Oath Of Iron And Fire

Chapter 13: Emergency Situations (Part 1)

"Your academic performance is so good, you won't be sent overseas." Winters didn't give up. He still had some hope that Bud would stay in his home country.

"I applied for an overseas assignment myself." Bud calmly said something that shocked Winters.

"What!" Winters stood up in shock. He looked down at Bud, not understanding why Bud would take the initiative to go to a dead end. Thousands of words in his mind merged into one sentence: "Why?"

"It's okay. Being assigned overseas isn't as bad as you think." Bud pulled Winters's clothes and asked him to sit down. "Sit down and let me explain it to you slowly."

"You know my family situation." Bud slowly started talking about his family background.

"Yeah." Winters nodded. This was a sensitive topic. Winters knew that Bud's parents were tenants of the monastery.

"My parents were sharecroppers. They were good, hard-working, pious people, and I'm proud of them." Bud's expression was gentle and solemn.

"I know." Winters nodded again. The standard for evaluating a person should not be the amount of wealth.

"So when everyone else was giving gifts and asking for favors, I didn't go. Not because I didn't want to go, but because I didn't have the money to smooth the relationship and make arrangements." Bud stated the facts calmly and cruelly.

There was no resentment in his tone: "It's not my parents' fault that I don't have money; it's not anyone else's fault that I have money to give gifts. This is the reality of the world. Although I am dissatisfied, I can only accept it. So it is inevitable that I go overseas."

"But even if you can't stay in the Federation, you still have a good chance of going to a member country, and the allocation of destination is not entirely based on money!" Winters still couldn't accept that Bud gave up hope and took the initiative to apply for an overseas assignment.

"I'm not better than others to the extent that I can ignore the influence of money, and I'm not a spellcaster." Bud continued to expose his scars coldly: "In fact, even if the students who spent money to operate, many will still be assigned overseas, not to mention me? There will always be a group of people going overseas."

"But you can't give up hope! There is always a chance, you can't just accept your fate!" Winters couldn't deny the cruel truth that Bud said, but he believed that he shouldn't give up while there was still a chance.

"I am not accepting my fate. On the contrary, I am fighting against it. I have been fighting against it since I left the monastery. This time, I don't want to wait for others to decide my fate." Bud said firmly, "I don't have the freedom not to go overseas. I accept it. But I at least want the freedom to go wherever I want."

"After all, overseas assignments are divided into many places." Bud laughed softly and returned to his leisurely pace: "If I hold on to a glimmer of hope, then in the end I can only go to the worst place overseas. I took the initiative to apply to go overseas, at least I can still choose."

Under the moon and the faint light from the pipe, Bud's expression was calm and resolute. Winters knew that Bud must have his reasons for actively applying for overseas assignment, but he now felt that the reason was too cruel.

But Winters had to admit that Bud was right, and that Bud's decision was the best solution in the worst situation. But his chest was stuffy, and his heart was filled with resentment, frustration, and powerlessness.

Winters fell on the stone table, swallowing back the thousands of words in his mind. Is it meaningful to scold those employees who took bribes for personal gain? Is it useful to scold those classmates who asked for favors and gave gifts? Bud had to go overseas in the end, and Winters finally sighed helplessly.

"Don't feel sad for me. I'm already satisfied that I've been able to go from a monastery servant to a cadet at the Army Officers Academy." Bud described his future life as an overseas officer in a relaxed and cheerful tone: "It's a good thing for me to go overseas. I heard that the salary for overseas assignments is three times that of staying in China. If I stay in China, I can't even afford to make a military uniform. I guess I can quickly save a small sum of money overseas to help my parents redeem the land."

"[Vulgar language]!" Winters roared through the night sky, waking up several guard dogs in nearby houses. Bud's optimistic attitude made him even more sad. The salary for overseas assignments was indeed high, but it was in exchange for life.

Bud patted Winters' leg, indicating that he understood everything, and the two fell into silence again. Apart from the chirping of insects and barking of dogs, the only sound was the puff of Bud's cigarette.

After a while, footsteps were suddenly heard nearby, and a teasing voice reached the ears of Winters and Bud.

"Well, you two, you're on night duty, not patrolling properly but hiding here to smoke. Were you the ones yelling just now?"

Two other students carrying long spears walked out of the darkness one after the other. The one in front muttered as he walked: "Why are you howling so late at night? Come on, help me light a fire..."

It was two second-year students who were on night duty at another gate. They were patrolling nearby and heard Winters' shout. So they came to see what was going on and wanted to start a fire.

When the two of them walked up to Winters and Bud and saw the three stripes on the sleeves of Badsha's uniform, they realized that the two people hiding here smoking were their seniors.

The structure of the military academy is modeled after the structure of the military, and the class system of the military is the class system of the military academy. Realizing that they had bumped into their senior, the two sophomores apologized repeatedly: "I'm sorry, squad leader. We didn't know it was you on patrol."

Winters was in a bad mood and didn't bother to pay attention to them.

Bud waved at them magnanimously, not only did he not scold them, but he also helped them light their cigarettes. However, Bud's cigarette was almost finished, so he couldn't light the two people's pipes.

Winters sighed, reluctantly took the pipes from the two students from Bud, and used the ignition technique to light the broken tobacco leaves in the bowl. He was already very familiar with this kind of thing, but the two students probably had never enjoyed a spellcaster using magic to light their cigarettes in their lives, and their eyes widened.

"Let's go." Winters stuffed two pipes into the hands of the students in a bad mood. The two students thanked him repeatedly and ran away in a hurry.

The two people were also wondering in their hearts: I don’t know what evil has possessed these two third-grade monitors that they don’t sleep well in the duty room but run out to patrol.

After the two juniors left, Bud also stood up and put down his pipe and straightened his clothes. He felt that he had not rested enough, so he said to Winters, "Let's go for a few more laps, so that the juniors won't laugh at us for being lazy."

Winters lay on the stone table, his legs dangling in the air. He was in no mood to patrol, so he said to Bud, "Sit for a while, then we'll go back to the duty room and sleep. It's the last night anyway, so we won't patrol anymore."

"Then you can rest here first." Bud didn't force Winters. He wanted to take one last look at the school. "This is the last shift. I won't have the chance to go back to school for night duty. I'll go around a few more times and come back to see you later."

After saying that, Bud walked away with his halberd. Bud's footsteps became farther and farther away, and Winters said nothing. He was now shocked that Bud was about to be sent overseas. He now had a real feeling that he might never see his good friend Bud again in his life after tomorrow.

He lay on his back on the stone table, listening to the chirping of insects around him, his mind empty.

After a while, Bud's footsteps came back. Winters heard Bud coming back and felt that it was meaningless to lie here, so he decided to go around the school with Bud.

So he sat up straight from the stone table, smiled and said to Bard... Wait! The person coming is not Bard!