A Child Turned Into A Soldier

Chapter 58: Danger Close (3)

POV: Yuki Burope

"Now let me ask you a question sir, why didn't you help me."

I didn't know if I should lie or tell him the honest truth. Honestly, I only wanted to see his ability to deal with the situation. I didn't expect for him to handle it so effortlessly, that led to me not really helping even though I said I would.

"I wanted to see if you were capable enough to handle the situation, that's all. You exceeded my expectations." I decided to tell him the truth, if we were going to continue working together than I would rather have him not despise me.

"Whatever."

He walked over to his longsword and started to put it back into its scabbard. I breathed out a sigh of relief and started to send my mana through the mist again.

'Since that hunter screamed everything in this place must have heard it. Today has already been terrible, hopefully luck starts to get on our side.'

We have had quite the number of setbacks today, especially with that anomaly flying over our heads. Then with the hunter screaming everything in this place has been alerted of our presence.

I started to have the thought of calling today early, it wasn't good to force things in this hellscape. Sometimes you just need to learn when to take your losses.

I was alert and spread my mana as far as it could possibly go. When Diggory came back I decided to finally enter the city as nothing was close to us at this moment.

"We are going to enter the city now since there's no one around us. We need to be fast and efficient though as the city is an extremely dangerous place. Most of the buildings are destroyed and tons of rubble will be scattered across the ground. These make for great hiding spots, so don't trust anything you see here and never let your guard down."

"Okay."

I took the lead and started to enter the city, I decided to start off at a walking pace since I thought Diggory would need a small break.

The journey to get here was rough even for a veteran like me, so I could only imagine how he was feeling. He was another race as well and I didn't know anything about them. On top of the he hides his emotions and physical state quite well, during the climb I had no idea his arms were about to give out.

He was a mystery to me, a mystery that I wanted to figure out and fix.

We entered the city and what I saw still pained me even though I have seen this sight countless times.

A wasteland, nothing but torn apart building and rubble and debrie all over the streets. Large sinkholes were also scattered around, some were massive in size while others were quite small.

The sinkholes were quite dangerous as the water within them is heavily contaminated, I never even go near them.

Unlike the current capital, the buildings here were all different in size and shape. Some were extremely tall while others were short and wide, but all of them were in different shapes which showed our architectural level.

The shapes of these large buildings were unique and special, the ones in view were a large spiral that looked to be cut in half and another was a quarter of a globe.

I knew what these buildings looked like in their prime, when citizens would celebrate such creations. The prior beauty which the city had was unimaginable and now it is just something that's forgotten.

This city was where I was born, when our Empire was in its glory days.

I loved my Empire, I fought for my Empire, I lived for my Empire, I killed for my Empire, I sacrificed for my Empire, I did everything in my body and mind for this Empire.

Yet my Empire gave me only sadness and anger back. The direction we went made my prior loyalty vanish into thin air.

We have gone so low to the point that these other races call us the Fallen Empire. If I had heard this years ago I would have been outraged, but now I couldn't agree more.

The only thing I care about is my family now, without them I am nothing but a relic of the past.

"Do you sense something?" Diggory whispered behind me which startled me.

I usually stare at this city since it is such a nostalgic place for me, but with Diggory here it seems I wouldn't be able to do that.

"No, I was just thinking about which route we should take." I whispered back, I looked around and saw a small alley then started to walk towards it.

Alleys were the safest place to walk through as you could only get attacked in limited ways. Unlike being out in the open or on a main street, with those types of areas you could get attacked from anywhere.

Since I know this city's layout, I am able to use these complicated alleyways to my complete advantage.

Over the last 3 years I've been able to scavenge at least 30 percent of the city. Out of all the locations I have scavenged this one has reaped the most rewards. However, it has also been the most dangerous.

No location has almost taken my life the number of times as this one has. Even if I were to add up all of the others together, they still didn't come close.

The reason being is because battles are still being waged here, the Empires surrounding us also wanted to scavenge this place. After all we were by far the strongest with gap being massive, now though it is up for debate on who holds that tittle.

We were basically in a war zone, although only small groups fight instead of an actual war where armies are being led.

Today was quiet though on that front, usually you hear at least one battle happening. The anomaly that flew over earlier must be the reason, no one would dare cause a sound when that thing is around.

We traversed though the alleys for over 30 minutes, nothing had happened in that time span.

I looked at the end of the alleyway which led to a main street, luckily I sensed that no one was around. We would have to cross the street in order to scavenge buildings I haven't done already.

I have never crossed this street before, it was a bit nerve wracking as many things could go wrong.

I looked behind me and saw Diggory wearing the same usual face. It was stone cold, his eyes were scanning everything around us. As if noticing my gaze, the kid turned his head and looked at me.

We looked at each other for a little, but as I was about to turn my head I noticed he squinted his eyes quickly.

He looked over to his left and was now staring at a wall which was connected to a medium sized building. He slowly leaned in and placed his ear against the wall, I didn't disturb him and only watched.

After a few moments his eyes opened up widely and quickly raised three of his fingers.

I reacted instantaneously and put my palm against the wall then started to shift my mana throughout the entire building. I noticed there were 8 people inside of the building, they were all grouped up together.

'How didn't I notice this? There are eight of them as well this is bad, we extremely close to them as well. There most likely soldiers too since there in such a large group. Do they sense as well?'

The situation was bad and Diggory already had one of his hands placed on the hilt of his sword.