By Zephyria A little away from the densely populated sleeping tents. Next to a huge, geometric structure stood a large military tent that could easily accommodate at least thirty people.
The area around it was being guarded by soldiers taking turns at regular intervals, as a meeting of senior commanders had been going on inside for almost two hours, to prevent any possible disturbances or unauthorized access.
One of the guards on duty, who had been relieved less than ten minutes ago, leaned against the wall surrounding the structure and yawned widely as if he was getting sleepy. He was just standing there because he was told to, with a carefree face, thinking that nothing could possibly happen in the middle of the base camp.
Seeing this, his colleague nudged his arm as if to tell him to wake up. The guard, startled, turned his head and made an annoyed expression.
“What?”
“Is this the time to be yawning? Stand properly.”
“…Hey, you’re not an officer, why are you making such a fuss? I’m going on patrol to D-5 later, so I should be comfortable now.”
“The atmosphere isn’t good. Let’s be careful at times like this. Don’t stand with your legs crossed.”
“Tsk.”
The guard, who looked at his colleague giving him a warning as if he lacked flexibility, had no choice but to take his back off the wall. In his mind, he was sneering that he wanted to become a platoon leader these days, so he was acting like that.
Grumbling, he stretched to wake himself up from his drowsiness. Standing still was also subtly hard work. He thought it would be better to look at the ruins that he might never see again if he left here, so he turned his head to the last place his eyes had reached.
The moonlight seeping through the dense leaves was dimly illuminating the old structure hidden in the darkness. It was then that he felt something was wrong.
Clearly, until just a moment ago, a stone statue was standing between the roughly built structures. In fact, he hadn’t seen it clearly because it was hidden in the darkness, but he naturally thought it was a stone statue because it was roughly the shape of a person.
But now that spot was empty.
The guard stretched his neck and narrowed his eyes as if trying to see more clearly. His eyes were still dim, perhaps because they hadn’t fully adjusted to the darkness, and he kept blinking. After staring at the spot for a long time, he tried to dismiss it, thinking that he must have mistaken someone on patrol for a stone statue.
However, that thought didn’t last even a few seconds. It had been standing there for at least five minutes since he had been relieved. Logically, a soldier on patrol wouldn’t stand in the same spot for five minutes, would they? Especially while looking this way.
“…Is it my imagination?”
“What?”
The guard stared at the spot and tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure.
When his colleague reacted to his mutterings, he shook his head as if it was nothing, but then rubbed his arm, which had goosebumps for no reason, asking, “But wasn’t there something there?” His colleague shook his head dismissively, thinking he was just joking because he was bored.
The guard was about to say something, feeling indignant at his colleague’s seemingly pathetic look, but at that moment, the door of the tent, which was made sturdy with iron bars, burst open with a bang, so he couldn’t say it out loud.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“Thank you for your hard work—”
Along with the voices of the commanders announcing the end of the meeting, a cold air that made one forget the heat of the peninsula poured out of the entrance. The cold air was mixed with powerful Magic Power, which was quite sharp and edgy, making it threatening just by its energy.
The two soldiers who had been whispering quickly stood in their positions and stared only at the front with a tense expression. The thought of whether the stone statue was there or not quickly disappeared.
The first to appear was Hugo with a cold face.
Bruno and the Battalion Commanders followed behind him as he strode out with his long legs, dripping with coldness. Although not as much as the Legion Commander, their expressions didn’t look very good either, so the adjutants waiting outside guessed that the meeting hadn’t gone as well as expected.
To the Battalion Commanders who greeted him, Hugo lightly nodded with a face that clearly showed he was in a bad mood.
After he quickened his pace and walked away, the commanders watched his back and looked at each other before quickly dispersing to spread the contents of the meeting. Before long, only Dellua, who was hesitating, remained there.
After confirming that most of them had finished their business and were moving, Dellua chased after Hugo, who was walking away, as if she had made up her mind. Then she called him in a small voice.
“Legion Commander!”
Hugo, who stopped at her cautious voice, glanced back. Dellua, who was quickly closing the distance, looked a little nervous when her cold gaze reached her.
Still, she approached him, smiled once to ease the atmosphere, and suddenly said with shining eyes, as if telling him to trust her.
“Legion Commander, don’t worry too much. If anyone keeps picking on Blaine, I’ll fight back hard!”
There were several reasons why Hugo’s expression was stiff, but one of them was the voices of doubt and concern about Leonardo that had been raised near the end of the meeting.
Hugo, looking down at Dellua, who was clenching her fists and speaking with overflowing enthusiasm, relaxed his stiff expression to her, who must have been as tired as he was.
Even though there were circumstances that the missing people after the collapse seemed to have escaped to another peak, Leonardo’s whereabouts had been unclear for several days, so doubts about his actions during that time had arisen among the commanders. It was even more so because the soldier who had disappeared with him was a new recruit who was not suitable as a surveillance agent.
It was fortunate that the fact that footprints had been found in the swamp was kept secret within the 1st Battalion, because if the other commanders had known about it, they probably wouldn’t have let it go.
In addition, Hugo himself had been worried about Leonardo’s escape even for a moment, so he thought it was reasonable for the commanders to have doubts about him, so he persuaded them in a different direction, but did not strongly restrict the expression of opinions.
However, some even raised absurd suspicions that the illegal mining team that had been caught was related to Leonardo Blaine.
Hugo, who had tried to protect him by citing the circumstances that Leonardo had been caught in a landslide while trying to save a soldier, felt that the curses he had stopped using for the past dozen years were about to rise to his chin for the first time in a while as soon as he heard that ridiculous speculation.
And it was Dellua who immediately refuted that speculation logically.
Dellua first mentioned the fact that everyone knew, ‘Leonardo Blaine would never have dreamed that he would come to this Eldermilli Peninsula in the first place.’
Therefore, it was impossible to see that he was circumstantially related to the illegal mining team that seemed to have existed before the peninsula subjugation was planned, and if he was involved with them or had any intention of trying to escape, he would have already left the peninsula and would not have stayed inside, arguing based on facts.
Her words not only silenced those who raised doubts cleanly, but also succeeded in erasing Hugo’s doubts, which remained very small in the depths of his heart, while defending Leonardo. In addition, she was able to avoid the misfortune of harsh words coming out of the noble Legion Commander’s mouth.
Hugo, looking down at her, thought that he would have had a hard time if Dellua hadn’t been here for this subjugation, and replied with a faint smile instead of coldness.
“Thank you. I feel reassured thanks to you.”
Dellua’s eyes widened at his words, and then she smiled again with a proud look. She somehow felt recognized.
Suddenly, Hugo scanned Dellua’s surroundings, which felt more empty than usual. Come to think of it, he realized that there was something he had wanted to ask throughout the meeting.
“By the way, Dellua. Why did Marlene go all the way to the plains herself? There was no need for the Deputy Commander to go, the Company Commanders could have moved.”
It was a story that had been mentioned once in the meeting, but Marlene Diaz, the Deputy Commander of the 6th Battalion of the Central Branch, was currently leading the forces of two companies belonging to the 6th Battalion herself, drawing a dividing line and waiting in the northern plains.
Hugo didn’t think that the Deputy Commander would move himself, even though it was an order he had given, so he couldn’t hide his doubts even when he heard the story during the meeting.
“Ah…, well….”
Dellua, who had been maintaining a bright expression, scratched her cheek at his question and changed to a face that was somehow displeased.
“Um…, the Legion Commander might not understand it, but… was it the day before yesterday? Marlene suddenly said she had a bad dream.”
“A dream?”
“Yes, I don’t really believe in dreams either, so I told her not to worry about it, but Marlene believes in that kind of thing.
Hugo’s eyebrow twitched slightly at the story, which seemed a little absurd.
“She didn’t tell me what kind of dream it was, but she seemed very anxious and worried. Then she said she would feel more comfortable being there than here, so I just told her to do that.”
Dellua had allowed it, but she was actually not very happy with Marlene’s actions, and she subtly expressed her disappointment.
“I even told her that I would protect her, and didn’t she trust me? She didn’t even listen to me. To leave me behind….”
The reason why Hugo gave that order was to keep the 3rd Battalion of the Central Branch and the 7th Battalion of the Southern Branch, which were subject to close observation, within sight, and to place the most reliable 6th Battalion of the Central Branch on the path to the Gate in the border area to block the escape route of the illegal mining team.
However, since a senior commander like the Deputy Commander would be more helpful to the future battle if they remained here, Hugo was thinking of calling Marlene back unless there was a special reason.
However, since she was mentally unstable and said she wanted to go, it became difficult to order her to return. Besides, since this was the first time Hugo had known Marlene to be like this, he thought it would be better to leave her there.
However, since Dellua and Marlene were so close, they had rarely been apart for a long time, so he was worried that there would be a gap in the work that Marlene had always done.
“I see…. If she wanted to go, there’s nothing we can do. But then, will you be delivering the meeting contents and issuing orders yourself for the time being, Dellua?”
“Yes, well….”
Dellua, who was answering Hugo’s words, paused for a moment and suddenly opened her mouth as if she had thought of something.
She realized that this was not the time to be so relaxed. Marlene had always been in charge of summarizing the contents and issuing orders after the meeting, but now that she was gone, the 6th Battalion soldiers would be waiting blankly while she was doing this.
Feeling that the Legion Commander had subtly reminded her while pretending to ask, Dellua immediately bowed her head and greeted him.
“…Legion Commander, I’ll go now.”
“Good work.”
Hugo nodded lightly as if he had expected it. After that, Dellua hurried to where her soldiers were.
Hugo, who was quietly watching her back, soon moved his steps. And after taking a few steps, Flynn, who had belatedly appeared from between the tents, hurriedly followed him. Hugo glanced at Flynn, who had suddenly appeared, without saying a word, and turned his eyes to the watch on his wrist.
Flynn, knowing that the Legion Commander was giving him a look that he was ‘late’, just smiled awkwardly.
“Haha, I’m sorry. I was just organizing things and….”
“……”
“How was the meeting?”
“It was a meeting that wasn’t even a meeting. Some people were just spouting nonsense.”
His bad mood was clearly revealed in the words mixed in with his cold voice and answers. Thanks to that, Flynn was even more careful and tried to smile.
Before the doubts about Leonardo were raised at the meeting, the main contents were the situation reports of each battalion and the analysis of the cause of the wave.
Another issue that had touched Hugo’s nerves was about the illegal mining team, and the news was that traces of a small number of people who had escaped from the hideout had already been found near the Gate in the border area, but they had not yet been arrested.
In addition, the commanders of the units in charge of defending the Gate near the place where the traces were found were subtly passing the responsibility to each other, saying that it was not their jurisdiction, so the air was already cold from that time, although they did not raise their voices in words.
Hugo briefly told Flynn about the contents of the meeting today and naturally strolled through the base camp as if he was taking a walk. His steps were not heading towards the tents. Rather, he secretly led Flynn between the structures located in the corner on the opposite side.
Hugo stopped when he was completely hidden by the pillars and walls and other soldiers could no longer be seen. Flynn, who was following behind, did the same. The two remained silent for about 10 seconds, quietly checking their surroundings.
When a silence came that made the sound of insects unusually loud, it was Hugo who spoke first in a low voice.
“So. Did you find out anything?”