Loose War

Strutting through the vast and seemingly undisturbed desert, Mitsuna and horse are enjoying their time together with Mitsuna humming tunes and songs that come to mind while the horse silently listens. Both are making their way to the capital.

They don't know where exactly it might be and they might just be going off in a cardinal direction out of mostly a gut feeling but they are confident that they will find it eventually.

On their journey that had currently only been in progress for about 10 or so hours, they have met nobody. Mitsuna has been tinkering with her gun and bullets every so often and having thoughts and theories about the situations that lead to war while horse just focuses on walking and or running.

'Two sides of a continent are fighting and soldiers need to cover the flank on the Old West side. It might just be cross-continental considering that the only way to get to the Old West is through the ocean which most likely has either another continent or the Old West armies stationed there. Damn politics probably started all of this. Maybe this world should give democracy a try. It ain't perfect but no form of government is.'

Mitsuna ended her long inner thought process as her senses alerted her.

'...'

Patting the horse on its side, they started moving towards a completely different direction.

After a minute of moving, Mitsuna could see faint figures in the distance.

'Big bugs and people with guns. That could be a name for an album.'

She thought as she stopped in her tracks and jumped off the horse while taking the gun from her back and getting on one knee.

She had already loaded and reloaded her gun quite a few times so her alternate bullets have been ready for live testing for quite a while.

Aiming down the sights, Mitsuna observed the fight as it went on.

'Large bugs similar to beetles and cockroaches. Seemingly bad eyesight on both sides considering the lack of accuracy on the humanoid side and bad sight probably because of the bright sun on the bug side. The sun will set in an hour or two at most so the longer this goes on the larger the chance that the humanoid side will lose.'

Mitsuna considered helping the group.

'I don't know which side they're on so I'm not certain that helping would be good. Though considering the state of their weapons and skills they are either a tired and lost scouting party from the New West or a regular and tired party from the Old West...'

Mitsuna sighed slightly as she got ready to fire.

'Picked the right side to help in this war, didn't I? Always liked an underdog story.'

She took a shot with her gun as a loud bang could be heard and her bullet flew through the air.

As the bullet flew, the sound of glass cracking could be heard.

"Too much mana still? What terrible bullets."

Mitsuna said out loud as she stood up and hopped back on horse.

The bullet she shot missed the targets as it sank into the sand and created a thin layer of ice on the sandy ground.

The large bug team couldn't adapt well to the sudden change and most fell to the ground and were temporarily unable to stand back up. The humanoid team took the chance and finished the fight after a few more minutes.

As the humanoid team rested and reveled in their victory, they couldn't help but search the area, soon finding the bullet that had landed and created the layer of ice thanks to the ice being thickest around the area around the bullet.

Deducing the area where the bullet was fired from by the way it was angled in the ground, the team of humanoids started walking in that direction yet they found nothing but a small amount of ice left behind by the recoil of the shot Mitsuna had taken.

...

Back to the travels of Mitsuna and horse.

Mitsuna couldn't help but think how loosely the Old West was taking the whole War situation.

Either they did not have enough troops to cover the flank or they didn't have enough troops period. There might be many other problems but currently, the Old West seemed to Mitsuna as the underdog of underdogs, one can only cheer for them for so long.

'Is the Old West just stupid, just unimaginably weak, or just super poor?'

Mitsuna kept wondering taking into account the skills of the troops she had seen til now.

'The first girl I saw seemed pretty skilled all things considered, the humanoid team seemed very underwhelming in comparison.'

Mitsuna then exited her thoughts for a moment as she said to herself, out loud.

"I could have just interrogated the lot and gotten the exact location for the capital. Shit."

She looked behind her for a moment before letting out a light sigh and murmuring.

"Well, I'm not heading back there now."

And so, Mitsuna and horse continued on their journey whilst Mitsuna continued her bullet tinkering.

'I hope the capital has less sand.'

She thought as she momentarily looked around the vast desert that was filled with scarce pillars of stone and cherry blossom trees. Even till now the sight of the trees seemed strange to her.

Glancing towards the place where the horse was running towards, a light smile plastered her face as she thought with another imaginary sigh.

'Though, I think my hopes and wishes will stay ignored.'