Maurice from Ailtaine, the Capital resistance movement.
“Let’s go through it for the last time.” I looked at two shady figures. One of them was sitting on a barrel and pointing at a map.
“I still can’t imagine where you got such a detailed map.” Guz, my partner in freedom, gazed at the map too.
“Wow, look here, dude.” The masked guy clicked his fingers to draw our attention. The other guy was standing by a wall and murmuring something.
“Everybody knows what our goal is?” (R1)
“Uncle Togann’s shop.”
“Wrong. Our goal is to destroy the forge that makes and repairs weapons for the occupants. Whose it is does not matter.
First, you get past the guards.” (R1)
I patted the chainmail. I have no idea how, but those guys brought us two full sets of enemy armor.
“Second, you infiltrate the shop.” (R1)
With the armor and our Western accent we could easily pass for one of their troops.
“Third, you’ll put the bottles around, and this canister somewhere by the fuel.” (R1)
Guz was carrying several wine bottles, and I was given a weird cylindrical thing.
“Fourth, you’ll light the fuse.” The shady man showed us a tiny metal box, and opened it’s top.
‘Psh’
“Wow?!” We stepped back when the box lit on fire.
“It’s automatic, so you just need to open it and light the cord.” The man giggled, and gave me the burning box.
“The fuse is set to 15 minutes, and then it’ll turn into an inferno. He-he-he.” Even through the mask, I could feel the man’s daring smile.
“Got it, recover the drone. Chief, we’ve got the data.” The other man stopped murmuring, and returned to the map.
“There are guards here, here, and here. There are 5-10 people in the forge itself.” He started drawing small circles on the map. With how detailed the map was, I almost thought he was marking the very soldiers in positions.
“Any questions, ladies?” (R1)
“No, sir!” Guz and I straightened our backs.
“Great. We’ll be waiting for you at the rendezvous point. Good luck.” The shady men gathered their items, and disappeared in the darkness of the night streets.
‘Guz, you’re doing fine…?’ I nervously shook my buddy’s shoulder.
‘Yeah…’ As we approached the first guards, we both felt our hearts dropping to our heels.
“Stop! Who are you?!” A soldier raised his hand.
“Hey, mate! Can you lend us a sword? Bashed a guy’s stall too hard.”
“Why are you asking me? Go to the smith, dammit!” The soldier frowned and shooed us through.
It was going well, until the other guard noticed the bags on our backs.
“What are those?” He pointed at them.
“Those? He-he… W-well, we got too zealous with… ‘enforcement’.” I nervously chuckled.
“ ‘Enforcement’, you say?” The guards suddenly looked at us differently.
“Dammit… Brother, it’s just a shopman, nothing much. You don’t need to report anything.” I took a gold coin from the purse, and gave it to one of the guards. Guz did the same with the other.
“Don’t stay out for too long, the streets are getting dangerous recently.” The guards waved us.
“Stay safe!” We waved them back and continued to the shop.
The same procedure was done a few more times, and by the time we reached Uncle’s shop, we were not feeling nervous in any way.
Guz went ahead to open the door.
“Please, come in, sir.” (G)
“Thank you, milord.” We exchanged noble bows.
“The heck you’re doing?” A soldier in the shop was confused by our actions.
“What? You’ve never seen those nobles? Guess what, when it’s over and the main army chases those mongrels away, we’ll become nobles. I guarantee that!”
Seeing us aping around, the soldiers inside only waved us dismissively, ignoring us going into the forge.
Luckily, Uncle wasn’t there, or he may’ve recognized us.
We threw away the swords, and Guz started putting bottles everywhere.
Finally, I put the unknown cylinder by the charcoal.
We exchanged glances. Then nodded.
‘Psh’
I blew on the cord, and when it caught on fire, we calmly walked out of the forge, talking about miscellaneous stuff.
When we were far from there, almost by the ra-something point.
‘FWOOOOO’
Guz almost s* himself when we heard a howling sound coming from the forge. A pillar of fire was rising above the forge.
Confused, we hurried to the point.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha… W-what was that?!” I shouted at the shady men.
“Huh, I just had that thought that they’ll try to douse our little gift.” (R3)
“Thus we added some oil to the mixture. Those guys should blame themselves.” (R1)
“Totally should.” (R3)
All of us gazed at the blazing inferno, mesmerized by its raging fury.
