“Those are some nice eyes you three have,”

As the other soldiers collapsed to the ground with overwhelming exhaustion, my three friends seemed bloodthirsty for the first time in my life.

“You gotta control it otherwise, it’s going to make you its puppet,” I said, awakening the three and causing them to let out a long sigh of relief, exhaustion, but mostly content.

They were still a bit shocked by the surrounding area, but we were already making our way out of the trench and into the crumbled city.

We ran and ran for what seemed like hours until we finally reached the base.

Some of the people who clawed their way out of the trench died from blood loss as even though the healer can patch up their wounds, she can’t replenish or make blood out of thin air to help her patients.

So, some of these guys didn’t make it.

…

“WHY THE FUCK DID YOU RETREAT!” A large and bulky man decorated with patches shouted into our faces.

The other soldiers looked down, disappointed in themselves, but they shouldn’t be, and instead explain the situation.

“THERE ARE PEOPLE AMBUSHING US FROM OUR BACKLINE, AND IF YOU GUYS AREN’T THERE, THEN WE’LL BE COMPLETELY WIPED OUT!”

“Sir, allow me to explain,”

The man who was fuming with anger snapped his head towards me, and his bloodlust practically dug into my skull, trying to the answer itself.

“Tch… Speak,”

“Thank you, sir… well, we completely wiped out the ambush. We also managed to take down a High-C Rank adventurer. He was a battlemage that used fire magic in tandem with his fists,”

“*sigh*… Well, I guess that’s fine, but next time if you retreat, I won’t let you keep your head,”

“Hey, don’t **ing talk to me like that. I’m a mercenary. If I want to retreat, I can retreat and just not get paid, so shut the ** up and stop scaring my friends,” I said with cold eyes, and even though his bloodlust was much stronger than mine, I stood my ground.

“Kid… Do you want to be sent to the front lines? I can send you there with the authority I have….” He said, and I just gave him a pitiful face.

“But sir, we’re snipers. We won’t be of much use with the number of bullets flying around,”

“Does it look like I care? While you’re under my authority, I have to make the best decisions and what we need now is numbers… So you’re going to the front lines,”

I smiled widely, causing some of my friends to sigh with exhaustion.

“If possible… That would be lovely,”

“*sigh*… I hate kids like you. Alright, I was going to send you guys to the frontlines anyway. We need as much support there as possible. I was even planning on going there once a few new mercenaries arrive,” The commander said, causing the other soldiers’ faces to pale.

Seems we’ll be seeing some runaways tonight…

…

“Hey, why’d you have to go and anger the commander like that,” Bella said, lightly punching my shoulder as I feasted on the rations that were distributed.

We were already leaving tomorrow, and this time, I could actually fight on the frontlines with my new spear.

“I was trying to keep some of our pride. You all were being pussy and let him talk down on you like that… We’re not contracted soldiers meaning we’re not obliged to completely listen to our commander’s orders,”

“But we still have to follow his orders if it’s an important decision, right?” Findir attempted to confirm.

“Yep… Anyway, got any calls from your father?” I asked Bella, who had flopped down onto her pillow and mingled with the grass.

“I’m sure he’s fine. The other families won’t attack now, especially with the amount of tension already between them. It’ll take them a while to warm up with each other… their power isn’t enough to take on our family head-on. We have thousands of soldiers, outclassing pretty much every family in this damn city,”

“Hey~ We’re here, y’know. Stop talking about important **… Cy already has steam coming out of his ears. I think you killed him,” Aisa said, and the both of us just chuckled a bit before completely relaxing our bodies.

There was a beautiful silence inside the tent right now, with every single one of us smiling with joy, despite the hellish experience we had just gone through.

I don’t want to ruin the air, so I’ll just keep the pep talk tomorrow.

…

“ALRIGHT! ONCE WE ARRIVE AT THE EDGE OF THE FRONT LINES, WE’LL BE BARRAGED WITH GUNFIRE AND SPELLS! I HAVE ALREADY BEEN INFORMED THAT OUR TAIL IS BEING NIPPED AT AS WELL, SO YOUR JOB IS TO HOLD THEM BACK OR COMPLETELY ERADICATE THEM!” The commander shouted as we were all loaded onto heavily reinforced trucks.

,m The air between everybody at my party was even tenser than the time before, and since I didn’t want to get their hopes up, I decided to give them a warning.

“The place we’re going to is completely different from any place we’ve been to before. Even the place you saw earlier was tame because the edges of the storm had already passed… So please, we must stay in a group,”

They all gave me a slight nod before Findir spoke up for the first time this morning.

“Where’s your spear? How are you going to survive in the place you’ve described without a weapon?”

“I can call it to me whenever I want, but it doesn’t just appear in my hand. It literally flies into the air and smashes in front of me… I was a bit surprised when I first called it,”

“Hmmm… I see,”

The silence was so tense that you could cut it with a butter knife, and soon, a barrage of bullets collided with our truck.

We all tensed our muscles and then braced ourselves for the incoming fireball, knocking the truck to the side.

Once we bust the backside open, a place I thought I would never visit again appeared in front of me.

It was a complete hellscape.