There was a moment of silence as expectations were high of seeing that something might happen. The one with the most expectations was Leyton, who was eying towards the enemy base with excitement. As the seconds ticked by and nothing seemed to have changed, the angels and his wife began to wonder what was supposed to happen.

“Um…? Leyley?” Skye asked curiously. “What was that?”

“It’s a cheat code that I often use in games to auto win,” he stated simply.

“Oh. Auto win? But… nothing seems to be happening?” She asked while glancing around uncertainly.

“Give it a few more seconds. Perhaps the enemy’s so powerful that it’s taking time to load,” he replied excitedly.

“Time to load?” She asked, looking quizzical. “Leyley, this isn’t a game. You just said that reality and games are completely different just now.”

“I did, but judging from what I’ve been able to do till now, I believe it could work out.”

“I… guess but… don’t you think you’re missing something?”

“Missing something? Like what?”

“Like the fact that what you summoned till now were existing objects, or already existing objects. Whereas, this… cheat code you used was a made-up term… in games. So, I wonder how a made-up phrase could apply into our reality.”

At her words, Leyton blinked in surprise and turned to look at her with a blank look on his face. He had not realised until she pointed out the fact that the cheat code that he used was a custom-made phrase specifically for games, otherwise it has no significance in the real world except for making jokes out of it. Which meant that nothing will happen even if he waited for an hour or an entire day.

“Ah!” Said Lexi, focusing her eyesight on the enemy base in the distant. “Sir, they’re mobilising their forces! Demons and dragons are heading this way!”

“Sir, we must attack them before they reach us!” Veva suggested in a serious voice.

“Uh…! Yeah! Right!” Leyton replied, a little distracted as he thought, “Damn! Not only did my plan failed, I also embarrassed myself in front of Skye and them by doing something so stupid! Curses!”

Lamenting on the time he wasted on the cheat code, he immediately ordered his tanks with, “Tanks, launch missiles at that base!”

As per his instructions, the tanks roaring engines geared up to the brim, causing quite a lot of noise. A moment later, the tanks raised their tanks at the certain angle before firing their missiles at incredible speed. The sound and the shock wave that erupted from the launch had caused the group to get buffeted strongly.

“What a noise!” Skye exclaimed, startled by the shock waves that buffeted them. Clapping her hands together, she said, “Barricade!”

In an instant, a solid wall of stone rose out of the ground around them and reached a height to their waist. This caused Skye to blink and look in confusion at what she had conjured.

“Huh? What’s with this wall?”

“Barricade is a wall, Skye. Didn’t you know?” Her husband asked her in return.

“Oh. I didn’t mean to do this,” she said uncertainly.

“What did you want to do?”

She turned to him and explained, “I just wanted to stop the wind hitting us and the loud noise hurting our ears.”

“Oh!” He said as he understood the misunderstanding of his wife and let out a light chuckle.

“I think you meant to cast a barrier, madam,” said Veva, and Skye turned to look at her in surprise.

“A barrier?”

“Yes. It’s what we conjure to protect ourselves from physical attacks and so on,” explained Veva. “In your case, casting a barrier with your intentions would stop the wind from hitting us and reduce the noise from those… beasts.”

“Military Tanks,” corrected Leyton from his wife’s side. “If that’s too hard to remember, then just call them Tanks.”

“R-Right. My apologies,” said Veva weakly.

In the meantime, Skye was digesting the latest information she had been given and felt a slight blush come over her face. Seeing this, her husband became worried and asked in a concerned voice.

“What’s wrong, Skye? Are you feeling ill? Your face is red.”

She shook her head and looked apologetically at him, to which he looked back at her in confusion. The reason for her cheeks turning red was due to the embarrassment she felt by using a wrong spell from the one she was supposed to use. No one would blame her for not knowing as she was a village girl that was introduced to the more modern knowledge and gadgets by her husband. However, she wanted to be of use to her beloved husband and felt embarrassed at the fact that she failed on her first try to being useful to him.

“I won’t make this mistake again!” She thought determinedly and focused her mind on what to do.

After conjuring the barrier this time correctly and causing the barricade walls to sink back into the ground, they looked towards the enemy base. At that moment, the flying missiles were slowly shot down until only two passed through and landed in opposite directions of the base.

Two great explosions occurred, causing the ground to shake all the way to where they stood. At the same time, smoke began rising into the sky as they could barely see fires beginning to spread in the encampment of the enemy base.

“Oh wow. They really shot down a lot of the missiles,” said Leyton, sounding impressed.

“There are capable warriors powerful enough to fight our strongest warriors one on one!” Explained Lexi, looking worried.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise that they could handle these weapons of mass destruction fairly easily,” remarked Veva with the same worried look on her face as Lexi.

“Yeah. I suppose we shouldn’t give them the chance to recover and strike back,” said Leyton in agreement. Then he turned his attention to the helicopters and said, “Helicopters, fly forward and shot down the air units!”

In response, the helicopters began to roar their engines into gear and began moving towards the enemy base, where they were soon met with resistant from the enemy dragons.

“Alright. Tanks, move forward and mow down the enemy forces charging from the front. Blow them away at will,” he instructed them.

At his command, the tanks began grinding their gears and moving towards the enemies charging from the front. He watched as the tanks opened their turrets and automatically sprayed bullets down on any enemy that came close to them. Feeling like the situation was being handled well, he focused his eyes up in the sky to see what was going on, however, with the distance between them, there was no way he could see clearly.

“This is no good,” he remarked dully. “I can’t see the battle in the sky.”

“Should we enhance your sight, sir?” Veva asked tentatively.

Skye was the one who denied it by saying, “That won’t be necessary. Right, Leyley?”

His wife looked at him with a small smile as if he would understand what she meant. True enough, he understood that she did not want to rely too much on magic as it may become difficult to be independent later on if they suddenly could not use magic for some reason. Leyton understood this very easily and smiled in return at his wife.

“Yes. There’s no need when I have… these. Summon Binoculars,” he said and Binoculars appeared out of thin air before he grabbed them with his forearm.

As the two angels blinked in surprise at the sudden appearance of yet another unknown object, he placed them against his eyes and began tweaking the lens module to watch the battle in the sky. Seeing her husband do it, Skye replicated the action and also used binoculars to watch them, leaving the two angels looking confused as to what those devices were.

“Um… What might they be, madam?” Lexi asked Skye curiously.

“These?” She asked, shifting them from her eyes and indicating them. When they nodded, she smiled and explained, “These are called Binoculars. You can see long distances with these by turning this wheel thingy to increase or decrease the zooming and focus effect.”

“Oh wow. It’s an interesting artefact,” Lexi commented in wonder.

“It’s not magic; it’s just science,” laughed Skye, to which the angels once again looked confused.

“Dang! Those dragons have tough skin! The bullets aren’t penetrating through their scales!” Leyton complained while watching through his binoculars, causing Skye to use them as well while the angels used their magic to enhance their sight.

“How about firing some missiles at them? Wouldn’t that work?” Skye suggested.

“Yeah. Good idea,” he said in acceptance. “Helicopters, launch missiles at the dragons!”

Upon receiving his orders, the helicopters opened their turrets and fired a round of missiles at the dragons. On seeing the incoming attacks, the dragons changed their flight pattern by swerving, dogging, and swinging their bodies out of the way. This caused the missiles to get confused and hit one another instead while only a few smashed into the dragons and exploded.

“Man! Not all of them got them though,” complained Leyton.

“At least, they hit a few,” said Skye soothingly.

Before he could reply, the smoke clear in the sky and revealed that the dragons hit by the missiles were still alive. Both Leyton and Skye were shocked despite taking a heavy beating that they through their binoculars the amount of damage those dragons had taken from the explosion.

“Damn! They’re tough!” Leyton complained irritably.

“This doesn’t look good!” Skye said worriedly.

Her worries were proven correct when several of the dragons opened their mouth and seemed to charge some kind of attack before spitting it out at the helicopters. Though Leyton immediately ordered his air unit to evade them, the fiery balls of destruction flew forward and slammed into the helicopters, causing them to explode and plummet to the ground.

Leyton swore from the shock of seeing his air units brought down by a single attack from the enemy air force.

“Oh no! The flying beasts are being brought down!” Lexi exclaimed worriedly.

“They’re not flying beasts! Helicopters! H-e-l-i-c-o-p-t-e-r-s!” Leyton snapped at her.

“Yes!” She replied immediately in shock.

“Leyley, calm down. Don’t take your anger out on her,” said his wife soothingly then turned to the enemy dragons that were continuing to bow down the helicopters. “What are we supposed to do against those that even the helicopters aren’t able to fully bring down?”

There was a moment of pause in which Leyton seemed to be thinking. While he was thinking, the dragons began firing the same fiery balls of destruction down at the tanks and began destroying them as well. Till now, the enemy ground units were held back by the sheer number of tanks and the destructive bullets they fired, but with the numbers decreasing rapidly, they began to push forward earnestly.

“This isn’t good! The be—tanks are being demolished!” Lexi said, correcting herself by using their term properly to avoid being lectured by the hero. “What are we supposed to do now?”

It was then that Veva suggested, “I think it’s best to retreat from here.”

“Retreat?” Skye asked, looking a little taken aback. “But, Leyley said—.”

“Madam,” said Veva a little strongly that caused Skye to hesitate and go silent. “Please look at the battlefield. The helicopters that the hero summoned were brought down and the tanks are soon to face their demise. At this rate, we will end up being caught up by the enemy.” Then she added, “This is merely a tactical retreat, so there’s no need to lose your pride over it.”

“It’s nothing to do with pride, Veva,” said Skye slowly, hesitating to take a decisive decision while looking towards her husband.

At that moment, Leyton spoke up by saying, “There’s no need for a retreat.” They turned to him as he went on saying, “Our main problem are those dragons and to beat them, we need more firepower!”

“Yes, but we saw how lacking the helicopters are, didn’t we?” Skye asked worriedly.

“Yes, we did,” he agreed. “I was overconfident to stop and think about the what if. It’s okay though because this is a lesson to learn, and I’ve got the perfect weapon to beat them with.”

“Perfect weapon? What’s that?” Skye inquired curiously.

Leyton smiled and said, “Fighter jets!”

 

==== + ==== + ==== + ====

 

Closing the Book

 

“The heck?!” The boy exclaimed, looking surprised. “Fighter jets?! Really?!”

“Really,” the older man confirmed with a smiling face.

“This late into the story?”

“It’s only been thirteen chapters, and the chapters length in average are short.”

“I don’t mean that,” the boy said with furrowed eyebrows. “Shouldn’t he have summoned fighter jets from the very beginning?”

The older man looked quizzically at him and asked, “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of a flying military vehicle?”

There was a moment of pause before the boy said feebly, “Helicopter.”

This made the older man spread his arms out in a gesture of, “See what I mean?”

“B-But, everyone has their own perspectives!” The boy quickly rallied in his defence. “Some may even consider fighter jets, a jumbo fighter jet, or something like that. So, you can’t just take one side.”

“The same goes to our story hero,” said the older man with a smile, causing the boy to scowl.

“But he’s our protagonist who was from a modern society and should be able to know what he’s doing, right?” The boy asked curiously.

“He should know what he’s doing, ah?” The older man asked in a low voice. He looked at the young man sitting opposite him with a small smile for a moment in silence before asking, “Do you think a man, who lives his peaceful life, working day in and out from home and lives with only his wife care about all these things?”

“Oh. Well,” the boy began hesitantly. “Still, I would think it’s common sense from where he’s from to know that a fighter jet is the strongest air vehicle there is.”

“You are right in thinking that,” the older man said, “but don’t ignore the obvious fact that he lived a simple life with his wife and played arcade type games in the home built by his parents.”

“A sheltered life, you mean?” The boy asked, and the older man chuckled. “I guess that makes sense seeing as he stupidly shouted out a cheat code when it only made him look embarrassing.”

The older man chuckled again and said, “That’s right, so stop it with the thinking that Leyton should know things he wouldn’t normally know or remember just because he’s from a modern society. That’s just you creating a false image of him instead of seeing him for what he truly is.”

“So, you’re basically telling me to ignore the stupid details and enjoy the story,” the boy said, and the older man winked. Then he sighed and said, “Fine, but I’m still curious as to why you constantly support the author and the character. It’s almost like you know, or knew them and like them.”

As he looked shrewdly at the man seated opposite him, the man smiled and said, “That’s a secret,” causing the young man to fume with annoyance while the older man chortled with laughter.