102 The returnees

"Leeroy, have you compiled the list?" Gunther asked in a low voice.

"Huh!" Leeroy shook his head, "It will be ready soon. I will give it to you as soon as possible."

"Hey Bastard, do some work. I've heard that you are spending most of your time in the library. Who the hell goes to the library these days?" Blackmoor smirked, "And what the hell is an idiot like you doing there?"

Leeroy glared at Blackmoor but didn't respond. He turned to Gunther, "I will send it soon." Gunther nodded, turned to the assistant, and asked, "How many?"

"According to the report, there are 7,124 specially trained soldiers." said the assistant, "5,247 of them are mana assisted soldiers. 1,124 are eastern mages. 753 are western mages."

"That is no way near enough." Gunther shook his head.

"Their number could be over 50,000." Blackmoor snorted, "Even if we can equal the number with normal soldiers, our chances of winning are slim. And let's not ignore all the freaky things that they can do."

"They are not the only one with secret weapons." One of the directors of the stronghold refuted, "We also have our fire-spitters tank, Mana-Kris missiles, and mana artillery."

"Don't talk about those scrap metals." It didn't convince Blackmoor, he added, "both the strongholds that had fallen had those waste of spaces too."

"We can credit the fall of those two to the element of surprise." Leeroy didn't like Blackmoor's explanation, adding, "We know from the few encounters we've had with them they have no counter to our hover drones, dragonfly and Super hawk sky-porters."

"We can also use the excavator pods and mole hunters." The mining stronghold's head slammed the table in excitement, "they're not the only one who can travel through underground."

"If needed, we can use the satellites too. The earth splitter beam." Maverick was the oldest and the most experienced of all the scientists present on the EXO-04. It was reasonable that his words should have some weight, but none of them had expected those words from him.

Gunther took a deep breath, "It will be better if we don't need to use those. But I think if we try to besiege the strongholds again, we can use our artillery units and air shock squads as our advantages."

"We should apply to send us more resources."

"Yeah! That is not a bad idea. They will send back up soon, aren't they? When they will be here?" Leeroy asked.

Blackmoor roared with laughter, "You believe their words. Those old fogies might not send a single one until all of us enter the grave."

"Blackmoor." Gunther grumbled, "Choose your words correctly."

"You can kiss their asses as much you want. It doesn't matter to me." Blackmoor snorted, "Don't you dare to say that they cared for us."

Gunther ignored Blackmoor and announced, "They have informed us. The first batch of 100 mages will be here within a month."

"But they can't transport the entire army using the wormhole. They are going to use Warp spaceships to transport, so it's going to take them two months to get here. Keeping in mind that they would need another month to reorganize and..."

"Isn't it the same?" Blackmoor said, "In a matter of a day, those monsters can knock down strongholds. Even if they take a week off after each attack, we will be in a grave before the main reinforcements reach the planet."

"Don't spout nonsense." Maverick snorted, "If it were too easy to beat us, we would have lost EXO-01 a long time ago. Now that we know their existence, we are ready."

Blackmoor wanted to refute, but feeling Gunther's glare, he controlled his urges. To lighten the gloomy atmosphere, Gunther gave good news.

"They are aiming to send 20,000 soldiers, 7,000 special mana troops, and 3,000 mages. But we can't just sit here and wait for them to come and do all the work for us."

As Gunther had effectively drawn attention, he added, "We need to shave off the numbers."

His choice of words raised many eyebrows as Leeroy asked, "Your plan?"

"Is there any way to do that? Other than attacking the stronghold?"

"The outpost." The youngest head of a mining stronghold cried.

Gunther nodded and said, "Our greatest concern right now is that we know so little about these creatures. We should catch them to analyze. We could find a simpler way to eradicate them. It also helps us to get accustomed to fighting these unknown enemies."

"It would be hard." One of the directors scratched his rough cheek and said, "but not impossible."

"But we can't just move many troops from just one stronghold. It will be dangerous." The heads of the strongholds agreed on this point.

"We are preparing on the list. Don't worry, the number won't be high enough to put any strain on your defense."

As Gunther said, he put down a list. A list with twelve names. After everybody checked, it reached Leeroy. He looked at the list and felt that one name sounded familiar to him. He asked, "What is this about?"

"The Council has issued the list. They have asked to form teams around them. Each of them will assist the leader of the teams. If we found them to be competent enough, they could lead alone."

"What is so special about them? Shouldn't we be using experienced generals?" Leeroy suggested.

"A cornel will control the army. But these people will be one who will make the final decision," said Gunther. "In hunting monsters, they are the best at the job. They're the ones who went to Earth and came back to tell the tale."

*********

"Checkmate?" Owen moved the rook and declared with a triumphant face. Asher checked the chessboard one more time to find the last option.

"It's over." Sara nodded and declared, "How many times? 17 or 18?"

"What are you talking about? It was just 16." Asher was quick to deny.

Owen had no intention to expose the blatant lie. He said with a confident smile, "One more or less, doesn't matter. What matters is that you can't beat me."

Asher wanted to say something but lacked the right words to do so. He looked at the board as all the pieces were reassembling themselves in the right position to begin another round.

"Ahhhhhhhh." Asher's sudden scream startled others, but he didn't care about it. He pushed back his gyro-chair and complained, "I am bored. How much longer? When are we going to get to Will?"

The on-board system displayed the number on the board. Looking at the number, he gave another scream, "I will die by the time I will reach there. Guys, please tell my parents that, like a brave warrior, I have tried my best to fight boredom but... Ahhhh."

Asher's fake comedy routine put a smile on others' faces, but before they could say anything else, another scream attracted their attention. They were quick to turn in the direction to find Lyla was coming at them with Elijah behind her.

"How could they have done that?" Her voice clarified that Elijah was not in a good mood. "Planet Will supposed to be our destination. Why the hell are we being pushed to go to another location like that?"

Lyla wasn't in the mood to explain to Elijah. As soon as she realized that all the attention was towards her, she said, "There is a new deployment order."

"A deployment order?" No one of the three was very fond of that term. But the only thing they could do was ask, "Where?"

"An exoplanet numbered 04." Lyla explained, "Elijah, Sara, and Asher are on the list. Owen and I are on the voluntary deployment list. Owen."

With his name called, his body quivered a little. As if he could guess what he was going to hear, but couldn't bear to hear it. Lyla said it nonetheless, "At least one of us needed to stay on the ship en route to the Planet Will. I am going to go to EXO-04. So you don't need to go there."

Owen gazed at Lyla in surprise. He was having a hard time believing what he was hearing, yet he was glad that he didn't need to go to a place infested with monsters again.

"Why? Why do they want us to go there again?" Sara's face was white as a sheet of paper. Moments of happiness evaporated in a blink, days of fear and anxiety came back to them.

"I am not sure." Lyla shook her head and said, "They mentioned nothing to me, but I think it has something to do with facing the mana beasts."

"But how can there be mana beasts on such a distant planet? There shouldn't be mana on that place, to begin with." Owen couldn't help but wonder. But to this question, Lyla failed to give a suitable answer.

"It doesn't matter. We have to do whatever they want. And it is just for three months. It will take almost nine months from here to planet Will. But if you go now, you will reach there within a few weeks, work there for three months and get back to Will within two months. So you will go back home quicker."

Whether it was a joke or she said in goodwill, it didn't matter to others. Lyla had expected that, yet smiled, "I will send you the list of medication. Use it. Later, they're going to give you another package of new drugs that will minimize the chances of mana poisoning a lot."

She didn't wait for the responses, turned around, and was about to leave. Yet she stopped and added, "this is also the place they sent Aiden too."