Mistakes

Shocked by what just happened, Sir Edward felt guilt in his heart. As the acting commander, it was his duty to prevent such stupid mistakes from happening. Because of this, the casualties of the battle increased immensely. Scared that this might happen again, he ordered the troops to stay vigilance.

Understanding the situation, the soldiers cut their cheering and celebration short as they started to prepare themselves for another attack. No one knew when the next batch of attack would happen. And given that the demonic beasts still were in a large number, it was difficult for them to leave a smaller number of soldiers behind.

Every soldier on top of the wall were on the edge, waiting for the demonic beasts to attack. As hours passed by, the soldiers start to feel weary, yet were not certain what to do. What if the demonic beasts were waiting for them to start going back before they commenced their force again? No one knew the answer for this.

Hour after hour passed by, yet there were no attacks. The waiting all ended when the soldiers started to notice the darkness fading, as the sun started to rise from the horizon. With the darkness starting to fade, the skies started to get visible. To the surprise of the soldiers there was no demonic beast there. The demonic beasts all had retreated.

Looking into the sky with shocked gazed, the soldiers just realized that they wasted the whole night waiting for the demonic beasts to appear. They had been fooled by the demonic beasts. This realization felt like a slap to them. As anger started to build up in the hearts of the soldiers, their expression on their face changed. Some of the soldiers even screamed out in anger, not being able to hold their feelings anymore.

Even Sir Edward, who normally would not make many mistakes felt that he had made blunder after blunder. First he allowed the soldiers to let their guard down, which resulted in a high casualty rate. And now he let the soldiers stay awake the whole night, lowering the morale of the soldiers as well as exhausting them.

With that in mind, Sir Edward ordered the soldiers back to the quarters. Leaving a handful of soldiers behind, the rest of the soldiers started to move out. With regret in his heart for his decisions, he himself had go to go the prince and report what had happened. Even though he liked commanding the soldiers, his honor would not allow himself to continue doing this. Therefore he wanted to ask for the prince to be replaced.

…

As the soldiers arrived back at the barracks, many of them retreated to their own rooms. For himself, Sir Edward decided to go to the prince's room and report what had happened. There was a heavy feeling in his heart. The blame of what happened kept on coming back to him, yet he had no other choice but to face it.

Making his way to the room, without realizing, Sir Edward already stood in front of the prince's room. With difficulty he lifted his hand, yet was powerless to knock on the door. It seemed as if all his muscles locked in place. Thinking to himself, Sir Edward repeated the words in his mind, "I have to face my mistakes." With that, he got a bit of courage as he knocked onto the door.

"Come in." a voice responded from the other side of the door. Responsibilities filling his heart, Sir Edward opened up the door and walked into the room.

…