SSS Gacha Master: I Can Only Gacha Bikini Warriors-Chapter 45. Golden Morning Light and a World Already Burning
The morning they left camp, the sky was a pale gray-orange color, like a sky that hadn’t quite decided whether it was dawn or something else. Lucian was up before most of the birds. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
He rolled up his bedroll and checked his pack with a level of quiet concentration that had only grown in him over the past two weeks. He was still surprised that this new habit of getting ready before dawn had taken the place of his old one of sleeping through every alarm he ever had.
Glacielle was already awake next to him, carefully folding her extra clothes, which was typical of how she did everything. She carefully put each item in the pack in a certain order.
When Lucian accidentally dropped a healing potion into the wrong side pocket, she took it back out without looking at him and put it where it belonged.
"Here is where the healing potions go, Master," she said, tapping the left pocket. "Not there."
"Does it really matter which pocket?"
"Every second counts in an emergency." She gave him a look. "If you reach for the wrong pocket while you’re bleeding, you’re wasting time you don’t have."
He didn’t try to argue with that because he couldn’t.
It was completely expected that Marshal would be awake before all of them. She had already reorganized the communal supply pack twice and was now standing with her arms crossed, watching the whole thing with the look of someone who had seen faulty packing ruin military campaigns before.
"This is exactly why parties need to have people in charge of logistics," she said to no one in particular.
"Ice Girl takes care of food and medical supplies." She pointed at Glacielle and then to herself. "I take care of weapons and tactical gear."
Marshal looked at Lucian. "Master takes care of his own pack because if he can’t handle that much, we have bigger problems."
"Well yeah... that’s a fair system," Lucian said.
"Of course it is! I’ve been in charge of getting supplies to an army of ten thousand!" Marshal stepped on the ground. "A party of four is an insult to my organizational skills, but I’ll be fine."
Then there was Octavia...
Octavia was sitting on a flat rock with her legs crossed, watching everything with the calm look of someone at a very relaxed picnic. The only thing about her that showed she knew they were about to leave was the way her water whip was neatly coiled at her hip.
It was even more annoying that her hair was already perfect than if she had still been half-asleep.
"Ara ara," she said pleasantly. "You’re all so energetic this early in the morning, and it’s almost infectious~!"
"Then let it get to you," Marshal said without turning around. "Get your things ready."
"But I only have a few things that are mine, and I already finished packing before any of you woke up."
There was a short, angry silence from Marshal’s side.
"And why," Marshal said slowly, "are you sitting on that rock instead of helping?"
"Because I’m saving my energy for battle," Octavia said in a calm voice. "A tank that runs out of gas before a battle is a dead tank."
Octavia giggled. "It’s just basic strategy."
Glacielle’s eyebrow moved. "Technically... she has a point."
"Don’t take her side, ice girl," Marshal said.
"I’m not on her side... I’m just acknowledging a valid point because it’s clear that Octavia has both intelligence and resources," Glacielle said with heavy sarcasm.
"Are you mocking me?" Octavia asked, her eyes closed in a smile, though one of her eyebrows twitched.
Glacielle just shook her head for an answer.
Lucian glanced up at the sky, then down the road leading to the capital, finally settling his gaze on his three warriors. Three days of this. He inhaled deeply, taking his time, and picked up his bag.
"Is everyone ready? Let’s get going."
The formation Marshal set up made sense in real life, but that didn’t stop Octavia from saying something about it. As Marshal put it, a tank’s job was to take the first hit of any ambush, so Octavia walked point at the front.
In the middle, Marshal and Lucian walked, with Lucian on one side and Marshal on the other. Glacielle was in the back, with her frost fans at her hips and her eyes scanning the tree line with the calm, watchful focus that Lucian had come to expect from her when she was in battle.
"Do I have to walk in front?" Octavia asked after three minutes of walking.
"Yes," Marshal said. "You’re the tank, so you get to be in front to take all the damage for us."
"But... I can’t see Master’s face if I walk in front." She turned around and easily found Lucian with her half-closed eyes. "He’s not bad to look at while walking, and it saves my stamina, you know~!"
"Don’t care!" Marshal said. "Eyes forward now!"
"Well... He’s behind me, so going forward is technically the wrong way to reach that goal."
"EYES," Marshal said with slightly more emphasis, "FORWARD."
Glacielle had moved a half-step closer to Lucian’s side, but she didn’t seem to notice.
"That’s the point," she said, looking at the air in front of her instead of Octavia. "Look ahead, not at MY Master."
"Fufufu, of course, of course." Octavia turned back to look at the road ahead. Her tone was light and completely unconvincing. "I am a professional tank, after all."
Lucian sighed and thought. ’Great... I fucking know that pulling a MILF would end like this, especially if that MILF was a teasing type.’
’But still... I don’t regret it at all because... it’s one of my fantasies to at least have a MILF that loves me just like that.’
’I just remember once that when I was about to sleep... I had to put on some MILF ASMR video to make my sleep even better.’
’And, of course, why did I just say that out of the blue...? Now the secret’s out... FUCK!’
Lucian walked between his two warriors in the center and listened to the sound of his boots on the dirt road. He tried to remember a time when life was simple.
He worked at a convenience store, and then he died after being struck by a falling can. That had been easy, in a very embarrassing way.
This was a lot harder, but he was surprised to find that he didn’t mind.
In the early morning, the road from the mountains to the lowland trade route was a breathtaking stretch of land. The trees on either side were tall and old, and their canopies let in golden shafts of light that hit the fog near the ground and made it glow.
The air smelled like pine and something flowery from the flowers that were blooming in the underbrush. Lucian saw all of this in bits and pieces, as he was thinking about Corvus and formations and the emergency quest notification that was still sitting at the edge of his system vision like a ringing phone.
Several cities are under siege. They have three days to reach the capital and to expect extreme casualties.
He put it away and kept going.
About two hours into the trip, they met the merchant convoy coming from the other direction on the trade road. There were at least thirty wagons in the group, and they moved slowly and with a sense of urgency, like people who have decided that moving is more important than resting.
The horses looked like they needed a break. The people walking alongside the wagons appeared to be in even worse condition.
Lucian slowed down as the lead wagon got closer. The driver, a middle-aged man with deep shadows under his eyes and dust caked into every crease of his face, pulled up his horses.
The man looked around the party. His face changed from relief to exhaustion when it landed on Glacielle and Marshal, both in their SSS-rank armor, which indicates they are among the highest-ranked warriors in their order.
"Three SSS-rank warriors," he said quietly, as if he were confirming something he had hoped was true. "Are you going to the capital for the defense...?"
"Yes," Lucian said.
"What’s going on there?"
