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Chapter 237 Volume IV - Chapter 82: Smiling Soldiers

As I made my way through the corridors to the third floor, I realized how similar it was to the hotel-like place where I had stayed before the war.

Only the interior design was slightly different, but otherwise, the atmosphere was exactly the same. There was no one in the building except the staff and soldiers.

\'Hey, Aiden.\'

I involuntarily paused when I heard Sith\'s voice just as I stepped onto the third floor.

His voice was serious.

\'What\'s wrong?\'

\'You are being watched, but not by someone. In fact, there is no one around, but...\'

What? Someone is watching me...?

\'Then let\'s pretend that no-\'

\'No, it\'s not someone we can catch. Just don\'t move.\'

Not someone we can catch, huh...

A teal glow slowly took shape in front of me, so that Sith began to look around with a furrowed brow.

After a brief moment, he paused once again.

\'Ah, the flow of mana... The flow of mana in the atmosphere is different.\'

He turned to my right, looking at a small window just across the corridor.

\'Look toward that window, be confident.\'

I squinted my eyes, put a calm expression on my face, and turned coldly toward the window.

The moment I did this, something strange happened.

The world behind the window seemed to fluctuate for a moment, reality trembled as if bent. It was as if until that moment the window had not been looking out but into a different reality.

\'It\'s gone.\'

Even though the world behind the window returned to normal, I didn\'t take my eyes off it, on the contrary, my face turned sour.

Who could it be?

He doesn\'t want to be caught... especially considering that he is stalking me in such a way.

So, what will happen now that I\'ve caught it?

\'Keep walking if you want, I\'ll tell you if something similar happens. I don\'t think it will be back anytime soon.\'

I don\'t like this. Someone who watches me like this can\'t have a good motive.

Can it be a spy from the south?

Maybe, but would anyone put themselves at risk like that here, especially in a hotel with a whole platoon?

I think I\'d better tell Dorhud about this.

\'Thanks, Sith.\'

Although uncomfortable, I finally shook off my thoughts, sighed lightly, and looked around.

After taking the stairs to the third floor, the corridor split into two, extending to the right and left, then taking a sharp turn and encircling the entire floor.

The center of the floor was separated by the wall of these corridors and was a large single room in its own right. It was where my platoon was now, where it was resting. The door to this room was right in front of me.

Without thinking too much, I reached for the door and turned the handle.

As the door slowly opened, a noise that I couldn\'t hear until then made itself known. The soundproofing was so perfect that I couldn\'t even hear it until now. Still, I didn\'t think too much about it.

Because, just then, a warm blast of air hit me in the face, and the huge room that almost the entire floor was dedicated to came into my field of vision.

My eyebrows shot up, and I stared in amazement at the sight as everything I had thought about soundproofing was instantly erased from my mind.

Well... I was expecting a bunch of dwarves spread out on a few tables, hanging out amongst themselves, not taking me seriously, too tired to bother, or ignoring me because I was human.

In short, I was expecting a place where soldiers, tired after the war, could relax in peace and quiet.

Not a crowd gathered in a circle, watching two dwarves wrestling in the middle of the room, with bottles of alcohol, let alone glasses, planted on their heads.

And the moment I opened the door, all the noise stopped, even the wrestling dwarves paused and turned to me, and most of the crowd smiled...

That was... the last thing I expected.

"Oh, look who\'s come!"

There was a shout from among them and suddenly they were all on me as if they didn\'t care about the wrestling they were watching. It was as if even the wrestlers had forgotten they were wrestling.

"E- eh...?"

Before I realized what was happening, the door behind me suddenly closed and I was quickly surrounded.

This time a different noise than before filled the air, questions and praise went in one ear and out the other, and I found myself in the middle of a meaningless mess.

"Ya fought well, eh?"

"Care for a wrestle with me?"

"Yer sword style was fuckin\' weird!"

A half-assed, awkward smile slowly formed on my face.

"W- well, why don\'t you just calm down an-"

"Hey, how were ye deflectin\' them bullets comin\' at ye?"

They wouldn\'t let me speak, and I couldn\'t understand anything because they were all talking at the same time. On top of that, they were all shorter than me, so I felt like I was in the middle of a crowd of curious children, which only made things more difficult.

Fortunately, someone came to my rescue after a while.

"Easy now, idiots! Give the lad some space to catch his breath."

When Dorhud\'s loud, authoritative voice echoed through the room, all the noise stopped. All confusion instantly ceased and the dwarves all turned to Dorhud, who was now sitting at a table, his sharp eyes scanning the room.

"All you do is gape, don\'t ya?"

The dwarves looked at each other. Then, with a smile on their faces, they slowly stepped back and gave me some space.

So I finally felt a little bit relieved.

I gave Dorhud a look that told him I thanked him, and then a big smile appeared on his face too.

"All o\' them thought ye, bein\' a young human lad, didn\'t take this war serious, and thought ye\'d end up dyin\'. But ye surprised \'em all. That\'s why they\'re curious, includin\' meself. Why don\'t ye share yer experiences with us, Aiden?"

"Exactly!"

"The captain is right as always!"

As most of the dwarves slowly made their way to Dorhud, I couldn\'t really understand what was happening anymore, I just watched with my mouth open.

\'Are these... adult dwarves now?\'

I was thinking exactly what Sith was thinking, I couldn\'t agree with him more.

These dwarves are like children...

Is it because they are dwarves? Is it because their mentality, upbringing, and culture are so different from ours?

I thought of the dwarves I had seen in the war, and then I realized how contrary their behavior was to what I was witnessing now, and I became even more confused.

As I slowly approached the table where Dorhud was sitting, I examined almost every dwarf.

Not all of them were like this, of course, there were some who stood in the corners of the room and gave me sharp looks, but the vast majority of them behaved like children.

"Take a seat, lad. Yesterday\'s star ye were, and today\'s star ye\'ll be, that\'s for sure."

I stood right across the table from him as Dorhud had said, and as I did so, a bottle came out of nowhere and stopped right in front of me.

It was a bottle of alcohol.

"Ah, I don\'t drink."

As I pushed the bottle away with the back of my hand, the dwarves raised objections. This time, however, their silence did not last long and Dorhud was not needed.

Whether I was a \'man\' or not was less important than the story they wanted to hear.

"Introduce yerself first. There\'re plenty o\' dwarves \'ere who don\'t know a thing \'bout who ye be."

A slight smile appeared on my face.

Introducing myself, huh... This feels a bit awkward.

It actually reminds me of the first day of the \'study group\', when I forced everyone to introduce themselves...

It\'s kind of ironic now.

"Aiden Tenebra, I\'m eighteen."

"Eighteen, huh?"

One of the dwarves suddenly spoke, and another one of them slapped him hard on the back of the neck, instantly silencing him.

"I mean, there\'s not much to tell, really. I was studying at an academy in Cevilian, I came here for a job and then I ended up in the war."

I don\'t really know what else I can say, I don\'t have that much to say about myself. But that seems to be enough for the dwarves, I think. Because no one made a sour face.

"What was the first thing ye did when ye set foot on the battlefield?"

I just froze for a moment when I heard the question.

It was a random dwarf, Dorhud had given him a quick glance and the dwarf had stepped back involuntarily.

However, I narrowed my eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at a certain spot on the table.

I must not run away from this question, questions like this.

I will be contradicting my purpose in the first place if I run away from the war. I know what happened there, I know what I did, and if I avoid it... it will only affect my future in a bad way.

"I went to rescue a group that had been ambushed, and when I got there... it was nothing difficult, to be honest. It was even easier than I thought it would be. The normal soldiers were no threat to me, so I simply crushed them all... like they were ants."

The dwarves were silent for a moment, though the silence was short-lived. Soon they began to make their voices again.

After all, this was normal for them, they killed hundreds every time they went to war.

For me to react in such a way made no sense to them in the first place. It was not difficult for them to understand that I was a novice.

"Be this yer first time takin\' someone\'s life?"

"No, I\'m not pure as the driven snow. It was just my first time in the war itself."

Larry, the twenty kids who hung out with Justin, a few more who were tortured and died because of me, even if I didn\'t kill them with my own hands, the man I killed in that destroyed building when I first found myself in the war...

My hands are already stained with blood, I am not innocent. And yet, as I said, I am not going to run away from it.

Seconds and minutes passed like this. Questions came one after another, and I answered each one without hesitation.

It was ideal to pass the time, to relax a little bit. Whether it was answering questions like that in a weird way, or watching the dwarves bickering amongst themselves and even wrestling in the back because of something stupid...

It was fun, I guess.

Of course, there were some people who got caught up in the moment and came up with ridiculous questions and invaded my personal life.

"Do ye have a girlfriend or somethin\', eh?"

"Why ye askin\', ya nosy git? Ain\'t none o\' yer business... Wait... or..."

"Shut yer gob, ya daft!"

When they started to go at each other again, I couldn\'t help but let out a laugh, widened my smile, and squinted my eyes.

I thought about Sue, about the things I wanted to do when I got back.

"No, I guess. It\'s a bit complicated for now."

In this way, with each passing minute, I found myself more and more involved with them. I didn\'t care how the time passed as I told them about my experiences in the war, about my life at the academy.

After a while, I was no longer the only one answering questions.

The people who listened to everything I said, who didn\'t think a single word out of my mouth was a lie, started to speak themselves this time.

"I remember me first battle, I reckon I wet meself, aye... When I think \'bout it now, yer doin\' pretty darn good."

Another dwarf quickly entered the conversation, casting a sighing glance at the previous one.

"Heh... I wish it stopped at wetting meself... When I offed me first one, I plumb forgot where I was and nearly offed meself."

This time, like that, I started listening to their stories. The topic had strayed from me.

As I witnessed each of them recounting different memories, experiences that would drive a normal person crazy, with a smile on their faces... I finally began to understand something. I realized that I was actually wrong about them, in literally every little aspect.

None of them were cold-blooded war maniacs. They were not adults thinking like children. The reason why they behaved this way was very different from what I thought.

They were all aware that they were together at the vanguard. They all knew that they could die the next day. And that\'s exactly why they were so carefree, they were actually having fun. They would rather spend their last days like this than stand in a corner and wait nervously.

Maybe that\'s why, as I continued to sit at this table, I began to get closer to them, to listen to some of them with great excitement.

"By the way, I\'m Raghnir!"

Because they... actually were like me. No... because I was like them.

"And I am Hamnar."

These dwarves... these soldiers, they were no different from normal people trying to comfort themselves.

"Heh, I am Gurdas the Glorious!"

Tomorrow, when the time of battle comes again, I will be in the same field, and maybe I will not meet them again.

That\'s why I treasured their stories all night long, why I paid special attention to them, why I worked so hard to memorize their faces and names until the next time I went to battle.

I wanted to do at least that for them.