Chapter 21: To War

Once the angels are all confirmed to be dead, I disperse my armor and head back into the castle. The strategy works just according to plan: I knew there would be rumors if I used Excalibur’s earth manipulation to make a base in this remote location. And just like that, those angels came like moths to the flame, even if it’s only a small troop. Now, considering Gabriel’s nature, I doubt he would send in more men to die if he knew where I am, so I should get going to leaving this place, too.

“You really are… a devil…”

The words of that last angel suddenly echo in my head, like a phantom coming back for its vengeance. After all this time… why am I so caught up in it? Why am I hesitating?

“My, my. You don’t look too well, huh?” A voice that I haven’t spoken to for a long time sounds once more inside my mind.

“… Balam.” I answer.

“And here I thought you’re going to ignore poor old me again. It was lonely these two years, you know? Trying to talk to you every time but all I got was the cold shoulder.”

What did he expect? I was mad at him. No, I’m still mad at him for locking me out of my own body back then. If only I was there in time… she could have been here right now. But that’s just the more reason for me to continue forward… Or, is it? I’m moving forward, but at what cost?

“Hey, Balam… am I doing the right thing?”

“Hah…” Balam lets out a sigh as he hears my question. “The first time you decided to speak up, and this is what you ask me?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Let me put it this way, then. If I said no, would you still do what you just did?”

“… Yes, I would.” I only hesitate for a brief moment. Deep down, I know that my choice would still stay the same, no matter who tried to stop me.

“Then I don’t see the point of asking.” Balam snickers. “You’re walking this path of your own free will. No one can change it but yourself.”

“I see… You’re right. Now that I’m already here, I’ll see this through the end.” I say, stepping in my original objective in the base – the blue teleportation rune Pelle set up for me as she sent me on the mission.

As my vision returns to me, I am welcomed by a sight I’ve grown familiar with in the past two years: a large banquet full of different people, all happily drinking and eating as if they don’t have a care in the world. Sometimes, I have to ask myself if this ragtag bunch is really a resistance force trying to overthrow the angels, but perhaps this is the reason we haven’t been taken as a threat for so long. Seeing my appearance, Red, whose tanned face has shown a shade of red already, raises his mug filled with booze over his head and shout in glee:

“Oi, Knight! Welcome back!”

“How’s the mission?” Orange asks while taking a big bite out of the turkey leg on his hand.

“A success.” I answer as I slowly get away from the mess of a party and make my way up the stairs. Finally returning to my own room, I throw myself onto the bed, not even bothering to change clothes. After sitting outside in the desert all day, every fiber of my body is strained beyond compare, and the annoyingly loud drunkards down there don’t make it any better. Now, all I ask for is a long night's sleep.

As my eyes close and my body readies itself to depart into the land of dreams, however, a sudden knock on the door holds me back to this cursed reality:

“Peter? Are you there?”

“… Here.” Letting out a sigh, I regretfully answer, making my way out of the bed once more and sitting down behind the desk in the middle of the room. A large creak sounds, and the commander of our group steps in with a large scroll in her hand.

“How many did you get today?” With an expecting look, she asks.

“Shouldn’t it be ‘how did it go’?” I let out a light smirk.

“We’ve been fighting alongside each other long enough,” Pelle answers with a smirk of her own, “at this point, I’d be more surprised if your guesses don’t work out.”

“In that case, I’ll just be frank, then,” breathing out a sigh, I respond. “Not enough. I only saw about twenty, so it should be somewhere around two groups. They must have split their forces, only sending out enough for a recon. I somewhat got both lucky and unlucky, though, since they didn’t just run away immediately but rather chose to negotiate.”

“That’s rich coming from those bastards.” Pelle lets out a grin.

“Well, now that the ones going there are all dead, I’m sure Gabriel will have a general idea of what exactly is happening. The real question is, though, is that will he take the bait and attack?”

“Either way, it works for us, right?”

“Yeah.” I nod in agreement. “If he attacks that decoy base, that buys us more time to achieve our main goal. If he diverts his attention to the other bases, however, then it’s still a net gain for us.”

“I agree.” With a quick nod, Pelle answers. “That’s why I’m going to go over our plan of action a little while later with everyone.”

“… With everyone, eh?” I ask without much enthusiasm.

“Yeah. It also serves as good morale boost for us.”

“… Fine.” I answer. “By the way, about the other thing I asked of you…”

Pelle hesitates for a brief moment as she hears my question. “… Still no signs, but I’ll say it again… you should know when to give up, Peter. She’s gone.”

“I can’t.” I answer. Even though I know it shouldn’t be possible for her to be alive after being stabbed through the heart and falling down the Nile, I can’t give up. Even if I know it’s meaningless to continue, I have to keep going. It’s the only thing that can help me find solace after what has happened. “I know it’s wasting our resources, and I know it might as well be for naught, but… please, continue the search.”

“…” Letting out a sigh, Pelle reluctantly nods. “Alright, I’ll keep the search team going.”

“Thanks. I mean it.” I let out a smile, one I haven’t been able to form for a long while, and answer.

“Then get to hearing out the plan with everyone.” With a smile on her face, Pelle replies. However, that smile doesn’t hold out for long as she hears the following words coming out of my mouth:

“Count me out. I hate crowds.” Quickly deciding my course of action, I make my way out the window, leaving Pelle behind shouting out her lungs:

“Peter, where are you going? Come back here, Peter!”

 

I draw out my sword and points it to the ground as I freefall out from the window. A slight shake of the earth appears, quiet enough to not cause any unnecessary attention, and a crack starts to form beneath my feet. A second later, from the crack rises a stone pillar that lifts me along with it, just high enough for me to walk onto the roof. In my two years of honing my skills, this has become somewhat of a habit of mine.

I always feel comfort in climbing up to the roof, taking a gaze at the moonlit sky while enjoying the night breeze. It’s a moment where I can stay away from all the noise around me and let my mind be at ease for once. At least, that’s what I used to think, until I’m once again reminded by a familiar voice in my head:

“You’re a terrible liar, do you know that?” Balam asks. I can almost see him chuckling with a hint of sarcasm. “About not liking crowds, I mean.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I quickly shrug off the attempt at making a conversation of the Demon inside my head and turn over, instinctively covering my ears in the process.

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“You know that wouldn’t work, right?” Still with a cheeky tone, Balam snickers.

“What do you want?”

“You’re still scarred by what happened to her, right?” Gone is his joking voice, Balam now asks with a genuine concern.

“No. Now leave me alone.”

“You can’t keep avoiding people, Peter.” With a sigh, Balam continues despite my best effort at ignoring him. “I know it’s painful to lose someone. Believe me, I know that feeling better than anyone. But that’s just a part of life; you can’t keep yourself from getting close to people if you want to achieve your goal.”

“She could have survived.”

“No, she couldn’t. You know that. You’re smart enough to realize it.”

“I could have saved her.”

“No, you couldn’t. Again, Peter. Don’t deny the truth.” Balam’s words were like a sharp knife slicing through my heart. “You know your abilities the best. Even after two years of honing your skills to the best you can, you with your current power still couldn’t have saved her, let alone the naïve boy who had only started his journey for a few weeks at best.”

“I know you’re regretting a lot of things right now.” Ignoring my state of mind, Balam continues. “And I know that you’re afraid of losing more. But if you don’t act, then people won’t ever be saved…”

“If those empty words are all you have to say, Balam, then our conversation can end here.” I firmly conclude before letting the silence of the night do the talking for me. My partner, however, have other plans in mind.

“If you don’t want to listen to me, Peter, then fine by me,” as if waiting for this moment, Balam continues, “listen to them instead.”

Before I could ask the Demon about the meaning behind his words, from down inside the building, Pelle has already sounded, answering my question for me:

“Men!” Her voice echoes through the mess hall, all the way up to where I’m lying. “Today, we’ve made another great step towards our goal. With the help of the pirates, now we can confidently say that we have beaten our opponents both in numbers and in weaponry. With this, our time is nigh! Once our bases are done with the necessary preparation, we can launch a full-scale attack on the angels all over the country! Men, stand tall! Our war is about to begin!”

“War? Boss… I think you’re mistaken. Calling our battle ‘war’ is a bit…” A voice can be heard mumbling. I see what they’re up to.

“… Yes, we are causing a war. No need to lie to yourselves further,” Pelle speaks once again, her voice now smaller, but no less firm and determined. “I’ve denied it for a long time, ever since I first came to this place. However, even if it’s a war, our cause remains the same. We still fight for a better future, for our future! Men, stand up! Men, roar! Men, advance! To war!”

With each word, Pelle’s call becomes more and more triumphant, and the army’s blood is clearly boiling by the second. Soon enough, the entire hall is filled with battle cries filled with determination:

“To war!”

“To war!”

“To war!”

With each sound of the battler’s roar, a familiar scenery reappears in my mind. Not the loud, rambunctious scenery happening under me, but a calm, serene morning with a group of kids gathering under the roof of the cathedral. Even though the resistance’s shouting and partying is loud and rambunctious, for some reason, I feel as if I’m sitting back inside the cathedral with everyone back in Reading, reciting our morning prayers in unison like a normal weekday morning. How strange… I know they’re nothing alike, and yet… I can’t help but remind myself of that scene. Of that peace I chose to discard.

“What do you think, Peter? Beautiful, isn’t it?” Balam’s voice sounds, interrupting my chain of thoughts.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m sure you know the answer, Peter.” With a light smile, the Demon continues.

Ah, now I see where he’s going with this. He’s trying to make me remember again. About the beauty in humanity, about how we can achieve great things together, no matter how weak or powerless we might be. That’s right. Together, humans are strong. Humans are reliable.

But that’s the thing, Balam.

I never forgot.

Humans are fascinating. But like I said two years ago, that beauty is something that I could never hope to either achieve or comprehend. In the end, humanity is just that – a scenic painting that I could only marvel from afar, never truly grasp or sympathize with for real. And it’s time for me to step away from that pretty picture and look at the reality in front of me right now.

“Yeah, you’re right,” a smirk forms on my face, “it is beautiful.”

As the words leave my mouth, the first rays of sunlight shine onto the crimson bricks on the roof I’m sitting on and the morning breeze cools off my body under the black armor. Daytime already? That’s a long speech she gave. I can’t hear anyone anymore. Guess they’re making their final preparations for the strike.

A voice sounds from behind me as I attempt to jump down from the roof to enter the building once again:

“I knew I’d find you here, Knight.”

Turning to see a rather muscular bald man with dark skin wearing a gun on his back struggling to get a hold of himself on the roof, I ask:

“Red? What are you doing here?”

“The Boss is going over the plan for the final time, so she asked me to bring you to the mess hall.”

“No need to get me, I was about to come down anyway.” I shake my head as an answer. “Why trouble yourself so much?”

“Hey, just the Boss’ order.” Red shrugs at my question. “We’re leaving in about an hour, so be sure to join us by then.”

“Okay. You can go now.” I turn around and wave my hand to end the conversation.

“Alright then. By the way, Knight…”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been staying up all night again?”

“If you’re worried that my strength is not at its fullest, then don’t be. I’ve never felt better in my life.”

“If you say so.” Red answers, then quickly get down from the roof to join the strategy meeting again, but not before turning up to me to give one final reminder. “One hour. Remember!”

“Alright!” I answer, stretching myself to relax my body for one last time before the big showdown. “Well now… Time for me to go as well.”

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