Chapter 24 – Battle at Bufohelm: Part 1

He could count the amount of times he’d woken up like this on one hand. Here, like on Earth, there too was light, and it was warm. His bones had healed well, his mind was at ease, and his heart – by the grace of God, it gently pumped the nectar of euphoria through his veins, reaching even the most distant capillaries.

‘What a night it was,’ Kuno spoke out loud as he stretched his back. ‘Another confirmation of my greatness… And that of JD too, I suppose.’ He looked at his arm, seeing not even a speck different from what he was used to - no swelling, no pain, no scar, nothing. ‘To destroy and create… You’re something else, JD… You truly are.’

The others had long since woken, and hearing him speak, Chompy shoved the fabric of the tent’s entrance aside to take a peep. ‘Who are you talking to?’ – he saw the bed-headed Kuno smile at him, prompting Chompy to smile back – ‘You good? Wanna eat something?’

‘Yes! I’m starving! Give me a second, I’ll be right there,’ Kuno said, thinking: ‘Away from home, and people are still taking care of me. I don’t know what mom was stressing about. So what if I can’t cook rice…?’ – After another minute of daydreaming, to make up for his lack of regular dreams, he stepped outside to wash his face. The afternoon sun was quick to salute him, shining through the forest leaves.

‘What’s poppin’ with you, sun?’ Kuno asked, looking at the sky with his hand towards the light source. ‘Things couldn’t be better here. Keep up the good work!’

JD shared the same positivity, although he was still in Slumberland, dreaming away, doing the few heinous things he hadn’t done yet on his enemies. His body sensed Kuno enter his tent, but knew enough about the characteristics of his entrance to confirm it was Kuno. A warrior would go insane if every disturbance would alert him. JD had nothing to lose, but unwillingly his body had adapted just as well as those of the sanes.

‘Yo, you hungry?’ Kuno asked, eating a bowl of lumpy porridge. ‘I don’t even like porridge, but when you’re hungry, everything tastes great.’

‘Quahaha, hmm, quah…’ JD said in his sleep. The others had asked him to wake JD up, knowing that if their captain would be grumpy, he wouldn’t do much to Kuno. And even if he did, Kuno’s the one most used to it.

He sat on the edge of JD’s blanket, close to the tent’s wall, if it can be even called that. Kuno looked around him – just pieces of paper scattered in a small green tent. He finished his porridge and put it aside, picking up a piece of paper near his hip. – Sparkles came off of it, with Kuno noticing a faint glow. ‘Obviously magical…’ Kuno thought before reading it.

Status Report 1155, it said, with written in red: All’s good in the hood.

All the other papers said the same thing, with only the number changing. He sighed, ‘I wonder if he’d get in trouble… He said he could let me go if he wanted to, but shouldn’t he at least report it…?’

He put the reports on one pile, neatly stacked beside JD. From the corner of his eye, however, he saw a single piece of paper sticking out the other side of JD’s blanket. He went over there to add it to the pile, but upon getting closer, noticed this one was different – having a red outline, unlike the others.

He began reading.

‘A party of Earthlings are invading the south west Soji forest. I order you to return to the base camp north-eastward, and neutralize them upon sight. Details:

Invaders include: Xiuying – Yuki – Sarah – Cara, but may include more.

Abilities:’

Kuno read the abilities, the abilities of the only one he didn’t know: the multi-classed Xiuying. ‘Interesting…’ he thought, placing the paper on the pile and sitting down, a surge of thoughts intruding on his positive mental state.

‘Neutralize… If I get to leave this forest alive, everything is gonna get real complicated…’ Kuno thought. ‘I mean, I’m definitely gonna join my party again. They seem the safest to hang with, plus they’re strong… and human…’ he glimpsed at the sleeping JD. ‘No offense, but you already told me two out of five pillars want me dead… If one of the others change their minds, I’m toast. The play is definitely Regnum for now.’

He sighed and stood up. ‘Which means I need to ride a very fine line.’

He left the tent, making sure to be as silent as possible. Seeing him come out of their captain’s tent, drew the attention of half a dozen campers, with Kuno telling them before they could ask: ‘He’s not waking up. I’m off to do some training alone.’

A frogman immediately said: ‘You can’t just leave without the captain’s permission!’

Kuno waved his hand goodbye as a rabbitman put his hand on the frogman’s shoulder, shaking his head from left to right. ‘I’m not a prisoner,’ Kuno said. ‘I’m a free man – courtesy of the Undead Warlord.’

In the northeast, the grass lost its green, and lay in trampled yellow at the foot of cobble and wood. Further in, you’ll meet the walls or now open gates, among them hundreds of soldiers, working each day to better the empire that had given them so much. The stone walls rose high, equipped with slits to shoot from, and spikes to keep the outside world out.

This fortress, Bufohelm, a small piece of Soji, was governed by a short, old toad named:

‘Mr. Toad!’ a magpieman dressed in a complete purple and gold robe said. ‘Mr. Toad, would you wake up? I beg of you!’

As he approached the sleeping Mr. Toad in his comfy armchair, the magpieman tripped on his long robe, rolling the last couple of feet, until arriving at the socked, webbed feet of Mr. Toad, waking him up from his afternoon nap. The snot bubble of the amphibian popped as it looked around him with sleepy eyes. ‘Hello? Anyone there?’ he asked.

‘Down here, Sir,’ the magpieman said, lifting his finger.

‘Ah, Ozzy. You must want some candy,’ Mr. Toad said, lifting his arms up to look in his pockets. ‘I might have something for you.’

Ozzy got back up, shaking his head rapidly to reset himself. ‘No, Mr. Toad. We heard some loud bangs to the southwest during the night and were wondering if Lord JD had sent you anything.’

‘Loud bangs?’ Mr. Toad said with a slow cadence to his voice. ‘So you don’t want this?’ he asked Ozzy, grabbing a sugared cherry out of his pocket. It had lint and dust on it, but still sparkled vividly in the magical light of the fortress’ captain room.

Ozzy lifted his black beak up, bouncing it a few times as his salivary glands got to work. ‘Uh,’ he swallowed. ‘I would like to have that…’

‘Sure,’ Mr. Toad said, offering the candy in his palm. He had expected Ozzy to pick it up with his hand, but Ozzy swiftly pecked the candy out of Mr. Toad’s palm and began moving the hard cherry candy in his beak. ‘Mhmm- Mmm – very good,’ Ozzy said. ‘So, anyway, mmm, about the sounds.’

‘I haven’t received any message, my boy,’ Mr. Toad answered. ‘But if it’s from the southwest, I wouldn’t worry about it.’

‘You sure?’ Ozzy asked, tossing the candy from left to right.

‘Lord JD is a handful – he does what he wants and listens to no one… but he sure is dependable when danger is around,’ Mr. Toad said, raising his finger. ‘If the sky would come crashing down, best be sure that duckman would lift it back up – or die trying!’

Ozzy swallowed the candy. ‘I hope so. The Earthlings have hurt enough of us already. I don’t know what they’re planning, but we need all our troops in and around the fortress. You got more candy?’

Mr. Toad stood up from his armchair, grabbing a wooden walking stick that had been leaning against the left of it. He made his way to the balcony as he wondered: ‘We’ve only got notified of four little intruders… None of them in the S-ranks.’

He reached the balcony, with Ozzy following close behind. ‘Is that a no?’ Ozzy asked.

Mr. Toad didn’t hear him, too busy turning the cogs in his rusty brain. He looked down at his subjects, preparing their weaponry for a possible attack. ‘I don’t know what they are planning, but we’ve got whatever we need to deal with them…’

There once was a time where small-time warfare was the norm. When it was tribe against tribe against tribe. Long before the world had been split in two. When all the animals but humans didn’t have to bond in order to fight their common enemy.

Now, it’s Soji versus Regnum – East versus West. Most people had only seen big battlefields, with hundreds of thousands of casualties. Because of the addition of Earthlings, however, small attacks got reintroduced. People like Ozzy and most other young soldiers weren’t used to that.

Mr. Toad, however, was in the know – so when Ozzy pointed to the sky, he got a hint of what was about to happen.

‘Mr. Toad… am I seeing things or…’ Ozzy said, pointing at the sky, seeing rays of liquid flying up in the distance.

‘Set up a barrier ceiling, my child,’ Mr. Toad calmly spoke.

‘N-Now?’ Ozzy asked, the hairs on his body standing straight upon hearing his elder speak. ‘Right now.’

‘We’re under attack.’

Mr. Toad tapped the balcony floor with his walking stick, creating a flash of crimson light, along with a high-pitched noise, swiftly grabbing everyone’s attention. Mr. Toad was old, his voice had gone soft, but for these days, he carried a special supply of decibels.

‘TAKE COVER! THEY’RE ATTACKING US FROM ABOVE!’

Ozzy had put his palms together, channeling his power to form a magical dome to enclose their fortress – but it would take time. The people were caught off guard – they had heard of aerial attacks before, but this was beyond sudden.

Mr. Toad extended his arm out, spinning his walking stick in the air – summoning a blizzard to fight what was about to strike their base. ‘Blizzard,’ he said as ice cold wind blew from his walking stick, creating a storm above their base. Unfortunately, not fast enough. What came from the sky showed itself to be droplets – yellow droplets of condensed pain.

They hit the unfortunate ones on their head and shoulders, within a second eating at their skin as they cried out from the pain. Some had picked feeble cover, and as they thought they were safe, got hit by the acid drops burning through straw and wood.

Mr. Toad spun it faster until he could finally blow away all the droplets coming their way. ‘Hurry up, my child,’ he said to Ozzy, who had closed his eyes as he chanted his magic.

‘Protect us from all who wish us wrong. Barrier Dome!’

From the ground, a see-through barrier emerged, rising slowly. The people who were outside had been running, but as the barrier rose, it seemed like not all of them would make it.

‘They’re clever…’ Mr. Toad thought. ‘Instead of attacking at night, they attacked in the middle of the day, knowing a portion of the soldiers would be outside the fortress!’

They were indeed clever. Lead by a leader who was an expert in this deadly craft on Earth, Mr. Toad knew this battle would be a dirty one. ‘I wished I never had to see it again…’ Mr. Toad thought. ‘This despising form of combat…’

Diligently hidden at a safe distance, Xiuying looked at the screeching animals running towards the fortress. She carried a long face – unproud at how she had to take this battle on. Her hand moved to the side of her mouth, tracing the scar. Her home country had suffered greatly at the hands of this type of warfare – and she felt shame she had to use it again.

But she had seen war before getting to Terra Two, and this was her speciality – it seems she was destined to live up to her name:

Xiuying, the Guerrilla.