Jack stared at the horizon, somewhat bored, oblivious to all the disaster coming from that direction.
At his side, Mike looked just as lazily into the distance.
Both of them would complete a shift at the northern base before returning to rest, only to come back on the third day of the assault to defend against the final waves.
He looked at his friend's impassive face and smacked him on the head.
"What the hell was that?!"
Still confused, he looked at his hand. He had already learned to deal, more or less, with his defect.
"Eh, I don't know, it just moved on its own."
His friend turned toward him in anger.
"I'm going to pay you back for that, idiot."
He smiled and stuck out his tongue.
"Sure, idiot, try it if you can, duck."
They stared into each other's eyes for a few seconds and then—
They burst out laughing.
"Oh, by the spell, 'duck,' how original, kid."
"Huh? Who are you calling a kid, idiot?"
Mike raised his hand to say something but was stopped by a whistle.
They turned toward the horizon, discarding any trace of humor they had been wearing.
The whistle became a distant noise, one that seemed to cut through the air.
Mike smiled and glanced sideways at him as he summoned his sword.
"Looks like a storm is coming, comrade."
Jack laughed and likewise summoned his sword.
"I see it, sailor. Looks like the God of the Storm has risen from his grave to give us a gift."
The sound grew louder and louder.
"Why would a god rise for us?"
"Who knows? They're dead anyway!"
Mike looked at the vague silhouettes lighting up the air and swallowed.
"Well, let's hope they're not that dead. We'll need a bit of help on that front."
The usual joy and buffoonery on his face vanished, replaced by a serious and slightly irritated expression.
"I suppose I have to agree with you."
And with those words, the calm ended.
Bowstrings tightened, and hundreds of arrows were fired. Now, the figures in the air formed clear silhouettes, faintly illuminated by the lights of the human base.
Several silhouettes began to descend as the arrows struck them, falling meteorically toward the wall.
The figure slammed into the wall, producing a deafening explosion and sending countless chunks of stone flying.
Jack leapt from his position toward the crater the dead creature left behind. When he realized what it was, his blood froze and his heart stopped.
"Damn it…"
Mike, who was following behind him, looked up at the sky, where dozens of identical silhouettes were slowly being drawn against the dark heavens.
"All of them… are Needle Messengers."
He nodded subtly.
One of the Sleepers operating the giant ballistae shakily aimed toward the sky.
"W-what i-is that t-thing?"
They raised their eyes, but found only the dark sky—except the sky wasn't as dark as it should have been.
Both of them opened their eyes wide and then looked at each other, saying in unison:
"Yeah, we are so cooked."
- - -
The fight, which from the very first moment ceased to be one, turned into a completely horrific, one-sided massacre. The Needle Messengers wiped out Sleepers with a single swipe, and those minimally capable of resisting their power only prolonged their deaths.
There were exceptions. The established hunter groups were already organizing to take some of them down, and the constructed defenses were capable of limiting the advance of the nightmare creatures.
Three individuals stood out among the rest.
The first was Lu, the northern lieutenant, who possessed an ascended armor and an awakened weapon. He was currently fighting on equal footing with a Needle Messenger.
On the other side of the base, Jack and Mike were facing another Needle Messenger together.
This made it seem as though the humans had been able to mount a rapid response, perhaps buying some time while reinforcements arrived.
But it was only an illusion, and Mike knew it.
By the time reinforcements arrived, most of the Sleepers would already be dead. Perhaps only the best would still be alive, barely, but even they would be hard-pressed.
He threw himself to the ground, barely dodging a claw, and felt a phantom pain across his back.
'Damn it!'
At this rate, they would all die. In fact, it could already be said that the northern base was lost.
He stood up just in time to avoid another attack from a limb.
He readied his sword to advance and keep fighting.
Ahead, Jack pulled his sword from the creature's eye, blood pouring down his shoulder.
His face was incredibly serious, containing a frustration so vast it could explode at any moment.
"Everyone, protect the elevator!"
Lieutenant Lu's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
He began running toward the elevator, and unexpectedly, Jack followed him.
'Always.'
Along the way, they saw a terrifying multitude of corpses. Some they knew, others they had only seen in passing, and of most there was nothing recognizable left.
Other Sleepers joined their retreat, running side by side.
'You helped me…'
Flesh tearing, claws and swords clashing, men's boots striking stone, the incessant whistle of the great creature's wings.
Everything was chaos. Perhaps no one would leave this place alive.
That was what he truly believed.
He turned his head toward his friend's determined face.
He stopped.
Jack bumped into his shoulder and shouted.
"Don't stop, idiot!"
People passed by them, casting tense looks and shouting a few words.
"Go with Lilia."
Jack's frown deepened even more.
"What the hell are you talking about, idiot?!"
He could already hear some Needle Messengers nearby, could almost feel the wind slicing around him.
"Come on, not all of us are getting out of this."
Jack bit his lip.
"So what? If I'm going to die, it'll be at your side!"
He smiled—a small but sincere smile slipping across his lips.
'It was always like this.'
"What the hell are you saying, idiot?!"
He shouted as loudly as he could, silencing the surrounding noise and leaving Jack speechless.
"There's a woman and a child waiting for you!"
Jack tried to refute him, but his mouth went dry.
"You're a father, man!"
Jack glanced back, where the wall ended—a small but homely house in the middle of all that mess.
"Alright, idiot. I don't plan on dying just yet."
'This alone won't repay my debt.'
Jack looked at him for a moment, hesitant and nervous.
But finally he gave in. His body moved, and he stopped at the edge of the wall, preparing to jump.
He himself turned around, his trembling eyes scanning the approaching figures.
'Alright. I'll make it out of this.'
His smile grew more forced, and a slight tremor ran through his body.
"You're my brother!"
A distant shout coursed through his body, silencing the trembling and setting his resolve.
The smile on his face faded, and an inaudible whisper escaped his mouth.
"I know."
- - -
He ran, and ran, and ran, carrying his son and the woman he loved in his arms.
He never looked back, because he knew that if he did, he might return.
The cut and cracked tiles passed by like a blur.
His steps were firm and determined. For the first time, he was grateful for his defect—without it, he would have turned back and left the two of them to their fate.
The darkness of the night loomed over him, the city's silence broken by chaos at one of its walls.
His mind was a mess. He distracted himself, thinking of other things so as not to let his thoughts reach a conclusion.
He began to remember—about himself, about Lilia, about Mike.
Laughter, jokes, and teasing.
At some point, his life had turned into that. He didn't quite know why, or how he had ended up here, but he did know one thing.
That guy—his friend—had always been there.
As he tried to remember, a laugh escaped him.
The woman he carried on his back tightened her grip and leaned closer to his ear.
"What's so funny?"
He shook his head. She wouldn't understand; it would require telling a strange story.
"It's nothing. I just suddenly felt like eating French fries."
And he kept drifting off, until that time he had eaten them for the first time.
- - -
Jack walked out of the police station.
The officers followed behind him, insisting he follow some protocols.
He ignored them. He only wanted one thing: to eat something delicious.
He walked home. His parents, worried, were praying in the room, kneeling in front of the window, begging the heavens for their son to return alive.
When they saw him, they hugged him tightly, cried, spoke to him. In the end, he said only one thing:
"I'm hungry."
To his parents, it sounded incredibly insensitive. He wasn't like that—he was an exemplary son. If he were himself, he would be hugging his parents tightly and accepting their words with a soaked chest.
He didn't know why, but when he saw the synthetic paste, his mind clouded over, like a spectator in his own body.
Well, not entirely. It felt more like an interactive story, where the character wandered on his own and the player made choices at certain moments.
Even so, the next thing he knew, he was sitting in front of a plate of delicious food. Only then did he regain awareness.
He looked around—his parents and siblings, all seated at the table, chatting and pretending at normalcy.
He looked at his plate of food, his favorite.
'My defect, huh?'
His defect was actually quite annoying.
Runes formed in front of him.
Defect: [Shoot first, ask later]
Description: [Your mind and body move at the same time, and once a decision is made, it cannot be taken back.]
When he had been in the void of the spell, it had seemed simple—almost too easy to be a defect.
Only now did he understand its true difficulty.
A laugh escaped his lips.
'How terrible.'
And so he spent a few days at home, trying to keep his mind empty, afraid of doing something he would regret.
Then came the day he went to the academy.
He looked at his parents—their faces tearful yet full of pride.
And the next thing he knew, he was standing before two immense alloy doors.
'Huh?'
He shook his head. Lately, his life felt like that—like a fragmented dream. Except it wasn't fragmented, and he knew it wasn't a dream.
His stay at the academy was… strange.
Trying to keep his head empty made socializing awkward.
"In my nightmare there was a guy with a bone necklace! It was creepy…"
"Oh, you know, in my nightmare there were bones too. I had to use my tibia to kill a cat."
"I fought a sleeping monster… a damn sleeping monster!"
"Oh yeah? In my nightmare there was a pack of sleeping demons."
"What? How did you survive that?"
"I tore off my arm and jumped into an abyss."
Luckily, everything he said was a complete lie… almost everything.
And because of his particular situation and his good jokes, he ended up being somewhat isolated.
Days passed like the wind.
Then he found himself in combat class, staring off into the distance.
"This is a European sword. It has two edges, a good guard, and a grip for two hands. It's said to be the best sword humans ever made, but it also depends on your style…"
The last words of his instructor faded from his mind. Only one thing remained.
'European… sounds nice. The food must be good too.'
He shook his head, which caused him to look at a classmate beside him.
He focused on him for a moment. The other noticed and looked back, a question written on his face.
But before he could speak, he was interrupted by a very strange question.
"What do you think of European food?"
And that was how he met his friend—his only friend.
From then on, his memories remained vague, but they had something in common: in almost all of them, that guy appeared.
One day at the restaurant, both of them were eating rectangular pieces of potato.
"French fries… the French must be trash."
His friend laughed and nodded.
"They must be. But they're also European."
His eyes widened, as if he had just discovered gold.
"In that case, French fries are god-tier. 20/10."
They looked at each other and laughed, ate, and joked.
On the way back to the dorms, staring at the ceiling and drifting off.
"The French Fries Bros."
The guy looked at him with a furrowed brow, as if he'd just spoken in another language.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
He laughed.
"That's what we'll call ourselves from now on."
"Huh? What kind of shitty name is that? It doesn't even make sense!"
He looked at him as if he'd stepped in shit.
"Sense? Does it have to have any?"
And from there, at some point, everything changed. He didn't know why, or how.
He only knew that he was there.
- - -
Hey guys!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If it feels a bit bland or poorly written, it's because I spent some time away from my own story.
Anyway, I didn't write for various reasons—you know, work, vacations, etc.
I had a couple of mental breakdowns and spent a day sleeping in the jungle.
Don't sleep on a tree stump! It's uncomfortable, trust me.
Anyway, I'm back now and I'll be posting again whenever… whenever I write, I guess. I'm not the most consistent person.
I'll probably post a few more chapters and either leave or keep writing more consistently—I don't know.
Anyway, we're entering the final stretch of the arc. I'd like to say how many chapters are left, but honestly I can't say for sure.
I originally planned to make the first arc only 20 chapters long, but we're already at 20 chapters and I've barely covered half of what I wanted to write.
I'll try to speed things up.
What did you think of the boys' backstory?
Pretty bad, I guess. Eh, reasonable development.
I had planned to write something deeper and polish the text more, but it just wasn't coming out. I felt like I was doing it wrong or that something was missing.
So in the end, I just did whatever.
Anyway, have a great day, and see you soon!