CHAPTER 10: A WAR NOT THEIRS

The sun shone brightly in the sky, casting an orange hue over the ground below and letting people know that it was noon.

In this noon, far away from the military outpost where Allen was, lay a different settlement. It was on the other side of the grasslands.

There also stood an army that was ready to be thrown into battle and lay down their lives.

However, there was a bit of a difference between the two.

While the soldiers on Luna’s side had firm determination on their faces, their eyes burning with a sense of grit even when they were not involved in combat.

The soldiers on this side, on the other hand, looked... determined. But it was a weird type of determination.

You would get the feeling if you looked at their faces. Mostly all of them had a serene expression on their faces.

Their eyes knowing only how to stop the enemy, their hands knowing only how to kill them.

Even as they ate, gathered around a campfire, they did not laugh. There were chatterings and discussions, yes.

But they were dull and cold, like the hard bread they had to eat. The roughness of which rubbed against their throats as they swallowed it, followed by pieces of half-cooked meat.

Things weren’t all dull though, they also had soup with them after all!

Two pieces of fat potatoes boiled in a bowl of salt water over the campfire that burned dully on those half-moist branches.

If you looked at this scene from afar it would be pretty clear why they behaved the way they did.

Yet, one would ask the question. Why only them?

Why were they the only ones slowly losing the line between the purpose of their lives and the purpose of the war?

Why were they the only ones who shivered in the coldness of the night and took rest under the branch of a tree during noon?

After all, it was not just them who were eating the hard bread, the half-cooked meat, and the "soup".

This battle had stretched on for far too long. It was only obvious that both sides would have issues in terms of logistics.

Things were just the same on the other side of the grasslands.

Well, the answer was quite simple. The soldiers on Luna’s side were fighting a war that was their own, a war that was personal.

The soldiers on the other side though were fighting just because they were told to, and because it was their job.

It wasn’t their war to fight.

***

A bit away from the borders of the settlement where the soldiers mingled, was a tent rather different than the others.

It had pieces of wood, and even metal structures built into it to carve out its structure rather than being a plain old cloth tent.

Inside the tent sat a man with a long beard and a forehead with the grace of a receding hairline. He would probably be somewhere in his mid-fifties.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

His finger struck the table repeatedly as he nervously looked at the entrance of the tent, then at the clock that hung on a wooden pillar.

It was 3 in the afternoon right now.

He repeated the process for a few minutes more.

He was restless, with beads of sweat dripping from his forehead and his breathing being out of sync.

Then his anxiety was lifted when a man dressed in light armor entered through the tent’s entrance.

The man first bowed to him and then looked at him with a sense of uncertainty in his eyes.

"We have received no message from them, Sir," he said. "Their communication devices are still pinging but there’s dead silence from the other side. We’ve tried multiple times to make contact."

The frown on the fifty-year-old man’s face deepened upon hearing that and he let out a long sigh.

"What the hell are those idiots doing? It has been long past the decided time!" he grumbled.

"How are we supposed to know if they were able to kill that wretched bitch or not!" he cursed out in frustration, slamming his fist on the table before him.

"What are your orders Sir? Should we continue with the designed plan or not?" the man in front of him asked.

He received no reply.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The man with the receding hairline wandered through his thoughts, hoping to find a solution to the mess that had been created.

"Sigh. If we decide to call it off there’s no way He would forgive me for it. It’s already been more than a month since we have been here," he mumbled, mostly to himself.

"But Sir, proceeding without the confirmation that she has been killed would be fatal. We already know the outcome from our past tries," the man standing before him said.

Normally he would have been fired and thrown into an isolation cell forever for presenting an opposing opinion to him.

After all, the man with the receding hairline was Randolf Weinchester, the Spearhead of this battalion.

Meaning he was the leading commander of these troops.

Fortunately though, he was Randolf’s right-hand man. One of the few people who were allowed to present him with an opinion of their own.

"I know that! But I would get my head chopped off if I were to delay any further!" Randolf said.

"Then what do you suggest Sir?"

Randolf’s breathing stabilized and he stopped the nervous tappings on the table.

After taking a few minutes to think, he seemed to have come to a decision.

He looked up, his eyes filled with determination. A weird determination.

"Sebastian."

"Yes Sir?"

"Prepare the soldiers. We are going to proceed with the plan," Randolf said.

"But—"

"I know. I know it," he interrupted. "If Luna Revoltstar is still alive the chances of our victory are slim."

"That is why I will throw all we have toward them. If she is dead then we will have victory. But in the case she is alive and still doesn’t meet her death, we will have had enough casualties on our side to retreat and call for reinforcements.

"We can say the enemy forces were more capable than our intelligence had predicted. We fought till our last breath, but eventually we were outnumbered and I had no choice but to call for a retreat.

"Because I couldn’t waste the lives of my soldiers after all."