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1315 Words
The thought felt so arrogant, it made him cringe. Duke Waters found a situation and immediately solved it, right there in the open. Matt hid under a blanket in the cold, waiting to ambush a simple crafter. The last time he killed humans on the training world he had killed in self-defense, but this was cold and calculated. Premeditated.
His introspection was cut off when a familiar figure moved into the row of tents, and Matt had to stop himself from tensing.
As the figure approached, the moon gave just enough light for Matt to clearly see her face. It was Zoey. After a quick message to Geraden, it only took seconds for Matt to hear the loud sounds of two wolves making a ruckus.
Zoey turned slightly and, at that exact moment, a root reached out and grabbed her feet. As she tumbled to the ground, Matt was already moving. When she caught herself from hitting the ground, he slammed the metal rod he had palmed onto the back of her neck.
From all the power that his [Mage’s Retreat] infused muscles could produce, the blow landed with a sickening crunch. The body of the royal crafter went slack just as the horrible sound echoed in his ears.
Matt moved his scarf to her face and wrapped her eyes up. He had broken her spine. It would certainly kill her, but she wasn’t dead yet, so he had to be wary of her AI. Pulling both of them up to his sword, he rose in the air. With all the speed that the Tier 7 flying device could muster, he left the area.
Zoey’s body felt like a ton of bricks as he flew into the darkness, with the wind whipping at his unarmored form. He wasn’t willing to risk [Cracked Phantom Armor] ‘s slight glow giving him away.
As he sped away from the camp, he felt the burst of essence from the woman after five minutes of flying. His AI noted it was right in the normal range. The royal was dead.
Having already moved miles away, he removed his scarf, and dumped the body into the forest.
Turning around, he quickly returned to find that the camp was a flurry of activity. Slipping through the darkness in between carried lights, he navigated through the mass of tents, and returned to his and Liz’s tent from the rear.
Liz shot him a panicked look that quickly turned to relief when she saw that it was him. She didn’t verbally ask anything, but he read her expression well enough.
At his slight nod, she wrapped him in a big hug, with Aster snuggling in between them.
They didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. Neither of them liked the situation, and they wanted to put it far out of their minds once it was over.
Not long after, they were checked on, and asked to join the search for the attacker. Zoey had gotten a distress signal out before he had taken her away, but she hadn’t been able to identify her assailant.
No one expected Zoey and her attacker to have gone far. They searched the camp for a few hours, until everyone gave up, without finding a single lead or clue. Soon, they returned to the ‘normal’ that was living under the constant threat of golem attacks.
The next morning, when they met for breakfast, the group talked over their successful mission. They all agreed that it was good that Camilla didn’t carry out the hit herself and had been sitting around a fire at the time. Perfectly visible.
She had been the first and most thoroughly questioned person and was able to say with AI verification that she took no part in killing the woman. It had come to light that Juni already knew about Zoey’s actions but was unable to act. The rumors were spreading around the camp, as a few of her victims had stepped forward with news of her death. Not long after, there was outrage brewing in the camp, directed at the lone leader.
Matt almost felt bad for the man, but he was still numb from what he had done. He didn’t have nightmares, but he didn’t sleep well either.
As they talked over breakfast, the team was asked to meet with Juni and the other rescue team for a briefing. As they ate, they saw that the camp was quickly getting dismantled. There was no reason to dally, as their planned move-out time was just after noon.
When they arrived, Matt saw the others prepping their gear and sitting around Juni. When he saw them, he called out, “Oh good, you’re here. We need to go over a slight change of plans. The prince wants to move the time up by half an hour.”
“Why?” Liz, their team’s spokesman, asked the question on everyone’s mind.
Juni shrugged while rubbing his face. “I don’t know. That was the message passed to us, and all of my requests for more information have gone unanswered.”
Matt felt that the answer was obvious and didn’t hold back.
“So, we’re gonna be used as bait for the golems? That’s f*****g grand.”
Juni just smiled slightly.
“This is partially my fault. Well, it’s really mostly my fault. The prince wasn’t fond of Zoey, but she was his maid’s sister. Since I let her die under my watch, I’m pretty sure that we’ve now become the distraction.”
Fen asked, “Is there anything we can do to not get slaughtered? I don’t look forward to dying, solely because some r****t got removed.”
Juni just laughed. “Disobeying would be treason in a time of crises, and we would be executed if we survived. The only hope is to go along with the plan and not die.”
Matt’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.
Were my actions worth getting more people killed in retaliation?
The second-guessing and guilt ate at him, until he realized that there was no good answer. He couldn’t tell the future, and he didn’t think he could live with himself if he had walked away from that kind of abuse.
He just couldn’t find the answer that could leave the most people unharmed, no matter how hard he searched for it.
He decided that what was done was done. He tightened his grip on his sword and spoke up.
“So, we push through, and cut the golems guarding the rift down. Then we…” he gestured to the rest of the fighters, “pivot and act as a rear guard.”
That started the planning phase of the meeting, and they decided to go with that general idea. They also wanted to have a group of Tier 5 fighters watch the rift for exiting golems, while the stronger fighters moved to engage the enemies that were sure to follow.
With their plan being the best, they could come up with, they moved into position, with the rest of the camp being none the wiser. Matt didn’t know how he felt about leaving the others in the dark about the changes. The only ones who knew the original time were the leaders of various factions, and Juni decided to just tell them that everyone was moving early.
If the people panicked, it would just cause more casualties. Staying in the camp was a sentence to a slow death, for all the fighters who went out and those who defended the walls as well.
Matt had bent so many of his morals at this point, he wasn’t sure if he was still the same person he had been when he came to this planet.
The twenty heaviest hitters moved first, and the fourteen melee fighters ran forward with loping speed, covering ground quickly.
- Writer
