Chapter 133: The Eighth Day, Draping the Military Flag Over You

On the eighth day, another gloomy and chilly morning broke. There was no brilliant dawn, no dazzling red sun; merely pale light filtering in, waking three half-dead men. Beneath a shroud of white mist lay a scene of utter devastation. The once-soft ground was trampled hard, littered with footprints and pockmarked with craters. Broken swords, shattered shields, scattered helmets, and gauntlets were strewn everywhere.

Kevin glanced at his watch. It was around 6:20. By routine, the bandits would attack in roughly an hour.

"Come on, drink some water, eat some donkey meat," Kevin said, sitting up and calling the other three to get some food.

"I'm sorry," Gray said, somewhat sheepishly. "I fell asleep during my watch and just stayed out cold until now."

Kevin smiled. "Never mind. We got lucky, and it's not bad that they didn't attack. Consider it extra sleep—we came out ahead."

"I'm sorry," Gray murmured, lowering his head. When a person is driven to the absolute limits of exhaustion, a momentary lapse can easily pull them into slumber, and before they know it, dawn has broken. Yet, looking solely at the result, being able to sleep peacefully through the night was a blessing, perilous though it had been.

"With the parrot out seeking reinforcement, how much longer until we're rescued?" Gray asked, rolling his eyes as he tried to estimate the travel time for the Knights of Lightning.

Kevin closed his eyes. After a long silence, he answered, "Three to five days, perhaps."

Start shook his head. "That sounds like an ominous phrase."

"Don't worry, my parrot has already made contact with the patrol parrots outside, and the rescue team from the Knights of Lightning has set off," Kevin told them, forcing the most cheerful expression he could muster, though it felt thoroughly unnatural.

"Really?" Gray's eyes lit up instantly, and even Start clenched his fists in excitement.

Kevin nodded to encourage them. "It's true. We just have to hold out through today, and we're saved!"

"That's fantastic! It's finally coming to an end," Gray said, springing to his feet, visibly revitalized. "Once I get back, I can brag about what we went through these past few days for the rest of my life."

Start nodded in agreement. "If we don't get some kind of medal or reward when we return, it really won't do us justice."

A sudden whim struck Gray. "Say, if I write a novel about what we've been through recently, would it be a huge hit?"

Start laughed until he was out of breath. "It would certainly be a huge hit if your protagonist were a bandit."

"Huh? Kevin, what's wrong with you?" The two turned to see Kevin simply supporting his head, staring downward.

"Oh, I have a slight headache. I'll rest for a moment," Kevin replied casually.

"It's fine, we're going to be rescued soon," Gray said, turning the tables to comfort Kevin. "Hang in there! We've made it through the eighth day, what's one more?"

Kevin nodded. "Yeah. Let's keep going."

At 7:30, the bandits launched their assault precisely on schedule beneath the hill. It was their fifteenth wave, still numbering two hundred per batch, except this time they lacked the supervision of the chamber-pot mage, and neither their weapons nor their armor were enchanted. This conveyed a significant message: the mastermind behind the scenes had been severely wounded, to the point where even casting simple enchantments was beyond their reach.

For Kevin, this truly was good news. At least the little sister hadn't died in vain; at least...

"F***!" The bandits were exceptionally furious today as well. "They actually struck our chamber-pot mage? Would the protagonist of that book ever suffer such an insult? Charge! Wipe them out!"

"Come on! You bunch of trash!" Gray roared from the cave entrance. "So many of you fighting the three of us, and you still haven't broken through after all these days? Trash!"

"Just wait, I'm going to deal with you!" a bandit raged.

Hand-to-hand combat commenced once again. The bandits' equipment lacked enchantments, and since the three of them had slept reasonably well the night before, their spirits were relatively high. Theoretically, today's battle should be easier than yesterday's or the day before's. Their morale remained decent, and repeated fierce battles had already instilled in them a rich reservoir of experience and a familiar rhythm. Yet, consecutive grueling fights had pushed the physical strength of Kevin and his companions to the very brink of collapse, making it hard to say whether they could truly hold out.

For now, Kevin could only temporarily push his grief aside. He tried to engage in self-deception, but the curse of a smart person is that self-deception never actually deceives. The parrot was dead; there was no hope of reinforcements. Now, they could only pray for a miracle.

For instance, the bandits suddenly coming down with food poisoning. Or a meteorite suddenly plunging from the sky and wiping out the bandit camp. Or some martial expert just happening to pass by. Or perhaps a whole group of experts passing by. Or better yet, suddenly awakening with protagonist plot armor and becoming a heaven-defying master...

Regardless, holding on was the only thing left to do.

Thud, thud! A bandit collapsed. Kevin was slightly startled; he had merely thrust his sword forward out of habit, not expecting to actually kill someone. A moment's thought made it clear. The bandits had spent the past two days fighting with enchanted gear and had grown far too confident in the defense of their armor. Now that it was suddenly gone, none of them were used to it.

"An opportunity!" Kevin thought, a jolt running through him. "Everyone, we can launch tactical counterattacks!"

"What?" the other two asked in surprise. Kevin had always enforced extreme defensive measures because killing one enemy would quickly result in a fresh, lively replacement taking their place—an endless tide where killing was futile and only drastically increased their own chances of getting hurt. Why start counterattacking now?

"They come in batches of two hundred, on two-hour rotations. If we can smash through them in an hour and a half, we'll gain an extra half-hour of rest in between!" Kevin analyzed briefly.

The bandits overheard this and burst into laughter. "Come and smash through us? Hahaha..."

Spotting an opening, Kevin lunged forward with his sword, slashing a bandit's wrist. The bandit dropped his longsword and retreated in disarray. "We don't necessarily have to kill them. Wounding them is almost as good."

"Alright!" The spirits of the other two lifted as well.

"Use your arrows if you have them, don't worry about how many are left," Kevin ordered.

Swish, swish, swish! In the rear, Gray stopped holding back, and the bandit rotation speed suddenly accelerated. Some were wounded the moment they stepped forward and had no choice but to fall back. Capitalizing on the bandits' temporary unfamiliarity with the loss of their enchantments, Kevin unleashed his maximum capacity for counterattack. The bandits were simply of too low a caliber; faced with Kevin and his companions' abruptly shifting combat style, they were utterly unaccustomed to it.

In one hour and twenty minutes, the majority of the two hundred bandits had sustained injuries, and ten had been killed, all picked off by arrows from the rear. The uninjured minority mocked the wounded unmercifully, ridiculing them for having weaker protagonist plot armor than their own, yet none of them dared to step forward again.

Kevin and his companions stood in place, leaning on their swords to rest. This style of counterattack was far more exhausting than pure defense, but it bought a longer break. Whether this trade-off made things easier or more tiring remained unclear to anyone. But at the very least, all three of them deeply cherished this rest period, hypnotizing themselves into believing they had truly rested and could endure another two hours shortly.

"Hey? You guys aren't leaving, are you?" Seeing the bandits prepare to leave, Kevin decided to try provoking them into more banter. "Care for a chat?"

The crowd of bandits turned back. "%￥%￥%&%￥￥%￥%%&&*%￥" Because everyone was shouting at once, it was impossible to make out what they were saying.

It didn't matter, as long as they kept talking. After a brief while, the bandits finally grew tired of shouting, waved their hands, and began walking back.

"Hey? What did you just say? I couldn't hear any of it," Kevin called out again.

"%￥%￥%&%￥￥%￥%%&&*%￥..." Quite a few straightforward souls among the bandits actually repeated themselves, though most of it consisted of curses. However, Kevin merely wanted them to linger a little longer; once they left, wouldn't the second batch arrive immediately? Every moment he could stall was precious.

But there are limits to everything; this time, the bandits hurled curses as they walked away, and it was impossible for Kevin to detain them any further. As the bandits departed, the three of them lay down, took sips of water, chewed on pieces of meat, and closed their eyes to recuperate. This time, they managed about forty minutes of uninterrupted rest. However, a serious problem arose: their quiver of arrows was completely depleted, down to the very last one.

They had been extremely frugal with their arrows during recent battles, even retrieving and reusing many of them repeatedly, but there was always a limit. That last reckless volley meant all those arrows were now embedded in their enemies, carried away as the bandits retreated, finally exhausting their entire supply.

"For the second batch, we'll revert to pure defense and play it by ear," Kevin could only instruct. Securing forty minutes of rest during the heat of brutal combat was a masterclass in tactical scheduling, but they likely wouldn't get another such chance.

At 10:00, the second batch arrived right on time, still un-enchanted. The clash began! Kevin and his companions immediately furrowed their brows; the bandits had already adjusted their combat habits. After all, they had only fought with enchantments for two days; with a brief reminder before battle and a couple of self-practice runs, they could easily adapt.

Thus, the fighting degenerated once more into mind-numbing boredom: you slash, I block; I slash, you block, round after round. Batch after batch, exhausting them until their minds grew hazy, exhausting them until they forgot why they were fighting, exhausting them until they forgot who they were.

The mist cleared, then thickened again, and day turned to dusk. Struggling through to this point, the three of men instead began to grow wildly excited. They had survived another day! Although they had no time to check the time, their intuition born from days of combat told them it would all be over in perhaps half an hour.

"Our reinforcements are almost here, hang in there!" Gray cheered enthusiastically, boosting everyone's morale.

The bandits, however, were growing annoyed. "You've been using that excuse for days. Do you even believe it yourselves?"

"I believe it," Gray roared. "If you don't, turn around and look."

"You think I'm an idiot?" The bandit confronting him merely sneered.

"Enough, let me handle this!" a voice boomed from behind the frontline bandits. The bandit currently fighting Gray was startled, taking a step back to clear the way entirely.

Kevin was resting at the moment, but hearing that voice sent a sharp jolt through his heart: "Careful, it's the bandit leader!" The bandit leader had always directed operations from the rear, never once stepping onto the battlefield himself. When his underlings raised objections, he had brushed it off by claiming to be an intellectual protagonist.

Yet Kevin had never dared to underestimate him. Anyone capable of leading bandits must possess a certain degree of competence, and within groups of such low cultural standing, martial prowess was almost exclusively the only standard that commanded respect. This bandit leader had kept out of sight either because he was genuinely a coward clinging to life, or because he was biding his time—waiting for an opportunity, a moment to shatter the stalemate in a single blow, and a chance to cement his authority as leader.

Swish! A longsword flashed with a chilling gleam, clearly no ordinary weapon. Hearing Kevin's warning, Gray could only raise his shield by reflex.

Clang! With a piercing screech, the longsword punched straight through the shield, driving all the way into his chest. Gray let out a muffled grunt, choosing instead to release his left hand from the shield and grab the blade directly with his bare hands. Having succeeded in his first strike, a smile appeared on the bandit leader's face, but when he tried to pull his sword back, he found it firmly stuck.

Kevin rushed over in a hurry. The space here was cramped, their arrows were gone, and battle-aura slashes or magic missiles would have minimal effect. Kevin had no choice but to duck low beneath Gray's armpit, thrusting his sword directly toward the bandit leader's wrist.

The bandit leader let go of his grip just in time, but Kevin's sword tip suddenly flared with a surge of battle aura. A miserable scream escaped the bandit leader's lips as three of his fingers were sliced clean off, forcing him into a clumsy retreat.

Seeing this, the surrounding bandits rushed forward to check on him. "Leader, what's wrong?" "What happened, Leader? You waited all this time and that's all you could do?" "Leader, go back and get that bandaged!"...

Enduring the agonizing pain, the bandit leader offered a weak defense: "Hmph? I took one of them down in a single blow! Relying on you lot... heh!"

"Who says I'm down?" Gray bellowed.

His voice rang with robust vitality, and the bandits fell silent all at once, subconsciously turning to look at their leader. Kevin was currently holding the front line, while Gray had retreated to the rear to rest, blocking him from view. Still, the shout was so resonant that it hardly sounded like the roar of a wounded man.

The leader's face burned red, compounded by the agony of his severed fingers. With a vicious grit of his teeth, he barked, "Let's go!"

The rest of the bandits felt no inclination to linger. Cursing at Kevin with parting shots of "We'll come play with you tomorrow," they crowded around their leader and bantered, "Go ask the chamber-pot mage to trade for something, maybe you can get a 'God's Finger' or something to sew it back on." Sweating profusely from the pain, the bandit leader had no words left; he simply kept his head down and let them escort him away.

Watching the bandits retreat, Kevin and Start hastily turned and rushed to Gray's side. Gray was slumped against the wall, his left hand still holding the shield while the sword, having pierced through the wood, remained buried deep in his chest. Blood streamed down his armor, dripping onto the floor in a steady puddle. The grueling physical toll of the prolonged battle made his chest heave frantically as he fought for air, but this only caused blood to gush forth even faster.

If there had been a high-tier cleric of light here, there might still have been a sliver of hope, but...

"Gray..." Kevin stared at his wound as if turned to stone, all his usual quick-witted intelligence freezing over.

"Go save him!" Start snapped back to reality. "Aren't you able to treat injuries?"

Gritting his teeth, Kevin immediately grabbed a bandage from the catapult's spare parts chest, slit open Gray's armor with his sword, and hastily wrapped the wound. Up close, it was clear the blade had pierced straight into his lung; it was unimaginable how he had managed to roar out with such force moments before.

"How is it?" Start asked, tears welling in his eyes as he grabbed Kevin's arm.

Kevin could only shake his head. He knew how to treat minor scrapes, but this kind of injury was beyond him. In truth, no one in the entire continent could perform such healing without the aid of magic.

A faint smile touched Gray's lips as he parted them slightly. "Have the... reinforcements... arrived?"

Kevin froze, forcing a smile. "They're here! They'll be here any second!"

"You're lying to me..." Gray shook his head weakly. "Actually... Start and I... both knew. But... we still... believed... in you."

Kevin lowered his head in silence, his vision blurred by tears.

"Right..." Gray slowly raised his right hand, the sword scabbard still bound to it. "Help me... untie it."

Start briskly grabbed his hand and channeled his battle aura to snap the binding ropes directly. Slowly, Gray reached into his pocket and fished out a cloth pouch.

"The other day... you asked why... the dried meat was missing," Gray handed the pouch to Kevin, who accepted it with trembling hands. "Actually... I stole it."

"It doesn't matter, I don't blame you," Kevin instinctively tried to hand the pouch back to Gray.

"Actually... I was terrified of dying," Gray shook his head. "I was worried... that when the time came... we wouldn't have enough to eat, so I... secretly hid a bit."

"It's fine, that's nothing," Kevin and Start both waved their hands frantically.

"I know... I'm done for." Gray raised his gaze toward the cave opening.

Kevin and Start could only bow their heads, speechless.

"They say... as long as you repent... you can still... go to heaven," Gray's voice grew fainter and fainter. "Can someone like me... actually go... to heaven?"

"Yes!" Start blurted out first. "Heaven has everything! Endless wealth, beautiful women, and a whole bunch of fans waiting to read your book."

"Is that so?" A flicker of yearning crossed Gray's expression. "That would be... wonderful..."

Time froze eternally in that single instant. Gray's chest abruptly stopped heaving, and his breathing ceased. The cave fell profoundly quiet, so much so that the chirping of insects and birds from outside drifted clearly inside.

Kevin and Start stood frozen, gazing at each other for a long, long time before daring to turn their eyes back to Gray's face. He was still looking into the distance, his features caked in the grime and gray dust of battle, a trace of a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.

After a very, very long silence, Start stood up and gently helped close his eyes. Kevin knelt to steady him as he was laid flat on the ground, pulling the sword free from his chest. He took the military banner from the cart and slowly draped it over him.

The two men stepped to the side, removed their helmets, pressed their right fists against their left chests, and bowed their heads in tribute. There were no piercing, heart-shattering wails—only silent tears and a long, drawn-out sigh.