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*beeeeeeeeep*

"Recording log..."

"Week 1"
"Tuesday"
"0241 hrs."
"Fruchiel's Cathedral"
"Gargan Forest"

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...

But just as the designated elements were about to leave. Fruchiel remembered something and shouts at them at the entrance door.

"AH! HE-HEY! I FORGOT ABOUT THE NULL-CASTS!"

Hearing this, Harvey and the designated elements look at Fruchiel. 

"Oh yeah, right. I also forgot about that." Harvey said to himself as he then ordered the rest of the designated elements to halt and standby. With that, Harvey went to Fruchiel to prepare the casting spell.

"Aight. What are we'll gonna do?"

Fruchiel put her arms wide on her sides as she closes her eyes and began whispering the spell. While casting the spell, she then began glowing with yellow light around her with her hair starts to sway slowly in the air. Little orbs of light then began appearing out of nowhere near Harvey and each of the designated units.

And then, Fruchiel rapidly claps his hands, finishing the spell. The little orbs of light then quickly went inside each of the elements' ammunition indicating that they are now cast with the Null-Cast spell. Harvey and the elements look at their weapons and start checking them in awe.

"Hm. You sure this will work?" asked Harvey to her.

But Fruchiel makes a smug face and thumbs up at him.

"NO IDEA!"

Then, another awkward silence as Harvey makes yet another disappointed face as he can't believe her response.

...

"And you call yourself an angel, you piece of-.. nevermind. "Harvey facepalmed himself. Fruchiel then pats his back as she cheers him up.

"Hahaha! Oh, come on! It's been a long while since I cast this spell! Why don't you guys go ahead and test it out now, hm?"

Harvey sighs and walks out to regroup with his elements and continue their operation.

"Yeah yeah. If I died, I'm coming to hunt you for the rest of your life. Hear me?"

"Go get em'!" she said as she starts waving at Harvey and his team. With the spell cast now done, the Defense Elements also start patrolling and setting up perimeters across and around the cathedral, while the Strike Elements make their way to Arksonville based on the briefing they had with the help of Fruchiel earlier.

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Two hours had passed...

The Strike Elements slowly appear out of their bush covers inside the forest. Harvey then began checking their status on the radio attached to his vest. 

"All elements, status. Over." Harvey whispered on his radio. One by one, the HOTEL Operators also whispery replied through their radios. Their replies are heard by Harvey on his earset that is attached to his radio for quiet transmission. 

After hearing all of their confirmation, they now continue carefully approaching their final waypoint before Arksonville. As they slowly move with their rifles at the ready, they watch their surroundings with their metascopes or old-NODs. Because of this, Harvey is having some trouble adjusting to it, while the others quickly got used to using them.

"Argh. What's up with this freaking old piece of junk? The light receiver is weak as my math grades." Harvey whispered to himself annoyed by his metascope. Despite that, he still continues with the operation.

More minutes have passed, and they now reached Arksonville. They hide and establish a temporary perimeter inside the treelines near the village to observe what was going on in the place. Harvey and two operators use binos to take a look and what greeted them was just silence and pitch-black darkness. This got the operators curious as to what really happened. With the help of the NODs, they then began approaching the entrance of the village with their now rifles drawn. They split up into two groups with Harvey leading the first team consisting of four operators, and HOTEL 01 leading the second team consisting of five operators. 

The first team approaches on the left side of the wooden entrance gate, while the second team approaches on the right side. Leading in front of each team are its leaders, and they glance at each other, waiting for a mark to go inside. Now ready to move, Harvey then lets a nod indicating to mark. Quickly, he and HOTEL 01 go inside the entrance of the village looking for targets with their rifles drawn. Other operators on their team also followed them as they hug their area near the walls to avoid fragging each other.

The first thing they saw inside was that there are numerous bodies lying on the ground. Almost all of them were peasants. Some dead children can be also seen near their dead parents. 

"Holy shit. This is some scene from a horror film." Harvey whispered to himself. As they progress slowly on checking each corner of the wooden houses, they now hear faint human cheers and a campfire in the distance. Seeing and hearing them, the teams move more carefully approaching the site of the campfire. They all now set their rifle modes from Single to Auto, as they continue checking their surroundings.

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...

Meanwhile in that certain campfire...

A group of talented bandits and thieves consisting of eight are gathered at the campfire, celebrating the deeds they made to the village. They all cheer and laugh as they remember the malicious act they had done to the people of Arksonville.

"Hahaha! And that moment where he cried: "WAA NOT MY DAUGHTER! WAA!" Hahaha that shit is priceless I tell ya!" one bandit laughed.

"Hehe. Good thing that this place isn't that much of important for the kingdom. It's been a while since I went all out on a rage massacre! Hahaha!" another bandit laughed.

"I get ya. To think that there is a place where no guards even exist?!" a thief replied.

"Bwahahaah! What do you mean no guards?"

"Oh. Wait. Are there any? I thought they are just mere ants when I killed them with my "Phantom Dagger" ahahahaha!" the thief boasted to them. All of them then laugh loudly and continued to drink wine and chew on some stolen food from the houses of the peasants.

When suddenly, a strange metallic pipe landed near them and made them startled. They all look at the strange metallic pipe and wondered where it came from. 

"Huh? What is that thing?" a thief said while looking at the pipe.

"I-I don't know. It just landed behind me." another thief whispered.

A short while later, the strange pipe suddenly explodes, and a frag explosion kills some of them. Sharp fragments pierced through their bodies in an instant and parts of their bodies were scattered on the ground.

*BOOOOM!

"AARRRRGHHHH!!!"

"MY LEGS! MY LEGS!"

"WHAT HAPPENED?!!"

Some that survived the blast tried to heal their injured and fractured bones with magic potions and magic spells. But it is very too late. The Strike Elements were already pointing their rifles toward the bandits and thieves in the cover of the darkness and prepared to engage.

"Light em' up!" Harvey whispered on his radio. Immediately, a hail of bullets wheeze and shoots through the surviving bandits and thieves that were completely caught by surprise. As the bullets pierced through them, they fall dead on the ground with numerous gunshot wounds all over their bodies.

Hearing this commotion, some other bandits and thieves that were resting inside the houses then began waking up. They all check what's happening outside while still half awake. But they are also being gunned down by other awaiting operators from each of the teams. Echoes of gunshots resonated throughout the entire village as the Strike Elements eliminate the rest of the hostile targets with no mercy.

"On you." HOTEL 04 whispered HOTEL 07 in front of him by the side of the door of a building. He then squeezes his shoulder to indicate the mark. HOTEL 07 enters the house swiftly and smoothly with his rifle on point. Immediately in his entry, he encounters two bandits that were caught by surprise and tried to bring up their swords on their hips. But HOTEL 07 quickly fires two shots on each of them, resulting in two headshot kills. Two operators behind him follow and go to each side of the house to hug their respective walls. As they smoothly go from room to room, their gunfire resonated inside, and go to the next target house. The same goes for Harvey and the other operators from the other houses. They are just in a kill-house, shooting up training targets, one by one. Harvey's face throughout the raid was completely cold and menacing as he focuses his targets on his rifle sight. At the same time, cries of the dying bandits and thieves follow on each their gunfire as they swoop each building and house.

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An hour and a half had passed...

The sun is now beginning to rise. As the sun shines, it revealed the numerous dead bandits and thieves scattered across the village. Some were also inside the houses, that were killed during the raid. The second team, motionless, is now guarding the other entrance of the village. Until Harvey radios through them inside the last building.

"Town hall is secured. Consolidate on Team 1." Harvey whispered on the radio. The second team then silently leaves their position like a shadow vanishing in the sunshine. Inside the building where Harvey and his team were, Harvey opens his main hud and sees that his amount of Souls is now 33 Souls. His Soul Energy Level meanwhile had only increased slightly. He then checks his Military Development System hud and checks his available vehicles. He then sighs his disappointment when he sees that the Bell AH-1 Cobra from the 1960s is still locked. He hoped to use this type of vehicle to help him as a patrol scout because of their great recon maneuverability across the thick woods and forestry of the Gargan Forest.

"It still needs some Souls, huh? Bollocks." Harvey sighed. But as he scrolled through the vehicle hud, he is surprised that the transportation vehicle - the CH-47 Chinook, was now available. 

"Oh. What do you know? Looks like I can now spawn these big toys." he said with a smile. But he can't spawn it for now as it might compromise all of them in the area. So instead, he ordered all of the operators to make a security perimeter outside of the village about a couple of hundred meters away. Obliging his command, all of the HOTEL Operators silently exit the building and easily blend into the covers of bushes and trees outside of the village.

As Harvey waits for a couple of minutes, he then went to collect and loot the dead corpses for anything valuable and useful. He turns off his NODs and goes outside to go into one of the raided houses. Inside, three dead bodies are lying on the ground with blood flowing out of their gunshot wounds. He then inspects one corpse to collect intel. He only sees a pouch full of coins, and a hidden knife. So he goes to another corpse. But it's almost the same as the previous one. But on the last corpse, he sees a map, leading to their base. He then carefully reads it and realizes that their main base indicated on the map was about five kilometers away from the center of the Gargan Forest where Fruchiel, her Cathedral, and the rest are.

At the same time, HOTEL 01 radios Harvey that the perimeter is now secured. Harvey replies back telling that he will now spawn a Chinook in an open ground inside the village. 

"Understood, sir. Out." as HOTEL 01's voice heard on Harvey's earpiece. This now prompts Harvey to go outside of the house to find a suitable open ground for the helicopter spawning. Seconds later, he found a destroyed plaza with open ground. He then decides that this will be the place for the vehicle spawning. He opens his Military Development System hud and goes to the vehicles tab again to select the CH-47 Chinook variant. This first model was first designated way back in 1962 and where the future Chinooks came from.

As Harvey confirms the vehicle spawning, a moveable blue hologram of the Chinook appears in the middle of the open ground. Harvey looks at it with awe as he sets his designation to his hud.

"Very neat. Now, for the designation. Hm. Let's go with HAWKSEND 1" Harvey inputs on the hud. The hud then automatically detects his designation callsign and the hologram now materializes in front of him. He watches the whole spawning with disbelief. 

Finished spawning, a whole CH-47 Chinook was now in front of Harvey. Because of his designation callsign he just input into the Chinook, the system then also spawn its crews inside the helicopter. Noticing the two pilots in the cockpit, Harvey checks his main hud again, but his amount of Souls is still unchanged.

"What? I thought vehicle members will also use Souls?" Harvey asked himself. But the first crew chief of the HAWKSEND 1 heard him and exits outside of the Chinook.

"No, sir. I believe we use your Soul Energy instead." the first crew chief said to Harvey with a salute.

"Hm? Why is that?" Harvey asked back. The second crew chief then joins them and salutes Harvey as well.

"Sir. I believe it's because we are a part of the vehicle itself, sir!" the second crew chief responded.

"Ahh, I see. So that's why. Alright. Let's get out of here." Harvey said patting the two crew chiefs by their shoulders and went inside the Chinook to brief the two pilots of the Cathedral on Harvey's map he brought. After he briefs the two pilots, Harvey then radios the operators to now regroup inside the Chinook for evac. HOTEL 01 then manages the careful displacement of the other operators inside the Chinook as the helicopter now starts to spin its rotors into max power gradually.

...

Now the last man outside of the village, HOTEL 01 now also displaces back inside the village to the Chinook that is now louder than ever with its rotors on max idle. 

"HOTEL 01! All HOTELS are been accounted for, FOXTROT 01!" HOTEL 01 said through the radio. Harvey, in the front middle near the cockpit, sees HOTEL 01 by the rear and then goes to the cockpit to notify the two pilots.

"WE'RE UP!" Harvey shouts as he pats the pilot's shoulder.

"Roger dodger. HAWKSEND 01 is wheels-up. RTB Site CHARLIE, thirty-mikes. " the pilot announces on the frequency. As the Chinook lifts off the ground, its roaring thumps resonate wide across the village and outside. The strong gush of wind destroyed some of the weak houses near the helicopter as it makes its way up in the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Now that's been dealt with, time to prepare for their main camp." Harvey thought to himself as he looks outside on one of the windows of the Chinook.

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Soul Energy :

[ Level 1 ]

 

Soul Count :

[ 33 ]

+ 28 Bandits and Thieves

 

Spawn Count:

[ 50 ]

+ 40 Infantry Units

+ 10 Special Forces

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UPCOMING NEXT CHAPTER

Chapter 05 - Another Home