Chapter 212: Fear

With the main headquarters cleared, there was no reason for me or anyone else from my team to remain in this place. But that didn't mean that we could just off and go.

"All the documents are burned?" Rushing to one of the Longinus' party members that I never bothered to know by name, I asked.

"Yeah. They are all ash now." Nodding his head, the middle-aged woman replied. Judging from her outfit fitting the very definition of the bikini armor, I could tell that she was either a warrioress or just a plain exhibitionist.

"Good. Make sure you didn't miss a single one." I stretched my back leisurely. "We don't want our clean slate idea to be sullied by some randomly surviving, important document, don't we?"

The clean slate plan. Outside of being the working name of the operation we were conducting as of this very moment, it was also the founding idea behind every single action of ours.

Starting with the people, we were set to kill everyone and anyone who had ties to the old government of the northern federation. While this action might be quite excessive, not accounting for the people who were already dissatisfied with the state of the federation, in the heat of the still ongoing battle, there we simply had no time nor means to differentiate between our targets.

And even if there was someone who spent his entire life working to undo the federation, we wouldn't be able to know it at all. After all, if his actions would be easy to notice, the federation loyalists would make a short work of such a person a long time ago.

"Marius!" Hearing the call, I turned around only to see Longinus dragging someone by his hair.  "Guess who we found hiding in a basement filled with wine!" With a single pull of his hand, the mercenary forced his captive to stand up only to kick him in the back of his knees, making him fall right on his face. 

"No idea who that fucker is. Should I wait, or will you tell me who he is?" As much as Longinus wanted to get a reaction out of me, he misfired that shot. Given how I never met or even saw the people I was out to kill, I couldn't even recognize the man, not to speak about being happy about capturing him in particular.

"Ugh, you are no fun!" Longinus replied while looking away with a dejected expression on his face. Then, he sank his sword into the man's back only to ride it upwards all the way to the point where his blade escaped from the flesh of the already deceased victim.

"I'm sorry man, but I really don't…" Just as I was about to explain myself, a loud sound of horns playing appeared in the distance. With the fires still raging around the perimeter of the now-destroyed headquarters of the northern army, I couldn't even look out to see who was behind that sound.

"Krist!" Dropping to the ground right beside me, Teria used my real name while calling me out. Thankfully, from how Longinus focused all his attention on the girl, it seemed that she could get away with her mishap without receiving a harsh scolding from me later on. "They are here!"

Even though her words were pretty vague, in our current situation, there was hardly anything to guess at all. Because there was only one force that was scheduled to arrive in the near future that could get such a reaction out of the winged girl.

"Well, that changes our plans a bit." Dusting off the sleeve of my outfit, I looked around the wreckage of this place once again. Just like I would do whenever leaving my home back on earth for a longer while, I made sure that all the main points of our mission here were accomplished before actually moving on to the next task.

"Wait, what? Isn't that good?" Teria asked, clearly surprised by my remark.

"As great as it is to see our allies finally making their appearance," I shook my head over the gullibility of this girl before finishing my sentence, "with them appearing on the battlefield, the secondary headquarters will soon learn of the destruction of this place. And if they already know about it, they are bound to consider escaping as an actually viable option."

Throwing the explanation out of myself, I hurried to the other end of the area enclosed by the fires. Climbing up the rummage, I took a deep look at another camp, barely visible due to how far it was located.

"Guys, we need to hurry." Speaking under my nose, I informed those who just happened to be nearby. But before even a single one of them could ask why I already jumped down from the rubble before heading for the middle point of the destroyed camp.

"Teria, go and get your people! They are running already!" Even though the secondary headquarters were quite a distance away, I could still see the insane commotion that already brought that place to the brink of destruction. And that means, our window of opportunity to catch the remaining top brass of the northern federation was quickly closing.

"I'm here! Let's just go with what we have!" Hearing the shouts, Longinus was the first to appear, followed by Hubriel and one more of their companions. 

"Good, Longinus, you go with me. Teria, take care of the others!" Clenching my jaws, I grabbed the mercenary's arm, before bending my knees and jumping up. As soon as my feet detached from the ground, a series of instantaneous phasing multiplied my momentary momentum, allowing me to take flight.

"WOAAAH!" Not prepared for how brutal my way of flying was, Longinus clenched his hands against my arm, clearly terrified by the experience.

"Hold on!" Speeding through the air, I could see how some of the people that saw us bring chaos to the headquarters attempted to get some ranged weapons… But by the time they finally figured out which direction to shoot their projectiles at, I was already far beyond the range of their bows and crossbows.

"THIS WON'T BE A SOFT LANDING!" Shouting my lungs off to get my message through the insane noise of the wind, I angled myself properly before using the phasing to correct the angle of approach. This time though, I didn't have the time to play around with softening the drop.

Rather than completely killing my momentum by phasing a few times right before the crashland, I limited myself to just a single phase, barely bringing my speed to the point where landing wouldn't be lethal.

Crash!

The ground was just as tough as I expected. As soon as we touched down, Longinus let go of my arm. Rolling on the ground, we offered no resistance to our remaining momentum, using the unlucky soldiers and officers in our way as a way to kill our momentum down.

"KILL!" Once again, the same shout came out of my mouth. As soon as I regained the spatial awareness of what was going around me, I already had my shotgun in my hands, ready to shoot at whoever would dare to even stand in front of me.

But no one did.

"What the hell is going on?" Looking around, I could see how literally everyone who was running around the secondary headquarters just a moment before, was now calmly standing roughly twenty meters away from where I landed, observing me with curiosity seeping through their eyes.

"So your gamble paid off." Suddenly, a calm voice appeared, introducing me to the sight of two men that couldn't be any more different from each other.

The one speaking was the typical picture of a corrupt noble. With his belly greater than some of the tents that soldiers would sleep in and his robes clearly more expensive than the equipment of an entire unit of said soldiers, he appeared to be the owner of the voice.

Besides him, a perfect image reversal. A tall, slim man, wearing the simplest clothes I ever saw in my life. Or rather, that's what I thought at a first look. Once I managed to steal another glance of that strange man, I realized that he was actually wearing rugs!

But for some reason, I just couldn't take him lightly, not even in my mind.

"Yeah." Rather than elaborating, the slim man decided to push forward.

'Wha…' I only managed to dodge his attack thanks to the split of a second that my last barrier gave me. With the force of an impossibly heavy hit that this man dealt with me diffusing between my shield and everything inside, I flew to the back, crashing with my back against the rubble on the ground.

But that wasn't the end of it. As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a glint…

And just as I was about to say farewells to this rotten life of mine, Longinus suddenly materialized in front of me, taking the attack meant for my head on his shield!

"Stand up!" His shout brought me back to my senses. "I can't ward him off alone for long!"

While I never had any reasons to believe that Longinus was someone exceptionally strong in this world, this kind of belief still somehow took root in my soul. And seeing how he was easily pushed back by the lazy-looking attacks of that silent, slim man, I felt something that I missed in my soul for a long time.

I felt fear.