Prologue

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Part 1 –

It was a good day.

Birds are chirping, the sunshine is shining, I’ve got a full wagon of loot…

Life is good, man. Things are just going my way today.

Trying to conscript me? Haha! Nice try, but I’m outta here.

Like a lightning bolt from a cloudless sky, a tremendous explosion tore through the air, sending all my clones stumbling forward as small chunks of debris shot past us.

Chickens tumbled through the air, vials shook.

I turned around and there’s a fucking massive black cloud hovering over the military base.

Lines of smoke were drawn as large chunks of things shot across the sky.

The walls had gone on vacation and everything was on fire.

Whaaat.

The.

FUCK.

I suddenly remembered my last conversation with Karl.

「This is your fault. You did this.」

WHAT?

I didn’t know he was going to blow himself up!

「”Just do what you feel is right,” my ass. I’m blaming you.」

I’m clear of blame here! I didn’t know he was going to kill himself!

「What did you think he was going to do? Throw a party after killing a Lieutenant Colonel?」

People don’t usually blow themselves up!

「You could have guessed his intention from his facial expressions!」

I’ve never seen someone blow themselves up before! Everyone’s a general after the battle!

「Well, no use crying over spilt milk. Wait, there’s a survivor!」

What? Oh god!

She tripped and fell on her sword!

Oh, fuck!

With a flick of the reins, we made haste back towards the smoking crater that was the base.

As approached the limp body on the ground, I noticed that a small fountain of blood was created every few seconds around her wound.

That’s her heart, isn’t it.

Oh shit, she’s done.

「Oh, wai wai wait, cancer in a bottle! Give her the cancer!」

Oh cancer, with one noodly appendage thine giveth, with the other thine taketh away

We quickly looked through the cart and found a case of green vials.

「Essence of Life, one Imperial Unit. (150 silver). It’ll do. 」

As a group, we haphazardly flipped her over and pulled the sword out.

「Quickly! Pour it on the wound!」

The very second the green fluid hit her, the liquid vanished.

Blood vessels reconnected and flesh regrew.

I can see why this is worth a hundred and fifty silver now.

「No pulse! Beginning cardiac massage.」

What the fucking hell is going on today? It was going so well too!

I sent a few puppets to look for survivors, but the outcome was already pretty obvious considering everything was burning.

「Analyzing…」

「No shock advised.」

No shock advised? We don’t even have an AED!

「That doesn’t matter. Elevate her legs so more blood goes to her head!」

Sounds logical.

A large white rock was carried over and her legs were placed on it.

「Administering rescue breathing.」

God dammit, what would a professional doctor do?

「They would use expensive equipment that we don’t have!」

Well, make shit up! Improvise!

「Uhh, pour water on her forehead. Lowering body temperature by two degrees doubles the time she has before brain damage sets in.」

Solid plan, let’s move her into shade first.

We dragged her out of the direct sunlight and… realized the water was lukewarm.

Alright, how much money are we willing to spend on her?

「Considering how rich we are… a lot of money.」

「She’s breathing! There’s a pulse!」

Suddenly, a second explosion sent a shockwave through the air.

Hundreds of shards of planks were sent flying through the air.

The explosion originated from the center of the base so none of the shards of wood even came close to hitting us.

Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the heeble jeebles.

「Good plan. 」

Now that she had stabilized, we could afford to move her.

We set the girl on the cart and headed for the city.

People near disaster scenes are blamed. It’s best to flee.

In just under ten minutes, we had arrived at the gates.

Strangely, they were unguarded.

I wonder where that one guard went.

There seemed to be a few people at the gates watching the smoke cloud, though.

“What happened?” a few asked.

I quickly recalled the one map that I saw sometime in my life.

“We saw that too, but we came from the road to Henderson City.”

The people nodded in understanding and we passed them without a problem.

Just as we entered the city, the girl woke up.

Her eyes opened, but she didn’t move.

She just laid there with her eyes open, staring off into space.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She sat up slowly and sighed after she saw the bloodstain on her clothes.

“You tripped and fell on your sword,” I said helpfully.

She gave me a strange look.

Her gaze drifted across my puppets and seemed to stop on one in particular.

Their gazes met.

Her expression rapidly shifted from apathy to shock, then from shock to relief.

Suddenly, she was out of the cart.

She wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace and smiled like lost child who just found their mom.

Then she cried as she mumbled something quietly.

Skynet sees all, Skynet hears all.

Using the best possible filters with all fifty inputs, the background noise was isolated and removed so that only the original message was left.

“So it really was a dream.”

I wonder what that means.