Chapter 288: Threat of war?

The room had a cool breeze as if someone had left the window slightly ajar as footsteps slowly encircled Haru as he stood in a dark room. He stood still for a moment and then used his spiritual sense once again to locate the people in the room.

At the front of the room, there was a man standing by the door where they had let people who managed to defend themselves through, and he was standing with his arms crossed while wearing night-vision goggles on his head.

But there were also three other people who had surrounded Haru and were also wearing night-vision goggles to see where he was. They used hand signals to communicate with each other so that they could line up perfectly to make sure that their plan would work.

They looked at him for a few moments before one of them waved his hand in a forward motion to signal that it was time to move in on their unsuspecting victim.

Only they were the unsuspecting ones as they had no idea that Haru could see them and knew exactly what they were planning to do. He looked at them and watched as they approached him and attempted to tackle him, but at the last second, he moved out of the way and grabbed one of them with the palm of his hand against their face.

"How!?-" The man shouted out as Haru clenched his face. He could no longer move, and the grip seemed only to get tighter and tighter as he struggled to break free.

The other two men stopped in their tracks as they saw their friend had been captured by the person they were planning on restraining. Suddenly the light switched on to reveal the plain white walls and the mossy green carpet.

"That's enough. Stand down. And if you would be ever so kind as to release that man, I will explain to you what is going on." The man who was standing by the door took off his night-vision goggles and began to approach Haru with a smile on his face.

"I'm Colonel Ika, its nice to see someone so young with this much talent. You managed to see through the darkroom tactic and determine that you were about to be attacked from the sounds of footsteps alone. I don't think I could have performed as well as you did. Do you mind if I ask for your name?" The man stuck out his hand as he approached Haru to greet him.

"Haru Kitagawa. Nice to meet you." Haru let go of the soldier's face and then held out his hand to shake Colonel Ika's.

"Kitagawa, huh? You don't happen to be related to a man named Luke, do you?" The man asked with a frown as he seemed to remember something.

"Luke? Yeah, that's my father's name. What of it?" Haru asked since the man sounded like he seemed to be thinking of something. It was as though he had a bad experience with Luke and didn't know how to respond after learning that Haru shared the same last name.

"Is that so? And your mother's name?" The man asked with a sigh. Kitagawa was a common surname so that it couldn't narrow down his suspicion with just the name of his father alone.

"Krista," Haru said with a smile. He knew that his mother was famous, but he wasn't just sure how famous she was, but as the room fell silent and one of the men behind him gasped, he realised just how far his mother's name had been spread through the military.

"I see, so you are Krista and Luke's son? What are the chances of having two children of famous mages come to our office today? Your strength definitely lives up to your family name." Colonel Ika said with a smile as he looked at Haru.

"You know my parent's?" Haru asked while trying to probe as much information as he could from the man since they never really spoke about their time in the military in front of him before.

"Know your parents? Not personally, but there isn't a person in the army who hasn't heard of them. Your father saved a battalion of soldiers all by himself and climbed to be the twelve strongest mages during the war. And well, your mother, She was ranked fourth. The top fifty mages during the war are all superstars. How do you not know that already, though?" Colonel Ika asked, confused.

"Really? Well, they never really talked about that before. But I have a question for you if you don't mind answering?" Haru asked as he was still wondering why they had to change their recruitment tactics, and when that happened since he had a hunch, he knew why.

"Sure, what is it?" Colonel Ika asked, confused about why his parents wouldn't talk about the war to their child if they knew he was joining the army. But he was interested to hear what Haru had to ask.

"I was just wondering about the soldiers attacking me in the dark. Is that normal standard practice?" Haru asked to make sure that he knew what had caused them to decide it was a good idea to test physical strength.

"Oh, that? Well, during the war, we had a number of casualties from soldiers who didn't have a high level of physical fitness and just relied on their magic alone to fight. After that, we revised our recruitment strategy, but the reason we are doing it this way is because of the situation in China right now.

There are rumours that another war will break out, so a lot of young mages are looking to sign up so they can seek glory on the battlefield like the generation before they did. But we already have a strong army, and we are not desperately looking to recruit people, so they have advised us only to allow the best of the best to enter. We don't want to sacrifice the lives of children if war does break out.

So we devised this plan so we could eliminate anyone we thought was likely to die if they ran out of mana. The last thing anyone wants is more casualties." Colonel Ika responded with a smile as he thought that they were doing an excellent job to deter anyone from dying a meaningless death without having the strength to survive.

"I see. So it's to stop people from dying because war is likely to break out soon." Haru said out loud while looking at the Colonel to see if that was the correct assumption.

'I don't really want to fight in a war, though. But this whole thing is kind of my fault. If I never went to China all those years ago, then there wouldn't be threats of war right now. Maybe I should see this through to the end?' Haru thought about what to do. He wanted to join the military to locate the people who betrayed him In his previous life.

But if war broke out, then it would most likely sidetrack him. But he also felt responsible for the war in the first place, so he was at odds with himself trying to determine the best course of action. But since he felt as though he had nothing to live for anymore, he figured that there was no reason for him to walk away just because there is a risk of war.

'I have lived through one war without having the strength that I have now. One more won't harm me.' Haru smiled before looking Colonel Ika in the eyes.

"Then I have one more question for you," Haru stated bluntly. The atmosphere in the room changed drastically as they all looked at him to see what he had to say.

"Sure, go for it." Colonel Ika said with a puzzled expression on his face. He wasn't sure what the next question was going to be, but he figured that it would be something important given the severe look on Haru's face.

"Where do I sign up?" Haru asked with a smile. He didn't want to talk anymore and just wanted to get it over with. Once he had signed the papers, then he could go ahead and leave the place. He wanted some time to be alone.

"You want to get it over and done with, I see? Well, in that case, follow me. I will take you over to the man in charge of the documents. He can be a bit blunt at times, so excise his manners." Colonel Ika said before guiding Haru through the doors behind him and then through a row of office cubicles before ending up at a single office.

Colonel Ika knocked on the door and awaited a response.

"Come in." A man's voice shouted from the other side of the door, and Colonel Ika opened the door and poked his head around the corner.

"I brought another one for immediate signing," He said as he opened the door to reveal a decrepit old man sitting behind a mountain of papers.

"If I didn't know any better, I would think that you were trying to kill me with the amount of work that you throw my way. Can't you just let an old man rest for a few minutes?" The old man said with a sigh before looking at Haru. But as soon as he did, his eyes seemed to light up as if he recognised him with a single glance.