"Lucas, it’s been so long since I saw you last. How are you– Oh, god! Why are there black circles under your eyes?! Are you partying without me?!"
Walking down the neat hallway, I rolled my eyes as Kent joined me in my light jog and dumped a barrage of dumb questions.
"No, Kent. I’m just sleep-deprived. A little– A lot more than usual."
"Oh?" Kent wiggled his eyebrows. "Spill the tea."
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"There is no tea," I replied, my tone a little exasperated. "I was just preparing for my deployment."
"Deployment?! To the border? You haven’t even finished your second year yet!" Kent expressed his apparent shock.
"Not to the border," I smacked the back of his head. "To the field. Remember, I had to agree to take up missions if I didn’t want Sera to be executed? This is that. Besides, I am majoring in Space Defence. If I were to be deployed, I wouldn’t go to the border but to the Space Station."
"Right," Kent bobbed his head up and down. "You’re the lunatic who chose Space Defence instead of Vampire Extermination in his second-year program."
"Why does that make me a lunatic?" I frowned, checking my smart bracelet to see how much time I had left.
The Academy had retrieved my smart bracelet from the belly of the Elemental Hydra.
While it was broken beyond repair, some of its spatial runes were still working, so they did manage to get a few things from inside it.
Unfortunately, not many things of use were extracted. Fortunately, my spear was already outside of it. Anastasia found it after the battle and returned it to me while I was in the hospital.
My dimensional rings survived, thankfully. So, at least I wasn’t going broke anytime soon trying to rebuy everything I could’ve lost.
"It makes you a lunatic because serving in the Space Defence pays less than offering your pledges to the Northern Defence. I mean, we were forced to be in the military anyway. Why not do it where we can make big bucks, eh?"
Kent probably didn’t realize the depth of darkness that was hidden in what he had just said, but I couldn’t ignore it.
While navigating in this clusterfuck of a world, it was easy to forget that, in the end… all of these people… were just kids.
Kai was right. They were given no choice but to accept the situation of the world as it is. These kids… They are forced to serve and fight, murder even.
I couldn’t help but grit my teeth at the sheer feeling of helplessness tugging at my heart.
Even if we– Even if I defeat the Vampire Monarch and eradicate the Kalis… What’s next? The Dragon God would arrive with his army.
How are any of us supposed to survive that?
Who will protect us when all the prayers start to decline, and the end of the world will be nigh?
No one. No one was going to protect us. We had to do it ourselves. I had to do it myself.
"Woah, that’s a really dark look on your face. What are you even thinking, buddy? Plotting a murder or something?"
I rolled my eyes again, hitting Kale in the belly. The blue-haired elf doubled over and acted as if it had really hurt him.
"Ow! I’m hurt!"
"Oh, my god! Stop overreacting! I didn’t even punch you that hard."
"You did! I’m counting this as another punch in our punch bet!"
"Huh?!"
†
After bidding our goodbyes, Kent and I separated. While he headed for his next and last elective exam, I walked to the president’s office, where Nero was waiting for him.
As soon as I entered the room, my eyes met some unfamiliar faces. There were people sitting on the couch, waiting in silence. Waiting for me.
As all eyes were drawn to me, a familiar voice called out to me. "Lucas, finally, you are here."
It was Nero. He was sitting on the far end of the couch while a bald man had taken the seat on the president’s chair behind the desk.
Aside from him, there were five other people in the office. Two men and three women, all seemingly in their early twenties.
Getting up, Nero walked up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder before gesturing to the man sitting behind the desk.
"He’s Laiman. Claude Laiman–"
Before Nero could even complete his full sentence, I interrupted with a quick nod of my head. "The Head of National Security, I know."
The old man named Claude raised an eyebrow, the covert wrinkles on his face hardening.
"You know me?" he asked in a deep voice.
I nodded again. "I did some research. I needed to know under whose duty we suffered not one but two vampire attacks – one in the Central, the other in the West."
The frown on the old man’s face turned into a scowl. "I had a feeling I was not going to like you. Things like that often happen in my line of work, kid."
I scoffed. "Things like that? By that, if you mean casual disregard of duty and sloppy cover-ups, then yes. I agree."
Suddenly, at my bluntly offensive remark, one of the women sitting there exclaimed, "You’ll be careful never to talk to Sir Claude like that, kid. Do you have any idea where we would’ve been without him? His quick, resourceful commands had saved this world many times. Because those standing in the light don’t know of the sacrifices made in the dark, they don’t have the right to point fingers at our mistakes."
Before I could reply, the old man spoke up. "Calm down, Verna. He’s just a kid. What could he know of the darkness?"
He then turned to me and spoke up: "Kid, slip-ups happen. We save who we can."
Right, the go-to line of incompetent soldiers. Shaking my head, I chose to stop continuing this pointless argument and said, "Just tell me my mission?"
The old man narrowed his eyes, obviously but expecting me to back down quickly, and said, "You are to head to the South immediately. People here will be your Unit. You, obviously, will only be assisting them."
A slight frown crossed my face. "Wait, why? What’s in the South?"
The look on the old man’s face turned to that of a distant, wistful expression as he replied, "The Overlords of the South are planning a coup against the Central Government."