Chapter 238: Chapter 237 – Watch Duty

“Attention!”

Yuna’s legs snapped together and her back went rigid at the booming, sharp command of the leader of her squadron. The lieutenant was a large man that matched his giant presence. With every step he took back and forth in front of his squadron, he carried himself with the confidence one expected from a commander. From the moment Yuna saw him, she knew that the man tolerated nothing less than immediate obedience. And now she waited for his inevitable commands.

“I’m sure that each and every one of you have read the mission file sent to you,” the lieutenant said, his deep voice enunciating each word clearly. “If you haven’t, then I don’t know why you are in my squadron.”

He stopped, digging his heel into the ground, and spun in one fluid motion until he was facing the center of the squadron of soldiers lined up in front of him. Yuna stood in the front row, four places away from the center of the nine person row. She kept her head facing forward, but let her eyes drift towards the lieutenant. His eyes were narrowed in a familiar expression that Yuna had grown accustomed to looking at over the last few months.

“Squads three, five, and seven,” the lieutenant called out, his voice rising as it echoed in the cool morning air of the grassy field that surrounded a town a few hundred feet away. 

“Yes, Sir!” A chorus of thirty voices rose to meet the lieutenant. 

“The three of you will be sent to the west. I have already briefed your squad leaders as to what you shall be doing and what I expect from you and them.” The lieutenant paused for a moment as the chorus rose again. “Go.”

The thrum of thirty pairs of feet hitting against the ground followed the lieutenant’s command as the three squadrons peeled off from the group and jogged towards the west. The lieutenant waited without a sound for the squads to leave, his body not moving an inch.

“Squads two, four, and six.”

“Yes, Sir!” the three squads responded.

“You three will be going to the east. Like with the squads going west, I’ve already briefed your squad leaders and any questions shall be directed to them.” The squads voiced their understanding and the lieutenant dismissed them, another thirty pairs of feet drumming the ground as the soldiers they carried jogged east. 

“Squads one, eight, and nine.” Yuna’s stomach clenched for a brief moment as her squad was named. “You will stay here and protect the town. I will be here as well, but that does not mean you come to me if you have questions. Tell those to your squad leaders.”

“Yes, Sir!” Yuna’s own voice joined with the rest of the squadron as they declared their understanding, their cry carried on by the soft morning breeze that tickled Yuna’s cheeks. 

“Good,” the lieutenant said with a curt nod. His eyes swept across the remaining soldiers, Yuna trying to keep as still as possible as that cool gaze brushed past her. “Move out!”

The lieutenant turned on his heel and began his march to the town that rested a few hundred feet away. The rows of soldiers broke apart the moment he had turned, gathering together into their respective squads. Yuna did the same and followed a fellow squad member until they formed a semicircle around a woman in uniform wearing a badge with a stripe that signified her as a corporal. On the badge, a three and an eight were emblazoned, the two numbers separated by a dash. Below the badge was a name tag embroidered into the uniform. It read Carol.

“Alright, privates, listen up,” the woman said with a clap. She looked at each of them in the eye as she spoke. “The plan is simple. We’re being deployed to the south side of the village. That means that we are directly in front of the Keynal Strip. Squads one and nine are going to be flanking us and will be at the southeast and southwest sides of the village.”

The woman paused and gave them all a look that prompted a number of “Yes, ma’am”s from the group of nine. 

“Our job is to protect the village from any possible attacks from monsters coming out from the Strip. We will be doing rotations of three people every eight hours. Any questions?”

“Yeah, I have one,” a man said, raising two fingers into the air. Carol gave him a nod and he continued. “What ‘chu doin’ while we’re out there, Mama?”

Carol grinned, the serious facade falling away at the question. “Mama” was the moniker that the squad all called her by, and Carol didn’t seem to mind, preferred it even. When Yuna was first assigned to her squad, she had hesitated referring to someone higher than her with a term of endearment that kids used. But as the weeks went on, she slowly became used to it, and it came to the point that using “Corporal Yager” required her to slow down her speech and deliberately change the words.

“I’m going to be stuck inside with the Lieutenant,” Carol replied, folding her arms. “We’ll be going over some plans and things that I’m sure would go right over your head, Fisher.”

“Hey Mama, at least give me some credit here, aight?” Fisher said. He put his hands up, feigning surrender. Then he smirked. “At least I could count the numbers. That’s more than Butter can do.”

“The hell, what does this have to do with me?” the man beside him said with an incredulous expression. The other members of the squad laughed, Yuna cracking a smile herself. 

“Alright, alright, shut up,” Carol said, raising her voice just a bit. The squad quieted immediately. “You all get focused and make sure nothing gets past you. If something does, I’m making whoever it got past be my practice partner for drills next week. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Yuna replied along with the other squad members.

“Good,” Carol nodded. “Let’s head on out!”

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Carol turned, starting a brisk jog towards the town that the lieutenant had gone to.

Yuna felt a few claps on her shoulders as the other members of the squad went to follow the corporal. Moving her own legs, she went with them. When the group of ten arrived at the town, they were greeted with almost empty streets. Yuna could see the tell tale signs of the start of a new day as she walked down the paved road to the hotel that would serve as the squadron’s base of operations. Windows were being opened up as people let the fresh morning air flow into their houses. The aroma of cooking and baking wafted out from restaurants and bakeries, carried along by the gentle breeze that swept through the streets. Yuna’s stomach growled, reminding her of the breakfast that she had yet to eat.

She followed the stream of soldiers into the hotel that rose high above the rest of the town. From the design and the material, it looked quite new, made with metal and drywall instead of the red bricks that the buildings all around the hotel were made of. Inside, the lobby of the hotel was quite cozy, with plush couches and fuzzy carpets. An array of screens stood out in the old fashioned lobby, the lieutenant standing in front of them as he gave them all a critical eye. Yuna’s attention, however, was locked onto the trays of food that were displayed on a polished wooden table filled with bagels, fruit, and breakfast sandwiches that were each wrapped in wax paper.

“Fuel up, boys,” Carol said with a wave towards the table. “Fisher, Owl, Princess. You three are taking first watch. Grab something to munch on, then get on out of here.”

“Aight, Mama,” Fisher nodded. He sauntered over to the line of food trays and grabbed a bagel. “Be back in eight.”

He headed back to the entrance of the hotel, clapping Yuna’s shoulder as he went by. A lanky man followed him out, a sandwich in hand, and gave Yuna a small nod as he, too, walked by. Yuna nodded back before going to the table laden with food herself, planning to take a sandwich. As she did, she couldn’t help but peek over at the cluster of screens that lieutenant was staring at with furrowed brows. How someone could stand in the middle of that kaleidoscope of information without being nauseated was beyond Yuna. But she did manage to catch an image of a monster of sorts before a hand tapped on her shoulder.

“They’re waiting for you, Princess. Unless you want to stay and listen to boring debriefs,” Carol said, the smile she wore evident in her voice. Yuna took a sandwich and straightened at the corporal’s words. She met Carol’s eyes and found them filled with amusement. “Stay safe out there, Princess.”

“We’ll be back, Mama,” Yuna replied with a grin. Carol nodded at her words and turned her attention to the lieutenant. 

“Let’s get started on the boring stuff, Lieutenant,” Carol said with a clap of her hands.

Yuna left the lobby, the doors closing behind her and shutting out any sound from within the hotel. Outside, Fisher and Owl were waiting for her, chatting with each other as they did so, though it was more than a little one sided. Owl wasn’t talkative and, in every interaction that Yuna had seen him in, preferred to listen. That silence combined with the small twitches he made with his head that wasn’t unlike that of an owl was how his nickname was born. 

“There she is,” Fisher said, his voice cheery and bright. “Let’s get a move on to that wall. Heard that they got a heater or somethin’ set up.”

“You’re cold?” Yuna asked with a raised brow.

“Hey, Princess. I’m just more of a hot weather type of person, ya know?”

“Whatever you say,” Yuna shrugged.

Fisher took the lead and they sped to the south side of the village, the locals skirting around them to give them more room on the already wide open streets. The heels of their boots clicked and clicked as Fisher continued to chat in his drawl that was at odds with the hurried pace that he set. Yuna replied here and there, Owl staying quiet throughout.

“Here we are,” Fisher announced as he stopped in front of a wall that stood fifteen feet tall. “Not that bad of a wall. Let’s get on up there.”

The three privates stepped into a lift that pushed them up to the top of the concrete wall. From there, the breeze turned into a light gust that pulled at Yuna’s hair and kissed her cheeks with frosty lips. She leaned against the battlements and peered off into the distance. The grassy field that surrounded the modest town went on until it was eaten by a dense treeline. Then beyond that, Yuna watched the sea of tree tops until it merged with the early morning sky. She wondered if this was what a giant felt like, towering over the land with a view that only birds could share. 

“Like the view?” Owl said. Yuna turned and startled. He was standing right beside her, their shoulders barely an inch apart as he gazed at the skyline. A soft smile spread across his lips. “I do. Reminds me of home.”

“Where’s that?” Yuna asked quietly. She knew almost nothing about Owl except for his real name and attribute. 

“Kiera.” He didn’t elaborate. 

“I see.” A moment passed by. “I like it too. The view.”

Owl only nodded. He had said his fill for the day. 

“Well, good thing you two like it,” Fisher said, his voice breaking the spell, “because we’re goin’ to be doin’ this for a month. So buckle up.”

Yuna smiled at his words. One month. One month of this view every sixteen hours. 

‘I could get used to this.’