Chapter 14

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A year passed, and Justy decided to test her team’s abilities.

The team that had placed tenth in the previous competition was from Mawita Base. Justy contacted Captain Avery and asked him for guidance.

Avery readily agreed. The bottom-ranked team had come knocking to be beaten up, giving his own men a chance to stretch their legs.

The moment the call ended, Justy turned around and threatened the fifteen members of her team.

“Dare to embarrass me, and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

They all shouted at the top of their lungs, “Yes, ma’am!”

The next day, personnel from both bases appeared before the gates of the Silverwing training grounds.

Mawita Base was closer, so they arrived first. Ten minutes later, they saw Justy leading her team toward them, while the men behind Avery whistled incessantly.

She was bringing over a troupe of male models dressed in training gear.

Avery looked them over for a long while before teasing, “Justy, those handsome faces of theirs are about to get smashed.”

Justy smiled. “Tell your men not to hold back. And don’t make excuses if you lose.”

The group opposite them broke into mocking laughter. Avery laughed especially loudly.

“Did you hear that? The male models are going to make us lose.”

“We heard you, sir!”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Make them go home crying!”

Avery leaned toward Justy with a suggestive grin. “If you feel like crying, you can lean on my shoulder.”

Justy smiled faintly. “You still haven’t had enough of getting beaten up, have you?”

Avery reined in his laughter and snorted through his nose. “That was in the past.”

Justy had represented the academy in countless competitions. Avery had graduated from Golden Crest Academy and had once been defeated by Justy, despite being three years her senior.

When the men behind Avery heard that their commander had once lost to the woman before them, they all puffed themselves up and vowed to restore his honor by beating the people from Meris Base into the ground.

Ellis shouted, “Not only are we going to win—we’re going to win quickly. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

The fifteen men roared in unison. Behind Justy, her team stood perfectly straight, their expressions calm.

Justy and Avery registered the necessary information. The gates of the Silverwing training grounds opened, and both teams drove inside.

The two teams put on specially designed protective suits and selected their weapons from the armory. The number of weapons they could take was limited.

They made their choices quickly. Each person put on a protective helmet and pressed the button on its side. A transparent visor appeared over their eyes—a multifunctional communicator.

At Silverwing, the weapons were real. Killing was forbidden, but injuries were allowed.

Inside the monitoring room atop the command tower, Justy and Avery watched as the two teams entered the jungle from opposite directions.

Their mission was to find flags planted in advance. Each team had been given a map marked with a large operational area.

The simulator-created environment was indistinguishable from a real jungle.

Aks led the main force forward at full speed to seize favorable ground and establish an ambush. The two snipers went looking for high ground. Justy ordered them to expose only two positions.

Remy modified his helmet. Soon, red dots indicating every position appeared. Markham encrypted all the red dots belonging to his teammates, and before long, their positions vanished.

Five men went to hunt down the opposing snipers.

The people from Mawita Base had not truly taken their opponents seriously. Relying on their experience, they intended to wait until everyone was concealed before wiping out the enemy in one sweep. After all, no technical specialists would willingly go to a place like Meris.

“Captain, this is bad! Their red dots have disappeared. We’ve been exposed!”

The tracker cried out. Captain Eric’s face fell. They could no longer win through a swift assault.

“Everyone, turn off your communicators.”

The glowing visors in front of their helmets vanished, leaving the helmets with nothing but their protective function.

Eric’s squad began playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who would serve as bait.

In the command tower, Avery’s face had turned green. Justy sat in her chair with one leg propped on the table, her boots gleaming brightly. She said, “Avery, standing is tiring. Sit down.”

Unable to sit, Avery glared sideways at her. “Hmph. Don’t get too pleased with yourself. The outcome isn’t certain yet.”

“Avery, you really haven’t changed at all. You still insist on putting up a brave front.”

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Avery’s fingers cracked as he repeated, “Don’t get too pleased with yourself!”

On the surveillance screens, the two snipers his base had sent into hiding were eliminated.

There had been no gunshots, so the rest of the team had not detected them.

Avery was roaring inwardly. They were at a critical moment, yet she was still distracting his team.

Three minutes later, Eric was dumbfounded. A red dot was aimed at his forehead, and his entire squad was equally stunned. The loudspeakers announced Meris Base’s victory.

They had lost before the battle had even begun. How?

When they returned to the command tower, they still could not understand what had happened. Seeing their commander’s dark expression and furious eyes, they knew they were in serious trouble.

Eric asked, “Sir, what happened? Why did we lose?”

Avery’s voice nearly shattered their eardrums.

“The snipers were gone the moment you went in! The enemy attacked you from both front and rear. How difficult was it to wipe you out?”

The presence of snipers should have made the opposing team wary, preventing them from rashly engaging in a frontal confrontation. Eric frowned.

“But we didn’t hear any shots.”

The two subdued snipers replied weakly, “They used snake venom to knock us unconscious.”

Eric scratched his head. They had lost because of their carelessness, while the other side had technical specialists. He put on a shameless grin and said to Justy, “Ma’am, let’s have another match.”

Justy replied, “Then Avery has to buy us lunch. There seems to be a White Elephant restaurant nearby. I hear it’s pretty good.”

Avery said nothing. White Elephant charged by the person, and with both teams combined, the bill would be considerable.

Justy smiled. “Your commander doesn’t seem to agree to another match. Maybe he’s afraid of losing.”

“Who’s afraid of losing? We’ll do it!”

Avery had taken the bait. They had only lost because they had underestimated the bottom-ranked team and been caught off guard.

The second match took place in a simulated desert. The mission was to find a brand-new court coin hidden on one of the opposing players.

Since they did not know who was carrying the coin, they might have to eliminate the entire enemy team before finding it.

There was no map. They had to locate the opposing team on their own, making the challenge even more difficult.

Because both teams had trackers, they destroyed the tracking systems as soon as they entered the area, leaving only voice communication.

Once Eric’s team stopped underestimating their opponents, they used the movement of the wind to deduce the location of the high ground, and the snipers quickly occupied it.

They searched for the enemy in pairs. Eric moved alone. When one of his teammates discovered footprints, he went after them.

Remy raised both hands and stood up. The two men in front of him pointed their guns at him and ordered him to lie down.

Remy did not obey. Instead, he suddenly ran backward.

Gunfire erupted behind him, and Remy fell to the ground. He was declared dead.

The two men searched his body, but found no court coin.

Two shots rang out. The men conducting the search were struck and fell dead as well. As they were searched, they glared furiously at Remy.

He had been bait.

Remy smiled shyly. One exchanged for two—not a bad deal.

Sander and Raven arranged the three bodies. Remy lay face down on the slope, while the other two men raised their guns.

Avery watched Sander and Raven change clothes and disguise themselves as members of his own team. He frowned. They were clever.

Sure enough, the gunfire drew people over. The two men who came to investigate were shot by their supposed allies and collapsed without understanding how they had died.

Sander and Raven changed back into their own clothes, then disguised themselves as corpses and lay motionless on the ground.

The gunfire, combined with the silence of four teammates, once again drew people to the location.

Sander sent a message to the captain: six enemies had died, but none of them had carried the coin.

Aks ordered them to withdraw.

The other two decoys, Louis and Markham, were not nearly as effective. Six teammates had been silent for a long time, but Eric cautiously refrained from going forward to search for the coin.

He ordered the snipers to watch one position while he acted as bait and drew the enemy out. Everyone else was to return and provide cover.

Eric took out the court coin. It flashed beneath the sunlight.

Aks saw it. The snipers shifted positions and took aim. Eric then exposed himself from the front while his teammates spread out to encircle him.

However, the opposing snipers occupied the best high ground. As the men who had been lured over engaged in combat, they were picked off by sniper fire.

Gunshots rang out one after another. Eric pretended to be hit and fell to the ground. Aks approached and searched him thoroughly, but found no court coin.

Aks flashed his white teeth in a grin. Then he saw the opposing team rush out all at once and suddenly realized—the coin was on the two earlier decoys.

The advantage of high ground overcame the advantage in numbers. Sander took over as acting captain and ordered a retreat, while the snipers provided cover. Unfortunately, one of them was hit.

They had only seven main fighters and one sniper left. Their opponents had two snipers and five main fighters, among whom Eric was especially formidable.

On the screen, both sides began resting and discussing their next move.

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Avery poured himself some water, sat down, and drank. Then he said to Justy, “Your team members aren’t bad. They might place somewhere next year.”

Justy raised an eyebrow. “What, you think you’re guaranteed to win?”

This time, Avery smiled more subtly, but the meaning was unmistakable.

Eric had become serious. Once he did, there was no way they would lose. A team’s spiritual leader was the key to victory or defeat.

Furious with himself for being deceived, Eric single-handedly eliminated the opposing sniper.

“Justy, since I’m giving your team guidance, you should be the one to buy us dinner.”

Avery wore a pleased smile. Watching the screen, Justy said, “Then lend me Eric for a few days. I’ll buy you dinner.”

“Dream on.”

Eric was the base’s ace. Naturally, Avery could not lend him out.

Without their sniper, the remaining seven men were faced with a dilemma.

While they were still considering their options, Eric had already led his men in a charge.

Ten minutes later, Eric held two court coins in his hands. Behind him stood two snipers and three main fighters.

Aks’s entire squad had been wiped out.

Justy paid for lunch, on the condition that Eric explain his strategic thinking to the people from Meris Base.

Inside the White Elephant restaurant, the two teams sat facing one another at a long table assembled from several smaller ones.

Eric explained his thoughts with remarkable clarity. Whether leading a team or fighting alone, he was outstanding.

The lunch was abundant and delicious, and they did not finish eating until nearly an hour later.

Before they left, Avery asked Justy whether she wanted to go on a date.

“Dream on,” she replied.

Avery left in a huff, cursing Eric for saying too much. He had taught them everything, yet had not even received a teaching fee.

Eric and the other team members laughed loudly.

“Sir, we understand how you feel about being rejected. Go ahead and curse us.”

Justy took the recording of the match back with her. Everyone watched it in the classroom and examined the mistakes they had made.

It was their first adversarial training exercise, and they had learned a great deal.

That evening, the eight men in the dormitory were unusually silent. Aks was especially shaken. Eric was far more capable than he was.

No one spoke. They were all immersed in memories of the day’s battle. Mawita Base ranked tenth, while Eric ranked seventh individually.

And there were still people ahead of him who were even better.

Nine months remained. The pressure of time had become painfully real.

The results of this test showed that they might earn a ranking, but nothing more. Once they remembered that Eric had single-handedly taken down a sniper while under fire, none of them could sleep.

Raven went outside to water the flowers. The other seven stood by the doorway smoking, unable to banish the image of their own deaths from their minds.

“Captain, shouldn’t we come up with a code too? I noticed Eric was using hand signals.”

Sander smoked quickly and pulled out a second cigarette.

Toran narrowed his eyes as he smoked. Exhaling a plume of smoke, he said, “I can’t figure out how they occupied the sniper’s high ground so quickly. There was no map in the desert, and even the search function had been disabled.”

Perin stared at the moon overhead, drawing deeply on his cigarette with a furrowed brow.

“Eric brushed it off in a single sentence. It’s their secret.”

Villian tossed his cigarette butt to the ground and stamped it out.

“Or perhaps their snipers knew how to do it, while ours didn’t.”

The eight men all understood why Justy had assigned them four snipers.

When Luci finished his cigarette, he said, “I can’t sleep. I’m going to make dessert for the commander.”

The usually quiet Lakla spoke up.

“I’ll come with you. I can’t sleep either. I’m going to knead some dough.”

In the end, all eight of them went to the kitchen. Aside from Luci, who made desserts, the others kneaded dough. Repetitive tasks could help calm the mind.

Aks remained silent throughout the night. He controlled his strength as he pounded the dough, without using the slightest bit of brute force.