Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen ----
After a number of days, the young man at last found a moment of respite as he felt the damp, solid ground beneath him.
He lay there, shrugging off the tinnitus that instantly acted up when a bomb went off in his immediate vicinity. He was blown away by the force that added up to the accumulated injuries, but he was still fine.
The surrounding area was covered in dust and particles of many colors, mostly of a red hue, but that didn't distract him as he calmly took some rest. He even ignored the voice of one who has been calling him repeatedly, or at least tried to.
His breathing went shallower as their group approached their destination. Inhaling the air filled with the demon's malice is suffocating and dangerous, especially in their current situation.
Mana mixed with the demon's unique malice got thicker and more concentrated the more they moved ahead.
Too much exposure would lead to terrible results for them, like in some apocalyptic zombie movies, but most of them have at least a day to endure before any mutation starts.
In the end, the gist of the final gamble for the sake of Lohiya was to risk their lives to achieve some purpose most of them don't even know.
As a freed criminal, he was certain to be part of the "most."
Two more years have passed since he was released from prison, and those years were mostly productively spent on physical and weapons training.
In the end, all conventional knowledge was rendered useless, not just any mandatory military training he never had the chance to enter anyway.
The technologies and modern information that he was proud of knowing by heart were all replaced with new versions that incorporated mana and divinity that worked well against the other races.
In terms of a weapon, he was a tool that was honed and sharpened from scratch, like raw material, during the entire course of the training.
The calluses that were once just found on the tips of his fingers have spread throughout his palms. His eyes, which could sharply find fault in a series of codes, are now utilized for scoping targets to kill.
He learned modernized weaponry as well as how to handle mana in order to make use of them.
Those weren't the only changes.
Outwardly, his body, which has obviously not hit the gym at all for the 18 years of being assimilated with his chair, has now been transformed into that of a regular gym goer with a gold membership card.
If his sister, who always criticizes him for lacking exercise, were to see him now, she would have nagged him to get some rest instead. Perhaps that nagging would be for both him and Cyrus, as both of them would probably be conscripted nonetheless.
Inwardly, he was still the husk waiting for a less pathetic opportunity to disappear.
But maybe not as much as five years ago.
"Kid! Get up!"
His drooping eyes instantly regained their focus upon hearing a call as the voice got loud enough that it could no longer be ignored.
He knew that if he still pretended not to hear, he'd die at the hands of the old man instead of the Otherworlders.
Preventing an untimely death, he raised himself up, shaking off an entire leg of his late colleague, who had been blown apart by the mana bomb and was weighing on his abdomen.
Taking a break was appealing, but he couldn't afford to do it for long, or he'd die for no reason. So, as if nothing had happened, he stood up and continued to run.
When he got to the place where his team leader was, he was immediately welcomed with a smack on the head.
"Buckle down, kid! You want to die, huh? We can't have you spacing out."
"Mm."
"What?!"
"Yes, sir!"
As time went on, the only sounds heard were from the barrage of attacks against them in all forms.
The two years of endless training were meant for this.
"Hey, Rover, how long till ground zero?"
"Ack --!"
The team leader nudged the rotund man besides him, one who was faint-hearted and physically unskilled yet was forced to be on the frontlines. Honestly, he was baggage A, but it couldn't be helped because he was an ability user.
The guy is extremely sensitive to seismic waves, with a range going hundreds of miles in diameter, allowing him to calculate their estimated distance from the bottomless Abyss.
The guy closed his noticeably trembling eyelids. Eventually, the trembling extended to his whole body, and he scrunched his now grubby face. After a few seconds, he nervously responded to the team leader.
"W-we'll arrive in around 5 hours more at this pace, sir."
"Shit."
A lot could happen in that period, and thousands of their forces were already exhausted from days of battle.
In addition, it was five hours if they could keep up with the pacing, which was pretty far-fetched seeing the forces of the enemy thicken as they approached the Abyss.
Their last mission feels unending and hopeless.
'No, we'll be annihilated, but at least those people would survive.'
In the first place, he, the team leader, the chubby guy, and the rest of the young soldiers of the entire penal military were all but cannon fodder, meant to pave the way for a few chosen people.
"Move!"
"Hup!"
"Gah!"
They were forced to proceed as a boulder fell on them from who knows where. While recovering their positions, they were forced to crawl their way while shielding against a barrage of arrows.
Those were just the long-distance attacks aimed at them. Meanwhile, the others in their unit, with far greater physical prowess, were fighting off various creatures around them.
"Kid, protect Rover!"
"Urgh."
Tens of arrows rained down where they are. With a tool that turns into a mana shield, he went ahead and protected not just himself but also the body of the navigator, which was much larger than his.
Unfortunately, the shield wasn't able to cover everything. Arrows grazed his own arms and legs.
"Ahh! I'm hit! I'm hit!"
The rotund man cried when an arrow pierced his calf. The team leader was busy fighting off a few goblins that got past the first line of defense, so it was up to the young man to manage the cowardly guy.
"It's alright, Sir. It's going to be alright."
The guy calmed down slightly when he smiled; though he was not an ability user, he had a talent for appearing trustworthy.
"We'll have to take it out for now so we can continue to run. It might sting a bit, but a healer will be here shortly; they'll fix it nice and clean."
"Heok. Y-yeah?"
"Of course, trust me. This is just a mild injury. A low-level healer could heal it in no time."
"Hah, y-yes..."
Things as such need to be handled as quickly as possible to not give the other person any room for second thoughts.
"Now, now, inhale... then, please hold your breath."
"Hahhh - - - hup!"
Without hesitation, he removed the arrow as quickly as he could, unconcerned about whether he had done more damage internally. Afterwards, he just looked unsympathetic as blood gushed out of the wound.
It was definitely, of course, painful—way beyond the level of a sting.
It was probably so painful that the poor guy even stopped breathing.
'Damn, no, did he faint?'
In his absence, they might end up going in the wrong direction. The worst outcome would be deviating from a straight line or the shortest possible path.
But he was sure it was not a wound that would lead to death, unless, of course, he'd be left out without treatment and lose too much blood.
The guy was an important asset for now, so while his team leader wasn't paying attention yet, he needed to try what he could.
With one hand applying pressure to the wound, he looked around the surroundings, searching for healers that could find some leeway to respond.
Healers were spread out among different units. However, the healer assigned to them had already died the day before.
While he was doing his search, he caught the eye of an unexpected person who seemed to also be looking for something or someone.
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds. It got so strangely awkward for him that he tilted his head at the expression of the other person.
It was the same expression he had when finding a good hint for solving a huge problem that has been bothering him for a while.
It was as if the other guy finally found what he had been looking for.
Feeling their navigator in his arms squirm a little bit, he brushed aside the peculiar way the esteemed person looked at him. He immediately gave the signal that indicated he was in need of some aid.
Finally realizing his intention, the guy promptly responded.
However, instead of calling out the healer unit to deploy, the cloaked guy prodded the person who has been standing on guard and pointed in his direction.
'What the ---'
Two esteemed people, who he could only see from afar before, began to approach him unexpectedly.