“You’re good, Lance Corporal En.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” The speaker — Gemini, under the alias of En Pesea — replied as he pushed yet another human body into a leafy bush, creating a meaty thump as it landed on another corpse. “Still, these are novel tactics. Had it been the Congress of old, we would never have adapted so swiftly.”

“Don’t be so certain about that,” replied Sergeant Wayne. “Had the intelligence services not reported back that the Constellation Pisces was the one who came up with Fire Team tactics, we wouldn’t have adapted the same method either.”

“Speaking of which, the intelligence services seem to be working really hard recently.”

“Yeah, they must have been, if an ex-cleaner like you noticed it.” The sergeant paused. “No offence meant…what I meant to say was—”

“It’s alright, Sergeant.” Gemini looked at the other members of the team, three other lance corporals and one corporal. “No one expects the cleaner to be a fighter.”

“Not sure why you gave up an easy job for this shitty jig though, En,” said one of the lance corporals.

“Well, I decided I wanted better food, after getting some hard stuff for lunch,” replied Gemini. After killing his first spy in what apparently was called the First Camp for the Lost and Abandoned, his quest had updated, forcing him to join Ark City’s military, or risk getting shocked again.

It was a no-brainer choice, and after knocking out a bunch of scrawny children and a shifty-looking thief in the tryouts, he had been selected to join some special unit…which was just a glorified name for a small squad dedicated to hunting down other small squads. Joy.

“Ohh…I totally get what you mean. Us soldiers get two meals, y’know. Two!” the lance corporal emphasised. “Now, we just need to take out the last bugger hanging around this place, or wait one more hour before we go back.”

“Can’t wait for it,” Gemini agreed. Gemini wasn’t just looking forward to an extra meal, but also towards the baths reserved for soldiers. “I really, really can’t wait to go back.”

To the days before all this senseless killing started. I’m tired of all this. A bitter smile emerged on Gemini’s face. It wasn’t the prospect of war that tired him, but the outcomes that followed. Ark City had shown him enough death and suffering up close to last for lifetimes, and the hero wanted nothing more than to leave his role now.

“We got the last one!” A shout interrupted Gemini’s train of thoughts, as a volley of arrows nailed a fleeing man and turned him into a needle-bed.

“Well done, Corporal!” Sergeant Wayne whistled loudly, and the small team of soldiers retreated like shadows.

There was another moment of panicked silence when the bridge connecting World’s Edge to the Southern Continent in general swayed in a strong wind, but other than that, the journey back was smooth. Murders of crows continued to dot the sky, landing on the uncleared bodies to eat their fill, and then leaving after they were done.

Gemini stared at the mounds of bodies, all of them from the human forces. The commanders of the human subjugation forces had not even bothered to cart the dead back, leaving them here for the crows to pick at. Even though Gemini knew that these were sacrificial troops, people that the Constellations and the authorities of the Southern Continent wanted to get rid of, they should at least be treated with dignity in the end. It was hypocrisy on his part, but Gemini still had that little spark of humanity within him.

Dulce est decorum my ass, Gemini thought bitterly. Scorpio was the one who came up with this phrase, but when push came to shove, he departed towards the Eastern Territories, clearly intent to begin preparations for there. And presumably to create yet another mound of bodies he had no desire to care about.

How many of these men had waved at Scorpio when he came to visit them? And how many of these people were now lying here, their bodies abandoned by those who led them? Gemini’s heart shuddered. It was something hard to swallow.

“Poor bastards,” said Sergeant Wayne. “If the Constellation Gemini had remained to watch over the humans as they retreated, these bodies wouldn’t have been left here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Constellations are said to be the epitome of virtue, so even the most cold-hearted generals would retrieve these bodies out of respect for these Heroes,” said the sergeant. “But Gemini had to run off again for other things.”

It was a bit odd for Gemini to hear other people, especially people from a hostile nation, describe him as an epitome of virtue. The feeling of peculiarity passed swiftly, replaced by a wave of sorrow and regret. He’d long known, but these beastfolk were never the bloodthirsty, desire-driven monsters that the Southern authorities said they were.

“Furthermore,” continued the sergeant, “the generals of the human forces must have favoured leaving these bodies here. It’s a convenient political fiction to avoid paying the families of the deceased — just tell these families that their son didn’t die, but rather deserted or even defected to the beastfolk.”

“Sly assholes,” chimed in a lance corporal. “Who’s going to come all the way here to check? Blighted Night, we’re even helping these ball-less men do their job for them by killing any human who wants to cross the World’s End chasm!”

“Yeah, screw this job. These generals aren’t humans, they’re frigging demons. Why aren’t the heroes killing them all yet?”

Gemini’s heart was heavy by the time they passed through the fortress gates. He didn’t expect even the beastfolk to have such expectations of the Constellation heroes, him included. How would these soldiers react if they found out that one of them was in disguise here, in order to kill a handful of other humans?

As the little squad begun to dig into the plate of mashed potato and meat, a soldier ran into the canteen frantically, his movements catching the eye of everyone present.

“Big news! The Eastern Territories and the Western Holdings have declared war on the Southern Continent!”

“War?!”

As the word resounded across the canteen, Gemini’s heart skipped a beat. A robotic voice had started speaking in his ear. Far away, intense jolts of electricity were ravaging his main body, and his vision blurred, before darkness descended.

The last thing Gemini could hear were a dozen panicked shouts all around him, before he fainted.