Trash: Chapter 183 Strut, Don't Walk (Patreon)

Chapter 183

Strut, Don’t Walk

“Keep on moving there, little scout,” the vindictive Scout instructor called out. His words echoing over the vast wasteland fields that were normally off limits to the students. Normally off limits being the key term here, as this was Lelia’s Hell Week, which meant that all the training wheels were off and we were left to push Lelia, and ourselves as hard as possible.

I don’t know how normal scouting missions or operations are supposed to go, but so far ours involved crawling through magically created mud, unknown substances, and of course the random attacking teachers that we would have to defend against.

BOOM! A mortar explodes overhead showing light everywhere and revealing our team’s location to the team of instructors that Lelia had been sneaking us up behind.

There is a momentary pause as we hold still, wondering if the unit that had expected us to come from the eastern road will see us. We stay still, laying low. Aided by the unnaturally bright flare that seems to hang in the air for an unnecessarily long length of time. We can see them, and if they spot us now, we are done. We are in an unused alleyway, one that was perfect for approaching during the cover of darkness, but one that leaves us at a tactical disadvantage while trying to approach, given our limited room for maneuverability and defense. Worse, this is one of our toughest training missions so far.

We are to invade a superior force, where they outnumber us, they have a better fortified position, and are all experienced fighters. The best we can do is sneak in from a blind spot, take away their fortified position, and attack from the rear. However, none of that will matter, particularly if we get caught here and now. They have war mages nearby, elementalists who can produce elements at a thought. Likely the very same instructors who made this otherwise terrible terrain a muddy wasteland that we must now crawl around in.

I can see Luna and Lucia tense up, their spears down in the mud, so that the shiny blades don’t reflect any light. We are all trying to lay low, but we can tell by the nervous twitching that a few of the guards we are supposed to target are nervously twitching and scanning the area. That’s when Junior, the person who I was considering the weakest link on the team comes in clutch.

“Watch them not even see us,” Junior speaks, and as he does, I feel there is a weight and power to his words. Then like a black bullet, the power in his words fly off and flow right into the eyes of the sentries that turn to look in our exact direction. We all flinch, expecting to be seen, especially as the sentries are looking right at us, right in our narrow alleyway between two broken-down houses that Lelia found and began guiding us down. We wait, knowing that only two of us can travel down the alleyway at a time. Meaning we can be picked off. If we had to escape, the route would be perfect, as we could narrow the number of pursuers that could follow us.

The sentries look at us, a film of darkly coated energy still holding to their eyes, then they shrug and move on.

“Exhale,” we all take a breath of relief when the obvious chance of being seen is gone.

Finally, the blinding light from the flare dissipates, leaving the world in darkness. We all spend the next few seconds blinking away the photon bursts of light that are still resonating with our retinas. That’s when I feel the need to praise Junior for his quick thinking.

“Good job,” I reply, looking back and seeing Junior. As in, I truly see him and realize he too has a valued position on the team. Then I realize something about what he did, “you knew your power would activate from that?”

Junior for his part seems a bit awkward at the comment, but then whispers back, “yeah, I noticed it seems to work more when I speak ironically, or speak ironic phrases, that if they come true will be memorable.”

“Can’t you just ironic us to having an easy victory here, so we can get some sleep?” Lucia asks, a note of exhaustion in her voice, and I don’t blame her. Ever since Major Ritter declared that we would be in Hell Week with Lucia, we have been out training. First was a few light warmup exercises, sword drills, and other competitions. At the time I thought the Major was going easy on us, but apparently part of that time that we were spending working out, was used to send Lt. Keller out to help prepare these sandbox play areas for us to test Lelia’s scouting abilities on.

“I wish I could, the problem is, I don’t even know what we could say. Something profound like, let’s just stroll right into their base and take it while they are distracted?” Junior asks, but as he does, a miraculous event occurs. While speaking, a layer of dark ultraviolet energy flows out from his lips and proceeds to coat us all.

Looking down at my hands, I see the glowing energy on my skin and for the first time all night, I feel excited.

“We can do this!” Lucia whispers excitedly, then I see her all but stand up and get ready to charge into the base by herself. As she does, I see the glowing coat of energy surrounding her begin to flicker a bit as if it is going to be deactivated. That’s when I realize the issue.

“No, wait, we still need a plan,” I say.

“What?” The others all say in unison.

“We need to stroll in there, while they are distracted. Meaning you can’t run, you can’t fight your way through the group, also there needs to be a distraction,” I state, realizing the limitations of Junior’s odd curse magic.

Hearing my words, Lucia who had been ready to storm the castle as it was, looks defeated, and then seemingly slumps her shoulders down in defeat. At the same time, I see that Lelia’s eyes are already glowing that odd dull golden color, a color that seems perfect for now, as I can tell it allows her to see things that we miss, like paths and trails, such as hidden alleyways leading directly to the blind side of the enemy base. While also being dark enough they don’t draw attention from any guards looking for brightly glowing eyes.

Watching Lelia is like watching a puzzle solver use three dimensions to solve what most would be considered a two-dimensional problem. For she first looks down the alleyway, then she looks back at the way we came, then her eyes do something I didn’t even expect. She looks up the sides of the walls, which I follow, and I imagine an old open world travel system that used to be big back in the day, parkour. My mind is already scoping out a path upwards. The walls are close, not close. Not close enough that I could stick my arms and feet out wide enough to climb up easily, but there was enough space that if I got in trouble, I could kick out a leg to the far wall to catch myself and provide balance long enough to get over.

“I might have a way,” Lelia begins, her voice somewhat timid, but cutting through the somber mood that was falling over the team as we all tried to understand what strolling meant.

“I’m in,” I declare, not evening waiting to hear her plan as I am taking off my field back and getting out our company flag. As I am moving I hear the gasps and sudden confusion filling everyone’s voice as even Lelia seems taken aback by my sudden and unquestioning trust in her plans. Once my fingers wrap around the flag, I lock eyes with Lelia and begin speaking what I think the plan is, “Lelia and I will climb up the building, get to the roof and create a distraction,”

As I speak, I take out the flag and hand it to Luna, mainly because she is first closer, and the least likely to let the flag get muddy before entering the enemy stronghold.

“While we are moving distracting, you stroll with style, don’t walk, don’t run, just act like you own the place, enter the fortified position. Take down their flag, and replace it with ours,” I say while pushing the flag firmly into Luna’s grip, making sure she has it completely.

Everyone is quiet, which is both good, as we are trying not to draw attention, and bad as it seems that no one is moving. That’s when I choose to move things along. Turning, I lock gazes with Lelia, then use my left hand to point at the top of the building to my left, Lelia’s right, “this one?”

Lelia looks shocked, then flustered for a moment, before shaking herself and replying in a word that felt like it could have been a gentle breeze if she tried, “yes.”

I nodded, then handed my pack to Junior, who looked confused for a moment, but then proceeded to take the bag when he realized I would need as little weight on me as possible. I still have my violin, and my exceptionally large and bulky sword to contend with, but that isn’t an issue. Shrugging my shoulders, I wiggle my arms a bit, before I turn to the wall, and begin to climb. My mind was already having somewhat of a climbing map picked out, as I saw a few handholds, window ledges, and other ornate designs that I could use to find purchase on.

I raise one leg, and am about to climb, before I realize I need to give a last minutes safety speech, “remember strut, don’t walk.”

Trying to get everyone to remember the strength of Junior’s words. Then before I have a second to doubt myself or this plan, I begin climbing. Only after a second do I realize that Lelia, the person who chose this path and plan was just behind me.

As soon as I got to the top of the building, I instantly relaxed, knowing that there was both a lip, and an apparently flat roof that we could set up shop on. Then as if to welcome me, a giant gust of wind chose that exact moment to brush by, and almost cause me to lose my balance. I staggered forward, unsuspecting of the sudden gust, but I caught myself with a quick and decisive stutter step forward, before jamming my toes into the roof.

Then a second later, I saw the struggling Lelia fighting to pull herself up. Seeing her, I reached over, grabbing her under her small arms, and easily pulled her to the roof.

“Oh,” was all Lelia said, scared for a moment, which I used to hold her still long enough for her to regain her balance. I stare at her for a moment, making sure she is okay. Without her having the benefit of a class, I could easily see that last climb being a bit of a challenge.

I am about to let her go, when the system chooses that moment to give me a Skill option for one of my two Free Skill slots.

New Skill Available: Parkour (Common): Learn to move more efficiently through the world.

Being distracted by the sudden system prompt, I almost get startled when I am interrupted by Lelia.

“Um, perhaps we should get moving?” Lelia asks. As she speaks, I get away from the system prompt, only to see that I have been holding Lelia in a tight, but comforting embrace while going over my system prompt.

“Right,” reply, letting Lelia go and moving towards where she gestured, though I could swear I see a faint twinge of red in her cheeks as she quickly turns away and leads us to the far end of the roof.

Getting to the far end, we pause, and then I ask her the ultimate question, “okay, so what’s the plan?”