The original plan was to wait for nighttime when the guards were lax and we would be able to take them down with low risks of casualties on both sides, but a painful headache stroke me on the frontal lobe of my brain.

“Ryno-nii…”

“Help me…”

“I’m scared…”

“Kei!” (Rynosuke) I shouted her name with a growl which startled the men and made the guards shone their reflective lights on our position.

“Dude what the hell?!”

A few of the guys responded to my outburst with telling me with shut up and get down. However, I ignored all of it as the calls for help from my sister became more and more clear. This led to me accidentally had an overflow of emotion and turned “berserk” unintentionally.

At this point, I instinctively cocked the m16, wrapped the sling around my right hand and on my left, I gripped tightly on the bayonet. As I finished my preparation, I stood up and scanned the target destination. A large amount of brigand started to line up in front of our positions. They had noticed our positions and had lined up with their guns, swords and bows ready.

“Listen here, children! We are quite impressed that you managed to injure one of our best man, some of you will be punished for that if we catch you so just come out and we’ll ease up on the intent alright? Do it for your families…”

A man atop of the horse dressed in a vintage looking suit of armour said to us. Since they were about 5 meters in front of us, Julia started to panic, before I revealed myself and came in front of the man.

“Oh good. We have a smart one. We welcome you, child.”

He continued spurting out many more obscenities before asking someone to come up and take me back.

One of his men then came over to my position and tried to take my hand before I used the knife on my left, slashing across his face, more specifically across his eyes. The smug looking leader now looked at me with a feeling of fear and disillusioned. My body was on autopilot back then and I started to cut down the weeds that were in front of me as they started to crowd around me.

With one hand I squeezed the trigger of the m16 on burst. Oh, how beautiful the sounds of the metal mechanism clanking to each other to then reach a sudden crescendo of three small “tat tat tat” noises. Ah music to my ears as they fell down, groaning from pain and bleeding to death.

Their leader then retreated after seeing his men fell down under my hands, leaving the rest to deal with me. However, I managed to catch up to him by jumping atop the brigands’ heads and with one precise shot, I hit him by the shoulder and hurled him over his horse. The horse startled from the sudden fall of its master sudden movement hurled its master onto the ground and ran off into the forest. At this point, I had managed to kill more than a few dozen and was making my way to him. Others had also started firing their weapons at the stragglers and was slowly advancing stacking up behind the APCs and transport trucks.

“Do not spread out you hear me?! Take cover behind the APCs! Now advance! Da vai da vai!” (Julia) She said sprinting around firing her Rex Revolver at the enemies and occasionally switching to the SVD to engage archers and riflemen up on the walls.

Like a fiery thunderstorm, we mercilessly rained our wrath of lead and copper upon these scum of the earth. With the support of my comrades, I managed to move through the battlefield without even a scratch and reached the leader who was limping away on his rolled ankle, gripping tightly on his bullet hole.

“Please…Please don’t!” He begged, scurrying down to my feet as I reloaded my weapon.

I raised my hand, pointing the m16 to his head, as I was about to squeeze the trigger and execute the shaking grunt in front of me, I was then stopped by Hideyoshi. The boy had jumped in front of my nozzle and tried to push away the gun.

“Nii-san! Snap out of it!” (Hideyoshi)

Though there was a very very strong temptation for me to shoot through Hideyoshi and killed the shitface in front of me as in the visions I saw earlier, this was the shit face who had been abusing the slaves, especially my sister.

“Move…” (Rynosuke) I said, snapping the gun back to the position of the scum’s head and intimidated Hideyoshi.

“Don’t do it!” (Rina)

“She’s right Dorogoy! We can use him as a bargaining chip!”(Julia)

Though I was quite content to kill the piece of shit right then and there, another headache punched me right in the brain and leave me to twirl around in a painful fever. I lost my bloodlust and fell flat on the ground.

…

I arrived at the boarding house, opened the door and walked in however, this time it wasn’t Kuucifer, but rather Jiulia-san.

“Oh…About time you show up you lil runt! What the hell took you so long?!” (Jiulia)

Like a brutal drill sergeant, she then addressed me at my first step through the door, followed up with a barrage of berating.

“God damn you’re slow!”

“You think you’re a psycho? I’ve seen more fucked up shits than you jackass! Move it!”

“Lift your legs before I fucking break them!”

In which I replied.

“Those were quite intimidating quotes and lines from a basic drill sergeant handbook” (RYnosuke) I said sarcastically as I slowly walked through the door.

“You…You!” (Jiulia)

She got flustered and tried to grab me by my neck, but I managed to parry her grasp successfully and pushed her against the wall.

‘Wha…kuggh!” (Jiulia)

Mind you that this situation kinda looked risqué as Jiulia was wearing an undershirt with her combat coat loosely draped over her shoulders.

“The lone wolf want to play? How cute…” (Rynosuke)

This was one of the many ways that I managed to gain superiority amongst my either lustful comrades. Though I usually pushed a knife or a piece of debris against their faces.

“Oh ya…You haven’t changed a bit…” (Jiulia)

Jiulia smugly said as she fell down, taking me with her and with a sudden turn of events, her knee was on my stomach and she managed to cross both my arms together against my neck.

“ugh!” (Rynosuke)

I fell down on my back as she tossed me around with her tight grip and at that moment, I saw a glimpse of the past.

…

“Hgh! *Smash*”

“Come on! I know you can do better!” (Jiulia)

Jiulia was talking to an unknown soldier, seems to be in his teens and from the look of his camouflage, I guessed that it was during the starting age of the child soldier profession.

The first traded blows against each other using a pair of rubber knives but later switched on to no weapon, mixed martial art style grappling. At this point, the boy had screwed up the counter for an Aikido grab and was thrown right on the ground on his back with a knee on his stomach.

“Come on chump, you’ve taken on bigger grunts than me. What gives?” (Jiulia)

The boy at this point was panting profusely but still continued.

“Again!”(Jiulia)

And time after time the boy tried to no avail, he could not knock this woman to the ground and with every try, he would be the one fallen to the ground. After about 20 plunges down the rubber mat, Jiulia called the day off and began talking to her assistant.

“We’re done for today.” (Jiulia)

She walked to a corner of the room and quietly whispered to her assistant. Though the conversation was far away from where the kid was sitting, the boy still managed to make out what they were talking about by reading their lips.

“The boy’s a total wreck…I mean, he has good techniques but the kid can barely fight against a woman, how the hell did he manage to knock out three of our guys?!” (Julia)

“Muscle memory? Fight response? I mean we did find him extremely dosed up on drugs and adrenaline. Or maybe our guys were feeling fatigued from assailing the compound.”

“Anyhow, he isn’t gonna be in my NOMAD crew…” (Julia-san)

As soon as he heard those words, the boy went into a full berserk mode which led him to use the plastic butt of the rubber knife and knocked Jiulia by the neck.

“Ow what the hell?!”(Jiulia)

Then he proceeded with pushing her against the wall with his bare strength.

“Kid stop!”

The assistant, on one hand, holding her files and tablets and the other tried to pull the kid away from Jiulia.

“So the wolf finally comes out of its cave eh? …How cute…” (Jiulia)

Jiulia then took a deep breath, kicked her legs to the front and slid down under the boy’s grasp and kicked him off to his knees.

The boy who was pretty much exhausted at this point fell down and things started to turn black. However, before he could black out, Jiulia came by him, crouched down and said.

“Welcome to the Nomads…runt…” (Jiulia)

At the end of this sentence which then concluded the flashback, I then woke up in the common room once more with a drunk Jiulia, dressing scantily and was laughing profusely as she watched some sort of program on the TV.

“Kurumi! Make me some Karaage!” (Jiulia)

“She’s not here…” (Rynosuke) I said as I made my way to the kitchen.

“But since I have nothing to do and you’re as drunk as a skunk, I guess I should really practice cooking some more once in a while.” (Rynosuke)

The reason for me doing this was that I kinda wanted to be validated by Jiulia-san and I had always loved to cook, whenever I have home leave after weeks of training and/or injuries that we cadets would receive that require nation hospital treatments, I would return to my dear sister to make her bento to bring to her university. Thanks to those visits that I had managed to be able to stay sane for quite a while in the field.

…

“Alright, let check the ingredients” (Rynosuke) I said to myself while looking through the fridge.

“Though it had been quite long since I last made Karaage, it can’t be that hard right?” (Rynosuke)

I then scrambled through the fridge to get the ingredients. Kuucifer had stocked the fridge with quite a lot of food and ingredients, which was clustering so much to the point that I had to take out individual items to be able to reach the chickens.

Ingredients:

Chicken breasts or thighs(preferably deboned) Sake and Mirin(for marinade) Buttermilk or yoghurt (for marinade) Sweetened soy sauce (for marinade) Flour Ginger

Procedure:

- Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces for quicker cooking time and also quicker marinating time.

- Add 2 small tbs of Sake and Mirin, 200ml of Buttermilk and/or yoghurt and 3 tbs of soy sauce and leave to marinate for 10 minutes. During that time prepare the sauce for dipping.

- Sauté the ginger till caramelized, then add the soy sauce. Then leave to cool till serving.

- After 10 minutes take out the chicken, shake off the extra marinate liquid and drench through flour and fry in hot oil for 10-15 minutes.

- After frying, drop directly into the sauce, drench and quickly take out to retain the crispiness.

- Garnish with chopped chives.

‘General Jiulia! Your food is ready!” (Rynosuke)

I said as I walked back to the common room, a dish of chicken in hand. Though I was expecting a drunken Jiulia-san in her drunken state praising me for my good food, I was then presented with a very disappointing scene.

“Jiulia-san? Ah, …she’s asleep?” (Rynosuke)

Jiulia-san fell asleep while I was cooking and this was kind of a letdown as I was kinda looking forward to having a talk with her but meh…

Later after cleaning up the kitchen, I strolled into the common room to fiddle around with the TVs and bookcases that were in the common room. I managed to find quite a lot of books and among the stuff, I managed to find a few light novel books and manga that Hideyoshi talked about before. I was quite surprised at the amount of manga and light novels I had managed to dig out of the shelves. Though I had never touched nor know anything about these sort of stuff, I remembered a few years in my primary that people went out rioting because our government had banned or prohibited something relating to the arts of Japan.

“So these are the forbidden arts of Japan…I’m kinda shocked.”(Rynosuke) I held up one of the books and sarcastically said.

Among the mangas and the novels, there were quite a few lewd and explicit picture books and eromangas.

“Kuucifer…mysterious and listless as always…”(Rynosuke)

In context, Kuucifer to me at this point was pretty mysterious and kinda hard to read. She had video games and books messily thrown around in the common room when we first met, had been sneakily eating a lot of fat greasy food and had been acting like a diligent little sister. The second time, she acted cold and silent and though she did show a lil bit of the cutesy caring side, she was still colder than the previous time. On the next visit, though she was even quieter than before I was shown with a lot more affection and attention, she even gave me quite an unforgettable sensual experience. Though it was interrupted by the arrival of General Jiulia, it was quite memorable for me, seeing how much of a fake love performance I had to make back in the Commandoes. Anyway, this stuff wasn’t what I had assumed she would have in her shelves.

The picture book was pretty subtle and wasn’t that shocking as to be banned. There were hints of perversions and lewdness, but nothing too overboard. Other than that, Most of the manga were romance comedy or tales of overpowered students with extremely not likely gifts from gods arriving in another world to fight evil or some shit like that. “Well, that’s really similar to my situation…” (Rynosuke)

I had a sarcastic thought about the subjects of the novels and manga and later continued with the reading.

Though I was sarcastic at first, was later hooked on the stories and the characters that were created in these stories. Though they seemed childish and over the top, these fantasies managed to let me experience the peace and romance of the world that I had never seen before.

…

I spent a few more hours reading the manga while eating the Karaage that I had made for Jiulia. As I reached out to take out another manga, I accidentally hit a black book in the back of the shelves, knocking it down and opened on its back.

“Hmm? A picture book?”(RYnosuke)

This piqued my interest as in any boarding house I had visited, family pictures and portraits had always been hung up for the travellers, the renters to see. However, this place didn’t have any, which felt strange for me. Intrigued by the picture book, I moved in to take a look.

On the first page was a group photo of Kuucifer, Jiulia and three more people I had never seen before. Two of them were twins of Russian/ European descent and another was a military doctor in South Korean military fatigues. Their faces were so foreign, so bizarre, but somehow so homely, so… seductive. Then at that moment, an overly pleasurable surge coursed through my body as if I had been drugged. The feeling was similar to the feeling I would get when I was drugged Blue Sky [*], then I started to experience these flashes.

[*]Blue Sky: An illegal aphrodisiac made from various drugs.

Everything in a sudden felt, so steamy, so claustrophobic, so fleshy…so pleasurable. The glimpses shown in those flashes showed the women in those picture in the most skimpy and inappropriate outfits, touching me, pleasuring me all over.

“We…are forever…yours only…”

They said between the consecutive moans and thrusts.

As I was rising up to the crescendo of the scene, the damned clock rang.

“Crap! Kid! Ya gotta go!” (Jiulia) Jiulia-san suddenly sprang up and in a continuous motion, buttoned up my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, put me in my boots and kicked me out of the door.

“Puh!”(Rynosuke)

“Cya kid, happy travels. Oh, wait! Hold on!” (Jiulia)

She suddenly ran back to the house then to present me with a computer chip,

“Here! Your next objective…and tell Julia…I said hi.”(Jiulia)

Of which I turned back towards her, with my two feet together, I then raised my head high and gave her a salute.

“…pfft! Oh, you…” (Jiulia) She said as she saluted back.