Chapter 314: I have duties to attend to.

"The Captain? Oh, that's right." Haru muttered quietly as he remembered that he was going to take her out to be a hero who sacrificed all of her magic power to defeat the enemy.

"The Captain fought bravely against multiple enemies and killed them all as swiftly as she could to make sure that you wouldn't have trouble breaking through the front line. Unfortunately, though, she passed out due to exhausting her mana." Haru explained as he stood before his unit while holding Captain Liegan in his arms.

"Is that so? She did great. We didn't take any injuries when we pushed forwards due to her plan. I'm glad to have her fighting beside us." Jake said as he looked at the rest of the soldiers who were now looking to him for guidance.

"We're already at the evacuation point. There is no use in retreating now, and the Captain would lecture us for hours on end if she knew that we abandoned our orders just so she could gather some mana. As the highest-ranking officer there, I will take the lead, and my first order is that we carry on with the evacuation.

But my second order is that the healers we have are to help get the Captain back on her feet. Now follow me back to safety." Jake said as he took command of the unit and led them back to the formation the Cultivator had made and announced that the enemy had been taken out.

The civilians within the formation sighed in relief as they could now relax since they weren't under constant bombing.

"Thank you all. I didn't think much about magic at first, but after seeing you take on so many armed soldiers, I am impressed. You helped save my boss's life, so don't be afraid to ask for anything you need." The Cultivator, known as the grim reaper, said as Jake led the army back to the formation.

"Thank you," Jake said as he replied to the man in Chinese and then looked back at Haru with a smile as the healers ran to Captain Liegan's aid after seeing that she was unconscious.

"Haru, join me over here for a moment," Jake said as he began to walk away from the rest of the group so that they couldn't be overheard.

"Sure, what is it?" Haru asked as he walked beside him.

"What really happened? Captain Liegan has never collapsed before, and she is one of the strongest body-enhancing mages in the whole army. There is no way that she would collapse from fighting a couple of regular soldiers." Jake said as he looked to Haru for an explanation.

"You always see through me so easily, don't you? Well, if you must know, there was an S rank mage back there. I didn't want to expose myself, but he was heading towards you guys. I knew there would be casualties if I let him pass, so I knocked her out so I could deal with him before any harm would come to the unit or civilians." Haru explained what had taken place as the rest of the soldiers moved ahead with the evacuation.

"Come on! This way, guys!" One of the Chinese soldiers shouted as he led the civilians out of the city and towards the mountains.

"What? An S rank mage was leading an army of regular soldiers? Are you sure?" Jake asked as he seemed worried about what Haru had just told him.

"Yeah, I found it strange too. Especially because the United states haven't been allowed to recruit mages into their military since the end of the great war, so that means they have been working in secret for years to recruit mages from all over the world or someone else is helping. Them behind the scenes." Haru said as he thought about it for a moment.

He was pretty familiar with what they were and weren't allowed to do since he researched the great war when he was still a child to find out what happened to him in his previous life. But he came up with nothing, so he decided to let it rest.

But he knew that after what he had done to their capital during the war that they wouldn't be stupid enough to start another war. Or at least he thought so.

"You think that's possible? You should tell Major Samson about this if you really think it's like that." Jake said and then sighed as he remembered who he was talking to.

"Nevermind, I doubt something like that really matters for us to fight against them. And even if that is the case, I'm sure the people in command would already know about something like that. Yet they definitely wouldn't tell us." Jake said with a sigh as he knew that there wasn't much they would be able to do even if they did tell Major Samson about what Haru had proposed.

Haru remained silent for a few seconds as he felt a glare from someone in the distance before turning his head to see Zen was staring in his direction.

"Isn't that?" Zen muttered as Xue began to bark when she recognised Jake from the time that he had gone to visit Haru at Zen's house.

With the formation now released to continue with the evacuation Xue ran straight towards Jake and jumped up at him as she had done in the past. Zen, on the other hand, walked over to where he was standing and began to talk to him.

"You're that friend of my nephew that came over two years ago, right? How are you doing? It's been a while, right. I never thought that you would be here to aid our soldiers." Zen said as he tried his best to speak Japanese while being a little rusty. But Jake gulped as he looked back at Haru and then turned back to Zen.

"Oh, Yeah. I remember you. Your name is Zen, isn't it?" Jake said with a nervous expression since he hadn't recognised Haru, who was standing beside them both with his hood up.

But as Haru was beginning to walk away, he heard the sounds of sniffing come from below him. As he looked down, he saw that Xue had started to sniff his legs before looking up to see his face from beneath his hood.

Her eyes seemed to light up as she recognised Haru and then began to bark wildly before rolling over onto her back for Haru to pet her.

"Nice dog you have," Haru said with a slightly distorted voice as he tried to hide his identity from Zen and then leaned over to pet her.

"Wow, I've never seen her act this way before. I guess she knows you're a good person. You were the one who was translating for the rest of the soldiers, right?" Zen asked as he looked at Haru with a look of interest.

"Yeah, that's right. My family used to live in China, so I can speak the language quite well. It just so happened that none of the other soldiers could understand what the Chinese soldiers were saying earlier, so I started translating, and it stuck.

Anyway, I have duties to attend to. Have a nice day." Haru said with his voice still slightly distorted before standing back up and walking away to help with the evacuation.

A few hours went by as the civilians left the city one by one as their panic was finally over since they no longer had to fear death. It went as smooth as can be until finally, the Chinese soldiers that were fighting in the centre of the city arrived.

A few of them were limping, and a couple were being carried back on stretchers as there appeared to be a lot of injuries, but surprisingly, none of them appeared to be dying.

"You guys already finished fighting?" Haru asked as he took down his hood now that there was no one else around that would be able to recognise him.

"Oh, it's you! Thank you for your help earlier. Right after you left, their forces became so scared that they became clumsy, and we managed to take them all out and secure the area. We were just heading up here to help you out, but it appears that you're all done here too. Those Magic powers that you guys have are quite amazing." The Chinese lieutenant replied as the rest of his soldiers carried on without him as they headed for the evacuation point also.

"It almost seems too easy. Once you guys showed up, everything ended almost immediately." The soldier said out loud just as a rumbling sound emerged from the sky ahead of them.

'What!? Did he just say that word on a battlefield? There is one rule! An unwritten rule when you are in a battle! Never say the E word!' Haru's mind began to race as the rumble seemed like a direct consequence of him saying it was easy.

"What's that!?" Jake called out in confusion as everyone's eyes looked up to the sky as a huge plane soared through the sky above them.

"Is that a bomber!? They are really planning to drop a bomb here?!" One of the soldiers shouted out in horror as the situation amplified a lot.

What was previously just a small battle was now turning into a massacre of the whole city as a bomb dropped from a plane wouldn't be something light. It would most likely kill thousands of people if it struck the right place.

A feeling of dread hit everyone as they thought about their life during their last moments alive.

A hatch opened up on the bottom of the plane and revealed a large missile. Haru also watched in horror as he, too, thought that his life might come to an end until the surrounding area fell completely silent as an explosion of light illuminated the entire sky.