Chapter 1

#1. I’m possessed in a military ropan, but I can’t see the romance (cont.)

* * *

“Saruvia! Saruvia, where are you?!”

“I’m here!”

When I first took possession of this world, I was in an orphanage.

At that time, I could not have imagined that this world would be deceived by Ropan, so I just thought that I was living my second life in the world of Ropan.

Fortunately, I have vague memories of this body that I possessed, so it was not difficult for me to adapt to the new environment.

On the contrary, I even thought that it might be fortunate for the original owner of this body that I possessed it. Because the owner of this body was born as an orphan without parents and was brought up in an orphanage.

Strangely, in Ropan, the director appears as a bad person tormenting children, and the children of the orphanage tend to be abused and exploited by the director as they do not eat properly. Maybe that’s all the writers’ prejudice about orphanages.

But here, the prejudice was true, XX. Now that I think about it, the cliché of the Ropan world seems to have been triggered.

“Saruvia! Didn’t I tell you to wash Sylvia earlier? Why are you procrastinating!”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t finished the laundry yet.”

“Why the hell are your hands so slow, huh? When you’re that age, you shouldn’t be able to finish a job that slow! You’re always fooling around!”

“Sorry.”

This body’s name is Saruvia, and she is seventeen this year.

In the orphanage, she is living doing all kinds of chores.

‘Well, should I be glad that I am treated better than the other children?’

When the director was not feeling well, he was willing to take the rod to the children. But I was an exception.

Of course, it wasn’t difficult to guess why.

‘When I get older, you probably want to sell me.’

This body I possessed, Saruvia, was beautiful.

Gorgeous, shiny coral hair, golden eyes, rough but blemish-free skin, lovely and dense facial features, and a delicate impression like a single flower.

From an objective point of view, Saruvia was a beauty that made everyone turn around just by walking in her path.

‘The only child with this hair color is Saruvia in the orphanage.’

The appearance of Saruvia I possessed convinced me that this was a ropan-style world that did not exist on Earth, but the appearances of the other children in the orphanage were extremely ordinary.

Hair colors that were brown, gold, black, red… Eye colors that were brown, blue, green, etc…

In any case, it meant that they were all natural colors. Saruvia was the only one with unrealistic coral hair and golden eyes.

‘But in this case, just because I look pretty and unique doesn’t mean it’s good.’

It doesn’t help to look pretty for a girl who has no parents and is humble. There was no one in this world who could protect me.

It may be fortunate that the director did not sell Saruvia when she was young, considering the demand for pretty and young girls was quite high.

‘When you’re married, you’re sold out as a concubine of a noble, or…sold to a worse place.’

I should run away from this orphanage. No, but I don’t think there will be good things for a girl with this face to live alone…

And another problem is that one day I realized that the owner of this body had something special.

While wiping with my hand under a huge drawer while cleaning up the room ordered by the director, I suddenly thought.

‘Can I push the drawers?’

And I pushed the huge chest of drawers away.

Even adult men would not be able to push that on their own.

With a slender face that seemed as if I couldn’t even hold a spoon alone, there was a slight gap in the appearance of me pushing away a huge drawer without any effort.

‘Come to think of it, this body… I’ve never been physically exhausted and I’ve never been short of energy…’

For some reason, I felt ominous.

I don’t know if this ability was good or not, but if the setting of “pretty and low-ranking orphan girl” was added to the setting of “unique ability,” my future never seemed to be bland…

I tried to stay calm in the orphanage so that it wouldn’t be noticeable…

“What’s this?”

One day, a golden tattoo appeared on my wrist.

It magically appeared out of nowhere, shining from my wrist, and gradually climbed up my blood vessels and began to color my arms golden.

“No wonder this is ominous…”

“Saruvia!”

At that moment, in the voice heard from behind, I shrugged and hid my arm behind me.

The director, who appeared before I knew it, was staring at me with sparkling eyes.

“Yes, it’s finally time!”

“Uh, what time?”

A foolish voice came out of my mouth. No, I couldn’t figure out how the situation was going.

“For you to join the army.”

“What?”

I think I heard a weird word.

“Didn’t I explain it to you several times before? Since you are of a different race, there will come a time when you have to enlist. Looks like your contract magic is now in effect. Let’s go, I’ll take you.”

“Oh, where? Why would I join the army?”

Knowing nothing about this situation, I grabbed the director’s collar and asked, but the director seemed to think that I was trying to deny the reality while knowing everything.

“We’ll leave tomorrow, so take a rest overnight. Can you endure the magic for a day?”

The director who said so left the room and locked the door.

“Hoho, if she doesn’t enlist voluntarily and treats it as what I reported, there would be a bounty.”

I heard such a voice on the other side of the door.

“What was that?”

I eagerly shouted, but there was no answer back.

A few days passed.

When I came to my senses, I had been caught by the Border Defense Force, and I realized that this world was not a ropan-style world, but a real ropan I had read. XX.

* * *

At the time the director brought me to the Border Defense Force, I realized three things.

One. This unrealistic hair color and eye color were because Saruvia was of a different race.

Two. This unrealistic physical ability was also due to Saruvia’s race.

And finally, all the orphans except me knew that Saruvia was of a different race.

Somehow, the children sometimes looked at me with pity. Everyone except me knew that I was destined to join the army soon.

“Saruvia, right?”

“That’s right.”

I replied in a weak voice to the man sitting in front of me. He seemed like a soldier who roughly managed the enlistment, but I didn’t know his rank because I didn’t know the ranks of the military in this world.

“Is your arm okay?”

“It’s not okay.”

Since the appearance of a golden tattoo on my wrist, my left arm has been hurting.

The pain got worse and worse, and I was rushing the director because I thought there would be someone who would solve this pain without knowing exactly where the director was taking me.

The man sitting in front of me put his hand on my wrist and began to mutter in an unknown language.

[━━━]

It was a strange pronunciation that seemed like a spell or a curse.

Listening to his murmur still, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t feel the pain in my arm anymore.

“Huh?”

The gold tattoo, which had been shining, was reduced to a small size and remained only near the wrist, and the tattoo no longer shone and caused pain in the arm.

“Now that the contract has been signed, there will be no more pain. However, in the case of desertion or nonsense in the middle…”

The man who said so raised one hand and made a motion across his neck.

“I… I have a question.”

When I said that, the man stared at me, raising one eyebrow up.

“…I have a question.”

I can’t believe it was so hard to ask a question.

“Tell me.”

“Why am I joining the army?””

When I asked that, the man looked at me with eyes as if he were seeing the most stupid person in the world.

I was going crazy because I was upset, but that didn’t mean I could do anything.

“Because of the contract magic that your ancestors made, the contract magic is passed down in your blood. If the contract magic works at a certain time, and you don’t serve in the border defense army, you’ll…”

The man made a gesture across his neck again.

‘So, because I am of a different race, I have to do compulsory service because of the contract magic that was applied to this race…’

It was an unreasonable setting that could not be accepted, but somehow I felt like I had heard it somewhere.

But first, let’s think about my future.

“When does the contract end? Or, when will I be discharged from the army?”

The returning answer was concise.

“8 years”.

XX, there’s just no future.

* * *

So, after hearing the explanation from the man, I took part in the ‘enlistment ceremony’ where different races gathered and realized that this world was in ‘Four Crazy Obsessed’.

And now I have finally arrived at the unit where I will be staying.

When I read the original ‘Four Crazy Obsessed’, I skipped over the worldview of this novel and focused only on the romance between the male and female characters, but after possessing it, this worldview was really like X.

These races were living in a land infested with demons, and they also used their superior physical abilities to defeat the demons.

However, as time went on, the number of monsters surged to a level they could not afford, and the Adolf Empire, which had a developed civilization, invaded the land of these races.

As a result, these races were defeated and ruled by the Adolf Empire.

At this time, these races entered into a kind of slavery contract using magic with the Adolf Empire, and when they had enough power, they agreed to serve for 8 years.

And that contract magic flowed through blood and was manifested in this body I possessed, Saruvia.

‘No, even then, isn’t 8 years a bit too much?’

I’ll have to assassinate this crazy emperor of the Adolf Empire someday.

‘I want to desert. I know I can’t desert because of contract magic, but I want to desert it violently.’

Even while I cried out for desertion, my steps were steadily moving along with others.

All of a sudden, I was in an old building.

“Now, here’s a brief guide about your life in the border guard.”

The man who had been riding the cart with us spoke, looking at us with bitter eyes.

It’s only true now, but he wasn’t our senior, he was the platoon commander.

‘What the hell is this ropan world, and why am I using the words senior or platoon commander?’

“There must be some people who were not ready yet, but contract magic appeared and we were reported and brought in. But if you try to deny reality, nothing changes.”

Some stopped crying.

“Everyone here knows that desertion is impossible due to the magic anyway.”

My expression darkened even more.

“By the way, to give you some comforting news, the border guards are paid quite a bit! The pay for your work will let you live fine through your lifetime!”

‘They seem to be paying a lot of money for fear of causing a group rebellion.’

But no matter how much money you give, who would want to fight a demon… No, and 8 years in the military? Shorten the period of service, please.

“After 8 years of service, you can get 3,000 marks!”

At that, everyone looked up in surprise and raised their heads. Following them, my eyes automatically became round.

3,000 marks, that was an amount I never dared to imagine.

‘I heard that 1,000 marks can buy a house in the capital.’

But at 3,000 marks, three houses in the capital? It was the amount of money I was wondering if they could give so much money.

Yes, if I could have three houses in the capital in exchange for my eight years of military service, I might be able to survive with this grit.

“The money that comes out as an annuity is enough money to spend every month on living expenses!”

‘The pension, that’s a bit harsh.’

In the previous world, didn’t everyone try to become a civil servant because of the stable salary and pension?

‘And anyways, this is the army that is set in Ropan. It’s going to be a little different, I think.’

The positive circuit started running in my brain. Obviously, the original female lead had a time in which her love budded in this army. The senior must have spoken harshly just to scare us. Maybe…

The platoon commander now begins to explain the class we will be going through.

“Now, I will explain your 8-year military service period from now on! For the first two years, you are trainees! Training will be the main routine.”

Two years of training, does this make sense, XX?

“For the following two years, you will serve as first-class officers. At that point, youI will be in charge of most of the work of the unit.”

But the more I listened, the more I thought it was a familiar system.

“After those two years, you will be promoted to corporal.”

Of course, in my previous life, I had no idea about the military.

However, thanks to the military experience program that was popular on TV, I knew a very basic level of knowledge.

‘A corporal…?’

I was aware of the fact that, during the mandatory service, soldiers went through four ranks: private, private first-class, corporal, and sergeant. This ropan army was just a nonsensical system in which one rank was extended to two years, but in any case, the structure of the ranks seemed to be similar in the end.

‘XX, this is a real army…’

No matter how much I think about it, the ominous intuition that I feel like I’m X does not go away.

‘No, this is still the ropan army. The female lead also found romance here…’

As I was consoling myself with that thought, the platoon leader began to explain the last remaining rank.

“During the last two years, you will leave this unit and scatter into units each assigned to you, taking the role of commander.”

It seemed a little different from the military system I knew. Commander? It felt closer to an officer than an ordinary soldier.

‘What did you call it? Assistant? No, was it a non-commissioned officer?’

When my father drank alcohol, he would unravel the same military myths every day, but I didn’t know I would experience them firsthand. If I had known it would be like this, I would have listened to it a little bit better.

“Well, some of you might think: Why do I have to disperse to other units? And it would be strange if so many soldiers became commanders.”

Saying that, the platoon commander smiled bitterly. It was a smile that looked somehow ominous.

“Until then, not everyone here will survive, so there is no such thing as overstaffing. This is the end of the explanation.”

In an instant, a chilling atmosphere spread throughout the space.

‘XX, yes, there’s no way they can give 3,000 marks that easily.’

There won’t be many soldiers surviving until then, so the Imperial Vault won’t run out.

The original Saruvia, the body I reincarnated in, must have died for that reason… While fighting a demon…

XX, give me back my ropan.

* * *

As of today, there will be 2920 days left before my discharge.

And no matter how much I think about it, this is really ridiculous.

I read “Four Crazy People Are Obsessed With Me” quite immensely.

The novel was not particularly long, with about 130 episodes, and the author used very simple handwriting and easy words to make it possible to understand the writing without much brain rolling.

The skill of cutting off every episode was also excellent. It was a skill that made it impossible not to pay for the next episode.

In addition, the male protagonists of this novel were very easy to memorize.

Honestly, if you are a ropan heavy reader who reads and answers randomly, you will often confuse the characters of numerous male and sub male characters.

However, this novel was not the case.

As expected, the classic ways were the best. It imprints the characteristics in everyone’s head at once.

Anyways, for that reason, I was able to pay for “Four Crazy People Are Obsessed with Me” in a day and see the completion.

I just read the novel lightly, but thanks to the unique setting of the military background and fantasy ability, there seemed to be quite a few enthusiasts.

And the army in the novel was described as follows:

“Are you a new soldier?”

“Yes, nice to meet you! I’m Darlene!”

“Didn’t you get trained?”

“Oh, right! Nice to meet you! It’s Darlene!”

“What?”

“Nice to meet you! Isn’t this how you do it?”

“Haha! It’s been a while since I had a funny recruit!”

The original heroine “Darlene” drew everyone’s laughter because she was cute while talking informally to her senior.

“Ugh…”

“Darlene, what’s going on?”

“I lost my sword, my sword…”

“…You were crying because of that?”

“Yes… What should I do now?”

“…I’ll give you mine for now.”

“What, what?”

“I’ll say it was me.”

“Wait, but then…”

“…That’s enough, don’t say anything.”

When Darlene lost her things, the male protagonists held out their own at once without any hesitation.

“How can I do this?”

“Didn’t you learn how to put energy into your sword?”

“Oh, not yet…”

“It’s okay. I’ll help you. Put your hand on the sword.”

“Thank you, hehe!”

“Okay, hold tight… Swing it as it is!

“Oh my gosh!”

“What do you think? Do you know how to do it now?”

“Yes! Anyway, what should I do with the demon that I missed because I couldn’t use my energy?”

“You don’t have to worry. We’ll take care of that ourselves.”

Did Darlene really deal with monsters? Unfortunately I’ve never seen Darlene get her job done…

‘No, now that I think about it, isn’t this the original female lead a crazy torturer? Wasn’t she almost legendary?’

Anyways, apart from the ability of the original heroine Darlene, the army I saw in 『Four Crazy Guys Obsessed with Me』 was like that.

Her seniors and successors joke around with each other and laugh. The talented male leads covered up the female lead’s mistakes. I mean, it was such a place.

‘Then why the hell did this suddenly become an accusation of absurdity in the military?’

I am willing to be detained calmly if one of the male protagonists tries to obsess or confine me.

It would be better to be confined in a male lead’s comfortable and luxurious house than to be confined in the military, XX.

‘Is this a parallel world? Isn’t this the ropan world? No matter how I think about it, I think this is a little different from the military novel, right?’

I thought while maintaining the absurd plank posture for a few dozen minutes.

My body trembled and seemed to collapse at any moment, but I clenched my teeth when I saw one of my peers, whose posture had just collapsed.

“Look, you had such incredible potential within you, and you didn’t know it.”

Seeing us trembling, but somehow persevering with evil and bullying, the senior said with a happy expression.

“Only violence and fear save us all.”

‘XX, is this line from a ropan right now?’

No matter how you think about it, something is wrong with this world. I think I’ve said this 50 times in my head today, but I’m being sincere.

“Okay, stop.”

Finally, as we heard the voice to save us, we relaxed on the ground at the same time, relaxing our whole body.

“Who told you to lie down? Hey, get up now.”

‘XX…’

I can’t live without swearing, XX.

As I got up from my seat with a frown on my face, my eyes met a comrade who was standing right next to me.

‘Ah.’

Sharp and cold orange eyes with black hair that came down just above the eyes and covered his forehead.

I was seventeen, and I didn’t feel like an adult yet. The slightly raised eyebrows and orange eyes gave off a ferocious feeling, but in a way, it looked like a coy cat.

‘He’s probably…’

The original male lead, Aquila, who made me realize that this world was ‘Four Crazy Obsessed’.

Described in the original work as being less talkative and patient, he was making an expression that he wanted to desert more than anyone else in this position.

…Yes, you are human too.

Far from being obsessed with me, if it goes on like this, it seems that the original male lead will desert before me…

“Hey, how are the new recruits?”

As we stood still, breathing heavily, a man walked in and spoke to the senior supervising us.

“Trash, as always.”

“I mean objectively.”

Then the supervising senior glanced at us and spoke in a hesitant voice.

“Well… Not bad. Their physical abilities are just average, and I think we will have to get them to hold a sword later.”

“Okay, this time, please, let’s save more. I don’t see all the kids dying like last time.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I think I just heard something strange.

While maintaining my alert posture, I exchanged uneasy glances with comrades I did not know even their names.

Anyway, I think something is wrong with this.

Usually, when it comes to survival in a ropan, isn’t it like “Survive to Avoid the Tyrant Emperor!”?

But, to live by avoiding and killing monsters at the border, why the hell is this world a ropan world?

“I think I have confirmed their physical abilities enough. Can I give them a guide to the dormitory first and feed them?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, you guys, follow me.”

We followed the senior and moved to a place called ‘dormitory’.

‘Yeah, it’s not the kind of place I think it is when I look at what it’s called a dorm.’

Even though this place is called the Border Guard Force, isn’t it roughly like a place to stay for the maids? There would be a white bed, and about four people shared the same room…

But soon, when I saw the place called the ‘dormitory’ that spread out before my eyes, I couldn’t help but tremble.

‘Hey, you idiots… If that’s the case, just call it a quarter. Why do they call it a dormitory? It’ll confuse people!’

This was the army quarters that I saw on Korean entertainment wherever I looked.

XX, don’t you guarantee personal space? How did the original female lead advance romance in a space like this?

Ha, after all, isn’t this a parallel world without romance?

“Oh, you are this way. Follow me.”

Then the senior who brought us here tapped me on the shoulder.

Only then did I find out that this place I was standing in was a men’s quarters. This was the place for the seven male comrades standing near to me.

Breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that there was at least a separate dormitory for women, I followed him.

‘Just create a separate female army from the beginning, XX.’

However, it was stated in ‘Four Crazy Obsessed’ that the Adolf Empire put them in one platoon rather than spending money to establish a separate facility for female soldiers.

For that reason, the Border Defense Forces fought in the same unit regardless of whether they were male or female, and the original female lead was also able to see the male protagonists.

‘Anyway, there will be no problem since we use a separate dormitory for sleeping.’

The senior, who guided me to the women’s dormitory, knocked on the door and said with a nervous voice.

“I have the recruit.”

“Bring it in.”

When I heard a woman’s clear voice in the room, the senior opened the door quickly, pushed me inside, and quickly closed the door.

‘What…?’

It was the attitude that he didn’t want to even come close to this space.

I came into the dormitory suddenly, and looked up with stupid eyes.

The size of the room was much smaller than the previous male dormitory. And there were only two women in it.

Among them, a short woman with sparkling long blond hair looked at me and smiled with light green eyes.

“Are you a newbie?”

“What? Yes, that’s right.”

The blonde woman looked up and down with a gaze as if sizing me up, but still maintained a bright smile.

A tall woman with long black hair tied up, turned her head as soon as she made eye contact with me.

‘What?’

“Yuri, don’t you want to say hello to the recruit?”

“I am not interested.”

A black-haired woman called Yuri responded with a cold voice.

With Yuri’s cold attitude that clearly ignored me, I just stood still with a puzzled look.

“Nice to meet you, new recruit. What’s your name?”

“I’m Saruvia.”

“My name is April. Let’s get along well in the future.”

April, a blonde woman, reached out to me with one hand. I shook hands without knowing the reason.

“Well, I don’t think you packed anything. If you tell me the size, I’ll bring you clothes.”

‘Is this person a scary type? Or is she an angel…’

April kept a bright smile and took care of my things in a gentle voice.

Of course, it was only a few hours later that I learned that her bright smile was a famous “devil’s smile” in the unit.

* * *

“Phew, I don’t understand… Why are they so weak?”

‘XX, what else can I do here?’

I thought as I ran through the training ground for the 30th time. My throat tasted like blood, and my head kept losing strength and tilted downward.

‘I feel like throwing up.’

As if caring didn’t exist, these madmen resumed training the hellish recruits as soon as we finished lunch.

My unknown colleagues and I were united at lunch.

We had a very combative meal.

As much as it was after hell’s training, whatever you eat would have been delicious, but the meal here was especially great. The amount was very appropriate for us who were starving to death.

‘Well, if the rice wasn’t good, I would have really ran away from the military.’

After eating such a rich meal, he said, “If you fight like this, you will surely die. First of all, you have to develop your physical strength,” the recruit training began with those words.

By the way, the name of the senior who supervised us earlier was Plato, who seemed to continue to be in charge of our training in the future.

“Hey! You’re slow! Don’t stop running!

‘If that was possible, would I have been a car or a human being?’

I took a breath and turned my head for a moment and looked toward Plato.

April, a senior woman who was smiling brightly next to Plato.

She was the crazy X of this unit.

“Phew… My heart aches because they’re so weak… As expected, it’s better to gather once and talk together so that our seniors can help the children properly.”

“No! The recruits will be able to work harder! Hey, run! Run!”

Whenever April asked Plato what’s wrong with our condition in a whispering voice, Plato sweated and increased the intensity of the training.

‘She must be at the top of this unit’s system.’

If you look at Plato’s surprisingly politeness to her, she looks much more experienced and has a tougher personality.

XX, please save me…

“Hey! If you’re out, you’ll die! Don’t you know about solidarity responsibility?”

When I heard that, I felt the urge to desert the military.

Even if I was of a different race and had much better physical abilities than an ordinary human, it was inevitable that I lacked physical abilities compared to the men here.

However, because April had a smile, I was running through the training ground with my teeth clenched.

‘XX, if you fall behind, you’ll be left behind by your seniors and colleagues.’

“We have 10 rounds left!”

The moment I almost collapsed on the ground with my legs loosened, a hard hand immediately supported my back.

“Keep running.”

I felt like I could feel the hot breath in my ears. I managed to hold on to my mental cord and tighten my legs to maintain speed, but I turned my head slightly to check the face of the person supporting me.

Black hair that came down to the top of the eyes, orange-redish eyes that shone brightly under them, sweat flowing through the forehead, and lips that were as red as blood.

It was the original male lead and my colleague, Aquila.

‘Is this the development of the Ropan? You’ll continue to help me and take care of me.‘

The positive circuit started running again in my head.

Yeah, anyway, I’m in the role of their ‘first love’, so this might be an opportunity for me too, and I might be able to get out of this hardship.

But the next moment, the words that came out of Aquila’s mouth, immediately made me give up my expectations.

“Never be a loser.”

It was a voice that sounded like he would kill me himself.

‘Yeah… You were just worried that we’d die together under solidarity responsibility…’

After all, this is the military…

After all day in denial of Aquila’s surprisingly dry attitude, I finally had to admit it.

Hey Saruvia! There is no such thing as a ropan development in your life from now on, XX!

* * *

“Wow, this works.”

An unknown person who was standing next to me said in a weak voice that seemed to die at any moment.

Although the voice that came out was choppy, I had to agree.

How does this happen?

Surprisingly, we succeeded in circling the training ground fifty times without any stragglers.

Of course, whenever we slowed down even a little in the process, April kept a bright smile and gently stroked Plato’s hair and whispered something, and Plato stared at us with burning eyes and made an expression that he would kill us. We had no choice but to strengthen our legs to avoid a terrible future…

“After all, only violence and fear save us all.”

As we gulped down the water like people we met at an oasis in the desert, April muttered as she looked at us with a happy expression.

‘Is that the official slogan for this unit?’

“But don’t they look pretty good? I think we can save a lot.”

“Of course. I don’t know when the next monster attack will be, but until then, make sure you can do it.”

April glanced at us with pale green eyes.

“In my opinion, that one looks pretty useful. What do you think, Plato?”

“It seems to me that he can pay off enough if he keeps training.”

Their eyes turned to Aquila.

When me and my other comrades had empty eyes that looked like they were about to die, Aquila was standing there alone, without showing any pain in a calm expression.

That didn’t mean he showed hostility towards his seniors, but it’s the ‘unknown gaze’ that was often described in the original work.

“What is your name?”

“Aquila.”

“Honestly, I’m not really worried about you because I think you’ll survive well in the future.”

April said with a meaningful expression.

“You also take good care of your comrades.”

At that, Aquila shook his head and looked at us.

The moment he looked at us, I met Aquila’s eyes.

‘That’s a look I don’t like.’

It was quite common for the male lead to make a bad first impression by saying lines like, “I don’t need your help!” or “you’re going to be weak.”

However, I have never read a novel in which the male lead looks at the female with a pathetic gaze, as if he was truly looking at a lump of luggage.

Yeah, I’m sorry that your comrade is an incompetent bastard who won’t be of any help in the military, XX…

* * *

A week in the military, I realized.

Pyramids were made by humans.

There’s nothing in the world that humans can’t do….

For a week, the daily lives of recruits were as follows.

“Do 1,000 open arms jumps!”

“Are you insane…?”

About an hour later, I was saying this:

“This is it.”

I realized that physical strength can be improved by mental strength.

“Hey! Hold the log better! Cooperate! Cooperate!”

“Cooperative or not. How can I hold this up?”

“This is it.”

I learned that muscle strength can also be developed with mental strength.

“Do you want to sleep?”

“…This is it.”

Surprisingly, I found out that the blanket was also angled.

“There is no light on the floor!”

“…Why is this happening?”

I found out that if I clean the hardwood floors well, they can be shiny enough to reflect my face.

Except for basic cleaning and bedding, our days were full of training from morning to night.

‘…Well, it’s kind of weird.’

I thought, rolling on the dirt floor in return for the disastrous results of the push-ups.

‘Isn’t it just too much training?’

Since we really only trained for a week with no breaks for even a minute, I never had a proper conversation with my classmates. The same goes to the seniors.

Most of all, I am concerned about the voices I heard from my senior on the first day I joined the army.

‘They said a lot died from the last recruit.’

I fully understood the fact that dealing with monsters was very dangerous, and that many would die as a result…

‘Can I survive?’

I keep getting an ominous feeling.

In 『Four Crazy Guys Obsessed with Me』, this body that I possessed, Saruvia, starts off the novel as being dead. It must have been because of the demons.

The biggest problem was that I wanted to somehow avoid the predestination of death, but it was not up to my efforts.

No matter how hard I tried to die, I couldn’t develop my physical ability enough to defeat all monsters.

Men of different races with superior physical abilities than me are also killed by demons, so will I be able to survive and be discharged after 8 years of service?

‘Unlike the original, there is nothing like romance in my life. This is not a romance fantasy.’

I remembered Aquila doing push-ups with his teeth clenched and wanting to desert.

‘…I don’t think there is any chance that I will become the first love of the original male leads.’

Aquila didn’t seem interested in me. For him, I am just someone weak. It is too early to expect his help.

And the biggest problem was…

‘Now is four years before the original work.’

Even if the ‘men’s obsession’ I longed for so badly started, I don’t think it will help my life…

* * *

“How much did you train the kids?”

When we were sitting on the dirt with dead eyes after going through hell’s training, senior Leon, who mentioned “the annihilation of the former recruits,” spoke to Plato, who was conducting our training on the first day. Leon was a senior who always used a gentle tone as if chewing gum.

“I ordered it hard all week. Starting next week, I can proceed with the training routine as usual.”

‘You don’t normally train at this level, right?’

I was so relieved that I almost cried. Yeah, if I train at this level for eight years, I’ll just risk my life to desert…

“Now, all you have to do is basic swordsmanship training.”

“Is that so? Hey, the other kids are also training at the training ground behind them, so let them go and grab their swords now.”

“Okay. Hey, you guys! Get up!”

Upon receiving Leon’s instructions, Plato beckoned at us.

‘XX, we didn’t rest for 5 minutes. Are you kidding me?’

Of course, I couldn’t even say that out loud.

When we arrived at the training ground after Plato, people who appeared to be our seniors were already holding swords and swinging them.

“Now, the last basic training for recruits is the most important part. Today, you guys will practice putting the aura on your sword.”

“Plato, I’ll explain swordsmanship.”

“Louise? Oh, okay.”

Louise, who was more senior than Plato, stood in front of us with a sword in front of him.

Louise was one rank below April, the second highest among high-ranking soldiers. He was characterized by long hair that looked like an elf.

He was less scary than Plato or Leon because he was always calm, but we shouldn’t overlook him. Maybe he’s calm because he doesn’t have to take time to grind his juniors.

By the way, I felt a little nervous because I had only trained my body so far and this was the first time I’ve picked up a weapon.

‘Oh, come to think of it, this part came out in the original too.’

Although it is an army, the way the people fought in the original was mainly with swords, not guns.

Some used unusual weapons such as giant guns and sticks, but that’s a special case of judging that the weapon was best for them, so the first basic weapon was the sword.

But it’s not ordinary. The author borrowed fantasy elements.

The different races were able to capture aura in their swords.

Even ordinary humans were able to capture auras by training, but while they had to practice for years to acquire the skill, the other race can instinctively acquire it. That was also the reason why the Adolf Empire recruited us.

Also, one of the fun elements of this novel was that there were different attributes.

The thicker the heterogeneous blood, the more they could use an aura containing different attributes.

‘The original female lead, Darlene, had a light attribute.’

Very few people have continued the blood of the heterogeneous race so thickly. However, Darlene was a special being anyways.

‘Wait, I’m getting angry again.’

I didn’t know when I read the novel, but after I joined the army in person, I realized a huge fact.

‘The original heroine, the legendary adviser… Someone was replacing your job as much as you didn’t work…’

If Darlene didn’t work, it would have to be done by others.

After 8 years of service, shouldn’t she get 3,000 marks?

As I continued to complain about the original heroine Darlene, Louise with a sword began to explain.

“Now. It’s probably the first time you’ve ever held a sword. It’s dangerous, so be careful not to poke the person next to you.”

“What?”

I looked at Louise with an absurd look at the words, but he looked very serious. In the end, I held back the laughter that almost leaked out of my mouth.

Usually, the ropan set by the Knights would say, “when holding a sword, you need a reverent mind…”.’

What do you mean by a warning not to stab the person next to you? We’re not even elementary school students.

We don’t have a special mission to protect people.

Therefore, we didn’t need a special mindset when holding a sword. We just have to follow the orders.

I held the sword according to how Louise taught us. He even corrected us one by one to see if we were holding it the right way.

“Now, put your auras in.”

“Huh?”

Perhaps I was not the only one who was dumbfounded by the remark, but everyone opened their eyes wide and looked at Louise, then quickly lowered their eyes down again before the scolding fell.

“It’s imprinted in your instincts. It’s not hard. You can do it.”

‘No… I don’t know. What can I do?’

Whether we react as if we had heard absurd sounds or not, Louise seemed to regard our reactions as nothing.

“Just think, and put it in.”

‘Are you kidding me?’

The fact that nothing is impossible here has been a lesson I’ve learned over the past week.

I glared at the sword with strength in my eyes until tears came out, but nothing happened.

“If you focus on your mind, you can bring out your inner strength.”

It is similar to that happiness which awaits in the future if you overcome all the present hardships. The fact that the rank goes up is similar to that…

“Hey, Louise! I’ve been trying, but I don’t think it’s working!”

Eventually, one of my colleagues bravely raised his hand and shouted. We looked at the person with the eyes as if he were our savior, but.

“You can’t?”

Louise gave a cold look.

“You’re in the military.”

‘XX.’

Unfortunately, the remarks of my colleague seemed to have caused his anger.

“If you guys really can’t, I’ll help.”

Louise walked behind that person holding the sword, and kicked his calf hard.

“Hey, is it still not working? You can’t do this?

My other colleagues, including myself, quickly lowered our eyes as if nothing had happened. And…

“Yes, I can! I did it!”

That person, who shouted at Louise earlier, raised his voice as if he was excited to see his aura emitting blue light from the sword.

‘It’s working.’

“Does anyone else need any help?”

“No.”

We shouted all together. As expected, we’re united only when it’s like this. It was such a tearful unity…

“I did it!”

“I did it!”

Of course, no matter how hard I tried to stare at the sword, nothing changed.

And in the end, like some other colleagues, I was only able to come to emit aura in the sword after being educated with “only violence and fear”.

‘Wow, this works.’

The more you know, the more surprising it is.

The color of the auror around my sword was coral, similar to the color of Saruvia’s hair.

Of course, my aura didn’t have any properties.

‘It’s definitely far from the female protagonist…’

Usually, ‘A woman possessed as an extra in a ropan novel’ would become the new ropan heroine, but Saruvia, whom I possessed, had no special abilities other than her pretty face.

Humans with attributes in the first place are just special humans like the original protagonists.

“Do any of these recruits have attributes?”

“What was his name?”

“His name is Aquila. By the way, the fire attribute has not been around for a long time…”

All eyes of the buzzing seniors were focused on Aquila.

A bright red flame was burning splendidly around Aquila’s sword. The flame radiated heat as if it would burn everything around it at any moment.

‘It’s strange that the sword doesn’t melt even like that… After all, this is an aura, so it’s a little different from real fire.’

Even with the flames on his sword that had everyone’s attention inevitably, Aquila kept his usual expressionless expression as if nothing had happened.

For a moment, Aquila and my eyes met, but, of course, he turned away without any interest.

‘Yeah, I’m envious of that ability, XX…’

Do all the men in ropan look like that? Aquila always had an expression that couldn’t be understood.

But, if you think about it, it’s a little different. If the typical ropan male has a ‘cool expression’, it can’t be Aquila, since his face was really expressionless…

‘Because there are other characters who take on cool roles in the original work.’

The 2nd male protagonist, the most antagonistic to Aquila, and the most popular among readers.

Among the four male protagonists, he was the only other one who can use an aura with attributes, except for Aquila.

He was cold and indifferent to everyone, but only in front of the heroine, he acted more hotly and passionately than anyone else.

A character who was superior to Aquila in ability, but in love, was defeated by Aquila and could not connect with the heroine.

“You. Is it a fire attribute?”

A man with black hair and blue gray eyes walked out from behind his seniors.

The original male lead # 2, Winter, stared at Aquila’s red sword with his blue eyes. Around the sword held in Winter’s hand, there was an overflow of ice attributes.

Aquila looked up and looked at Winter’s sword still with an unknown expression.

At that moment, there was tension in the training ground.

‘Did they not get along well since then?’

In fact, there may have been a long history in the confrontation between male lead #1 and male lead #2 in the original.

Somehow it was exciting to be able to see their confrontation, so I glistened and looked alternately at Winter and Aquila. And…

“Hey, who told you to talk to new recruits?”

“You’re crossing the line.”

Watching my seniors pour into Winter, I quickly looked away.

The seniors were talking to Winter with an absurd face, and Winter quickly stepped back, but….

Leon, who soon opened his eyes harshly, beckoned Winter to sit down, and he followed the order.

Yeah… Even Winter, who was a perfectionist character with excellent ability and cold personality in the original work, was only a first-class soldier who is one rank above us now.

I sighed inside as I watched Winter start pushing in front of the senior.

Even if the obsession really begins with the cliché of ropan…

Rather than taking care of me, the original male characters should take care of themselves first.

* * *

D-2913 days before discharge.

After a week of hell-like recruitment training, the training was lowered to a level that I could follow.

When I wake up, I start with the morning walk and then breakfast. After breakfast, I worked out all kinds of physical strength, and then had lunch. After lunch, I’ll be doing all kinds of chores, including laundry, training to use weapons and dinner. After dinner, I clean and sleep while memorizing information and practicing strategies.

The atmosphere of rolling us around without a minute of rest has also been loosened, and now we know some information about each other.

“Saruvia, you need to clean up the training ground now.”

“Oh, okay!”

Among my seven colleagues, I became acquainted with Carl and Linia.

Carl was a very normal-looking boy with brown hair, and Linia had a long scar on one eye and spoke more roughly.

At first, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get along with other colleagues because I was a woman, but my colleagues didn’t seem to care much about that.

I often fell behind in muscle training, so we would suffer together as a joint responsibility, but it didn’t matter because other colleagues were equally behind in physical training or sword training.

In addition, the gender of the person next to you becomes insignificant.

No matter how noticeable a face is, no one has more feelings than fellowship to me.

“Do we have a lot of laundry left?”

“There were a lot of towels in the laundry bin earlier.”

“Oh, I want to run away from the military…”

When Linia muttered like a habit, Carl and I, who were squatting next to him and wiping training protective gear hard, nodded.

“Did you memorize all the names and characteristics of dangerous second-class monsters? If you don’t memorize it by this evening, it’s really like you have to hit your head.”

“I memorized it, but I’m going crazy. I don’t think I’ll be able to answer if they ask because the contents are all mixed up in my head.”

“Saruvia, did you memorize it all?”

“Just roughly.”

The only helpful thing about reading the original work was that it was relatively easy to memorize the information of the monsters.

The seniors told us to memorize the information on our own after roughly reciting it. If we don’t know the weakness of the monster in front of us in the field battle, we’ll only die.

Of course, if you can’t memorize all that information, the education of “only violence and fear save us all” will be applied.

Well, our platoon’s name was Alpha. The names of the platoon next to me were Beta Platoon and Gamma Platoon, but when I first heard it, I thought, ‘After all, the main characters in the original story are from the Alpha Platoon, which is the trickiest out of the three.’ It made me feel a bit strange.

“What, you memorize all of it, Saruvia?”

Another comrade who was cleaning up, John, came over as if he heard our conversation.

“Oh, she memorized everything.”

“Is that great? After all, I must have just become an X.”

“Do not worry. Even if we become X, we will probably become X as a group.”

Starting with John, the other comrades also began to speak word by word.

“What? You memorize everything?”

“Am I the only one who is ruined now? Did I really not memorize at all?”

“The thought of going backwards makes me so excited…”

When the comrades added words in an envious or gloomy voice, Aquila was the only one who didn’t say anything and just wiped the protective gear silently.

He met his eyes with me for a moment when I said that I had memorized all the monsters, and then immediately moved his gaze back to the protective gear in his hand.

‘He really doesn’t express anything.’

Contrary to using an aura with the burning flame attribute, his temperature always seemed to change.

He always stood there with an expression of neither joy nor resentment, neither fear nor pain nor anger.

He was also unfamiliar with all of his comrades. Not only with me, but with all of the other mates.

He didn’t talk to me first, and even if I spoke to him, he only answered with a short answer, so it was natural.

‘As expected, the male protagonists of novels seem to have a sense of a little less sociality.’

‘Archduke of the North’, ‘Tyrant Emperor’, ‘Arrogant Duke’, etc…

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen such men get along well with people around them other than women. Could it be that the condition for becoming a male lead is an outstanding face, abilities, and inferior social skills?

At that moment, I heard footsteps running towards the training ground.

We quickly shut our mouths. If we are found to have quietly cleaned the training ground and even had private conversations in a noisy environment, “only violence and fear” will come back.

“Ah, you guys are here!”

“Ishina!”

‘The original male lead #3.’

In the original story, if Aquila was the silent and fiery male protagonist, and Winter was playing the cool and chill role, Ishina’s character was ‘kind on the outside but a villain on the inside’.

‘Well, after all, a friendly-looking villain is the latest trend rather than just a friendly man.’

Ishina had dark green eyes and soft tan hair.

He was a very patient man who could always smile sweetly, even when his successors were wrong or a little cheeky.

He was always docile to his seniors and did everything he was asked to do.

‘More than Aquila or Winter, Ishina is the coldest.’

The first day I joined this army, the senior was talking about ‘annihilation of the former recruits’.

Five out of six previous recruits died due to the sudden appearance of a first-class monster. And, among them, the only surviving trainee was Ishina.

Ishina doesn’t have any particularly strong abilities.

However, even after witnessing the deaths of five of his classmates, he had a steely mentality that was not shaken at all.

‘Even in the original story, when the female lead was shocked to see the death of another trainee, Ishina didn’t understand her at all. He nevertheless tried to appease her, but she noticed that he didn’t sympathize with her at all.’

What lines did the female protagonists Darlene and Ishina exchange in the original story?

“Hey, Ishina… I don’t think you’re sad at all… Is it my mistake… ?”

“Um, do I have any reason to be sad, Darlene?”

“Ha, but, someone died…”

[Darlene, feeling the fear, instinctively took a step back. Somehow, the man in front of her didn’t seem like the always friendly senior Ishina she knew.]

“Yeah, he’s dead. But what does that have to do with it?”

I clearly remember that part, because that very part was what imprinted Ishina’s character on the readers.

[Ishina said in a friendly voice, curving his dark green eyes nicely. His eyes were fixed straight on Darlene.]

“There’s someone more precious to you?”

Ishina became popular as a character who was “outwardly sweet, but doesn’t consider the people around him as human beings, and only considers Darlene as special”.

‘But now it doesn’t matter to me. What is important to me is whether Ishina is a fearful senior or not…’

Whatever plot Ishina had inside, it had nothing to do with me.

Besides, since the original female lead hasn’t enlisted yet, wouldn’t he be a ‘70% black screen’ rather than a ‘100% black screen’?

“Ishina, what brought you here?”

When I asked that question, Ishina spoke in a friendly voice with a soft smile.

“We have special training this afternoon, so hurry up and go.”

Don’t even say things like that kindly, XX.

* * *

“Are you all gathered?”

Brave glanced at us as we lined up at the training ground. Brave was just like Leon, who was always grinning and laughing.

“Winter, Altair, Yuri. Did you take everything I told you to take?”

“Yes.”

“Plato. Have you checked the number of people?”

“Yes.”

After carefully checking a few things, Brave finally opened his mouth.

“Come on, it’s time to train again this month. Today you will go down to the lake at the bottom of the mountain.”

Why do I feel so ominous?

“We are conducting water training.”

XX!

The faces of the classmates turned white, but seeing us like that, Brave only smiled.

“You’re going to have a hard time today, maybe.”

‘XX, don’t laugh at that kind of thing, you psycho…’

The way down the mountain was not difficult at all.

Our unit is located in the depths of the mountain, and when we came up here, I remember being loaded onto a cart like a bag.

‘How much stronger am I than I was back then?’

I can’t even imagine how much my physical abilities have developed in one month.

Finally, a lake in the distance began to appear. Today was the day where we would bury our bones.

What kind of training is water training? There were many things I could think of, but the one that immediately comes to mind is…

‘Swimming.’

I’m ruined. I can’t swim.

I don’t know if the original Saruvia can swim or not, but I didn’t know how to swim, so I had nothing to say.

“Come on, recruits. Basic swimming training begins.”

Senior Louise, who taught us swordsmanship, approached us.

“Take off your shoes first. Shoes do not dry quickly when wet, which is inconvenient.”

Amidst a certain ominous feeling, we took off our shoes.

‘XX, wait a minute. Please say no.’

At least say something before you put us in the water…

By the way, after I enlisted, my ominous premonition was never wrong.

“Come on, from now on, you stand in the water for ten minutes.”

Why the hell does it feel like the seniors standing behind Louise are approaching this way?

I denied reality and made a stupid expression, but reality came upon me without any warning.

‘XX!’

After being pushed into the water by the hand of the senior, I made the 116th vow to desert after this training was over.

* * *

“Hey, you’ll last for 10 minutes! Go!”

A voice came from above my head, but it was difficult to accurately recognize the content because I was struggling to get out of here somehow.

As my body rose and sank in the water, horribly cold water continued to enter my nose and mouth. My body shrank by itself due to the cold sensation and I couldn’t even open my eyes properly.

“Hey, float on the water! Relax and lie down!”

Plato raised his voice and shouted roughly.

XX, it’s easy to say. Who can do that if you’re suddenly thrown in the water and then relax your body?

I tried to float in the water somehow by moving my legs as hard as I could, but I felt like my body was gradually sinking.

“Saruvia, relax!”

I felt someone holding my body from behind. I instinctively tried to hold on to the person’s collar, but I couldn’t because that person was firmly holding my body from behind.

“Open your eyes! I’m holding you, so calm down! Relax your body!”

“Ugh…”

It was not until then that I came to my senses.

I stopped stirring my arms and legs and slowly relaxed my body. Really, my body didn’t sink.

When I opened my eyes, I saw my colleagues trying to open their eyes in the water somehow, relaxing or floundering like me.

“You can’t swim, can you?”

In the voice heard right behind my head, I could tell the identity of the person holding me. It was Linia, my colleague.

“It’s been so long that I forgot. Cough!”

I coughed for a long time because I choked from the amount of water I drank.

“Yes! When you try to save someone who fell into the water, you hold them from behind! If you try to catch them in front of you, the drowning person can hang on and you’ll sink together!”

I looked at senior Lewis, who was directing near the water with a calmer mind.

He was holding a pocket watch in one hand and taking turns checking the time remaining with us.

“Linia, are you good at swimming?”

“At least better than you.”

He said he wasn’t very good at it, but now he’s supporting my body pretty well.

“It’s more inconvenient in the water than I thought to be blind in one eye.”

Linia said as he ran his hand across the scar over his own eye.

I didn’t even ask why he lost one eye. It was a consideration for him, who must have lived through a difficult past.

“Now I’m going to let go, so try floating on your own for once.”

“Uh, huh?”

“Anyway, you have to do it alone someday. Don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

“…Thank you very much.”

In this X-like place, I was very lucky to have met someone named Linia.

As I looked around with my eyes moistened, I found Aquila floating right next to me.

…He was floating right next to me, but he didn’t help me when I was struggling… Haha, such a person…

Yeah, it doesn’t matter now whether he’s the original male lead or whether he loved Suruvia in the original or not, well…

‘But as a human being you need to learn some compassion, you ignorant bastard.’

Barely afloat with Linia’s help, I internally complained about Aquila.

“Okay, everyone seems to know how to float.”

Seeing us all floating on the water somehow, Louise had a happy expression.

‘Please, I hope today’s training ends like this.’

Except for the recruits, the other unit members were doing swimming training at a distance from us. Please, I hope we’ll just finish the float training today…

‘I hate swimming. I can’t even remember how.’

“Come on, let’s go swimming around the lake today too.”

‘XX.’

No, what the hell are you going to do with the kids who are just floating?

At any cost, it would certainly be unreasonable to have all of us swim within today.

“If there is someone who can’t swim, don’t worry. Violence and terror will save you all.”

And I really managed to swim around the lake that day.

‘This is it, XX…’

* * *

“How many days are left before our discharge?”

“7 years, 11 months, 8 days.”

“XX.”

When I heard the answer from Linia, I wrapped my head in both hands and despaired.

Counting the remaining discharge dates every day was now one of our daily routines. Even so, only despair increased.

“You guys, come and sit.”

As we were moving to hang the laundry in our arms on the drying rack, we quickly noticed the other colleagues sitting in front of Plato and sat in front of him.

‘What’s going on this time?’

“Okay, I’m going to do the level 3 memorization test that I told you to memorize last time.”

‘Phew, fortunately, it wasn’t a gathering.’

Also, I thought someone in the same class made a mistake, so I thought that “violence and fear save all of us” education was about to be conducted as a joint responsibility.

However, whether the “Memorization Test” was worse news than the group for other motives, their expressions gradually darkened.

“Saruvia, you go first.”

Plato pointed his finger at me, who was sitting on the far left.

‘If you’re wrong, you’re behind, if you’re wrong, you’re behind…’

The monsters that appeared in the original were already known by me without having to memorize them, but there was a lot of new knowledge about them that needed to be memorized.

‘If it’s a third-class monster… It was the most common, average-level monster.’

The grades of monsters are divided from 1 to 4.

Level 2 is dangerous and Level 3 is moderate. And the 4th grade is a kind of insect that can be caught even by the general citizens.

‘So the monsters we deal with are usually 2nd or 3rd grade.’

Level 1 was a kind of monster that couldn’t be defeated even if several well-trained, heterogeneous races attacked together, and it was a kind of monster that you would never see in your lifetime.

“How do you get rid of skeletons?”

Plato looked at me with bitter eyes and began to ask questions.

“Target the joints of the bones, and at the end, separate the head from each other.”

“The Habitat of the Ghast.”

“It lives underground or in caves where the sun does not shine.”

“How do you to get rid of it?”

“If they receive light, they die, so either lure them to a bright place, or make a fire if that is impossible. Of course, there is also the option to cut everything with a sword.”

I remember…

I remember reading the story of Aquila saving Darlene, the original heroine, who was in danger after going to deal with the ghast without doing anything.

She said that Aquila was able to kill all those ghasts at once because he used fire attribute aura, and she looked at it and shed tears that she was so incompetent.

‘If you know you’re incompetent, you’re going to need some training.’

However, in the original work, Darlene realized her own limitations and instead of going to her training, she hugged Aquila in the dimly lit subterranean space.

“Heuk heuk, Aquila… I don’t know why I can’t change anything…”

“No, you don’t have to try. You don’t have to suffer so much. I promise you that I will protect you so that none of your fingertips do not get hurt.”

In that part, there was a romantic description of a hug for a long time. Thinking back on it, it makes me mad.

‘Obviously, the original was ropan, so why am I just in the military?’

Besides, the original Aquila is also a problem. Knowing that other members of the unit are suffering as much as Darlene is not working, why are you just protecting her?

“Okay, you passed.”

As I recollected the original and simmered again, Plato nodded his head as if he was satisfied with my answer, and began to question my colleague Carl, who was sitting right next to me.

And unfortunately he didn’t answer the question right away…

“Hey! It’s ogre! Ogre! You still haven’t memorized all the monster names! After a week, you too will be put into battle, do you want to be behind? Instead of demons, we would kill you ourselves!”

I mourned as I watched the kicks fly straight at Carl.

‘Let’s endure only 7 years, 11 months and 8 days…’

“Plato! It’s a big deal!”

At that time, Ishina rushed towards us. I turned my head towards Ishina for a moment, then quickly returned to my original position before Plato caught me.

“What?”

“It is said that a third-class monster ghoul has appeared in the village just below the mountain! Since we have to go out for an urgent subjugation right now, April has instructed us to pack our bags at the dormitory and prepare for subjugation…!”

“A ghoul?”

Plato’s complexion darkened.

“I got it. Ishina, you should go back first. I will explain the current situation to them and bring them right away.”

“All right.”

‘Emergency subjugation?’

Ghoul, a level 3 monster, is by no means a dangerous monster for different races. As new recruits, it will be quite difficult for us, but even Ishina, who is three months older than us, will be able to handle the ghouls alone.

‘So there’s no need to be so nervous just because a ghoul appeared…’

If the ghouls came down to the village, that would be a problem, but the ghouls weren’t that fast, so people were able to evacuate enough. Then we just need to move quickly and deal with the ghouls.

“Recruiters, from now on, eat your heart out and listen carefully.”

Plato looked at us with a hardened face.

“Saruvia, do you remember the characteristics of a 3rd-level monster ghoul?”

“Yes, it looks like a human, but it doesn’t have a fully human form. It stands on two feet, but the body bends forward, feels precarious, looks very ugly, and makes a murmur. It lives underground or in a cemetery, and it doesn’t go out to bright places…”

While answering Plato’s question, I realized something strange and stopped explaining.

Seeing me like that, he slowly nodded his head as if I was right.

“Yeah, ghouls don’t go down to town. Besides, there is no cemetery in this town, and instead, the cemetery is built on the mountain, so they shouldn’t appear.”

I had a kind of ominous feeling.

“The fact that the ghouls who lived in the graveyard there, in the dark mountains due to the trees, came down to the village…”

It seems that something similar happened in the original novel.

“It means that a monster much stronger than a ghoul has appeared in the mountains.”

It’s probably not a second-class monster. Anyway, the demons maintained their boundaries and were living well.

So this is… .

“A first-class monster appeared on the mountain. We are going to subdue that monster.”

‘…Could this be a dead flag?’

* * *

“Saruvia, are you here? Yuri! Help her pack her things!”

“Okay.”

Things were scattered around in the narrow accommodation, and April, who seemed to record something in her notebook and pack her luggage, looked very busy.

The tall woman with black hair tied together, Yuri, came to me on behalf of April.

Yuri, who usually didn’t talk to me first because she didn’t like me, was still showing a cold attitude as if she was forced to help me because of the order.

“You must have learned how to take care of recruits and military chiefs. Hurry up and pack your things in front of me.”

“Yes, I see.”

“Wait, that’s bulky, so you have to put it in the bottom first.”

“Oh, I’m sorry…!”

“Hey, why did you put that in there?”

‘Do you even know what my name is?’

I always felt this, but the seniors here don’t seem to regard me as a human being.

Anyways, after packing all my luggage according to Yuri’s instructions, I ran to the training ground and lined up among other colleagues.

“Are you ready?”

The platoon leader of our unit stood on the podium with a hard look.

“Ghouls were found in the village. The ghouls are entrusted to the Gamma platoon, and our Alpha platoon goes to treat the first-class in the mountains. We have to take care of it quickly before the first-class goes down to the village. I’ve also contacted the beta platoon, so we’ll be able to meet soon. I’ve also put in support for others.”

Plato, Leon, and Louise. Even my seniors, who had always seemed proficient in my eyes, looked nervous.

“We are border guards. Officially our goal is to subdue the first-class because we have to follow the order of the state.”

At the words of the platoon leader that followed, I had no choice but to stiffen my body.

“But our goal is to survive.”

I rolled my eyes.

For nearly a month, I have been quite attached to my seven colleagues. Everyone, including Aquila, who never even talked properly.

But if my colleagues are wiped out… I couldn’t even imagine how the hell Ishina would have felt.

If it were me, I would have been completely out of my mind, but as expected, Ishina was the original male lead #3, so his mentality is unique. Is that the dignity of the current trend, “It’s friendly on the outside, but black on the inside”?

“The more important thing is for you to survive.”

“We can’t step down in front of the first-class monster. If we step down, the villagers will be over, so we have to fight with our lives.”

I heard someone gulp.

“But that doesn’t mean you should give up your lives. Survive persistently. I don’t want to lose a platoon member.”

When the platoon leader finished speaking, there was now a solemn atmosphere among the troops lined up in the training ground.

Somehow my heart began to pound together.

Before joining the army, Iwas abused by the director at the orphanage and cursed day by day.

After joining the army, I went through painful training and cursed at the identity of the world by listening to my seniors’ scolding even if I made a small mistake.

Despite those terrible days, I’ve never felt this much tension.

“Here we go!”

I walked along the creaking procession with broken steps. At least the heavy military on my back brought me a sense of reality.

Looking around, walking with broken steps was the same for my other colleagues.

I’m even more nervous because I see other colleagues nervous. It’s a vicious cycle…

“Tsk tsk, it’s a mess…”

Then, April’s voice came through the cold silence. April, whose blonde hair shines brilliantly today, looked around us pathetically and said.

“Why are you guys so nervous?”

Then other seniors began to respond quickly.

“Hey, think carefully about whether the monster is scary or whether we are scarier.”

“And~ What if you run away after seeing the finish line? Think carefully that if there is a witch in front of you, we are right behind you.”

“Don’t worry. You won’t die if you don’t make a mistake. Of course, if you make a mistake, you will die in our hands before the witches.”

‘Wow, I’m suddenly relaxed.’

When I heard the longing of my seniors who rushed fiercely and pecked, I felt like the fear was disappearing.

‘Yeah, there’s nothing more scary than those humans in the world.’

It would be easier to deal with the monster than to deal with those humans.

Considering that the hell’s downward hardship would begin with April as the starting point if the subjugation failed, suddenly, the will to succeed began to burn within me.

‘I’ll do it. I’ll definitely do it.’

* * *

(third person pov)

“Elliot, what should we do?”

At the forefront of the procession, April whispered in a small voice to commander Elliott so that others could not hear.

Elliot, the commander, has always had a bored attitude in everything, but he, who has accumulated one of the best experiences in the unit, has also been a person whom April can rely on.

“What can we do? Kill the first class.”

“The recruits haven’t even been here a month yet. Don’t you think it’s not the time to put them into practice? They’ll never be able to deal with a first-class.”

“Then what can we do? Should I just keep them in the house like a dog and leave them alone?”

“Five people died because of a second-class monster.”

“That’s why you train the kids well this time. If you had trained them with that intensity for another day, they would have really fled the military. As expected, April, you’re hard.”

April was clicking her tongue, and eventually brought up what was inside her mind.

“…But don’t you know that someone will die anyway?”

Elliot also gently closed his eyes and replied in a small voice.

“Yeah, not everyone can live anyway. Only strong ones survive.”

Earlier, he said he didn’t want to lose a single subordinate, but they knew.

If you’re weak, you’ll die.

One soldier dies every month, and they couldn’t expect all the recruits to be fine while dealing with the first-class monster. In the worst case scenario, everyone could be wiped out.

April turned her head and checked if the recruits were following well from behind. Everyone looked stupid, but anyway, they seemed to be physically trained for a long time, but there was no sign of difficulty even though they were walking.

And among them, by far, Aquila stood out.

‘The person with the fire attribute. He could probably live. But…’

April pretended to be calm and looked around the other recruits. There was no hope.

‘And he’s a little hard to read…’

Saruvia came in April’s eyes. Saruvia looked tired, but she seemed to be trying not to slow down.

She was the most noticeable female recruit among others. Although there are not many women in this unit, Saruvia was exceptionally beautiful.

Coral hair, golden eyes, lovely features. As its name suggests, she looks like a flower.

‘She’s got guts.’

April was worried because she looked weak, but she didn’t fall behind and was following the training well.

Originally, the term “strong person” who survives in this border defense group means “crazy person.” Even if they are a little less capable, strong men somehow find a way to live.

‘Don’t die, please.’

With the same expression as usual, April stared at the back and shouted loudly.

“Hey, Saruvia! You look tired.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

As Saruvia’s widened as if surprised, April had a satisfied look.

‘Yes, you have to be tough to live…’

* * *

At the same time, Saruvia thought:

‘That crazy X is another XX.’

* * *

(first person pov)

We have come deep into the mountains, but we have not found any traces of mana.

Because I walked for a long time, my clothes were wet with sweat, and my feet, which were initially tingling, were now swollen and I could feel the sense of tightness in my shoes.

In the middle, we met a few members of the beta platoon and moved together, but there seemed to be little exchange with other platoon members. The soldiers who had been there for a long time were greeting their colleagues of the other platoon, but we didn’t, so nothing changed even if they joined.

Meanwhile, the sky was darker than before. Since a dense tree was covering the sky, we had to hurry because if the sun sets, nothing would be seen.

“First of all, we’re going to camp here today. Get ready to sleep.”

“Yes.”

The commander ordered it, and the platoon captains of Alpha and Beta platoon each began to instruct their soldiers.

The commander seemed to be a man of considerable age difference, but he seemed to be heterogeneous like us and remained calm even in this chaotic situation.

“Louise, plan the night.”

The seniors started the conversation earlier, and soon Leon, who walked this way, instructed us to set up a tent.

“Ishina, tell the recruits.”

“Oh, okay…!”

Isina beckoned to come closer.

“Well, look, guys. You have to fix it like this.”

I fixed the tent on the ground with Linia on the other side according to Ishina’s instructions.

Being like this in the mountains with swollen feet in the late evening, suddenly my sadness about my life came.

“What’s wrong with my life?”

“I agree.”

Linia, who was silently tightening the knot, nodded in response to what I said.

“I hope I won’t be born as a heterogeneous person in my next life.”

With that said, Linia habitually smoothed a long scar on his eye. I looked at him without thinking, and pretended not to see anything because I was afraid that my gaze would feel burdensome.

“Are you curious?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you want to know about this scar?”

“Oh, no, it’s okay not to tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”

There must be a deep story, so I didn’t want to hurt others for nothing.

Linia seemed to be silent for a moment, and muttered in a small voice.

“I’ll let you know when I get back alive.”

“No! Hold on!”

An ominous feeling that comes in my head!

‘Anyway, this world is a novel!’

And right now, Linia stepped on the dead flag!

“Hey, hey! Hurry up and take back what you just said!”

“What?”

“That’s the dead flag! Just say you won’t tell me for the rest of your life!”

“What’s the dead flag?”

“Just say it like that! I won’t tell you even if I come back!”

“Uh, uh… I’ll never tell you even if I come back.”

“It’s done now.”

I nodded with a proud look. I saved one person’s motivation!

‘Phew, Linia, he almost stepped on the dead flag on his own.’

* * *

That night, April,Yuri, and I were in a small tent.

The midnight mountain was really cold, but we could feel each other’s warmth as we were next to each other in the narrow tent. I don’t know if a narrow tent is a good thing or a bad thing.

“Saruvia. Have you been trained to be vigilant? If someone wakes you up in the middle, you have to get up right away.”

“Okay.”

“And you would have memorized all the cases of emergencies in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, I memorized everything.”

After confirming a few more things with me, April closed her eyes and laid down.

‘How do you sleep in this state?’

The tent was cramped, and I was cold nonetheless, and worst of all, I had to sleep in my shoes just in case I had an emergency. A sword was placed by the bedside in case of an emergency.

With no sleep at all, I tossed and turned to find a comfortable position somehow.

“… Hey, are you crazy?”

“Sorry…”

Of course, I had no choice but to keep my posture because of Yuri’s cold voice, who was lying right next to me.

Eventually I closed my eyes to try to fall asleep somehow, but it didn’t seem like I would sleep at all.

‘No, how can I sleep in this uncomfortable place…’

That moment when I was complaining a lot and trying to close my eyes.

“Hey, recruit! Wake up! Quick!”

“Yuri?”

Yuri was shaking my body violently.

‘…What? When the hell did I fall asleep?’

I think I was more comfortable sleeping on my desk when I was in school, but seeing that I fell asleep quickly in this cold and narrow tent, I must have been terribly tired.

‘This is it…’

When I got up from my seat in a still dreamy state and only blinked, Yuri shook my body and shouted as if it was stuffy.

“This is an emergency! Dragon, a dragon has appeared!”

Why the hell is the dragon coming out here?

It felt like I was suddenly out of sleep. Isn’t the genre scale too big?

Even though I didn’t really understand what the hell was going on, I followed Yuri, grabbed my sword, and ran out of the tent like a bullet.

“… Ah!”

As soon as I got out of the tent, I faced the dragon, and I had no choice but to backtrack in surprise.

A hideous ocher-colored dragon covered with scales.

It was screaming and running wild, and the members of the unit were all rushing together to stop it while wielding swords covered with auras.

It looked like they were lacking compared to the dragon, but nevertheless, they did not back down.

“You can’t back off! No matter what happens, we can’t send the dragon to the village!”

I heard the ommander shouting like that, and Plato pulled me, as I stood in a panic and unable to do anything.

“Calm down, Saruvia! Dragons breathe fire! Don’t lose your mind even for a moment! Your location! Aren’t you going straight to your location?!”

I finally came to my senses after those words, and I hurriedly searched for my place.

‘It was squad two, and number five…’

However, only the obsessively memorized number came to my mind, and I couldn’t remember who the person next to me was.

“Calm down! Your location is here!”

Plato cried out in a ferocious voice and put me to his right. It was then that I remembered that my left was Plato and my right was a sword. The sword standing to my right was trembling.

“We’re waiting one squad behind! Keep an eye on the situation!”

Commander Elliot, who belongs to Squad 2 like me, exclaimed.

“Whoa…”

After taking a deep breath, I squinted my eyes, trying to see what was right in front of me.

Beta platoon was fighting at the rear and right side of the dragon, and our Alpha platoon was fighting at the front and left side.

Among our Alpha Platoon, Squad 1 was rushing in front of the Dragon, and Squad 2 of us stood in line behind them.

‘Ha, can I?’

When I saw the real dragon, my body trembled. The dragon seen in real life was different from the one depicted in fairy tales.

It was hideous and it had a terrifying appearance, and even the members of the troops fighting the dragon did not seem to have achieved much.

Whenever the dragon took one step forward, the members of the troops who were hanging on the dragon fell without any resistance, but they clenched their teeth and swung their swords at the dragon again.

I was still frozen like ice, who hasn’t been able to adapt to this situation.

“Hey you! Side!!”

Plato suddenly uttered an urgent voice I had never heard before.

I looked to the right with unfamiliar eyes.

“Ah.”

I had to confirm the traces of being slaughtered by the dragon.

Carl was dead there.

“Oh, oh…”

Even if I check it again, the fact that he was dead has not changed.

“Ah…”

“Saruvia! Wake up!”

My body was pulled back strongly, and when I woke up and looked straight ahead, Plato, who stood in front of me, was wielding a sword.

“Oh!”

A giant dragon that came close.

Coming through the space between the first minute, it was shaking violently with something in its mouth.

The dragon then roared intensely.

“Two minutes! Let’s start the battle right away! Reorganize! Hurry up!”

“Why is it so hard?”

Wearing a sword as he climbed, Plato was trying to cut off the dragon’s left leg and Yuri was trying to cut off the dragon’s right leg, but the dragon’s body was not hit by the sword at all.

The dragon bowed his head and tried to put Plato into his mouth, but Plato managed to block the dragon’s mouth with a sword and avoided it.

The dragon, who seemed to have hurt his mouth due to the sword, cried fiercely once again.

“Oh…”

In the meantime, I couldn’t get rid of the terrible sight I had just seen.

“What is this…”

“Wake up! The dragon’s surface is hard and the sword doesn’t work, but the skin in its eyes and mouth is weak! Go to that place!”

The voice of the platoon leader was heard from far away.

Their swords wielding at the dragon’s surface did not work at all, but they continued to swing swords on hard rock-like skin.

“Everyone, stay calm!”

“Hey! If you send that thing to the village, we’ll be all behind you! Don’t you remember?!”

That way, the speed of the dragon heading to the village could be reduced even a little.

‘Why… Suddenly…’

At that time, the content I saw in the original began to come to my mind.

Yes, in the original, the female character met a black dragon. In general, the dragon, which has lived for an unimaginably long time in ropan, and was considered an object of awe, was only an obstacle to be killed in this ropan.

However, like other ropans, it is no different that dragons are extremely strong.

In general, a dragon that has nothing to see during its eight-year service. However, Darlene faced the strongest black dragon among the dragons.

That means that the original male characters such as Aquila, Winter, and Ishina, who will be there in the future, have faced a dragon twice.

“Hey! Dr-Dragon!”

Yeah, even in the original, when the female lead screams like that… How did she kill the dragon?

“Ah, Winter.”

Obviously, in the original story, Winter cut down the dragon with a sword containing an aura of ice.

Unlike other unit members, his aura blade with ice properties could feed the dragon a valid attack.

Then Aquila attacked the dragon with a sword containing the aura of fire…

In the end, I remember Ishina…

“Saruvia, come to your senses!”

“Ah…!”

It was then that I was able to get out of the recollection and come to my senses. Little by little, a sense of reality was returning.

As if Linia was protecting me while I was silent, Linia was holding my arm tightly. He was in the right position of the sword, so it seemed that he had filled the void left by the sword’s death.

‘The death of the sword…?’

I frowned as I suddenly remembered the word, but Linia looked at me with one of his eyes and shouted.

“You must live! Stop that and live!”

A situation in which he confirmed the death of his sibling right in front of his eyes.

My mind kept whispering to me to turn away from what I had seen and hide into the subconscious, but I struggled to somehow hold onto the last ray of reason that remained. If we didn’t accept the reality here, it was really just a meaningless evasion.

‘If you lose your mind, you die…’

“Recruiters, calm down. Do you really want to die?!”

At that moment, April’s high-pitched voice resounded. When I heard the voice of the person who usually tormented me every day, I was able to regain my sanity with a burning sensation as if struck by lightning.

‘Before, I thought that monsters were less scary than the seniors.’

April’s voice felt as reassuring as it is right now.

“Hey, fire! Turn on more lights!”

When April gave instructions in a hoarse voice, someone rushed to our crevice with a torch. It was then that my vision cleared up a bit and I started to see things.

The biggest reason I couldn’t come to my senses in this battle right now was because of my vision.

In the dark night in the mountains where no moonlight shines through. It’s a situation where you can’t really see an inch ahead.

In fact, it was as if we were fighting with our eyes closed only by sound and sensation.

The only thing that helps them see ahead is the aura that emits light from their own swords. However, the aurors were all of different colors, so the world at first glance through the aurors was colorful and made my vision dizzy.

I was also using the shining coral color in my sword as a flashlight, but the problem was that the dragon covered with coral color creates more fear.

“Look at me! If you can’t see it, listen straight ahead!”

April shouted again, and I clenched my teeth, trying to somehow keep the dragon in sight through the torch.

Aaaaaa-!

Then, suddenly, the dragon began to scream loudly.

The dragon, who seemed to have had a wound on his right leg, raised his head high and screamed.

Standing in front of him was Aquila with a sword and a fire attribute aura. While I couldn’t even properly secure my sight, his blade had succeeded in injuring the dragon.

All the members of the unit were injured somewhere, and even with a bleeding body, they slashed their swords to prevent the dragon from stopping. I also ran towards the dragon, holding the sword in my trembling hands.

It was terrible to die by a dragon, but if that dragon goes down to the village, our troops must be stalked by those of higher rank… .

“No, avoid!”

“Huh?”

I thought for sure that everything was going well again.

At the same time as April’s voice was heard.

“Ouch! Aaaaah!”

“Aaaah!”

I moved the trembling sword to where the scream was heard. The coral aura clearly showed what was there.

They were two bodies that were bitten by the dragon’s mouth and fell to the floor.

“No!”

It was the bodies of my comrades John and Billy.

“Damn! Secure your sight! Never miss the dragon’s position!”

Even though three members of the unit had already died, the other unit members held up their swords as if they were accustomed to death in battle, and blocked the attack coming towards them.

Aquila, who had provoked its wrath by attacking the dragon’s legs, was looking at the corpses of his dead comrades.

For the first time, I saw Aquila’s expression conveying some emotion.

…Of course, I was also shocked and unable to come to my senses.

“Each platoon! Take turns between squads!”

“Get behind Squad 2 and switch to Squad 1! Squad 3 and Squad 4 also alternate!”

When the commander and the platoon leader gave such orders one after another, I was only able to move my immobile body, guided by Linia’s hand.

I couldn’t get enough strength in my legs due to the impact. But in this mountain where the dragon roared, there was no safe place.

Whenever the dragon sprinted, the members of the troops ran out after the dragon’s tail to keep its feet tied up even a little.

Due to the dragon’s terrible screams and flashing auras from all directions, the sound could not be heard properly and the field of vision was not clear. It was truly chaotic.

And I guessed I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t properly discern the situation and felt floating.

“Hippo!”

Due to the dark vision, I missed the dragon’s position and took a moment’s negligence, and my classmate Hippo’s body was bitten as it was.

“No, no…”

The dragon, which at first glance looked like a torch, had his wings torn off by the attacks of his troops, and suffered serious injuries to both legs, so he could not achieve the same speed as before.

Nevertheless, it fiercely resisted to the end in the dark.

“No, no…”

I wanted to close my eyes and run away from this situation, but I couldn’t so as not to miss the appearance of the dragon appearing and disappearing in the dark.

But because of the great fear and despair that I had felt for the first time in my life, I burst into tears with my eyes wide open.

‘Aquila, where is Aquila?’

I wish someone would kill that dragon. When I had that thought, what I reflexively looked for was the original male lead.

“Ah…”

However, Aquila, whom I had discovered, stood blankly in the same place as me, who seemed to have been greatly shocked by witnessing the deaths of his collegues.

‘…That…’

I could read something in Aquila’s eyes.

Those were the eyes of a person who had been completely destroyed.

But no matter how shocked the recruits who witnessed the deaths of their comrades were, the troops continued to fire at the dragon.

Our platoon members weren’t the only ones dying. Through the lights at first glance, someone was crying in front of the dead platoon member even in Beta Platoon.

Things were getting worse.

“Too high!”

The dragon’s weakness is its eyes and mouth, but its head is in a high position that we can’t reach, so it was difficult to get effective hits.

“Damn it, it’s late at night, so it’s hard to deal with…!”

It was April and Winter who stood right in front of the dragon now.

April rushed to the dragon as her golden hair fluttered.

Every time she, an auric user of her plant attribute, wields her sword, her green aura scatters, and the dragon’s blood spatters. The spot she cut once was never regenerated.

And a man wearing a bright blue aura that stands out next to April. Winter.

A man who is described as having the most outstanding skillsas male lead #2 in the original.

With his sword wrapped in a glamorous ice attribute, he stepped on the dragon’s body and levitated high in the air, and swung his sword at the dragon with all his might, so that his body bounced off.

Slash-!

A loud noise was heard, and the dragon made a desperate cry it had never heard before.

The dragon had white frozen eyes and was waving his legs wildly.

Whenever its front paws hit the ground, the bodies of the troops attacking the bridge below bounced far away. They fell on the floor and got back up somehow while groaning in pain.

At that moment, I felt the hot heat.

“Get away!”

A huge flame came out of the dragon’s mouth and hit us directly.

I rolled on the floor with a feeling that something hot touched my right arm.

“Ah, ah…”

I was lying on the floor, holding my bitter arm, crying, and checked what it was covered in burning flames.

It was my colleague, Magnet.

“I can’t believe it. This doesn’t make sense…”

Behind me, Linia denied reality with a shocking voice, but eventually collapsed as if she had lost her strength.

“Even so, I can’t see because I hurt my eyes! Go for the mouth!”

“Raise your gun! 3, 2, 1! Shot!

“Hey! You’re not going to shoot properly?”

Senior players centered on April began attacking again, and Winter faced the dragon in a gasping but unstoppable manner.

Boom!

Winter swung a big sword, and finally the dragon’s body slowly collapsed to the ground.

“Sigh…”

“Check until the end.”

And just when everyone took a little breath, the dragon’s eyes, which were closed on the ground, suddenly opened.

A huge fire popped out of its mouth again. A huge fire of scale that had never been seen before spread in harmony and spread to the fallen leaves piled up on the floor.

The vision, which had been only dark so far, has brightened up.

Winter hurriedly fired a cold ordeal blade to put out the fire.

Elliot also looked embarrassed, but soon fired a huge gun into the dragon’s mouth, completely cutting its breath.

It seemed like everything was going well like that, but….

“Oh, my god!”

But I saw it.

There is something that can no longer be recognized in the place where Linia was.

“Hey, Saruvia! Your legs!”

“What is this? What is this?”

I think it’s weird. Why are these things happening to me? Why?

‘Am I even alive right now?’

A terrible sense of helplessness felt in the face of a series of deaths. Denial of reality and self that begins to collapse.

“Ahhhh…!”

For a moment, I felt a terrible pain in my leg, which I couldn’t even describe in words, so I lay on my stomach, put my hand on it, then let it go and screamed.

There were sparks on my legs.

“Ugh, ah, ah!”

It was impossible to move my legs properly, instinctively, I crawled like scratching the floor with my fingertips. All I could think of was that I wanted to end this pain somehow, somehow.

“… Hey! Where did she go?”

I heard the sound of water.

Splash-!

Throughout the battle, I could clearly hear the water rushing from the left.

…It was a valley, obviously a valley.

Troops were rushing in to put out the fire that covered my legs, but I crawled on the floor halfway and tucked myself into the valley.

“Uhhhhhhhh!”

There was a crackling sound in my leg and I felt unbearable pain. At the same time, the sensation of the cold valley water rushed to my bones, and I gasped for breath.

“Ha, ha… .”

I was just dumbfounded. Even though a lot had happened, I could only hear a hum, as if someone was blocking my ears.

All my colleagues are dead? Really?

“Hey! Come out quickly!”

…I couldn’t hear well what you were saying.

The sound of the water was too strong, and above all, I couldn’t get myself to move.

… It was too dark. I lost the sword before entering the water, so I couldn’t see anything.

Legs that still have no power with water continuously entering my lungs.

“Hey, why hasn’t she come out yet?!”

“You can’t let it get in the water in the dark! Find her quickly and bring her out!”

“That… I can’t see where she is…! It’s too dark!”

“Torchlight! Everyone grab a torch and come quickly!”

I was blankly drifting along the strong currents.

A loud bang was heard behind me. Now, the voices of the troops could not be heard at all. I realized something was wrong, but my mind was still blank and my body was weak.

On a night when I couldn’t see anything, I began to wave my arms as my body gradually submerged in the water. I didn’t know where to go. I can’t see anything, and a strong force keeps pushing me back.

The current was getting stronger.

‘Is this the original ending?’

Yeah, maybe it’s the end of everyone dying like this. This might be the original world.

I closed my eyes tightly, sank deeply by the strong current. If this is such a world, now may be the time to really give up.

‘Stop it, just…’

I had no reason to continue living in this world.

Really, there was nothing.

So the very moment when I finally gave up the will to live.

Something hot grabbed my hand.

‘…It’s hot.’

I instinctively grabbed it and pulled it hard. In the cold water, it was the only thing hot.

The man held on so tight that I could feel them digging deep into my palm.

Someone hugged me tightly from behind, so I couldn’t resist any longer. It was the attitude I learned in water training.

A loud roar was heard just behind my back. Now there was no sound other than the roar.

Eventually, I felt my body rise and fall.

I seem to have lost consciousness for a moment.

When I woke up, I was lying near the shallow water.

“No, don’t die…”

Someone put pressure around my heart and said so.

“Cough! Cough!”

A cough with water came out of my mouth, and my body lifted for a moment.

I tried to see who saved me, but the water stung my eyes and I couldn’t open them.

I managed to raise my hand and grab the man’s forearm to let him know I was conscious. I felt like I was going to freeze to death, but the person I grabbed was hot, so my hands were energized.

“Ah.”

And I made eye contact with Aquila, who was looking down at me from above.

His black hair was wet and clung to his skin, and something that might be water or tears flowed from his reddish-orange eyes.

The moment I met his eyes, I felt a tingling sensation as if an electric current was flowing through my veins. It felt like our souls were connected as one.

“Don’t die. Only if you are alive, please.”

A voice filled with emotion for the first time I heard, repeated as Aquila pleaded.

“Cough! Stay…”

You stayed.

I thought they were all dead, but you were there.

“I, I, no one…”

Aquila stuttered, trying to convey something to me.

“Cough! I know…”

I coughed hard and cut him off.

Even if I didn’t listen, I knew what he was going to say. Just by making eye contact, we could now fully share each other’s feelings.

“… Say no more.”

Aquila, who was looking at me, reached out.

My body lying on the floor was seated upright by him, and Aquila patted me on the back after I lowered my head.

“You must have drank a lot of water, spit it out.”

“Cough! Cough!”

Water kept coming out every time I coughed.

“Yeah, you’re doing well.”

Finally, when nothing came out of my stomach anymore, I began to feel the cold from my wet body.

It was freezing cold. My body trembled.

In a hazy spirit where the situation was not properly understood, I spoke gibberish.

“I’m cold.”

It was just an instinctive word. Because his body was hot when he touched my hand.

“Hug me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do everything for you, I can do everything for you.”

I reached out my icy hands at him.

“So please live, all you have to do is live…”

Aquila hugged me tightly with a suffocating force. I held his back with all my strength in my hand to live somehow.

Earlier in the valley water, how strong he held my hand, and blood was flowing from the torn wound on my palm, made me sting. But I didn’t mind.

I wanted to live.

“I’ll save you somehow. You will never die from now on. I will save you…”

Aquila hugged me and muttered like a crazy person.

Wet clothes, wet body.

Because we hugged each other to the fullest, we felt each other’s bodies intact, but that did not mean that this situation was romantic. This wasn’t a ropan.

We wanted to live and needed someone to rely on.

Paradoxically, in order for me to stay alert until the end here, I had to save the other person.

So we just hugged each other.

Above all, it was a warm hug.

* * *

(third person pov)

He was always watching.

He was always observing everything, and he remembered everything he saw.

Aquila was the type to be easily misunderstood from an early age.

The eerie orange-redish eyes he had since birth, the basic expressionless expression he always had, and the few words he spoke.

Such things led people to misunderstand that Aquila was indifferent and insensitive to everything.

Actually, he was an observant and sensitive type, but he didn’t feel the need to explain.

As a child, he couldn’t fathom the consequences of people misunderstanding him, because he was accustomed to others seeing him as an ominous child.

But as he grew older, his scarlet eyes became clearer.

“Honey, I guess… I think my child has inherited the blood of a different race too strongly.”

“Why? You said you were of mixed race.”

When his outstanding physical abilities had grown to a level that could be counted amongst the heterogeneous races,

“I think the contract magic will work for our kid.”

“Then… Are you saying that he will enlist in the Border Guard Army?”

As his parents watched Aquila grow, they knew that the contract magic would be revealed and that he would enlist in the military.

They loved each other more than anything, and decided to abandon the child before they became more affectionate.

“Still, you… I believe you will be able to live well.”

Worried about sending a loving child to the Border Guard, they abandoned Aquila, who was so young.

Even at that moment, Aquila stared at them with scarlet eyes. His parents knew nothing of his heart.

‘Will I be able to live well?’

At that moment, he felt a pain in his chest, and he was in a state of panic, unable to do anything.

His parents hurried away with sad eyes, as if they had misunderstood his frozen behavior.

That was the moment that led him to live in an orphanage despite the presence of his parents.

Then, when he turned 17 and the contract magic appeared on his wrist, he left the orphanage without any regrets and immediately volunteered for the military.

He adapted quite well to the place he was assigned to, called “Alpha Platoon”.

He had a talent for handling fire-attributed auras, and his natural physical abilities were excellent.

He stood out among others, and his mates seemed to find it difficult.

‘Linia, Carl, Saruvia, Magne, John, Billy, Hippo.’

He was memorizing all the names of his comrades.

Nevertheless, perhaps because of his attitude, his motives seemed to feel he was indifferent, but he didn’t care. He just kept his mouth shut and accepted the circumstances as he always did.

But when he faced the deaths of his comrades right in front of his eyes.

He couldn’t do anything.

Just like when his parents left him, he had nothing to do and just stood there.

‘No.’

He tried to close his eyes, but even his eyelids didn’t listen to him.

He thought once again that he had lost everything.

“Hey, why hasn’t she come out yet?!”

“Torchlight! Everyone grab a torch and come quickly!”

And at that moment, his leg finally moved.

He didn’t have time to think about anything. He jumped straight into the river and managed to grab hold of one of her hands as she struggled in the water.

When she fell down the waterfall, he saw the face of one colleague, the only living colleague.

“Do not die. Don’t die, please…”

He murmured like a madman, repeatedly squeezing his heart.

And the moment their eyes finally met, he felt his heart stop.

On her pale, tired face, the vitality and brightly shining golden eyes stared straight into his eyes.

She was reading through his eyes.

“I, I, no one…”

He never wanted anyone to die. He didn’t mean to not get along with them.

For some reason, he felt like he had to explain something to her, and he trembled and tried to say it.

“Cough! I know.”

She said so while coughing.

It wasn’t just an illusion. They were completely sharing their thoughts with each other.

The thrill of being connected to someone for the first time in his life dominated him.

“Saruvia.”

The name seemed to dominate the tip of his tongue.

All he could do was promise to save Saruvia for the rest of his life somehow.

The bond he felt for the first time made him want to dedicate everything to Saruvia.

“Hug me.”

She said so with a relaxed face.

The moment he hugged her body trembling in the cold, he wanted to make her body temperature the same as his all his life.

“This is bad.”

He knew what he felt for Sarubia now, but he also knew that the feeling was inappropriate for this situation.

But he couldn’t help it.

He never had the confidence not to love Saruvia.

* * *

(first person pov)

We started climbing the mountain again to get back to where we fell.

There was also a way to climb up the rock wall next to the waterfall, but that made us both mentally and physically exhausted. It was a miracle that both of us survived from the waterfall.

There were no words exchanged as we climbed the mountain, but we must have all been thinking of our dead colleagues.

Now there were really only two of us.

“Shall I carry you?”

“Huh?”

As my steps were slowed by a burnt leg, Aquila lowered his back right in front of me. I laid on his back.

“Cold?”

“Yeah.”

Both of us were wet, but it felt like the heat from Aquila was drying out our clothes little by little.

‘If you use a fire attribute aura, your body must be hot.’

As I pressed my body close to his back, my body, which had been shaking after drowning, gradually began to calm down. My fingertips, which had turned blue, gradually regained their color.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you all right?”

“It will be more difficult if I choose to walk alone.”

It was a terribly dry conversation, but that was enough.

There are times when we can get to know each other’s feelings even if we don’t speak.

…Feelings that cannot be explained with such words.

That’s how I felt when I realized that all my comrades who had been struggling together for a month died and now there are really only two left.

“Saruvia.”

“Did you know that was the first time you called my name?”

“Should I do it more?”

“Will it only be for today?”

“No.”

“Then that’s good.”

It was a conversation that would sound strange to others to hear.

Aquila’s breathing became more and more difficult as it was difficult to climb the mountain while carrying me.

But I didn’t ask him to drop me off.

“Are we on the right track?”

“The direction is clear.”

“What if there’s no one when we arrive?”

“Then I’ll go to the unit.”

After saying that, there was silence. It was an uncomfortable silence.

“Aquila, you know what? I want to ask you something.”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Can I bother you from now on?””

“As much as you want.”

“Can I whine in front of you?”

“Do it like that.”

“What do you want?”

Even though I already knew the answer, I shouldn’t have asked that question. I just wanted to be confirmed by him.

“Don’t die, Saruvia.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t ever die. Don’t ever leave.”

“I won’t die.”

“Keep confirming that you’re alive. Keep hanging on to me.”

“I promise”.

At that time, a human voice could be heard somewhere.

“I guess it’s near here”.

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Let me go.”

“Yes.”

He gently dropped me off from his back.

After carefully dropping me to the ground, he looked me in the face.

“Your lips are blue.”

“I guess my body hasn’t warmed up yet.”

Aquila raised his hand and carefully swept over my lips.

“Your hands are warm.”

“Do you want more?”

“Yes.”

The way he put one hand still on my mouth was strange depending on the perspective, but I was just cold and Aquila just didn’t want to lose me.

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go back.”

“Yes.”

As I walked a little more, I finally began to feel the presence of the troops. I felt relieved that they hadn’t left yet.

But the relief soon disappeared. It was because I heard what the commander said to our platoon seniors.

“The commander is disappointed in you.”

…It was somehow an ominous remark.

“I can’t believe you didn’t take care of any of these recruits properly, so everyone didn’t fulfill their responsibilities.”

The commander who said that sounded really disappointed..

“Everyone seems to have lost discipline these days. I’ll have to restart my major training after a long time.”

When the commander finished speaking, the platoon leader’s voice was heard this time.

“I took them out of training to work hard in practice, but it was such a mess in practice.”

“That much?”

We’ve got a problem.

Even the oldest members of our platoon are being scolded.

After a while, when the voices of the commander and the platoon leaders were no longer heard, the remaining seniors were heard talking to each other.

“You should have at least stopped the recruit who jumped in the end.”

“I’ll correct it.”

“Hey, what do you do these days? You can’t find a new soldier floating in the waterfall, and you can’t even stop another one of them from jumping in to save her. What have you been up to?”

It was the sound of Chris, the oldest among the commanders, scolding the private soldiers.

Now Aquila and I were making eye contact with each other, hardened in place.

“Are we screwed now?”

“I think so.”

We’re in trouble. We’re being scolded like that right now, but if we go back alive, we’re like X again…

“…Whew, guys, I really don’t understand.”

This time, I heard the voice of April, the best private.

“Yeah, honestly, you guys didn’t expect a dragon to appear either. It was inevitable to die because of the dragon.”

Until this time, April’s bright and clear voice gave more fear than imagination. Those who have not heard that voice in person will not know.

“But I asked them to take care of the recruits, and they couldn’t even stop them from getting caught up in the waterfall.”

“…”

“Hit your head, you punks.”

“No!”

A strong warning sound began to ring in my head.

If you leave it as it is, when you find us, the atmosphere will be very harsh!

We didn’t say anything to each other, but Aquila and I quickly ran to the place where they were at the same time.

“Gasp, gasp… April!”

When we arrived in front of them, everyone looked at both of us like ghosts.

The first class and trainees, who were lowering their eyes as they saw their seniors being scolded, opened their eyes roundly when they saw us.

Standing next to April, Louise had a strange look on his face.

There was an awkward silence, and April finally smiled.

“You’re back?”

“Yeah, I’m back!”

“Are you hurt?”

“No!”

Frankly, the burnt leg was sore, and the stomach was bloated from drinking a lot of water, but in this situation, there was a sense of enough to shut my mouth. Burns should be treated at the unit.

The leaders seemed to sigh after we showed up.

The commander and the platoon leaders, who came out of the barracks, looked at us and had a slightly relaxed expression on their faces.

“…Aquila and Saruvia. Our Alpha Squadron…”

Platoon leader Chris muttered in a voice that seemed to be somewhat emotional.

“Hmmmm, cancel the disappointment.”

The commander turned around after saying that, but somehow he seemed to be moved.

‘Weird…’

There was no sign of anger on their faces.

During my life in the military, I tried to materialize in my head what I thought was vaguely strange.

Excessive training to deal with monsters, various chores to make the life of the unit smooth, the violence that strikes right away if we make even the slightest mistake, and the fearful seniors who open their ax eyes even if we showed a slight impure attitude.

However, there were no such military rumors that I had seen on the Internet in my previous life.

That is, the seniors who bully us in strange ways. Showing off your talents, or mentally harassing you or something like that.

As there is a clear vertical relationship here, I thought that abuse of that relationship would be rare…

‘No such thing happened.’

After joining this X-like unit, I have continued to curse this world, not understanding why I am here.

But maybe this is more than a military thing…

‘It was an apocalypse.’

The military is just a genre that was superficially created by different races that had to fight monsters.

In reality, my life would be close to an apocalypse.

The phrase that I had heard many times after possessing this world came to my mind.

‘Only violence, only fear, saves us all.’

Those were the lessons that the members of the Border Guard have learned directly through the years.

“Let the Alpha Squadron withdraw.”

“Alright. Chris!”

At the commander’s words, the platoon leader called out Chris’s name, and Chris blinked at April after answering.

After receiving his signal, April raised her voice and shouted.

“Okay, the recruits are back, so get ready to withdraw! Everyone pack your bags! And… Recruiters, come here for a second.”

Aquila and I followed April’s beckoning and moved closer to her.

“…If you drag the corpse to the base, the demons can track down the smell of blood and chase you.”

‘Ah.’

“I’m going to leave the bodies of your comrades buried in the mountains.”

“…”

“Do you need a final goodbye?”

“…Yes. One last time…”

“I get it. Winter! Show them one last time.”

“Yes, I see.”

Winter looked at us with pale blue eyes, and we followed him deeper into the forest.

Soon, the soil dug in front of us and several bodies contained in it were revealed.

“Say goodbye. I’ll give you five minutes.”

“Okay…”

To be honest, it was difficult to find out who was who because everyone died horribly.

I managed to find a knife in the gap.

Next, I found familiar gray hair.

“Linia…”

I tried to prevent your death by telling you something like a death flag.

‘I guess this was too real.’

He couldn’t have survived just by avoiding the dead flag.

“I’ll survive after doing your part.”

Thank you for all those years.

Aquila briefly said, looking at the bodies of her colleagues who he had not talked properly for the past month.

“Sorry.”

I squeezed his hand tightly. Aquila’s hands were always hot.

“Are you done?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Let’s go.”

It was time to go back.

To my Apocalypse world.

“…Saruvia.”

“What?”

Winter, who was quietly taking the lead and walking, suddenly talked to me.

“Yuri said she had something to say to you. Find Yuri first when you go back.”

“Oh, okay.”

‘Come to think of it, was Yuri the same age as Winter?’

For the past month, Yuri, the direct senior of the women’s accommodation, seemed to hate me so much that she treated me as a missing person, but I don’t know what’s going on since it’s the first time she wanted to talk to me.

“And you did a great job. You’re back alive.”

I opened my eyes wide and smiled brightly at the words I had never imagined would come out of Winter’s mouth.

“Thank you!”

After shouting that, I felt like the surroundings were somehow brightening, so I looked up and looked up at the sky.

The morning was already dawning, and orange sunlight was coming into the dark forest. Through the dense cracks of trees, I could see the sky colored with orange.

After a long night, the sun was rising again.

“Ah.”

I could only realize it from the pouring sunlight.

Yeah, we’re back alive.

* * *

“Hey, Yuri… I heard you called me.”

“Ah, Saruvia.”

As I spoke to Yuri in a cautious voice, Yuri looked behind and down at me with her usual cool black eyes.

I always felt it, but she had a very compassionate expression on her face. She didn’t say anything for a long while, and after staring at my face, Yuri finally opened her mouth.

“… How did you come back from the waterfall?”

Did you just call me to ask this? I replied while tilting my head.

“I was able to live with Aquila’s help.”

“…Well, still…”

Yuri looked at me with her curious expression and murmured.

“I think you have potential.”

“I didn’t hear…”

Yuri didn’t mind my reaction to her and continued her speech.

“…A lot of girls of different races died before they even joined the unit, so a few girls came in in the first place. And when two or three people come in a year, if they’re lucky, about half of them survive.”

‘Ah.’

The reason why Yuri treated me as an invisible person for a month now seems to be clear.

“I thought you were going to die soon, so I tried not to stick with you.”

She barely raised the corners of her lips, but she couldn’t hide her bitter expression.

But I could feel the relaxed atmosphere between her and me.

If she had something to tell me about her, at this very moment she seemed to be able to get everything out.

It would be prudent to ask about her now, but I have never been able to maintain my composure because of the horrific events I had just gone through.

So I decided to ask her one question about her right now.

“Yuri, I have a question.”

Yuri looked at me with eyes telling me to give it a try.

“I’m from an orphanage, so I don’t know… What do we call different races amongst ourselves?”

Even if the people of the Empire call us a different race, there will certainly be a term among us that calls us.

For the first time since enlisting, I felt truly connected with the members of the unit, and for the first time, I was curious about ‘us’.

After a silence, she opened her mouth and spoke in her small voice.

“… Archon.”

She spoke only those words, made a thoughtful expression on her face, and then began her explanation.

“Before we were ruled by the Adolf Empire in the past, our people did not have any ties to each other, so there were no words to refer to ourselves… The people of the Empire who first saw us feared us for our extraordinary physical abilities, and they called us by the word Archon, which in their ancient language means ‘ruler’.”

She added briefly.

“Right now, it’s a word banned at the level of the Empire, so everyone calls it a different race, but we use that word among ourselves.”

“Archon…”

I tried reciting the word.

I am an archon, and the person in front of me is also an archon. Alpha Squadron, no, the members of the Border Guard Force are all Archons.

I don’t know if it’s because the first place I stayed after possessing this world was an orphanage, or maybe it was because we crossed life and death together, but I began to feel a strangely strong sense of belonging to the people of the Archon.

“…Yes, we are all Archons.”

After muttering like that, Yuri held out her hand to me.

“Nice to meet you, Saruvia. I am Yuri.”

For the first time she called my name.

She held her hand and shook mine, and I raised the corner of my mouth and smiled.

“I’m Saruvia. We will work hard in the future.”

It was the moment I became a part of this apocalyptic world.

* * *

Discharge date D-2877

From that day on, I began to adjust little by little to the life of a platoon that I had always wanted to desert.

Instead, today’s concerns are…

“Hey! Let’s go to swordsmanship training right away! Everyone, wake up!”

At Leon’s call, we grabbed our swords and quickly moved to the training ground.

My biggest concern these days was survival.

‘Can I continue to live in the future?’

The first two years are the most important time for the border guard to survive. After two years, there is no reason to be killed by a monster because of your lack of skills.

Yuri said that I survived the dragon, so if I only have a strong heart and train hard, I will be able to survive all kinds of monsters…

‘It was pure luck.’

The original Saruvia also died, so I have to work harder to avoid death.

To be honest, it was a miracle that I was still alive.

Although I am an Archon, I am bound to be physically weaker than other men in the Archon unit.

Except for me, there are two female soldiers currently living in the unit.

April. In her case, she was a genius who could use plant attribute auras.

Yuri, she was taller and physically stronger than me, and her swordsmanship skills were very good.

But I am not capable of using any special aurors, nor am I physically or technically superior.

‘I used the original to memorize information about monsters faster than others, but now that’s useless. After all, everyone else is memorizing it.’

XX, no matter how much I think about it, it feels like the future of my death is getting closer…

“Hey, Saruvia. What are you doing?”

Then, I heard a muffled voice behind me. Looking back, I confirmed the owner of the voice and answered quickly.

“Altair?”

The 78th, Altair, currently in the rank of First Class.

A swordsman genius with blue hair and blue eyes. A senior three years older than me, he was also a colleague of Winter and Yuri.

Although his official number was 378, this unit usually called only the last two digits, so he was simply called 78. My official number is 390, but the members of my unit called it 90.

And in this unit, the 78 was a particularly notable person.

78 included Winter, Altair and Yuri. The 78th class was considered a “genius” by combining the ice attribute from the perfect Winter, the swordsmanship genius Altair, and Yuri, who has the physical ability that even men will fall behind.

Come to think of it, everyone looks cool. Black hair and blue gray eyes Winter, blue hair blue eyes Altair, dark hair black eyes Yuri. Cool trio.

‘It went well.’

Having met Altair, a member of the 78th Genius group, I should ask for some advice.

“Altair, I have a question.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

Unlike Winter and Yuri, who have a cool personality, Altair always uses a straight-forward tone, but he is friendly and laughs well.

“Well, I mean… Did you become strong thanks to sword training in the military?”

To see if there was any special training method, I asked.

“Yeah. I just did the basic moves.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why would it be a lie? Poking, cutting in 8 directions, blocking… I only did those basic moves.”

‘I only studied by looking at textbooks. It’s the same thing.’

Did Altair just become a genius from birth? I looked into Altair’s blue eyes blankly.

“Oh, but I did a lot of those basic moves.”

“How long have you been training?”

“I cut 8 directions 1000 times a day, poking 1000 times a day…”

‘XX. You memorized the textbook.’

I shook my head and stepped back from him. It’s absolutely impossible for me to train like that.

When I tried to leave as it was, Altair said.

“Are you looking for a way to be strong?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“…I think Winter is… nevermind.”

“Did I hear it wrong?”

“No, nothing.”

Watching him waving his hand to me to go, I eventually sighed without getting any details.

The training of the unit was always so hard that it was a problem.

Still, to see if I could get help from others, I have consulted with various troops since then.

“Yuri, how can I become stronger?”

“You can just train your swordsmanship hard, right?”

“No matter how much I do, my skills don’t seem to improve.”

“Really? Let’s take a look.”

I showed the swordsmanship I had learned so far in front of Yuri, but the only thing that came back was the expression that it was not good.

“Saruvia, can’t you break the log with force?”

“With my strength?”

“Why is she so weak?””

I was frustrated by Yuri’s words.

No, I’m already several times stronger than ordinary adult men.

‘Why are these humans so high in standards?’

In the end, the plan to get help from Yuri also came to nothing.

I even asked Ishina for help with the feeling of grabbing straws.

“Saruvia, read the movement of the aura.”

“How can I read that?”

“Hmm, can’t you just see it?”

As expected, the way he looked at the world was also different from mine.

‘How do you see the movement of the other monsters?’

So I didn’t get any help from anyone on how to get stronger, and I just had to keep going with this unanswered training.

“Are you swinging it with a sword? Are you tired? You don’t have strength in your arms? Do you really want me to be weak?”

‘XX, I want to leave the military…’

I repeated the basic movement by forcibly raising my arm that complained of pain with repeated movements.

The youngest member’s life…

“Okay, I’ll give you five minutes to drink water. The training resumes in five minutes.”

Finally, as soon as the break time was announced and the corporals disappeared, I dropped my arms down and sighed deeply.

“No matter how many times I do it, I can’t improve…”

It’s already been two months since I’ve lived as a border guard.

In the meantime, I have subjugated three times, but except for the first dragon crisis, all of them were third-class monsters, so if I followed the instructions of my seniors, my neck could be safely attached.

But there was no way that peaceful days would continue like this. Someday, there will be a day when I will face a second-class horse, so I have to build up my myskills until then.

At that time, there was a shadow over my head.

“You.”

“Mr. Winter?”

Winter was looking down at me with cold blue-gray eyes. I quickly got up because I didn’t know what he was going to say to me in a stretched position.

“You’re not the type to wield a sword.”

“Didn’t you hear it well?”

I made a blank face, but Winter showed no change in his expression and said a short word again.

“You should use a weapon other than a sword.”

“Oh, that means…”

Some of the troops use weapons other than swords.

The most representative of them is the gun, and commander Elliot also used a huge gun.

Or there were people who used huge axes like Private Brave or long spears like commander Chris.

But that’s the story of when I had some time. Since the main specialty assigned based on the training period is a sword, only day and night long sword skills are practiced.

And later, choosing another specialty was not at will to use the weapon, but only if the seniors were much more talented than the sword if they judged.

“But don’t I have to use a sword now?”

“It’s a waste of time.”

Winter, who said so with a cool-headed look, beckoned me to follow him.

I followed him without knowing the reason, and he took me to the shooting range right next to him.

Likewise, first-class soldiers sitting in the shooting range looked at us, perhaps during break time.

“Elle, come here for a second.”

“Mr. Winter?”

Elle, who is currently a first-class soldier and is below Winter, came here with a precious gun in his arms. If you take the weapon away from his arms, the violence and fear of the seniors will pour out again.

“Hand Saruvia the shotgun.”

“Oh, I can do that?”

“Yes.”

The gun that Elle handed over looked a little big to me. I took the big gun with my hands trembling with tension.

The gun, which was brown, was much lighter than I thought when I picked it up.

‘In this era, military rifles have not yet been distributed…’

In this ropan worldview, guns were still underdeveloped for military use, and most of the Archons were using swords because swords were convenient for holding auras.

But they also used a gun if they thought it was right for them. Like Elle for example.

Winter took me to the corner where Elle had been standing before. A target for shooting practice was placed in front.

“Let the body lean forward. No, more than that.”

He even helped me with proper posture and even showed me how to load the bullets.

‘Swords must be your specialty, but how do you know how to shoot?’

He was also a perfectionist in everything he did. I’m sure I wouldn’t be surprised if Winter could even wield an axe, a spear, and a cannon.

“I heard you have a good memory, can you memorize it?”

“Ah…Yes.”

It must have been rumored that I memorized information about monsters quickly because I knew the original story.

By the way, can I get a real gun here?

It reminded me of a conversation Winter had with the female protagonist, Darlene, in the original story:

“Can I not shoot a gun?””

“No.”

“As expected, I’m not good enough…?”

“…No, guns are dangerous. I’m saying this for you.”

Winter took away Darlene’s gun and even said so.

…Of course, I think I know why Winter said that to Darlene in the original. If you get her to hold a gun, she’ll be left in a shooting rampage…

As I was recalling the original work, Winter now began explaining how to load a gun.

“If you put aura on a bullet, you can exert strong destructive power, but it’s impossible to put aura in that short gap. Instead, we block the sound around the entire gun.

“Are you saying you’re going to block the sound?”

I tilted my head and asked. Come to think of it, I didn’t have any noise-blocking earplugs in my ears.

‘I heard the sound is very loud when shooting.’

Archon seemed to have a way to block sound without earplugs.

“Let’s think of it as wrapping the entire gun in a circle except for the muzzle.”

When I heard the explanation, I didn’t get a feeling, but I thought about putting aura in a gun according to Winter’s words. If not, violence and fear will save me.

Surprisingly, however, the coral-colored orbits began to shine directly from my gun.

“This works…”

This time, I thought of taking shape, and my aura immediately wrapped the gun in a circle according to my will.

‘It’s easier than you think.’

It was faster than the training to get the aura on the sword for the first time.

When I was ready to block the sound with my orbits, I looked up at Winter with sparkling eyes.

“…Yeah, I think you’re ready.”

Winter, who once again confirmed me holding a gun, said that and added briefly.

“Saruvia, this race has evolved to survive from monsters.”

That’s what I knew well. Isn’t that why we can handle ordeals easier than others?

The moment I tilted my head and asked Winter if I could lift a bullet-loaded gun from the beginning, I realized.

“…Ah.”

Saruvia in the original also shot a gun.

In the original work, Winter stopped Darlene because the appearance of holding a gun reminded him of Saruvia.

As Winter said, when I grabbed the gun and put my hand on the trigger, I could feel a strange sense.

Brave has been a rare case of using an ax instead of a sword since he was a trainee. Because he handled the weapon wonderfully.

When he first grabbed the ax, he said he had an intuition that he must use this weapon.

Now I know what that meant.

This is it. I have to catch this.

“The gun has strong recoil.”

Winter said so next to me, but his voice didn’t come into my ears well. All I was focusing on right now was the gun in my hand and the target in front of me.

I put a strong force on my hand to break the trigger.

Hit!

It was enough to know that the bullet had been fired.

My body was pushed back as it was due to the rebound of the gun, but I was able to barely hold out and stand using the strength I had grown from the training so far.

I stared at the first target, the red disc.

The disk was wobbly after being hit by the bullet.

“…Yes, I thought you would adapt well to that recoil.”

Without answering Winter’s words, I lifted my head slightly and looked up at the blue sky.

Birds were flying.

“Saruvia, this race has evolved to survive from monsters.”

Archon survived, in one way or another, improving their own fighting abilities.

For Archon, there is an unconditional way of fighting each other to survive from monsters.

‘…If you calculate the launch time, it’s about this.’

Even though no one had told me about them, it was as if they were ingrained in my soul.

At what point do you have to fire the gun to accurately hit the target?

Bang-!

Again, the trigger was pulled, and bullets were scattered in the sky according to the nature of the gun.

A bird had fallen to the ground.

As Winter looked at me in amazement, I murmured as I stared at the place where the bird had crashed with expressionless eyes.

“…Oh, that was it.”

* * *

In conclusion, I had a knack for guns.

It wasn’t difficult to overcome the recoil of the gun thanks to Archon’s physical abilities, but…

Calculating the speed and trajectory of a gun to hit a moving target.

Being able to master that feeling with just two shots was an amazing thing.

Winter was surprised that I suddenly picked up my gun and shot a bird rather than a target, and other members of the unit were also surprised.

So I got my gun, and I was given permission to use it in the future.

Of course, there was one other problem that had nothing to do with my shooting skills.

“Will you go back?”

‘Hey, this crazy…’

“They have gone crazy… Do you shoot at will without permission? Did you fantasize about dying? If you want to die like that, then desert yourself!!”

Yes… That’s why Winter and I are being scolded by April.

‘I practiced shooting to survive, but it looks like I’m going to die because of shooting practice.’

Of course, now that I think about it again, this was a bit of a hack, but no, now that I think about it, I must have gone out of my mind for a while.

…It’s the perfect weather for deserting.