Scars of the Ogre King

We moved swiftly toward the rally point, putting distance between ourselves and the two guards.

"How far to the rally point?" Brielle asked, glancing over my shoulder at the map I held.

"About two klicks from here," I replied, my eyes still tracing our route.

Brielle's head tilted. "What's a 'klick'?"

I'd forgotten she wasn't familiar with our military slang. "Kilometers," I clarified.

A terrified shriek suddenly pierced the air. "Please, no!"

We both broke into a run, rounding a corner to find a harrowing scene. Two town guards were manhandling a young woman with long, dark hair, dressed in simple peasant clothes. She looked to be about Brielle's age.

One of the guards yanked her hair. "You're one of those bandits, aren't you?"

The other leered, stroking her cheek with a grimy finger. "Well, well. I didn't realize the bandits recruited such pretty faces."

"N-no!" the girl sobbed, struggling fruitlessly against their grip. A small crowd of onlookers watched with sympathetic eyes, yet they were too afraid to intervene.

"Don't you worry, little thing," one of the guards whispered in her ear. "We won't tell the mayor about this. But in exchange... you'll pay us with your body."

My control snapped. Ignoring Brielle's frantic cry, I strode toward them.

"You!" I yelled. Every head turned in my direction.

"What the—" Before the guard could finish, I had unslung my Romulus M25A3 and swung the buttstock in a vicious arc. It connected with his face with a sickening crunch.

The guard crumpled to the ground. "What the fuck?!" his partner shouted. I dropped my rifle and fell into a hand-to-hand combat stance. "Who the hell are you?" Before he could draw his sword, I lunged forward, seizing his wrists. A sharp headbutt stunned him, and a follow-up roundhouse kick sent him crashing backward through a storefront window.

The onlookers stared, their mouths agape. Brielle rushed to the side of the trembling girl. "Are you okay?" she asked, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"What's going on over there?!" a voice bellowed from down the street. More town guards. A lot of them. Shit.

"Brielle! Get her out of here! Now!" I ordered. She nodded, pulling the girl away from the scene.

"Hey! Stop!" the guards yelled, beginning to give chase. Spotting a cabbage cart nearby, I grabbed handfuls of vegetables and began pelting the approaching guards.

"Arrgghh! My eyes!" they shouted, shielding themselves from the barrage.

Once my hands were empty, I gave the cart a powerful kick, sending it careening into their ranks. They scattered like bowling pins. To create a bigger diversion, I pulled the pins on a smoke grenade and a flashbang, tossing them into the ensuing chaos.

A deafening bang was followed by screams and the hiss of the smoke grenade. I snatched my rifle from the ground and sprinted after Brielle and the girl, who were already several dozen feet ahead.

"Looks like we lost them," I said, peering out the window of a tavern that served as our designated rally point. The girl we had rescued, now more composed, sat at a table with Brielle. I sat across from them.

"Are you alright?" Brielle asked softly. "What's your name?"

"My name is Melina Thorne," she replied, her voice steadying. "I'm an informant for the rebellion."

"You're one of the bandits?" I asked, startled.

Melina nodded. "That's the name the town guards have given us. But we are fighting to liberate the people of Tenebra from Mayor Thorne. We are not outlaws. The town guards are the true bandits."

"Why would people want to overthrow them? What have they done?" I asked, though after what I had witnessed, the answer didn't surprise me.

"So many things," Melina answered. "The guards extort businesses and abduct any woman who catches their eye. The people can only try to stay out of their way." She lowered her head. "I've heard rumors that the mayor is involved in human trafficking, but I haven't been able to confirm it."

Suddenly, shouts erupted from the street outside. I stood and peered through the window. A gang of guards was brutally beating a group of teenagers.

"What in the devil's name?" a patron whispered from a nearby table.

"Damn those guards," another muttered. "I feel for those kids."

My teeth clenched, my hand tightening around the grip of my pistol. I couldn't just stand by and watch. A decision crystallized in my mind: I would protect these people, no matter the cost.

Just as I was about to draw my weapon, Brielle's hand clamped down on mine.

"Arc, sit down!" she begged. "I know how you feel, but look around! It's too crowded. You could hit an innocent bystander!"

"I don't give a damn! I'm going to kill those bastards!" I snarled, trying to wrench my hand free.

"No! Listen to me, Arc!" she pleaded, her grip tightening. "There has to be another way to help them! You can't do something so reckless!" Seeing the desperation in her eyes, I reluctantly relented, slumping back into my seat and burying my face in my hands.

"Are you okay, Mister Arc?" Melina asked timidly.

I lowered my hands. "No," I whispered. "I'm not okay."

My mind fractured, plunging me into a torrent of memories from past deployments. The girl and the drill. A platoon of OSC Marines cut down by machine-gun fire from a rooftop. A rocket blooming from the chest of a YDF soldier in desert fatigues. The faces of all those I'd failed to protect flickered before my eyes, their last moments playing out in a horrific loop.

BA-DUM. BA-DUM.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped thing. My lungs felt thick, each breath a struggle. My hands trembled uncontrollably. All I could hear were the final gasps of the dying, their voices an echoing curse for my failure.

"Arc!" Brielle's voice cut through the haze as she took my hand.

"What?" I looked up into her worried face.

"Are you okay?" she repeated. I focused on controlling my breathing, unable to form a response. "Please, tell me what's wrong," she urged, her smile gentle and reassuring. "I'm your friend. I'm here to listen."

My gaze dropped to the table. "Whenever I see things like that happening... I feel this overwhelming need to protect people. But," I rambled, staring into the glass of water in front of me, "sometimes I couldn't. And I've been living with the guilt ever since. Their last screams... they give me nightmares every night."

"When did this happen?" Brielle whispered. I just gave her a sad smile and turned my head away. "You don't have to tell me."

"No," I said, turning back to face her. "I think... I need to tell someone." I told them about the Arid Expanse, a world so different from this one it must have sounded like a dark fairy tale. "It happened countless times on my missions before I came here. A terrorist group called The Caliphate executed one of our civilians. Our government discovered that remnants of a rebel army, the Red Sun Brigade, were active in the same area. Yamato covertly dispatched a few Special Ops teams, including mine, to assist the Allied Coalition."

"The hot, arid desert where I was stationed was more dangerous than any dungeon here. It was kill or be killed. My motto was 'Kill the enemy before they kill you or the people you're sworn to protect.'" Both girls gasped.

"During my first tour in a country called Luminia, my team was assigned to escort twin girls to safety. Their father had given up the location of an enemy compound. But we were ambushed. Most of my team was wiped out. A sniper pinned me and the older sister down while the enemy captured the younger one. They... they tortured her right in front of us, drilling into her flesh. She died before reinforcements arrived."

Melina and Brielle were speechless, their faces pale with shock. "That's... horrible," Brielle finally managed.

"I felt that same powerlessness during my second deployment, in Iraq. I was attached to an OSC Marine unit, tasked with hunting a high-value JRA leader and securing WMDs. We cleared buildings one by one, thinking we could evac with zero casualties. We were wrong. As we approached the final building, the enemy HQ, all hell broke loose. RPGs and machine-gun fire rained down from the rooftop. I watched Marines get torn to shreds." I balled my fists. "In the chaos, my CO and best friend, Lieutenant Mochizuki Kaito, shoved me behind the wreckage of a car. A rocket hit him square in the chest." I paused, the image of Kaito's goofy smile still vivid in my memory, even with the rocket protruding from him. "Our HVT escaped long before armored support arrived thirty minutes later. Kaito-senpai and the Marines... they died for nothing."

The girls stared, their eyes wide with horror. "I'm so sorry for your loss," Brielle stammered. "And for everything you went through..."

"It's alright," I said, managing a faint smile. "As a sniper, the 'Oni no Ō,' I've killed over a hundred people, with at least eighty-five confirmed by the Ministry of Defense. I don't regret any of it. The only thing I feel guilty about are the people I couldn't save."

"You're strong, Mister Arc," Melina said softly.

I shook my head. "No, I'm not. You saw how I acted."

"No," Brielle interjected. "She's right. Your heart may be wounded, but your spirit is strong. Those people aren't haunting you, Arc. You're haunting yourself. They must know how much you cared. They know you chose to protect them without asking for anything in return, and they're watching over you. And your senior officer, Mister Mochizuki... he must be proud that you saved me in the forest."

I was speechless. She was right. I was the one inflicting this pain on myself. "Thank you," I finally murmured. "Brielle... Melina."

Just then, a waitress in a blue maid's uniform approached our table. "Your coffee, sir," she said, placing a cup in front of me. "I hope you enjoy it." Her voice had a strange familiarity... but who had ordered coffee?

"I'm sorry, I didn't order—" I stopped short when I saw her face. "Elara?" I asked in disbelief. The elf girl gave me a cheeky wink. "What in the world are you doing here?"

"I'm here to deliver information, of course," she said with a grin.

"I get that, but..." I trailed off, gesturing to her uniform. I had to admit, the outfit only accentuated her cuteness. "What's with the getup?"

"A good operative has to blend in to gather intel, you know," she replied. So much for my theory that spies in this era would be easy to spot. Elara was a master of her craft.

"So, what have you got for us?" Brielle asked, bringing us back on mission.

Elara's expression turned serious. "The mayor, Alaric Thorne, is playing us. He's painting the rebels as bandits so he can use the Knights of the Azure Cross to crush them for him."

"What?" Brielle gasped. "Are you certain?"

"Positive," Elara confirmed. "And the human trafficking rumor? It's true. The mayor is running the whole operation." Melina gasped, but my eyes were locked on Elara. "I've already made a deal with the rebellion. We've pinpointed the location where Thorne is holding the women he plans to sell. It's disguised as an employment agency that only accepts female applicants. In reality, the women are shipped elsewhere and sold for a high price."

A cold fury ignited within me. I slammed my fist on the table. "That son of a bitch," I snarled, meeting Elara's gaze. "I'll kill him."

"Give me the location," I commanded. "We're moving out. Now."