Few more excruciating hours passed, they took turns taking watch over the camp, and at last dawn finally broke, a slither of gold emerged from the treelines. They watched as the whole camp came to life, people walking out of their tents and starting their normal day.

“They can’t really see us here right?”Primus said as he stood up on the branch, freeing his legs from hours of sitting. With a few hops warm blood started to flow into his cold thighs, eventually the foot as well

"I only assumed they won’t be looking towards here.” Mimic said as he asked for the map to be handed over, he just saw a few persons entering a tent empty handed and returning with a loaf of bread and some other rations in hand. He quickly marked out the general location of said tents, as well as adding in some more details that weren’t present on the map.

“Well that was, somewhat easy.” Primus said, taking a bite out of the bread again “We leaving?” He asked

“Not yet. Look, at the entrance.” Mimic pointed

“50 On that’s the thing we need to burn.”

“No, look at his clothing, that thing is definitely not tunic, no armor as well. Probably a merchant.”

“So what? We just kill him?”

“We could, but then it’s going to be nice to have them around when we eventually siege the kingdom.”

“He can’t stay, you know? Leaving those people alive severely hampers the effectiveness of us burning their food. I say we get B on this, she takes the merchant, we take the convoy.”

“We could strike a deal with him. Come on, we are moving out.” Mimic untied his safety rope, handed the map over to Primus then rappeled down with the rope below him.

“So how are we doing this? Walk over, say hi, what?” Primus asked as he landed, handing over the backpack “How many words do you know anyways?”

“Well… since you asked.” Mimic paused for a while, as of this moment, all they could of offered is probably themselves, and maybe some empty mana crystals. Comibned with the lacking vocabulary on Mimic's side, he gave up “Yeah, get B in on this, we are killing him. Right, let’s get out of here then.” He said as he walked towards the place he leashed the horse

“What happened to the all that ‘we’ll strike a deal thing?’” Primus laughed as he jogged towards Mimic

“You plan on teaching the people how to cook? It’s kind of dull eating bread, porridge and all those day in day out.” Mimic said as they continued the walk, warm sunlight shining on their cold bodies, wind blew across the forest, rustling the trees as it passed.

“I was ‘sick’, remember?” He said with air quotes “What illness did you claim I have anyways? I don’t recall many people coming in and checking in on me.”

“Oh, gro…” Mimic’s voice silenced by a loud boom. When they turned around, the tall walls were no more, the guard towers burnt, and puffs of black smoke started popping up everywhere.

Mimic held onto the backpack, tapped on Primu’s shoulder, then started running full speed towards the horse.

“What ... is that shit? Art... shouldn’t ... a thing.” Mimic yelled as he jumps over a fallen branch, sound covered up by the constant explosion behind them

“.... know … care, just...” Primus shouted back.

Chipped wood filed across their head, waves of heat pulsed through their bodies.

“Wait, give me a second.”Primus bent over besides a tree, running out of breath, paying the price of laying in bed for a few weeks. “Was all that recorded in history? Long range bombardments in warfare?” He continued

“For fuck’s sake.” Mimic looked around, the sound of explosion carried on, at least it doesn't seem to be coming any closer towards them.

“Fine, stay here. I’ll get the… shit I can’t get on. Alright, come on, walk.” He rushed back besides Primus, carrying some of his weight, dragging him towards the horse. “Come on, we get on the horse, you can rest all you want.”

Needless to say, they were both relieved to see the horse still standing there not even startled, probably accidentally trained by B when she was doing all those experiments, Mimic used his hands as a staircase, sending Primus up onto the horseback, in return, he pulled him up afterwards, as soon as they made sure everything is secured they took off, but this time riding inside the forest as to prevent detection.

“I thought they emphasised on honor in battle, artillery doesn't seem honorable to me.” Primus said as he takes the last bit of water

“No, those probably aren’t artilleries.” Mimic answered as he scanned around, paying attention to the explosion sounds. After hearing no further sound from the direction of the camp, he pulled out onto the road, kicking the horse and sent in galloping “You see the way they reacted to the explosion?” He looked back again

“I’ll watch our back, just don’t get us killed.” Primus replied. “And no, not really, just saw things flying up towards the sky”

“Yep, anti air. We either just found a replica of us, or someone somewhere just decided to ignore the whole honor thing.” Mimic said as he kicked the horse again, trying to get out as fast as he could, his hand still shaking from the excess adrenaline, eyes dead locked on the road ahead.

“There is no way we could just convince people to ignore tradition and honors are there?” Primus asked, already having an answer in his mind yet not willing to believe his intuition.

“Mate, whoever gave the idea to bombardment that place clearly has access to better resources than us. They could've learned basic communication, gotten a general idea on what’s going on all on week one after touchdown. Persuading someone then to carry out bombardments wouldn’t be a hard task assuming they frame it correctly.”

The rest of the ride back was mostly quiet, a few call outs from Primus which all turned out to be nothing more than birds going about their lives.

They leashed the horse at the same place they took it from, not far from them, B sat inside a crude tent made out of fallen branches and large leaves, trying to carve the explosion rune into a C shaped wood plank.

“We are so very fucked.” Primus said jumping off the horseback, his legs collapse like wet noodle, it took some time for him to finally stand up again

“We got a perfect chance a few days from now.” Mimic said as he tied the horse to the tree, he then walked over, carrying Primus towards B.

“Someone bombarded the camp, we suspect one of ours might be behind that.” He said as he set Primus down inside the tent besides B.

B dusted off the rune, set it aside, then pulled out another slab “Well, that would be one of yours wouldn’t it? Announcing to the world that they know aerial combat.”

“Well, it looked like a desperation move to me. The camp we scouted out earlier today was on the winning side, a few more weeks and they would be standing under the castle wall and besieging it.” Mimic sat down across them, fiddling with the completed planks.

“And you suspect one of us is behind it, how so?” Her hand stopped and looked up, pointing the dagger at him

“History and stuff I read from the dataset. Honors in battle is kind of a thing, flying around is mostly for recon and transportation of expensive goods, dropping bombs are unheard of until today.”

“What if I just go in and you know, spy?” Primus sat up, eyes filled with anticipation

“As a clown?” Mimic mocked “Humor won’t breach this gap you know?”

“No, we bait. Announce your presence with the ambush, one of us is getting married.” Her eyes lit up, she stood up, biting her thumb, a sadistical grin creeped up her face.

Seeing such, Primus gave Mimic a look, lightly shook his head from left to right, then signaled him to abort by shaking his hand around his neck in a cutting motion.

“One of us?” Mimic pushed on

“Well, if they spawned into a male body I’ll have to be the one wouldn’t I?”

“Why would they accept again?” Primus asked “I know we can get someone in as a spy and they can’t really refuse that, but a marriage is just weird.”

B stacked up all the carved planks, and gestured to them to follow her “Just to throw them off, no one else besides us would know about the duplicate things unless they, you know. One of us asking for a marriage locks down the relationship, puts us besides them instead of against them. If we are really lucky, this would be a female 100B, if it’s a male however, we send one of you in and make them suicide or die to heart attack.”

They went back to the village for lunch, pretending that they just ended a long hide and seek section to cover up for the absence earlier this morning. B and Primus started drafting the letter, leaving Mimic freely wandering the whole camp.

He sat not far from the smithy, preventing accidents like before, tossing and catching the clear crystals himself.

B might have already planned on executing them as soon as everything is done, Primus over there still doesn't have a definitive answer, at least not one he is willing to share, he himself doesn't have a single clue on what is going to happen when everything starts tumbling down.

There is no way when they go back B would be granted the permission to live on as well, after finishing her job, considering how hostile she acted against other duplicates of her own, the odd's aren't that great.

He buried his head into his cold hand, wishing somehow when he raised his head something would change, maybe it would all be just like how B said on the ship, no need to worry about whatever duplication shenanigans.

Some time later B came around, woke him from his daydream session. The plan is simple, send the letter over, tell them about the ambush, and wait for help.

After confirming their ID, then the one with a different ID will go in and start relaying information and resources back to the remaining two.

A trip was planned for tomorrow, where they would pass the letter, hoping the guards are willing to send this to whoever devised the plan.

An alternative plan is also drafted and executed while they were going over the details, Primus carving a copy of the letter into wood so that it could be planted down somewhere, increasing the probability of someone picking it up and eventually.

After dealing with the additional duplicate, B ran to the smithy, picked up the shrapnels she asked for. In her words, she wanted some metal beads for fun, somehow she convinced the blacksmith to go with it. Those were then moved to B’s testing ground, soon the three of them sat around producing mines that ignored Geneva convention.

By noon all is completed, they set one up against the metal armor B stole testing its effectiveness. Mimic set the device on the ground and kept his hand on it to remove any mana that might be in it then tied a rope onto it, B led the horse behind Mimic, connecting the rope onto the horse, then sprinted as fast as she can to cover.

They waited for a while for something to happen.

“So, um. I’m not an expert on this, but will this really work?” Primus asked as he poke his head out behind the branch

“It would, it’s just that B touched the horse, so now it basically has no mana, adding on that horses regenerate mana a lot slower than normal humans, this will take a bit for its mana to fill up and travel down the rope”

They watched as the horse took another bite of the grass around it, not a single clue on what is about to happen, Primus asked again

“You sure this is going to work on the convoy?”

“The only way this doesn't work is if they decide not to put any enchantments on the cart and the horse is dry on mana. Which are both extremely unlikely.” B explained, still looking at the claymore they made.

“Speaking of that, both of you got ear protection right?” B looked at the two who are now just playing roshambo to kill time, stuffing a piece of clothing into her ears.

Not giving them a chance to answer, the device detonated, tens of hundred of small metal beads shot out from the wooden claymore, cutting through everything in front of it.

Primus and Mimic shouted as loud as they could but couldn't hear each other, their ears ringing. B shook her head and went up to calm the shocked horse, then retrieving the armor piece, a few grape size holes scattered around the whole area.

“YOU ARE GOOD TO GO.” B shouted next to their ears as she gave a thumbs up to both of them. They stacked the claymores together, buried it underground and tossed in some clear mana crystals just to make sure nothing would come around at night and trigger any of it, then as usual headed for the loading dock.

As Mimic was striking up a conversation with the nearby person, a few papers fell out from the sky, looking up they saw a hawk like shadow circling the village.

Primus picked up one of the many paper, words neatly printed with ink, a few square-like marks surrounding each letter, the language, standard English.