Chương 67: A Voice That Carries Promises

When Samuel came to, he leaped up and fell down. His entire body was aching. Fifteen days of pure fight or flight kept the built-up fatigue at bay, but the sixteenth day was coming. He clambered up and burst out of the infirmary hovel.

'Sixteenth day!

'Shit! Shit! Shit!'

'It said thousands would die today.'

"I-I need to tell the major." Major Ford was an old man with greying hair; his voice sounded crass, and the man didn't seem to speak in any other way than screaming or berating. He was known as an opportunist scumbag among the military chain, not to mention he was the type to kiss up and kick down. Among the people under him in the royal faction, desertion wasn't rare due to his poor personality and lack of leadership.

All the achievements that made him eligible were achieved by stellar soldiers and the skilled people underneath him, but Samuel was in no position to be picky. Samuel stumbled over at a running pace; every step carried the possibility of throwing him onto the muddy floor, but he continued on to Major Ford's tent and burst in.

"MAJOR! MAJ—" The Dreamer guards inside the major's tent knocked Samuel to the floor, but Samuel kept talking.

"MAJOR! IT'S—" Before Samuel got a single word in, the old man yelled at his guards with a deafening screech.

"GOD DAMMIT, WHAT DO WE PAY YOU FOR, YOU DAMN IDIOTS!!"

"GET THIS DAMN RIFFRAFF OUT OF MY QUARTERS NOW!!!" Samuel, without a second's delay, was tossed out by the guards.

'SHIT!' Samuel was tempted to barge in once again, but the major was known for his temper. Not to mention, he was notorious for executing his own soldiers for stupid reasons. Samuel clenched his teeth, gritted his fists, and ran off.

'Will! Will he always know what to do?' Luckily, the infirmary wasn't too far from the Major's tent. Samuel burst in, and his eyes widened in horror. Blue mist was coming off rows of once-living patients. Samuel shook his shock off and screamed for the guards before running to check on Will. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"WILL!"

"WILLIAM DAMMIT!"

"PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD, MAN!" The guards and some other soldiers rushed in to see the horror of their friends and family turning into a blue mist. People started crying, and some people started screaming; it was absolute chaos.

"WILL, I'M SORRY FOR PUSHING YOU A FEW DAYS AGO!"

"I WAS JUST JOKING, MAN!"

"PLEASE BE ALIVE." Samuel rounded the corner and began to weep. William, his long-time best friend, the jokester who tried to keep morale up during the worst days of his company's lifetime, was dissolving into wisps of beautiful blue. Samuel grabbed the only remnant of his friend that didn't disappear into blue mist. It was a carved plank of wood that said it.

'Major Ford sends his regards.'

'Did that damn bastard do this to you!?' The royal faction didn't have many capable healers; most either died at the start or were kidnapped and forced to work.

'Major Ford executed them by the droves, too, when they refused to work.' The only remaining healers ran away to Brighthaven, along with most smiths and people with any valuable knowledge in anything other than military affairs. They could live there; they weren't forced to work against their will. Brighthaven wasn't violent like the other factions; their leader was known as a saint who took anyone in.

'If we had just run away to Brighthaven.'

'You wouldn't have died on a damn cot of grass.'

'You wouldn't have died, because they had doctors; they had healers.'

'We wouldn't have had to fight that damn monster.'

'We could have been making alcohol in the damn town and gone swimming in the lake.'

'We… we could have had that.'

'This… this is the major's fault.'

'We didn't have that because he killed everyone who couldn't fight.'

'He enslaved everyone who was useful.'

'That... Damn bastard.' Samuel stood up, presented the tablet of wood, and yelled.

"THE DAMN MAJOR DID THIS."

June observed Eren and Samuel from a couple meters away. Eren had snuck into the scout company as an inside man; he was the one to poison the company the first few times, and he was the one to put the idea that the chefs were spies into the heads of his non-comrades. June watched Eren fake-cry over an abandoned corpse in the infirmary.

"God, I want to pat this guy on the back and say, 'Good job.'"'He could probably become an actor.' Eren was the third survivor. Ann and June had been planning to instate a revolution for the past few weeks. June had the role of playing the monster and breaking the soldiers. Eren had the role of manipulating the soldiers gently; they were broken enough not to think of the obvious and recognize the person whom they had never seen before.

'Eren did a stellar job, though; even I was half convinced he was there the entire time.' Silvester and Ann worked together to kill stragglers or people who wandered off alone, and paired with June's ability to mimic voices, he lured a few mourning enemies into deathtraps. Did he feel bad? A little. These people crossed one of his tenets; they planned on taking something from him.

'An eye for two back.' June's revenant of invisibility was a powerful tool, as long as he closed his eyes, that is. Opening them while invisible let the concentrated will leak out, which in turn made his eyes visible. He did exploit the fact that he looked like two floating eyes, of course. He had to hold in a laugh, his plans for once, went stunningly. The enemy's morale was low; a monster was born, and now he gave everyone who didn't like the stupid major an excuse to dissent and join Brighthaven.

'Not that I want to be responsible for more people.' So far, June has wiped out all but 3 of a company of 520, and he just took out another 200 wounded.

'Not sure if that's something to be proud of.' June didn't kill all the wounded, of course. There were realistically thousands more wounded; they had no doctors to treat them since anyone with any real medical prowess was either under the elites or ready to heal A. N. Y. O. N. E at the quaint town of Brighthaven. So all June needed to do now was wait. The people who hated the major would begin fighting against him, splitting the merged faction into pieces.

The people who didn't want to fight would evacuate to Brighthaven. And even if the royal faction wiped out every revolutionist, the pressure, the people, the monster of the blue bonfire, and Brighthaven's presence will start to slowly unravel any trust that the merged factions had in one another. The beast of the blue bonfire promised. Thousands will die today. MORE WILL FOLLOW TOMORROW.