When the sargent came closer, he noticed the bodies on the ground among the monsters.

‘What are you doing, corporal?’ Egor looked at the bodies and at Ethan.

‘Sir, I’m trying to cover what we did if one day another patrol comes by.’ Ethan scratched the back of his head.

‘Well… Ok, let’s go.’ Egor passed Ethan, continuing to walk.

Ethan looked to the members of his team and signaled for them to follow behind him as they walked away from the bodies. Asher looked behind the bodies and forward again, this time putting his hands together, putting them closer to his mouth, lowering his head, and closing his eyes for a moment.

With Egor and Ethan at the front of their doble line, the sound again was just the wind, but now, with the steps of their shoes, birds started to fill the ears, which made them all feel relaxed, as normally animals would hide themselves because of the monsters.

Looking at the scenery of the green plains with forests to their right serving as a sort of wall between the duchy and the rest of the kingdom, that is how every single one of the members of the squad saw it; the duchy was completely separated from the kingdom in their minds. Maybe that is why there was no problem in killing Lavan soldiers if it was called for it.

They stopped at a small hill closer to the forest, and Egor used this opportunity to use his spyglass to see if he could see something around them at a distance. They formed a circle, with Egor and Ethan in the center and the others looking outward, pointing their weapons in search of a target.

‘You got all the fun corporal; I think this mission is kind of over; we are close to meeting point.’ Egor looked around with his spyglass.

‘Don’t know if you can call that luck, sir.’ With his rifle down, Ethan looked at his teammates.

'Sorry, Ethan, it was just a way of saying.’ Egor looked at Ethan with a sad face.

‘It is… ’ He was cut off by a crackling sound coming from Egor’s radio.

‘Shadow three, this is light; we request immediate support east of the meating point.’ Bartel's voice sounded puffy.

‘Light, this is shadow three, understood.’ Egor nodded to Ethan.

‘Alright, we need to move fast; they need our help.’ Ethan spoke out loud.

Egor started to up his pace, with everyone following behind him, but some of the soldiers noticed that they were going in the direction of the forest.