37 Bad Omen

Arthur looked at Lieutenant Jeffrey like he was crazy.

'Is this the same Lieutenant Jeffrey I met before? What happened to the winner is the one who survived bulshit' Arthur thought to himself.

He's started to smell something fishy, he doesn't know what it is yet but he was not a fan of unknown variables.

He carefully followed behind the Lieutenant, trying to find out something when he heard Emmanuel's voice in his mind.

[Something wrong with Lieutenant Jeffrey, I don't know what but I felt off]

[Yeah, I noticed it too]

Emmanuel breathed a sigh of relief [Great, So I'm not crazy] he said with a relieved voice.

One of the veins in Arthur's head bulges. [There's nothing great about that idiot, this is serious, we can't continue this mission if our commanding officer is not in the right state of mind.]

[I know, that why I also contacted Ron and his squad but they says I'm just scared and laughed]

Arthur thought for a moment [That might be possible but I highly doubt it]

He has been to much more dangerous missions before and fear never clouded his judgement, on contrantry it sharpens it. He knows there's something wrong

While he is contemplating, Sarah sends him a message.

[Arthur be careful, I'm having a bad feeling about this whole situation and be mindful of Lieutenant Jeffrey. He's been acting a little off, although he was a superstitious person it was not in the positive way, he was known to be one of the most conscious men in the army. If anything started to go sideway you have to grab your teammate and move closer to Sister Lucy, she can get you away from there]

What Sarah said further re-affirm Arthur's doubts.

[Thank you, I'm also feeling something is off. Do you know anything about the man beside Lieutenant Jeffrey, I believe his name is Lieutenant Victor Steel? I didn't hear him speak a single word eversince the mission start]

Sarah try to rack her brain but couldn't find anything [I also never heard of him, I only met him yesterday, do you think there's something wrong with him]

[I'm not quite sure yet]

Arthur would be lying if he said he didn't find Lieutenant Victor suspicious, in all the people here, he is the only one he can't read. He neither felt danger nor comfort with him. He is much like Aleria; it's like he doesn't exist. He also never sees the latter leave Lieutenant Jeffrey's side which is kind of odd..

[Tell me if you find anything and be careful with Sergeant Jessie and his squad, they are bad news, if you could do me a favor and look after my sisters I'll be grateful] Sarah said with worry in her voice.

[That's what friends are for and you have to take care too, although you are far from the fight it doesn't mean you're out of danger.]

[I know, I have to go now, I still have to find a better vantage point, talk to you later, don't forget to take care of my sisters]

After Arthur finished his conversation with Sarah ,Emmanuel asked

[Who's that?]

[Sarah, she also having the same suspicion as us]

[That's great, I'll warn the others]

[Don't, we don't know yet if it just cold feet, we can't alarm anyone for nothing, for now we just had to focus on surviving]

….

After running for a couple more minutes Arthur and the squad finally exited the forest. What welcomes them is the sound of roaring beasts and the ferocious smell of blood. All of them had experienced such things fighting in the wall so none of them was surprised.

Emmanuel looks at the sea of battle readied orcs laying between them and the orc archer.

'This is crazy, are we going through that?' He thought to himself.

He heard Sarah say in the channel that they would only need to break through hundreds of orcs but based on what he can see, it is more like hundreds of thousands.

He was shocked but before he could absorb everything, Lieutenant Jeffrey voices ring to everyone's mind.

[Avoid using explosives and guns, we don't want to attract attention and only communicate using our thought channel, once we charge through we wouldn't be able to hear anything]

[Copy that]

[Arthur, Emmanuel, you follow me. Jessie, you and your squad stay at the back and protect the rear, don't let anything happen to Lucy and Vanya.']

He looked at everyone one more time before charging [ let's go]

"Yahhhoooo!" Sergeant Jessie and his squad members shout in excitement as they jump through the sea of orcs, leaving Lucy and Vanya behind .

Seeing them Emmanuel can't help but sneer [Crazy! Bastard]

He moves back and smashes the orc face that is aiming for the two supports. Seeing another three orcs approaching, he yanks a chip greatsword in one of the orc's lifeless arms and cuts them in half.

Arthur then arrived swiftly afterwards, [I thought you are now friends with those guys]

He was conserving his mana and was only casually brandishing his sword but against normal orcs a casual strike from him is enough to send them back to hell.

[Friends my ass I'm only pretending] Emmanuel said angrily while sweeping the orcs like weeds, he did think that they had patch things up earlier but it seems like an asshole would always be an asshole..

Blood sprayed like water drenching Emmanuel's whole body, his face is now unrecognizable due to the blood dripping from his hair.

Arthur look at him 'Who's the crazy one here'

Due to the intensity of the battlefield, Emmanuel and Arthur temporarily set aside all doubts they are having. The orc were coming for them on all sides; they had no choice but to focus all their attention on surviving.

The bodies have quickly piled up and the killing intensity of the area has skyrocketed.

"Hahahaha" Emmanuel laughing maniacally. It might not be visible due to the blood covering his face but his eyes are starting to turn read.

Arthur immediately notices what's happening, though it was rare, he had seen it before, he knows that Emmanuel is being overcome with his own killing intent.

He tried to talk some senses to him but the latter is already none responsive [Emmanuel, calm the f*ck down]

'Dumb idiot' He look at Liutenant Jeffrey and the man beside him trying to see what there next course of action is going to be but they seems to have no intention to act.

Now he was sure that something was wrong.

'How can a superior officer let his subordinate self destruct just like that, not to mention he just let Jessie and his squad to do whatever they want.'

Arthur moved closer to Emmanue but the latter already didn't recognize him and started attacking him.

'The f*ck is this guy, it's only been 5 minutes and he's already so far down' He thought to himself.

He is contemplating if it was best to just let Emmanuel be and see if he would wake up on its own or die in exhaustion, or he can knock him down, based on what he saw about the latter regeneration, he would wake up in about a minute. He is just afraid that something unexpected would happen and he might not be able to deal with it while carrying someone.

As he was struggling to make a decision, Vanya noticed everything and sent him a message

[Let me] Her eyes glow and a green ball of light came out of her hands.

The ball moved towards Emmanuel and got absorbed by his body.

As the ball entered his system, Emmanuel's mind cleared up.

He looked around him to see a pile of corpses and was shocked, not by the amount of dead bodies but by the fact that they hardly moved.