Next 2 days of the journey passed without any issues.
On the second night, I approached Colin, who was sitting with Owen near the campfire. The rest of his squad, just like mine, were either on night duty or resting beside the carts.
I wanted to understand why Colin had been cold toward .
We had a good relationship when we were part of Sergeant Fenward’s squad.
We had fought together for over a year under Sergeant Fenward and lost friends during the beast tide, which made Colin’s cold attitude hard to ignore. What bothered even more was that he never once tried to talk things out with .
Approaching them, I nodded to Owen, who nodded back with a smile. Then I sat down on the ground in front of Colin, who frowned at my arrival.
“Hi Colin, I was hoping to discuss sothing with you,” I said.
“Is it about the mission?” Colin asked.
“No, it is about you. Is sothing bothering you? Sothing I can help you with? I am asking because you or Owen never ca to visit , and now—”
“Fuck off!” Colin said, cutting off mid-sentence, catching both and Owen by surprise. “Don’t co here acting like we are friends. If this is not a mission-related discussion, you can fuck off from here. People act like you earned everything through talent, but I know the truth. You are soone who climbed the ranks by licking nobles’ boots. I don’t have anything to talk to you!”
By the ti Colin finished speaking, he was almost shouting, looking at with eyes filled with anger. I stared at him silently.
I thought I should say sothing, but looking at his expression, I changed my mind. I slowly stood up and, turning my back to them, walked back to my camp.
My initial plan was to sleep after returning to my location, but after the conversation I had with Colin, I was angry and in no shape to sleep. Colin had the nerve to accuse of reaching my position because I had bowed down to nobles, when he was the one who had sworn an oath to House Fenward.
The more I thought about his words, the angrier I beca, so in hopes of clearing my mind and letting my anger subside, I lit a small campfire and started chewing the dry at I had in my pocket.
“That’s not going to help,” I heard Owen’s voice from behind.
Without turning back, I said, “What are you doing here?” in a pissed tone.
He did not reply to my question, just made his way to the front and tossed a pouch to . “Jerky will not help you, try sothing stronger.”
I opened the pouch, which had 20–25 cigarettes inside it. These were not like modern cigarettes, just dried tobacco wrapped in a dried leaf of so type.
“You know these are harmful, right?” I said to Owen, but still took out one cigarette from it.
By this ti, Owen had already lit his own cigarette. Letting the smoke out, he said, “Really? I always thought these were good for relieving tension.”
Shaking my head, I lit a cigarette of my own and took a long drag, imdiately regretting it. The smoke burned through my throat, and I started coughing as small bursts of smoke escaped my lips.
Owen chuckled. “You will get used to it.”
Taking deep breaths and controlling my breathing, I took one more drag, this ti a smaller one.
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“How have I never seen you smoke before?” I asked.
“I used to, but not this much. Sergeant Fenward did not like people smoking near him, so I never smoked around the squad. Recently, I have beco more reliant on them,” he replied.
Looks like the stress of being the right-hand man of a sergeant like Colin is taking a toll on him.
“Why are you here?” I repeated my question. “I thought Colin made his opinion of pretty clear.”
Owen sighed. “I do not share Colin’s opinion. Up until now, I was under the impression that the reason we were not visiting you was because both you and Colin were busy handling new responsibilities. Another reason for was that I had been blaming myself for Jack’s death. He was like a younger brother to . By the ti I made peace with his death, a lot of ti had already passed.”
I nodded, listening to Owen’s reasons. While Jake and I were not that close, Jack, Colin, and Owen had a very close bond, and I was not even sure how long they had known each other.
Taking a deep breath, Owen continued, “I thought this was the sa reason Colin had been avoiding our squad mbers.”
“He is distant with the squad as well?” I asked.
Owen nodded.
“And the reason behind the nonsense he was talking about? Licking nobles’ boots and all that. I can understand not eting with or even siding with Rowan, but this attitude was not sothing I could understand.”
Owen took a drag of his cigarette and looked at the horizon. “If I had to guess, that was jealousy.”
“Jealousy? With ?”
Owen turned to , looking in the eyes, and said, “When I think about it, there have been multiple things that led to this. First, when you beca a sergeant, everyone was surprised, but at the sa ti, the whole fort believed that within six months your squad would lose enough mbers that you would be assigned to so other squad. A 17-year-old sergeant is almost unheard of, much less leading a death squad. That was how a lot of sergeants comforted themselves, telling themselves your leadership was temporary.”
Owen’s words caught off guard. I didn’t know that people had so little trust in my leadership capabilities, but that explained sothing. At the fort, sergeants had their own groups where they hung out together in their free ti, and I was never welcod into one. Up until now, I had blad it on the nature of my squad, but now I knew the real reason behind it.
“Then you proved everyone wrong. You not only led a death squad for more than one year, you made that squad one of the top-performing squads in the whole fort. I heard Lieutenant Fenward praise you more than a couple of tis. To make matters worse, the next mission we took after listening to your praise, our squad lost two privates. This has affected Colin far more than you can think.”
We both sat in silence, smoking our own cigarettes while staring at the flas of the campfire. If my success hurt Colin this much, serving under would have destroyed his pride. But if he was the type of person who could not be happy with the success of his friends, then I wanted nothing to do with him.
After a couple of seconds, Owen spoke up again.
“Edward, I would suggest you stop looking at Colin as a friend and start treating him for what he really is, your subordinate.”
Saying that, Owen stood up and made his way toward his squad, leaving with the pouch full of cigarettes.
Next day’s march began as usual. The only thing different was that today I was distracted and irritated. Even the chat with Owen did not help sleep. To make matters worse, the axle of one of the carts broke in the morning, delaying us by two hours.
Around afternoon, I heard a loud shout from one of the privates on the outer ring. “Wolves!”
Listening to this, all the sergeants started shouting orders and arranging their squads. anwhile, I expanded the sensing range of [Perceptive Instinct (UC)], trying to assess the threat level of the pack, only to realize how grave a mistake I had made. In my distraction, I had missed a huge pack of wolves that had probably been following us for a long ti. Half of the outer ring at the rear of the caravan was already surrounded by wolves. Moreover, it was a super pack of more than 35 wolves, led by a Tier-3 alpha and at least 5 Tier-2 wolves.
“OUTER RING, RETREAT! RETREAT! EVERYONE TO THE BACK! COMPACT BATTLE FORMATION!” I shouted with [Battlefield Command (UC)], catching every sergeant by surprise. “IT IS A SUPER PACK!”
All the privates from the outer ring started retreating in a hurry, while all the other soldiers ran from the front to the rear of the caravan.
“Varric, Garran, Barry, Kael, Victor, Owen, Oren, Brakk….” I rattled off the nas of the 15 toughest Tier-2 fighters I knew. "Form the front wall!” I said to them.
As I took my position, I sensed three wolves targeting three privates who were retreating. Just as the wolves jumped to attack the privates, I created palm-sized mana shields in front of the wolves’ jaws, stopping them in their tracks.
For a second, both humans and beasts looked at in surprise. Even I was proud of my achievent. This was my first ti creating three mana shields simultaneously, but my achievent brought sothing worse.
Attention of the Alpha.
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