Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

Red.

That was the color that tainted the orc castle's tower.

"I got one." I said as I hastily tried to reload the rifle, but then remembered that this thing operated using mana. So instead, I quickly charged it back with my mana, ready for another shot.

"That's my little cub." I could hear general Zhang's laugh coming from behind me while I aimed slightly to my right. Just a little tilt, but my scope had already reached another tower.

I lined up the crosshair with the elf's head level, and waited for him to walk towards the crosshair.

'BANG!'

Another red color decorated my scope's vision as I saw the elf's body flopped down to the floor.

"Two more to go." I said as I reloaded again and adjusted my aim for the third one.

"Be careful. They might've discovered our position already." General Emilio warned us as he pulled out his spear in anticipation, and so did Jeanne. I glanced over at them for a second, and saw that general Zhang was the only one laying down on his horse, seemingly uncaring about any dangers that might come. So laid-back of him.

I sighed, before turning my focus towards my scope again. My breathing got slower and steadier as I aligned my crosshair onto another elf's head level. Steady, steady...

'BANG!'

"Niceeee~" General Zhang hummed happily.

"Arrows!" Jeanne suddenly shouted, and I looked up to see her already charging her wind magic.

In one swing, the incoming arrows were repelled and I was saved from danger.

"Thanks, Jeanne!"

"Just focus on sniping, Chaerin! There are more arrows coming, but we'll guard you!" Jeanne exclaimed as she started charging her magic again. I looked over and sure enough, there were barrages of arrows directed at us. I guess they figured out our direction, but not our exact location, so they decided to rain arrows at us, huh?

"Not bad." I muttered to myself as I focused on aiming once again. I didn't know exactly what was happening around me, but I was pretty sure those 3 generals wouldn't get defeated by mere arrows.

'BANG!'

"Tch! I missed! I hit his shoulder!" I clicked my tongue and immediately reloaded before peeking through my scope again.

The elf was squirming in pain this time, making it harder for me to properly aim for his head. I had no choice but to wait until he started to crawl to look for help, before I aligned my crosshair with his head and fired away.

'BANG!'

I let out a long sigh when I saw his body stopped moving when my bullet lodged itself into his head, "phew, that almost got ugly."

"Are you done? Let's get moving." General Emilio said as he put his spear away and walked back towards his horse.

"Yeah, they know we're here already. Let's reposition," I agreed as I got up and gathered my equipment, "by the way, what about the arrows?"

"Gone." Jeanne gave me a simple answer, and I knew I needed to ask no further. Jeanne sure was reliable.

--------

Now that we've been spotted, we no longer casually rode our horses. We made them run as fast as they could, and quickly got away from our previous spot as fast as possible.

"This way!" General Emilio shouted, and turned left. We immediately followed suit and kept riding until we finally went into a forest.

"Halt!" He suddenly pulled his leash and stopped, "we march slowly from here onwards."

"Oh? Why is that?" I questioned, but I followed his command, regardless.

"We have entered the orc kingdom." He answered.

"Wha--"

"So this is the forest that will be my victim? Not bad~" General Zhang cut me off before I could even ask.

"The orcs aren't as advanced as the elves or us, Chaerin. Most of their kingdom's boundaries don't have actual borders, just territory markings," Jeanne explained to me as always, "and that's why we were able to easily sneak into this forest, which is located at the outermost eastern side of the orc kingdom."

"Ah, I see. That's good for us," I nodded, "so should we split off now and let that eel do, uh... His hobby?"

"Who said committing arson is my hobby?" General Zhang pouted at me with an exaggerated sad expression.

"Your hobby is being a madman." I stuck out my tongue at him.

"General Zhang, do you have the explosives ready?" General Emilio asked.

"Yes, sir~ I have it right here~" The white-haired man giggled as he took out a few bags of various-sized boxes, each one with a fuse.

I was about to question it again, but decided not to. I had seen weirder stuff, yep. Just another normal day, another normal raid. Mm-hmm.

"So that's why your horse was fully packed with stuff. Poor horse. I'm calling animal protection services when we get home." I teased him.

"We have no such thing as 'animal protection service', dumb little cub~" He laughed at me.

They didn't? What? Man, I pity the animals here... Should I suggest to Jeanne to establish one later?

"If you're ready, then we'll part ways here," general Emilio motioned for me and Jeanne to follow him, "we'll go this way. I see an abandoned building over there. We could go to its roof and jump to another building inside the town, to avoid being seen by the town guards."

"Okay..." I hesitantly followed general Emilio's directions, and Jeanne came riding beside me.

Will it be alright, though? How will that eel escape a burning forest? I knew he was slippery as hell, but inhaling smoke kinda sucked. It felt like your throat and lungs were burning and each gasp drained your strength. Definitely not a good memory to have.

"General Zhang, make sure to ignite the explosion once we're far enough." General Emilio said.

"Sure, sure, I'll burn this place down in 10 minutes from now. Not my fault if you guys haven't got far enough yet. Tee-hee!"

"I'll notify you when we're far enough. Don't you dare blow us up." I frowned.

"Huh? How?" He asked.

Instead of answering his question, I activated my mentalist skill and sent him a short message saying 'by doing this, you dumb eel'.

[Message delivered.]

I smirked as I saw a familiar screen floated in front of my eyes. I took a glance at general Zhang, whose eyebrows raised for a second, and then a grin appeared on his face.

"I see~ I'll be waiting for your 'signal', then." He winked at me, stressing the word 'signal' using his tone.

I stuck out my tongue at him and turned around to continue riding with Jeanne and general Emilio.

--------

Finally, after walking for what felt like half an hour, we arrived at the creepy-looking building in front of us. Dilapidated was a pretty generous term to describe it. It looked like a building that was made by a talented architect, sure, but it seemed like it had endured so many trials, seeing that every bits and pieces were either torn out or broken, or even both. The roof was filled with holes, and the front door wasn't even intact.

"Hey, is he really going to be okay?" I asked as we entered the abandoned building quietly. We had released our horses nearby, and grabbed our supplies. Thankfully, our horses had been trained to go back home if we slap their butts three times. But whether or not they could find their way home and survive, was an entirely different matter.

"Yeah. General Zhang won't die by something like this." Jeanne answered me.

"How are you so sure? The elves are pretty strong..."

"Chaerin, do you think general Zhang possesses qualities befitting of a general?" She asked back.

"Why the sudden question? But ahem, I mean... No?" I scratched my cheek nervously, "I feel like he's not the type of person who values 'greater good' over everything or abides by commands as most generals do. Not that it's a bad thing, though. I'm also like that."

Instead of disagreeing, Jeanne just smiled at me, "well, there's a reason why he's a general."

"Uh-huh, and that is?"

"That's because he's a one-man-army."

I stopped my finger that was about to press 'send' upon hearing Jeanne's words. After contemplating for a bit, I decided to change the content of my message.

[Would you like to delete the message 'Don't die'?]

"Yes." I muttered ever so softly under my breath and entered a new message.

[See you soon, you dumb bitch.]