‘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 approached their position. They looked at one another as Ethan put his radio beside his mouth.

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

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

  As Egor’s voice ended, Ethan turned on the radio, looked at his team seriously, and noticed they were unaware of what they should do now. 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, they aimed for the one to the right. Ethan pointed to the farthest to the left, Oran to the right, and so on. They did not learn that from Alon or any other superior; it was 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 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 simultaneously 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.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Even with a smile, he felt strange; all his teammates felt the same. It was like they took everything from the people they killed. What made it worse was that it was true. Did they 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.

  ‘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 took a deep breath and looked him in the eye, his expression 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 sighs.

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

  ‘No one finds it strange how quickly he accepted that we are going just to 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 a body while looking up. While Ethan was holding their feet, the others did the same. Samal approached Asher and looked at him, finding his behavior strange.

  ‘I’m glad that your line was killing these soldiers in 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 arrange all the bodies, and Ethan's radio cracked when they dropped the last one.

  ‘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 in the distance that the blue team was approaching. He signaled to the others and pointed in Egor’s direction. When the sergeant came closer, he noticed the bodies on the ground among the monsters.

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

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

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

  Ethan looked to his team members and signaled 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 double 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 usually animals would hide themselves because of the monsters.

  Every squad member saw the scenery of the green plains with forests to their right, serving as a wall between the duchy and the rest of the kingdom; the duchy was utterly separated from the kingdom in their minds. Maybe that is why there was no problem killing Lavan soldiers if it was called for.

  They stopped at a small hill closer to the forest, and Egor used 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 the 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 from Egor’s radio.

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

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

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

  Egor started to increase his pace, and everyone followed behind him, but some soldiers noticed they were heading toward the forest.