The Undying Magician - Book 1 - Chapter 51 - Warzone
Added 2022-08-03 00:07:39 +0000 UTC Nathan
Year 2849 | Month 6 | Day 24 | Wednesday
“All of the groups will be starting off for the first day without any direct mission other than search and eliminate,” Leo says with his arms crossed, “this means that you will be charged with traveling through the Warzone and searching for enemy forces. If you are to find a large group of them, then you must decide for yourselves if you can deal with them or not.”
“Were you to decide that you can deal with them, then do it. But if you fail in the process, then you are not to lead them back to our base.” He turns his head to look at each of us individually before stating as if it weren’t already obvious, “If you by chance lead them back to here, then the officer at this base will likely take your hide along with a damn large amount of credits. Assuming the enemy doesn’t just retreat before coming back with reinforcements and attacking the base.”
Looking at the stiff appearances of the cadets from the other groups, I’m guessing they’re getting the same warning right now.
But it makes sense since radar and sonar don’t work in the Warzones as a side-effect of the barrier. So the only way to find an enemy encampment is to look for it yourself or for a higher Class magician to search for it with magic.
“At the same time, if you decide that you can’t deal with them, inform me and I will contact the base to report in the enemy’s location. Then you can move on to find another group,” he says as his gaze stops on me, “Any questions?”
All of us shake our heads, so he nods his and turns to look at the supplies given to us by the base, which consists of plenty of water and rations, along with ammo, whetstones. It even has some cloths that if I remember correctly, are supposed to cover your face to keep you from breathing in all of the sand, along with other pieces of equipment someone might need to travel through a desert.
“To start things off, you will all bring a small portion of the supplies with you while the rest will be kept safe by me.” Leo continues, his gaze looking over all of the supplies. “Starting on the second day of the trip, once you get your new mission, I will be returning all of the supplies to you, and you’ll be charged with taking care of it from then on.”
The man turns back to us and finishes with a frown, “To be perfectly clear, today is meant to ease you into this since its your first day out in the field, meaning both the second and third days will be exactly like they would be if you were already a soldier in the military.”
A wave of nodding heads follows his statement, making his frown ease up a little before he begins walking over to the supplies while calling back, “With that settled, I’ll begin distributing supplies to everyone.”
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A few hours later
“It’s too hot,” Aidan mutters for the third time since we left the base.
I just grimace without saying a word or taking my eyes off of the scope of my rifle.
Heat and dehydration may not be a health concern for me, but it doesn’t make it any more comfortable.
The only sound around us right now is the faint breeze that occasionally blows past, along with the sand it brings with it as we continue marching our way across the sands. But either fortunately or unfortunately, we haven’t run into anyone, enemy or otherwise, in the entirety of the three or so hours we’ve been out here.
And it’s getting both boring and unpleasant.
My thoughts come to a halt as I spot something in the rifle’s scope and immediately raise my fist to signal the others, who quickly tense up at the sight. I then scale the scope a little to get a closer look before finding a group of soldiers, each wearing a brown and grey military uniform.
“Natran soldiers ahead,” I whisper as I scale out a little bit to count them all. “Twenty in all.”
I hear one of the girls mutter a curse, but I ignore it to look at the soldier’s outfits.
Based on their uniforms compared to the ones the base showed us, these soldiers should all be non-magicians. Which means that we theoretically should be able to take them.
“All twenty seem to be wearing simple soldier uniforms without any magician identification,” I state before adding, “but there’s no telling whether one has changed uniforms or not to trick any enemies into believing they don’t have any magicians.”
With that – without taking the scope of my rifle away from my face – I glance at the others and ask, “So what do you all think? Should we take them? Or report them?”
After briefly looking over their faces and finding them all seriously considering the situation, I turn my gaze back through the scope and at the enemies to study them.
The group has a couple of jeeps, along with several SMGs and a couple of rifles of their own. Meanwhile, their leader seems to be on one of the jeeps with a few other soldiers with him.
I try to focus on the other soldiers in the hopes that I might find any clues about a possible hidden magician amongst them, but nothing stands out of the ordinary, so I focus on their leader instead. The man seems to be rather old and is wearing the uniform of a non-magician officer of low ranking.
“Do you see anything out of the ordinary?” I hear Cyria’s voice ask, so I take my eye off of the scope and shake my head.
“No, everything seems normal,” I answer with a frown, “they have one low ranking non-magician officer, along with nineteen normal soldiers – each armed with SMGs – and two jeeps. Meanwhile, neither of the ones with rifles are using them, or even holding them right now, so I doubt they expect anything right now.”
I glance at the instructor, only to find him also looking through his scope at the enemies.
“We should try it,” Rebecca suddenly speaks up, drawing my attention towards her, “if the intel is right, and they really have a shortage of battle-ready magicians right now, then it’s not very likely that one might be hiding in a random platoon of soldiers.”
I turn to look at the others for their opinions before once again looking through my scope after seeing them all nodding in agreement.
“Alright,” I state while looking at the jeep with their leader, “we’ll take out this platoon then.”
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