Chapter 10: The First Kill

I charged toward the tall enemy in front of me. Before I could even swing the weapon in my hand, his attack was already coming straight at me. His long sword, wrapped in a whistling wind, slashed fiercely down toward the top of my head. The Winston soldier in front of me wore a vicious grin — in his eyes, I was probably already a dead man.

I instinctively blocked his attack with the shield on my left arm. A tremendous force slammed into my left wrist, shaking my entire left side numb, and I staggered back several steps. The center of the shield was deeply dented — it had no strength left to withstand a second attack like that.

My opponent had underestimated the force of my charge forward. His whole body jolted, and his right hand could no longer swing freely. Even so, he still charged at me with savage ferocity, launching his second attack.

At this critical moment, I frantically hurled the shield from my left hand straight at his head. The shield flew directly at his face. He could only pause his steps and raise his left hand to knock aside the flying shield.

That move cost him his life.

I didn’t do what he expected — turning around and running after throwing the shield. Instead, at the same moment I threw it, I surged forward, gripping my sword with both hands and stabbing it into his lower abdomen. This was not because I was brave. It was just a completely instinctive, desperate struggle at the end of all hope.

When he pushed away the flying shield and finally saw my movement, it was already too late for him to defend.

The next instant, my sword sank deep into his lower abdomen.

The feeling of a sharp weapon piercing a human body reminded me of cutting a roast suckling pig with a dinner knife — slippery yet tough. After passing through the resistance of the skin, I could almost feel the squirming of his internal organs along the blade. The whole feeling was like tearing leather: once you tear out the first opening, you can easily split a tough hide in two. The whole process flowed naturally, and carried with it a strange sort of excitement.

That excitement — you can only understand it by killing a man with your own hands.

My opponent let out a low, hoarse growl and stared in disbelief at the short sword in his belly, then at me. His gaze was like an over-burning flame, pained and scorching. That kind of gaze frightened me. I shuddered and pulled out my weapon.

A piece of red stuff spilled out of his belly along with my sword, growing longer and longer as it came out, until it nearly hung down to the ground.

This was the first time I had ever seen a person’s intestines.

He fell to the ground, and the flame in his eyes slowly died out. In a daze, I stepped over his corpse. I had almost lost all my thoughts. I didn’t even feel the sickening nausea that comes after killing someone. I just kept running forward without any aim. The road and the figures of people swayed in front of my eyes. Everything seemed to have frozen still, yet the light and shadows seemed to keep flowing without pause. My running had already lost its purpose — it was just an unconscious motion of my legs alternating back and forth.

A loud shout brought me back to my senses. Without me knowing when, two enemies who had rushed up in front of me had already raised their weapons at me. I didn’t even have time to form the thought of defending myself. Perhaps I had simply given up on the wish to live. This short afternoon had given me far too much stimulation. Instead, it made me feel that my death was just an insignificant part of these countless deaths, with no special meaning at all.

In the end, I still didn’t die. When those two Winston soldiers fell, I saw Carlson’s tall figure appear before me.

“You bastard! Do you want to die?!” He slapped me across the face and kept roaring: “You little brat, scared stiff? Run! Run!! RUN!!!”

Nothing could wake me up faster than this demon-like commander. I fled behind him. Remembering that I had just taken a spin at the gates of death, my back immediately felt cold.

At this moment, Carlson was completely different from that half-dead, always-sleepy look we saw in the military camp. He was also no longer the death-chasing demon who ran after us like a wolf-dog. Here, he didn’t chase lives — he directly reaped them. The enemies blocking his path were cut down one by one by him, yet his footsteps almost never paused, not even for a brief moment. The blood of his opponents splattered all over his face, even staining his teeth red. He was like a bloodthirsty demon, carving open a road piled with human flesh.

I suddenly felt confused: people called him “The Back” — could it be because all the enemies in front of him had been killed?

Finally, the sounds of battle and the mournful cries of dying soldiers were left behind us. Broken limbs and human organs no longer appeared on the ground. The blood was no longer pooled in puddles but arranged in lines, stretching forward, pointing out the direction in which wounded soldiers had fled.

Carlson and I were still running forward. At a moment like this, everyone was willing to get farther and farther away from that bloody, slaughtering hell. And we couldn’t be sure whether the Winstons would chase out after us from behind.

We were very fast, passing one soldier after another who was fleeing the battlefield. For the first time in my life, I felt admiration and respect for Carlson: the strict running training he had designed had saved my life — and perhaps the lives of most of the squad members too. In that chaotic scene just now, only he had effectively organized and controlled his own men. While the other officers only knew how to shout meaningless words like “Stay calm” and “Take cover,” his orders were accurate and specific, and he taught on the spot with his own actions. His skill in killing enemies had already far surpassed the peers who usually mocked him. He could even rescue a scared-stiff subordinate in the middle of a mob of enemies.

Although I didn’t understand a thing about fighting wars, I already knew that this man was no simple person.

“You little brat, I’m faster than you!” He turned his head back and made a provoking gesture at me.

This old bastard — all the positive comments I’d made about him just now were completely cancelled.

My competitive spirit was stirred up. I took two quick steps and overtook him. How dare he look down on me — this human-shaped mushroom that couldn’t wait to rot in bed.

Right after that, he howled and crowded past me again.

I overtook him back.

He cut to the inside lane.

I tried to pass him many times, but he blocked me behind him with his nasty, continuous swerving moves.

…

Luckily, he had stirred up this competition. I really threw my whole heart and soul into this little race. I no longer thought about Rama’s horrible death, my first time killing someone with my own hands, the squirming intestines, the burst brains, the blood that smelled sweet and fishy, or the crying and screaming crowd. If I had thought about these things at this moment, I probably couldn’t have taken a single step. Maybe he did it on purpose — this rough, bold, lazy, twisted officer.

Originally, Carlson, with his full stamina, could have easily overtaken me. But when we broke out of the encirclement just now, he had used far more strength on fighting than I had, so at this moment I could roughly run neck and neck with him. Just as we treated each other as our only rival and tried every way to chase past one another…

“Aahh~~” A piercing scream like never before came from behind us, stabbing my eardrums until they buzzed. The next moment, a figure wearing no armor flashed out from beside us, coming from behind to take the lead.

This suddenly appearing figure wore a white robe. The hem of the robe had been tied into a tight knot at the waist, revealing two sturdy, glossy thighs. His right hand clutched a pointed Mage hat with a goose feather stuck in it. On his left hand he wore a strangely shaped glove. He was tall and lean, and a head of disheveled silver hair swayed behind his back — very eye-catching. Judging from his running posture and his build, this person was quite young.

I was startled: he was actually a Mage.

Unlike the Monks of the various religious Temples, Mages did not need a special blessing from the gods. They could chant incantations to call upon certain magical elements and produce miraculous power. Generally speaking, religious Monks believed that this kind of supernatural power could only belong to the gods, and that humans must obtain it with the gods’ permission. That was why they strongly rejected Mages. Although the religious beliefs of the various Temples were different, their dislike for Mages was rarely unanimous — and these religions held great power throughout every human nation on the continent. Therefore, Mages were not commonly seen. Besides, these robe-wearing, jittery-all-day types always gave people a mysterious feeling that was hard to trust, and they weren’t usually well-liked either.

Because of the reasons above, Delanmaya’s army had no Mage positions in its ranks. But some missions truly required these strange humans who could use mysterious powers, so the army often semi-openly hired Mages to join battles. As for this situation, the Temples mostly turned a blind eye.

Clearly, the young man running desperately for his life in front of us was exactly such a hired Mage.

At first, we thought that, with an infantryman’s sturdy physique and long, hard training, outrunning a weak Mage would be an easy task. But we were wrong.

This young silver-haired Mage was simply a rabbit born into a human body by mistake, completely turning upside down the solemn, mysterious image we had of Mages. His two big white legs swung in front of my eyes at an extremely high frequency, fully displaying the owner’s healthy, tough physique. Most importantly, compared to his soft robe, the infantry armor was truly a heavy burden, keeping us from fully performing in the sport we were best at.

Even so, after long-term training, both I and Carlson — the one who had carried out the training — still held the physical advantage in long-distance running. After a period of hard chasing, we finally gradually closed the distance between us and this young Mage. Just as we were about to use our curve-overtaking technique to win back our dignity as soldiers, the young Mage, gasping for breath, let out a few strange syllables. Then he screamed and shot straight forward like a leopard that had just pounced down a hillside, throwing us behind him once again.

“Acceleration spell!” Carlson and I exchanged a glance, both of us showing intense contempt for this young Mage who had violated the spirit of sportsmanship. A feeling of being cheated and played with rose up in my heart, making me turn my anger into running energy and treat this silver-haired Mage as yet another rival.

By this time, I really couldn’t quite remember anymore why I was running so desperately. He and Carlson had successfully shifted my attention, letting me leave the battlefield, the corpses, the bloody slaughter, and the threat of death far behind, and smoothly escape that death zone at extreme speed.

Just as we were chasing each other in this unconscious way, the exit of the canyon appeared before us. Behind us, we could no longer hear the shouts of battle or the screams of agony. Even the figures of wounded soldiers were gradually becoming fewer. Just as we made our final sprint toward the shadow of the canyon entrance as the finish line, two arms firmly grabbed my shoulders. Then I heard a warm and joyful shout:

“Jeff, you’re still alive!”