Chapter 30: Frontline Battlefield
"I've heard from the captains of your units what you guys have done, well done." Hearing this praise from Daru made the kids happy, but it soon vanished after they heard the next piece of news.
"We will be going to the frontlines in three days, prepare yourselves. Of course, I won't be with you guys, I have my own part to play."
Daru spent a little time with them to give some advice that he had already given, this time was just to sound it into their ears.
He was specially critical about Lanira and Koro. Lanira had a nasty attitude most times that may cause her in the battlefield, and Koro often can't tell his own limits, at least he didn't always run in head first.
After he was done, the kids left just before another man that looked to be just a little bit older than Daru walked up to him. "That your squad? Heard they did good." He complimented.
"Yeah, though... I am a bit uncertain about the other girl."
"Wow, never thought I'd see you so invested in this kind of stuff." The other man had a genuine look of surprise, though just a little bit.
"Shut the fuck up, brownie."
Kazi and the rest were given a place to sleep, this time there was no private tents, each one had at least ten people sharing it, and it was also bigger to accommodate, but barely. Kazi and Koro were in the same tent while Linx was in a different one. The girls, Lanira and Ann, were in the female tents.
The time frame was short, just three days, and from what Daru said, they were going to take part in the war, Kazi felt this was definitely too fast of a development.
'I can't just sit here, I need to head out and do something to better my life.'
Time for dinner had just passed and most people were already in their tents. Kazi who didn't feel comfortable just lying around went out.
He wandered the place until he ran into someone who was willing to teach him a technique. The guy seemed a little bit drunk, maybe that was why he agreed without any problems, the rest Kazi had tried to ask all turned him down flat or with disgust, or so it seemed.
. . . Three days later . . .
'I could only learn one technique... well, I still have some time I guess.'
During these three days, he was able to pick up an earth defence technique because when it came to defence, earth was naturally the sturdiest. Kazi couldn't thank the fact that his learning and comprehension speed was excellent and beyond abnormal, enabling him to learn the technique in such a short time. He couldn't tell if this technique was D or C rank at first, since the guy who taught him wasn't all clear head, but once he executed it, he could tell from the toughness of the earth wall that it was D rank, even then, it was still useful.
The day before the main day, the standard uniforms were distributed to everyone. The third class wore green vests, the second class wore a dirt brown vest while first class wore black vests. The vests were similar to light Kevlar vests with pockets and everything, and acted as a kind of defensive wear.
Under the vests, they wore black uniforms that felt light really comfortable and free, but yet robust and sturdy. Kazi could only wonder what material was used.
Everyone also received a secret code and a counter code to prevent spies within the camp, of course, if the spy was already in there, then tough luck.
"Remember, if at any point someone can't answer correctly to the codes, report them, if you are on the battlefield, kill them, they are probably spies. If your teammate tries to kill you, kill them, they are probably spies. Out there, approach everything with discernment, don't take everything at surface value..." The one giving the orders also said some more things before everyone was dismissed.
The instructions might have seemed harsh and all, but one need not forget that this was war, the frontlines no less. There were masters of infiltration who could copy a person's appearance, speech, behaviour, even memories. Against such masters of infiltration, there was no counter, that was why the codes also changed regularly, but even then that would have too much effect. The only good thing was that such masters were rare, and Jalam had not been known to have such a person, but of course, the enemy would be stupid to show their hand. Needless to say, in the heat of war, it's easy to get fooled by an enemy wearing a face mask of your teammate. Good thing was, not everyone knew the technique for that, and doing it manually amidst war was very impractical.
The next morning came quickly, and very soon, Kazi found himself amidst 600 sutori ready to move out. There were around 400 third class, 150 second class, and 50 first class. Kazi made sure that he was amongst those towards the front, but not at the fore front. The military strategies in this world were pretty good after all, pounce the rare, attack the flanks, he didn't know which tactics the enemy would employ, so this position he was in was best.
The leader of this camp who was at the forefront barked out the order to advance, probably the last order that would be conveyed like that, and with that they set off.
They headed in a specific direction as though sure that they would meet their enemies there. Once they got close, Kazi could feel it, this was going to be a kind of ambush, because all the other signatures he could feel were all stationary or moving around in normal pace and all. Suddenly, he felt that the other's had been alerted and were moving around, that was when the order to advance full force came, and they doubled their speed.
'Of course, they can also sense us coming from afar... Is ambushing even a thing in this world?'
Kazi had found it hard to keep his technique active because there were a lot of signatures been picked up all at once, and it felt like an overload, but he slowly got used to it, and his field of perception even increased by 2 metres which was impressive.
Once they broke through the dense coverings, they arrived at a clearing where the enemy was, they were a bit prepared as it was in a rush. The leader of the Atar forces, Bajin, directly went in with several first class to slaughter various enemy sutori. It only took them a couple seconds to kill about thirty people, the power gap was too clear.
Once they did that, two others appeared from the enemy side while their sutori emerged from everywhere to stand face to face with the forces from Atar.
Two water dragons had come, swirling, twisting and turning to stop the man slaughter that the leader of the Atar forces and his people were carrying, because it wasn't a fight, the others were completely and utterly at their mercy. The other first class jumped back while Bajin stood his ground and sent a dragon of his own, made of fire towards his opposition's attack.
The dragons collided, creating steam in the process as Bajin's dragon had held off the other two, the techniques would seem to be evenly matched in strength.
When that happened, there was a small stand still as both sides faced off against eachother, then all hell broke loose.
'This is complete madness, I can't even bring myself to be surprised.' Kazi thought to himself.
Kazi felt the most confusion he had ever felt in his entire life, he didn't know who to attack, where to attack, how to attack, the entire scene looked overwhelming. He immediately dropped back and used the technique he just learnt to defend himself from the oncoming techniques thrown towards his location first.
Raising both of his hands up, a wall of earth rose from the ground, and he safely hid behind it.
'This is way crazier than I had ever imagined... So, this is war... Let me hide first.'
Unfortunately, this tactic would not hold. A few minutes after he squat behind the wall, he noticed other third class sutori with similar uniform to him also hiding behind trees and such, some even playing dead already, 'isn't this too early?' Under three seconds, five of these such third class sutori were killed, right before Kazi's eyes, then he faintly felt someone approaching his position in full speed right before the wall of earth he had created shattered into pieces.
'WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?'