The rest of the evening was a flurry of talking, discussing and writing. People of all physique and education began writing letters to their families and others. Even though some wrote splendidly, and Zen was delighted that he could actually read and write in the same language as the soldiers, there were some others whose letters were… to say the least… not very adequate.

“What does that say?” Zen said, peering down at a soldier’s ‘letter’. It looked more like black splatter art than a sophisticated message.

“It’s nothing! Just my letter.” said the soldier hastily, who leaned over the table and covered the letter with his hands.

“You know I am going to have to proof-read all of your letters eventually. It’s better if I can check your work now than later, because you may have to start over.”

The soldier reluctantly handed the slightly damp and crumpled piece of parchment to Zen. When he took a glance at it, Zen almost had a spit take. It was completely incomprehensible, and the ink had almost seeped through the parchment in every part of the paper. Also, there were small little stab indents all over the sheet.

“Do you know how to write?” Zen asked, handing the sheet back to the glum soldier.

“No, not really.” The soldier whispered. “I only pretended I did because I didn’t want to get bullied by the others. Everyone here is educated and posh and I’m not. I only came here because I passed the acceptance test and I wanted to serve the empire in a way I could help.”

“That is completely fine.” Zen said. “No man should not be judged on whether they have an extremely high education. It’s based on their heart, and their personality, and whether they are willing to help others. And you can always learn later.”

Zen put a hand on the soldier’s shoulder, and he looked up at him from looking down and glum. “Look, how about this. You still want to send a letter to your family or your caretakers right? If you’d like, I can write the letter for you in your stead. How about that?”

The soldier’s glum face quickly morphed into an expression of joy. “Really? You’d do that for a commoner like me?”

“Of course!” Zen said cheerfully. “Everyone is an equal in my eyes. Now come on. What do you want to tell home?”

So Zen wrote the letter about the half fake battle, with much of the content being told by the mouth of the soldier. The soldier’s name was Emmanuel, and he seemed like a pretty cheery guy. It was just that he had no education.

And let’s talk about actually writing the letter. Writing with a feather was actually pretty difficult. If you stabbed the paper too hard it’d make a hole, and if you used too much ink it’d bleed through the paper. He probably made a total fool of himself writing that letter in the beginning, as he made a lot of errors like Emmanuel had. Even Emmanuel jokingly asked him if he knew how to write, to which he just retorted that his hands weren’t used to quills.

Eventually, a pretty decent letter was completed in Emmanuel’s words, and he couldn’t have been more happy. Zen breathed a sigh of relief, before standing up from the table and handing it to Emmanuel.

“Keep this safe please?” Zen told Emmanuel. “Paper is very fragile, and I doubt someone would want to write it again if it got lost or destroyed. And also, your letter isn’t prioritized right now. I hope you’re happy.”

“Oh I am beyond happy! Thanks so much!” And out of nowhere, Emmanuel gave Zen a quick peck on the cheek, before sauntering off to another corner of the mess hall to talk with a few others.

Zen was a little stunned. He had never gotten a kiss before, or one that he remembered. Maybe he should ask Devan about it.

Zen moved about the room, before he saw Devan leaning against the wall, spinning a metal butterfly knife around. He walked up to Devan, who flipped the knife into the air, catching it, and stuffing it into his back pocket.

“Let me guess. You want to ask me whether I have finished the letter right? Well here it is.” Devan said. He held out a crisp, neat letter and handed it to Zen. When he took a glance at it, it was an utter masterpiece. Every part of the font to the sheer calligraphy of the penmanship was phenomenal.

“How’d you learn to write like this?” Zen asked in a mild disbelief.

“Early in my days I went to this prestigious academy in the capital of the empire. Lots of rich and noble students were enrolled there. I got in because I was on excellent terms with the royal family. Maybe even a bit too excellent.”

“Oh… yeah cool. By the way, I have a question.” Zen asked Devan, to which he gave Zen his attention again.

“Just a moment ago, I was helping this guy named Emmanuel. He couldn’t really write, so I wrote his letter for him. After I wrote it, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. Why… Did he do that?”

“Ah. Emmanuel.” Devan whistled with a soft chuckle. “He was a commoner who came from the far east of the empire, even farther east than this outpost. I believe they have a culture where they kiss you on the cheek as a greeting. But… this was definitely not a greeting was it?”

“No it wasn’t.” Zen said.

“Then the only options that leaves is that Emmanuel is either gay or secretly in love with you.” Devan said flatly.

“What?!” Zen yelled, before shutting himself up, as some guards had turned towards his direction in confusion.

“Hey, don’t say that stuff out loud!” Zen whispered to Devan. “It feels weird, talking about that stuff out loud.”

“Aw, aren’t you a soft boy. Can’t talk about romance in public?” Devan chuckled. “Having a secret crazy admirer isn’t all bad. Take the second prince of the empire for instance.”

“What about him?” Zen asked in a hushed manner.

“Oh, the second prince.” Devan said, waving his hand in the air, flipping his butterfly knife. “Loved hearing stories about adventurers. Has lots of suitors that wish to marry him. Even though many have tried, he refuses, to the disappointment of the royal family. Do you know why he does this? Because he’s in love with someone else. Do you know who?”

Zen shook his head. Devan promptly winked and pointed a thumb to his chest, and Zen’s eyes widened.

“Are you kidding?” Zen said in disbelief. “Your secret admirer is a prince?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty funny. That’s how I got into such good relations with the empire, doing crazy adventures, stuff like that. There was also a time I was roaming in the snowy woods, and I heard a cry for help, so as young me did, I went over and saw the second prince surrounded by wolves. Must have been an assassination ploy. So I did what any Moro would have done and rescued him. Princess hold style. It was pretty hilarious, when I think about it.”

Devan chuckled to himself and hucked the butterfly knife into a wall. It stuck with a quiet thunk! Devan turned to Zen again. “I think you should go and monitor the soldiers. They’re the one that’s making your plan stick together.”

Zen walked back into the main dining hall area, with a slightly redder face than before, and kept inspecting letters. Most of the letters were pretty good, with some grammatical errors, but Zen let that slide. There were of course the greater errors. For instance, some people had just written a letter about the battle with Zen as the main character. He had to repeat the entire premise of the plan to the forgetful soldier again and asked him to rewrite the letter again. It was a pain to ask him to do it. Because the contents of the letter were pretty good. Eventually Zen managed to find himself standing by the beanbag corner, where Gunther and Rothhardt were currently sitting.

“Hey guys, how are the letters doing?” Zen asked, opening arms not really expecting a hug. Gunther didn’t seem to get the hint, and hugged Zen anyways. He squeaked with acute agony. Gunther really was a giant.

“Aghhh… you’re squeezing me too hard.” Zen managed to squeak out. Gunther promptly let go, where Zen had to cough a few times to catch his breath. Rothhardt, who had seen the whole thing, laughed a little.

“Things are going well, if I do say so myself,” Rothhardt said, adjusting his glasses. “I’ve written the general gist of what the false battle is about. You don’t really have to sweat it. Making stories is really my thing. Especially false ones.” A scary dark grin formed on his face before quickly going back to his usual self.

“And your general story was very helpful and concise on what the fake battle should be described as. Very helpful indeed.” Rothhardt went back to humming and writing.

Zen glanced at the chalkboard. About thirty minutes ago he had written a general idea of what the false battle would be like. Has it really been that helpful? All he did was put some major plot points.

First, the protagonist of the battle would be Jacky. In this scenario, Jacky would run through the gate, sliding under three crosserfangs, killing them all in quick succession. Then, using a flank guard’s shield as a wall, he would jump onto a hulker and rassle with it. Because of that wrestling match, ‘Jacky’ would receive some injuries but keep going forward. He would then go forward, use a spear to pop the sacs of a heater spider, before straying from the walls to fight an acid crosserfang one on one.

The fight with the acid crosserfang would mostly be told by how Zen fought the acid crosserfang, except for the fact that Jacky gets peppered way more, and suffers badly. Eventually, Jacky manages to use his spear to kill the acid crosserfang. Since Jacky is too injured to continue, he gives his short bow to the nearest soldier to him, where Jacky dies from the acid flood and the soldier runs back with the bow. In this case, the soldier would be Zen. And in this story, Zen would be a normal human, not a Moro. That’s right. Zen would be hiding his identity.

It didn’t seem all that concise. It was pretty complicated, from his point of view. However every soldier in the mess hall seemed to disagree, and seemed to build their letter home around those plot points. If all things worked out, they could keep sending letters that supported this theory. Oh, and all these letters should say something about how Jacky was a true hero and so on and so forth. All that supporting stuff.

“Your plot points are good.” Gunther said gruffly, almost as if he had read Zen’s mind. “You do not need to worry about being perfect. We will make sure your plan works. I will make sure of it.” He thumped his chest with his fist, and Zen nodded.

Zen sat down next to Gunther and Rothhardt. It took a few more minutes, but the last of the most important letters were finished. One to the local military of Tampatown, one to the local Tampatown newspaper, and the last one, from Devan, to the Tampatown adventurer’s guild. It looks like everything was ready for Letter Shipment One.

Zen took the papers and brought them over to Devan, who promptly gave his letter too.

“Alright it seems like we’re ready for the first send off. Where are the birds?” Zen asked.

“I’ll get them. I doubt you can handle birds anyways.” Devan said. He turned and walked through the hallway. Zen heard a few doors open, before hearing a ruffle of feathers and tweeting down the hall. Eventually, Devan came out of the hallway, with three rather large pigeons on a perching stick.

“Those look like much bigger pigeons to the pigeons I saw outside.” Zen said.

“Oh don’t worry about it. These are specially trained and bred carrier pigeons. Because of this they are much bigger than usual and can carry more weight.”

“Do you think they can carry the letters? Especially since it’s dark and rainy outside.”

“It’s fine. The bags on their backs are actually waterproof, so it’s fine. And if you’re worried about turbulence, don’t worry about it either. These suckers have a wingspan as long as your arms extend in a T pose. So you really don’t have to worry.” And as if the birds were listening, one of the carrier pigeons opened his wings, his gigantic wings extended outward.

Devan took the letters, putting a letter in each bird’s backpack, before giving them a treat and opening the window. Each bird looked back at the two, before hopping out and soaring into the air. Devan and Zen watched them go.

“How long until they come back?” Zen asked.

“Probably until morning.” Devan said. “Now you should probably go back to your tent and go to bed. It’s like twelve in the morning, and I’m tired as hell.”

And with that, Devan walked back down the hallway.