16 CHAPTER 16: THE SERPENT'S LAIR RAID (3)

'No.'

Jeanne froze as she saw dark red liquid launched in the air.

'Not again.'

"Jeanne! Look out!" Chaerin shouted towards Jeanne.

In a split second, Jeanne regained her composure and swung her sword, slashing the foreign object that was lunging towards her.

"AAAHH!" The friend of the soldier from which the blood spurt out screamed.

"Hey, get a grip! Get down!" Chaerin tackled the screaming soldier until they're flat on the ground, saving them from an unknown projectile that flew above their heads.

"N-no... James... I'm so sorry, James..." He chanted the dead soldier's name while trembling.

"Pay attention!" Chaerin's eyes scanned the surroundings, hoping to find something worth noting.

"Jeanne! Your 4 o'clock!" Chaerin shouted.

"Ah-- right!" Jeanne steadied her stance and deflected another projectile, except it was not exactly a projectile.

"...A tongue? But it has the same force as a mace!" Jeanne said, shocked at the sight.

"Got you!" Chaerin grabbed the tongue, and tugged on it, to no avail.

Seeing that she wasn't able to pull the tongue, she ignited her flame instead, burning the tongue.

"I won't let you go!" She gripped harder on the tongue, making sure it won't slip away.

Suddenly, something swooped in towards her neck.

"Chaerin! Get down!" Jeanne tackled her to the ground, saving her head, but also releasing Chaerin's grip from that tongue.

"What was that?" Chaerin glanced upwards, and saw a bat flying nearby.

"Soldiers, take positions! The bats have arrived!" Owen's voice alerted everyone, and they quickly took formation.

"How can this be? I thought they're still far away?" Chaerin asked.

"I think we've been had... The bats must've had some kind of signal for the alligators... And once that signal was gone, they came to check up on us," Jeanne explained, "then, I assume this tongue is the serpent's guard's tongue... The water chameleons."

'Hissss!'

A chameleon twice the size of a human suddenly appeared not far from us, hissing from the pain of its burning tongue. Not long after hissing, it slowly changed its color to match its surroundings again.

"Careful! They can change their color better than normal chameleons! They can fully disappear from our sight!" Jeanne warned Chaerin.

"So they've been surrounding us since then... We were not careful enough." Chaerin stood up and held her rifle.

'Bang! Bang!'

She switched to the semi-automatic mode and rapidly fired multiple rounds towards the bat. Some of the shots landed, and the bat shrieked before falling down to its death.

"Kill the bats! Sabotage their communication first! We don't know what else the bats could do!" Chaerin shouted.

"Soldiers! Form a circle and put up your shields in all directions except above! Those who can do long-range attacks, focus on killing the bats!" Owen swiftly commanded.

Every able-bodied soldier formed a circle and as Owen instructed, they put up their shields, and thus blocking the incoming tongues. Meanwhile, those who were able to, began attacking the bats. Thankfully, the terrain didn't have lots of trees, so the bats had nowhere to hide.

Among the soldiers inside the circle, Owen seemed busy fiddling with the ground. He crouched down and put his palm unto the ground, concentrating on his mana.

"Arise, earth golems."

And with that one simple command, gigantic golems that were thrice the size of him came out from the ground outside the circle, and began to attack the bats and the chameleons. Although they move slow, but their destructive power was good enough for them to hold their ground.

"Wait, Owen! What about those who can't walk!?" Jeanne shouted while she carried the petrified soldier on her back, all the while deflecting the mace-like tongues.

"Leave them be, Jeanne! We will only produce more casualties if we carelessly try to save everyone!" Owen replied.

"I can't let another massacre happen again!" She put the soldier down inside the circle made by the soldiers, and exited the circle again, "I'm going to gather them here."

"Jeanne, don't be foolish! Soldiers die every day!" Owen tried to stop her, but she ignored him and kept running.

'I don't want to see another massacre because of my incompetence.' She thought to herself.

While general Zhang was already throwing lightning strikes here and there without any care for strategy or safety, Jeanne focused all her senses to dodge the incoming attacks.

"Hold on to me. I'll get you to safety." She strapped a wounded soldier's arms around her neck and plopped him on her back.

"Ugh... T-thank you... General Jeanne..." The soldier said in between cries of pain from his crushed leg.

Jeanne ran back into the circle to drop him off, before heading out again to do the exact same for the other wounded soldiers.

'That day, it also started from one single attack,' she thought, 'I made a poor decision that led to my squad getting massacred. I won't let that happen this time.'

She ran and dodged as much as she could, just for the sake of one extra life each time.

'I've seen multiple deaths. I am used to not coming back with a complete squad. Each raid always has casualties, I know,' she frowned as she thought, '...And yet, ever since that day, I still tremble upon the sight of death.'

Jeanne crouched down and tried to pull up the last wounded soldier.

"General Jeanne... It's okay... L-leave me here... Cough!" The soldier coughed up blood as he talked. He had a huge wound on his chest and navel area, possibly affecting his lungs or stomach since blood came out every time he talked.

"Don't speak. I'll get you to safety. Just hold on, don't close your eyes." She plopped his body on top of her back.

"Ugh... Th-thank you... General Jeanne, y-you're a true soldier and general..." He smiled weakly.

"...I am undeserving of such praise." She looked down with sadness.

"No... Cough, cough! Y-you... Deserve it..." The soldiers spoke with difficulty.

'...I don't. I have failed my soldiers.' Jeanne silently thought as she ran. Her mind clouded with negative thoughts.

"Jeanne! Watch out!" Chaerin called out.

'Bang! Bang!'

"Hisss!"

Chaerin's shots showered the chameleon's tongue that was about to strike Jeanne's feet. The chameleon's camouflage disappeared and Jeanne saw the huge chameleon in front of her.

She quickly summoned a ring of swords around the chameleon's neck, and stabbed right through it.

'Ugh! I was careless yet again, and almost endangered my soldier...' She bit her lip at the thought.

"Go, Jeanne! I'll cover you!" Chaerin said as she ran, catching up to her.

"Thank you!"

Jeanne and Chaerin safely brought the last soldier to safety. The healers quickly attended to the injured soldiers, earning a relieved sigh from both Jeanne and Chaerin.

"Owen, how is the situation?" Chaerin asked without missing a beat.

"The bats are done taken care of. The problem is the chameleons. We can't see them, and we are unsure of their exact number," he explained, "unlike general Zhang over there, we can't just attack randomly."

"Can't we burn them? Or like, use electricity or water to reveal them?" Chaerin suggested.

"We already did. But we can't do it for much longer. Our soldiers' mana is limited, and their number is still unknown." Owen replied.

"If only it rained, we would be able to see them..." Jeanne clenched her teeth.

"...I think we would be able to see them even without magic or rain." Chaerin said.

"Let's hear it." Owen raised his brow.

Chaerin pointed her finger upwards, "the sun."

"The sun?" Jeanne asked.

"Yeah. The thing is, we were so caught up with their tongue that we constantly look upwards, and they moved a lot, causing tons of dust to fly around, obstructing our sight." Chaerin explained.

"That's true. There is so much dust around us that it's hard to see. That's a normal occurrence on a battlefield." Owen said.

"Exactly. We were trained to focus on the enemy, that's why we fail to see the most crucial part here," Chaerin pointed her finger to the ground, "our shadow."

"Oh! The chameleons still have shadows on them! It's just hard to see because of the dust..." Jeanne exclaimed.

"Exactly. Good thing is, the sun is on its highest, so the shadow shouldn't be leaning too far from where they truly are," Chaerin explained, "and then to make sure, we can throw mud to the areas that have shadows on them, so it sticks on those chameleons."

"...Let's try that." Owen agreed.

He told the soldiers whose element is water to make mud from the ground underneath them, and instructed the soldiers to be aware of the shadows.

With some difficulty, they slowly killed the chameleons one by one, until their number diminished rapidly.

While they continue their effort, Jeanne looked around, and found that most of the injured soldiers have been tended to. She sighed with relief knowing that the massacre she was most afraid of had been avoided.

--------

I plopped myself down on the ground, completely exhausted after what just happened. Finally, the chameleons have all been defeated and we can relax for a while.

"Owen, go instruct your soldier to keep watch for mana or something. We can't face another surprise attack again." I nagged Owen who was standing beside me.

"I already did. You don't have to tell me." He said with a stoic face.

"Thank you. I don't think I have much mana left. Or even much time left." I sighed.

It was a hard fight for me, since it had been long since I left the army. And even more so because I can't see my enemies' eyes this time, making me unable to use my eagle's eye skill.

Well, at least my quest was done. I ended up killing more than 10 enemies and got a new quest already.

[You have completed your quest]

[Acquired grade-D skill book, 2 stat points]

[Quest: obtain the serpent's soul]

[Reward: ???]

I glanced at the screens in front of me. This time, the quest's reward is unknown. It better be good, please don't be a curse or something...

"Healer! We need a healer over here!"

My head quickly turned towards the direction of the voice. I saw a soldier calling out for help for his friend who was lying unconscious near him. I looked around me, and found a sight that was familiar to me. The sight of war.

I frowned as I saw injured people everywhere, ranging from mild to severe. Some were already covered by clothes, lying lifeless. I saw the trembling soldier from earlier mourn the death of his friend, James. He rummaged through his friend's dead body and found a necklace and a letter.

"Don't worry, James... I'll get your letter and your birthday present to your wife for you..." He said into his friend's ear before storing them in his bag.

I turned away from the sight. Could he have been saved if I were a second earlier?

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. The smell of blood mixed with dirt filled my nose. The only thing missing was the smell of gunpowder.

I examined my own body for injuries, and to no one's surprise, found some. Apart from minor bruises, my left arm and left thigh were bleeding and my right leg was a bit swollen. I ripped a part of my sleeve and used it to tie my wounds to put pressure on the bleeding.

"Hey, little cub! I see you've made it out alive!" General Zhang walked towards me, with Timmy by his side.

"You... How did you even survive that?" I questioned him.

He looked relatively okay even though he went berserk alone, with no visible injury aside from a few bruises and scratches here and there. Timmy also surprisingly looked okay, just messy.

"Well, maybe you don't know, but I'm waaaay stronger than Owen and Jeanne, y'know? There's a reason I'm the first general. Isn't that right, Timmy~?" He scratched Timmy's neck, and the beast purred at him.

Is that so? I took a peek at Owen's status window, and sure enough, Owen's stats were just a bit higher than Jeanne's. He was on a different level.

"Spooky." I inched further away from him.

"General Zhang, what's our next course of plan?" Jeanne approached us, "we had deviated from the plan."

General Zhang's creepy grin appeared on his face.

"Of course, we rush in."