Chapter 246: setting off

The next day, the allied squad of soldiers finally got ready to leave the Comfort shelter. In all the shelters that they’ve visited since they came for their mission, this one was undoubtedly the cushiest and largest.

Seeing his soldiers work orderly, preparing their newly bought equipment, Clark involuntarily fell into a daze.

He still felt that it was unreal as just like this, their mission target was already in sight. He felt excited, relieved, fortunate, and most especially he still felt worried.

After becoming allies yesterday, the king of demolition finally sent them the basic location and layout of the discovered ruin. According to him, he already reached there before but he didn’t know that it was there then.

From the information that was sent to them; Clark confirmed that the ruin was not something that they could easily enter like eating beans. They will have to sweat for it as it was located behind a big animal kingdom.

Though it was located behind the animal kingdom, it was still going to be a dangerous ordeal.

Putting his anxiousness aside, he was still stunned by how smoothly their negotiation with the king of demolition went.

Deducing from the legend that was narrated by Jason, he originally expected the king of demolition to be an aloof, strong, and egocentric man, but reality ruthlessly slapped him on the face.

The man made no unreasonable demands, everything went so smoothly that he now felt that the god of luck was watching over him. Maybe this was his time to shine Afterall.

The list that King drafted for them contained a lot of gadgets, which resulted in almost all their plundered money going down the drain.

Despite the astronomical sum, they didn’t hesitate to buy everything. What use was money if you intend not to use it? Money was created to be used, hoarding is just an alternative for expressing foolishness.

A notable fact that he observed was that almost 70% of the equipment in the list had stealth functions. The list was filled with equipment that could hide their trails, which reinforced his notion that their journey was not going to be safe.

“Sir, we are ready to move”. A soldier’s voice suddenly sounded from the door into his room.

“Ok, got it. Tell Staff Sergeant Diana that we will wait for the king of demolition’s arrival before we move”.

“Ok, sir”.

As soon as the soldier left, Clark’s original train of thought left him like fleeting clouds as he started thinking of home for the first time since he came to the Himalayan peaks.

“How is Leo? I hope he is fine. What of Emily and the mercenary group? Can they cope with me leaving so abruptly?”

“What of my territory, Vatican City? Did the Persian tigers’ terrorists strike again? Did the 5 big commissioners cope well with my leave? What if the city is experiencing another bloodshed because of my disappearance?”

He sighed. “I hope everyone is fine, I’ll never forgive myself if something bad happens because of my unannounced leave”.

“What of Sonia?” This time, he spoke his question out loud.

Though he always spoke and behaved normally around his friends and everyone, deep in his heart, he knew that he had still not gotten over the disappearance of the then 18-year-old girl that stole his heart.

Back then, he always tried to suppress his feelings and act appropriately around her. He never knew that he would lose her someday, and losing her was far more painful than he thought.

Perhaps, he never really treasured the small amount of time that he spent with her. Her disappearance showed him how important she already was to him, but it was too late.

People don’t treasure their loved ones until they are gone. Perhaps, this was what happened to him. He never treasured her enough, he sometimes felt conflicted about it.

“Why was I so foolish?”

He knew that he shouldn’t be thinking about this at such a crucial moment of his mission, but he could not help himself.

He already started splashing money to search for her secretly, but they were all to no avail. Thinking of the fact that her rich dad could not even do it, he felt more discouraged.

“I need more strength”. He clenched his fists.

“With more strength, I will have access to more money which can indirectly translate to more influence. If I achieve that, I will have a better chance of finding her”.

“Sonia, please wherever you are, persevere for me, I vow that I will find you”.

Despite making this vow, he knew that it would not be solved just by saying it, he needed to do it. The best way to increase his strength was to break through his current bottleneck, but he was still stuck.

“No matter what happens, I must break through after this mission”. He challenged himself this time. Breaking through was not easy, but setting it as a must-achieve goal would make it seem easier for him.

“Major, the king of demolition is here”. Diana’s feminine voice suddenly disrupted his thought process.

“Umm, ok. I’ll be there in a minute, wait for me”. He rubbed his face with his palms while standing up, grabbed his bag, and put it on his back before walking out of the room.

Everything that he needed was set. He already set a goal for himself, he just had to do his best and everything will fall into place like the building blocks of a mansion.

As soon as he got outside, Diana smiled at him before leading him out.

She led him to another room. In the biggest room that was allocated to them in the shelter, dozens of soldiers stood uprightly as they welcomed their leader with a military salute.

Clark nodded at Dickson and Josh who were seated at the front of the room before he went to the middle of the room to address the soldiers.

This time, he gave them a short military briefing as their ally was already waiting for them outside.

After using his words cleverly to motivate, advise and admonish them subtly, he finally led them outside.

Daland and Spartan soldiers alike all looked at his upright back in admiration as he led them outside. To them, he was their ultimate leader, they could not imagine anyone better in their current situation.

As suspected, the king of demolition had no subordinate as he stood before the soldiers alone.

He wore all black from head to toe. A black hood to cover more than half his face, a black long flowing outfit that covered his black climbing uniform, a pair of black boots, and a large blotted black bag.

Seeing him, the first thought that crossed Clark’s head was- men in black.

As the group of soldiers observed their ally, the king of demolition also observed them with a soft inviting smile outlining his face.

He nodded to himself on seeing the soldiers, they were clearly all prepared.

All the soldiers, from superior to the least wore all black like him. What impressed him most was the blotted bag that was on their backs just like his, his allies surprised him.

“I didn’t expect you guys to carry such blotted bags. It seems that you bought everything that I listed, that’s impressive”. He finally broke the veil of silence.

“Yeah, we are rich. Very rich actually”. Clark smiled as he went forward to exchange a handshake with him.

The king of demolition took the hand with a smile also. “Really? Why do I smell the scent of plundered money in the air?”

“Cough, cough…” Clark almost choked on his saliva.

“Ahem, I don’t understand what you mean. I think that you like this version of us more. Well, let’s forget about such trivialities and go, or do you still have anything doing here?”

“No, my business here is done. You’re right, I like this version of you guys more. Prepared allies are always better than clueless ones”. King replied casually before turning around to go.

Clark twitched his lips on seeing this, he could only laugh self-mockingly. This guy was really a Rubik cube, just when he thought that he was grasping his personality, he would suddenly open another side.

“Well, let’s go”.

His soldiers acknowledged his orders as they left the building, going outside in the direction that their ally just took.

Their going out stirred some reaction. Dozens of soldiers with blotted bags on their back going out uniformly could not be hidden, they became the focus of attention as they passed.

Some mercenaries spied at them from a distance, carefully taking photos of them and others recording.

Most of the mercenary leaders here were shocked to find out that no information about them could be found after they ordered their subordinates to check their background.

Due to this, they started stalking them as anyone that could draw the king of demolition’s attention could not be ordinary.

They intended to take it slow, but they never thought that this group would spend only 2 days here. They were all frustrated but they could do nothing about it, they could only watch from the sidelines.

Clark and his soldiers expected to leave immediately, but their eccentric ally clearly thought otherwise.

He first took them to the small-scale market of the shelter where he bought and ate a sumptuous dish of food.

Though they already ate, Clark could not stop himself from salivating which irritated him a lot. In the end, he also settled down with his soldiers as they all had a nice meal.

When he was asked why; the king of demolition said that he always ate nice meals before going out in the wild as no one could predict what would happen.

Today may be the day that he died, so why not enjoy himself first?

Though Clark wanted to refute this argument, he only twitched his lips in reply. A few minutes later after they ate, they finally left the shelter uniformly.

According to the description from the king of demolition, the ruin was located northwards from here.

After speaking with the guards of the shelter at the gate enthusiastically, the king of demolition finally led his new allies down the slope and into the encompassing world of snow.

Their journey was going to be a long one.

“How long do you estimate that we would spend on the way?” Clark suddenly asked.

“If everything goes according to my plan, we would reach there in a week. But if things go wrong, I’m afraid that we can spend up to a month just to get there. So, I hope you are prepared”.

“Don’t worry about that, we are fully prepared”.

“That’s good”.

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