Chapter 9

-Commander's military tent-

"Arthur, reporting for duty!" As soon as he arrived, he said these words.

Arthur looked around the tent and saw many people sitting around a table. They all looked like important people who had been through many battles.

"You finally arrived, Arthur!" Gary smiled at Arthur as he saw him walking in.

Everybody in the tent looked over to see who it was that arrived. All of them looked at him with skepticism. He did not look like a man ready for the military. Arthur did not mind this, as the only one he really needed to answer to was Gary.

"Are you sure he is the right one for the job, commander?" One of the other men in the room asked with a frown on his face. His name was Richard, and he was a 200-man commander in the army. He was around 2 meters tall with a muscular build and an ugly scared face.

"Not sure, but everyone needs opportunities to grow, and I think this is a good chance for Arthur!" Gary answered back. His face showed he was annoyed, but he still showed a bit of face to the 200-man commander.

Standing up, Richard said, "Are you su …?"

"Are you questioning my decision?" The anger in Gary's eyes was evident, which shut Richard up completely. He did not like when people questioned his decisions, but he still let the first one slide. He should have known not to continue.

Arthur was standing at the side and saw the small exchange of words. It was quite amazing how he shut the small commander up with a bit of anger. Arthur thought that it was the wrong way to lead, as he was a person who wanted to listen to all sides. But in the end, everyone leads in different ways.

"Anybody else who objects?" Gary stood up from his chair, asking with eyes full of anger. Everyone was quiet, so it seemed that everything was okay. "Good, then Arthur, listen here, we have a small job for you …."

Looking around, Arthur could see that everyone was quite serious. This was an important matter; in truth, Arthur had no idea why Gary would entrust him with something important this soon.

"On our last campaign, we lost many soldiers, which is why we are here to replenish, as you know. As soon as we arrived here, many soldiers chose to desert the army, marking them as deserters and criminals. We found that they have a small base of 50 men in the ash forest, which goes around plundering the innocent so they can make a living" Gary explained their troubles in short. "We want you and your team to go capture or kill the men in the base to seek justice for the army!" Gary did not really want this. The problem was that they had become outlaws, which made it the military's job to eliminate them.

"Yes, sir!" Arthur saluted him as soon as he ended the explanation. He wanted to say something back, but he remembered what had just happened, so he did not dare say anything.

"Go tell your team that you will depart tomorrow. You are dismissed!" Gary said with a serious face before continuing the meeting Arthur had disrupted.

On the way back to his tent, he thought about ideas on how to defeat this base. They could not just charge in after all. The men they were going to fight were military veterans with at least one campaign under their belt. Not getting any good ideas while walking, he decides that he would talk to the squad so they could think of something.

Arthur returned to the tent and explained the situation to all of them. Franz replied with a smile, as he wanted to fight, Emily was flustered, and everyone else was shocked. This was quite quickly they got their first mission. They just joined the military a few days ago, after all.

"Okay, everyone, let us talk about the tactic on the way there tomorrow. For now, get a good night's rest and prepare for moving out tomorrow!" Arthur said with a kind smile. He did not stay in the tent with the others, as he had gotten his own living quarters on the base.

The night quietly went by. There were small whispers and some laughter at night, but it was mostly silent. None of the people from Arthur's small team didn't notice any of that, as all of them had been tired from fighting in the day, and they were excited for what the next day would bring.

When Arthur arrived at the tent the next day, everyone was already ready and waiting for him. They did not pack any bags or anything other than food. All they would have with them were the military uniforms that had already been placed on their beds before they arrived and their weapon of choice.

Arthur's eyes were shining after seeing everyone. It was a good feeling to see the people under you, wearing their uniforms and standing in a perfectly straight line side by side.

"It seems we are all ready! We will have to walk to our destination, the ash forest, which will be an 8-hour walk! Let's move out!" Arthur said as he saw that they were all ready for the objective.

""YES, SIR!"" All of them yelled out at the same time.

7,5 hours later, they arrived at the ash forest. It was faster than expected, but not too much. Everyone except Arthur, Franz, and Emily was breathing heavily from exhaustion. They had been moving at a high speed the whole way, wanting to get to the mission as fast as possible.

"Okay, everyone, we have finally arrived! Franz and I will go first to go search out the base. The rest of you should rest up and get ready to fight!" Arthur said. He was not tired, so he chose he would just begin by scouting out the enemy.

The reason he took Franz with him was to have an extra man to fight, and if it went south, he knew Franz had the ability to flee as well.

"Yes, Sir!" Everyone said as one before Franz and Arthur disappeared into the forest in front of them.

The forest was much darker than Arthur remembered from a few days prior. There was a lot of overgrowth, stopping the sunlight from shining through. This was also quite apparent on the ground of the forest. There were barely any plants, and it was a bit muddy wherever they went.

Arthur had gotten a rough idea of where the deserter's base was from Gary. It would be around 500 meters from the road people would travel on, at almost the beginning of the forest. The base was at the beginning of the forest because, in the middle, all the big bandit bases had already been established.

With that information, it did not take more than 10 minutes for them to find the base. It looked quite miserable, as the buildings they lived in were makeshift tents from branches and leaves.

They had begun to build some defenses around the base with big wooden logs which had been cut into a pointy end. They had only got halfway around the base, though, so it would not be hard to infiltrate.

Looking at the people inside the base, one could see that they were clearly soldiers by their uniforms. They had decent equipment on, which would make it harder for Arthur and his team to win this fight.

What would make this fight easier, though, is that most of the soldiers looked quite sick. Probably from the bad hygiene they had in this place.

At the moment, Franz and Arthur could not count more than 30-35 soldiers in the base, but they knew there could be up to 50-60 men.

They kept scouting the base for another 30 minutes to be sure that all the men were in the base and that they would not be attacked by surprise. After confirming that all the men they needed to capture/kill were in the base, Arthur and Franz went back to their team.

Arriving at where they had camped, Arthur and Franz were surprised to hear swords clanging. This made them speed up and see what was going on. The other eight members of the team were at the moment fighting off a group of bandits, numbering 30.

Arthur's team was in the middle, standing in a circle. This made it so that everyone had each other's backs. One could clearly see that the bandits had suffered the most, as two dead men were lying in front of Emily while many others were wounded. Some of Arthur's men had also been wounded, but it was only small cuts that only just penetrated their armor.

Franz wanted to jump into the fight immediately. Rushing in front of Arthur, but before he could get far, Arthur grabbed his arm, stopping him from moving out of the forest.

"What the hell?" Franz turned around and said while showing some confusion on his face.

"The best way to get stronger is through looking death into the eyes!" Arthur was not a veteran who knew a whole lot. But he knew this principle. Only the strong get to survive.

After hearing what Arthur said, Franz thought about it and agreed with Arthur's words as he went back to Arthur's side and kept watching.