Elia stared at Theo in amazement.
"What?
What did you say just now...?"
Then Theo put his hand on her shoulder and said:
“The Colonel has great affection for you.”
'That person, am I?'
Elia glanced at Keisha, who was sitting far away.
'Is it an illusion on her part that Keisha, who looked like a demon, looks unusually young today?'
Theo added with a smirk:
“I'm sorry.
It seems I said something pointless.
Go now.”
“What about you, military doctor?”
When I asked him, Theo pointed his eyes at Keisha with a sad, bitter face.
“I should stay here and watch the Colonel a while longer.”
He continued his words with sad eyes:
“Because the Colonel will be very weak here.”
Instead of answering, Elia nodded and left.
When she turned back, she found Theo still staring at Keisha silently.
‘What great company in arms.’
The relationship between Theo and Keisha was stronger and more intimate than she could have imagined.
She could understand it a little.
‘They have spent at least ten years together since the days of the Imperial Army.’
A comrade in arms, in a sense, was like a member of the family.
The two of them went through terrible wars and shared life and death.
In a sense, perhaps they were more than just family.
'Will someone for whom I can feel such deep companionship appear to me?'
The first people who came to mind were Lennox and Yusar, with whom she used to walk around and share business.
But her feelings towards them were closer to a special friendship than to a comradeship in arms.
At that moment, an image of Axion appeared in her mind.
She remembered how they shared life and death as they fought the monsters in the Demon Realm Gate.
After that, she started to have strange feelings for him from time to time.
But it looked a little different from the company of arms.
Rather, stronger feelings were flowing into her and controlling her.
She remembered her embrace with him a while ago in his tent, and her heart skipped a beat again.
Elia shook her head vigorously, then returned to her tent.
•
"Move quickly!
Quickly!"
Theo's loud voice pierced the unit's ears.
Members of the unit were filling bags with sand to make sandbags.
'Today is sandbag hell!'
Illya muttered to herself as she shoveled sand into the bags with Lennox.
Hundreds of sandbags made by the unit's members were already stacked before their eyes.
Today they had to use these sandbags to build trenches and protective walls on top of the ground they leveled yesterday.
Elijah looked at Keisha, who was sitting there alone.
Unlike Theo, who was enthusiastically ordering the unit members, Keisha was sitting quietly in the corner.
He was quieter than usual, and had a lost expression on his face.
When she saw that sight, she also felt a little uneasy in her chest.
I remembered his form as he sat collapsed in the place where his subordinate had gone missing last night.
“El, the sand is all leaking out!”
'Oh my God!'
Her mind was on Keisha, and without realizing it, she was holding the bag wrong.
“Sorry.
I got it right now.”
When she apologized, Lennox asked in a questioning voice as he filled the sand.
“By the way, will these sandbags be enough defense?”
Elia answered him.
“What do you mean by ‘merely’?
With this we can repel most of the enemy’s attacks.”
Although they may seem insignificant, ditches or walls made of sandbags were able to effectively defend against simple enemy attacks.
Even in modern times, it was able to repel bullets.
Of course, the process of making and stacking them was extremely hard work.
“El, how's your back?”
"fine."
Lennox asked anxiously, and she answered.
In fact, her back was still hurting, but not as much as it had been yesterday.
Now, on Theo's orders, the unit's personnel began transporting the sacks that had been made to several places and began building trenches and walls there.
"Yes!"
To move the bags, she laboriously lifted a sandbag.
When she moved while carrying something heavy, her back pain, which she thought had gotten a little better, increased.
"Yes…!"
While she was moaning, Axion appeared in front of her, and her face involuntarily flushed.
She quickly turned her head and asked him subconsciously.
“What's wrong?”
Instead of answering, Axion quickly grabbed the sandbags she was carrying and said:
“There is a shortage of labor to build trenches there.
Go and help them a little.”
Elia went to the place he indicated, feeling a noticeable lightness in her back.
“Deputy Commander Erhan, what’s the matter here?”
When asked by a member of the unit, Elia answered.
“Didn't you say there was a labor shortage?”
“Huh?
Really?
Anyway, thank you for coming.”
'What is this?'
Even to her, there didn't seem to be a labor shortage.
But building trenches was much easier on her back than carrying sandbags.
'Is it possible that Axion helped me?'
Ilia stared at the trench the unit had already built higher than their height.
As she approached to look at the trench, her eyes narrowed.
"Guys, wait a minute!
Stop working!"
“Huh?”
She continued her words, hitting the wall of sandbags piled high with her hand.
"This is stacked wrong.
You should stack it in a zig-zag, like you do when stacking bricks.
If you stack it haphazardly like that, it might collapse."
In fact, it was impossible that these young men had stacked bricks before.
At her words, the unit members nodded their heads.
"Ah, we get it.
So what do we do with this?"
“We should put it back together... oh!”
Then, the stacked trench wall began to shake dangerously,
Wa-rrr-
Dozens of sandbags collapsed towards her.
"Yes!"
At the moment when the sandbags were about to fall on her head.
Wa-Raak-
One of them went up and hugged her and curled up with his body.
It was Accion.
At the moment when her eyes were about to widen,
Goggong!
Heavy sandbags fell on Axion's back, and his face wrinkled.
“Deputy Commander Erhan, are you okay?”
Yusar ran away in amazement with the unit's members.
Thanks to Axion blocking her with his entire body, she was fine.
She asked him eagerly, still hugging her.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Instead of answering, Axion looked at her silently.
His blue eyes stared at her with intense concentration.
'What is this?
It's embarrassing.'
After a while, Axion answered with difficulty.
“...I'm fine.
This much is okay.”
Only then did he release the arms he had been holding around her.
Quickly, he quickly left her and went to the other side to move the sandbags.
She was feeling very disturbed, but she dusted herself off, got up, and then ordered the unit members.
"See?
We almost got in big trouble.
We have to put it back together."
“Understood, Deputy Commander!”
As soon as Ilya ordered, the unit moved in harmony and order, quickly stacking the bags.
Their movements were fast and controlled.
'Were they that fast and active?'
Now that I think about it, even yesterday while digging, despite their complaining, they completed the work on time.
They were clearly different from before, when they were unable to do anything.
After field training, they had definitely acquired the appearance of a real army.
“By the way, is that man Khaled?”
Yusar, who was building the trench, whispered to Elijah as he glanced towards Axion.
Axion was still moving vigorously, as if the blow of the sandbags had not affected him at all.
For some reason, her heart skipped a beat when she saw his face.
“Elijah, are you okay?”
"nothing."
To divert her attention, she focused on building trenches.
•
“Ah, are we done now?”
She wiped her sweat and sighed in relief.
Thanks to the unit's active movement, they were able to build all the trenches and walls perfectly within half a day.
Elijah looked at Keisha who was there on the other side to go and report.
He was still sitting with an absent-minded face.
"Why is he like this today?
Did something bad happen to him?"
Yusar muttered, and Ilya lost herself in thought for a moment.
After a while, she opened her mouth.
“Yusar, gather the unit for a moment.”
“Why?”
When he asked, Elia shook her head.
“There is still one last job to do.”
•
Around the afternoon, Elijah finished all the work and went to give her report to Theo and Keisha.
"Loyalty!
We've done everything!"
“Oh, you built it very well.
Well done.”
Theo was satisfied when he saw the trenches and barricades they had built, but Keisha showed no distinct reaction.
Elijah stared at this Keisha silently.
“So, this concludes today’s work.”
“One moment please, military doctor!”
I grabbed Theo.
“What's wrong?”
“I have something else I'd like to show you.”
She led Theo and Keisha somewhere.
That was where I found Theo and Keisha last night.
When they got there, their eyes widened.
“Erhan, what is this all about?”
Theo asked her.
The place where Yuz had disappeared, near where they had placed the bouquet of lilies yesterday, was surrounded by a low wall of sandbags, carefully stacked layer upon layer.
She answered in a cautious voice.
“I made this out of leftover sandbags.
It seemed to me like a valuable place that should not be trampled by enemies.”
At her words, Keisha's eyes shook.
Keisha, who didn't say anything now, looked directly at her.
His dark blue eyes, which shook, looked at her sharply as if they had never been shaken.
A cold sound came out of his mouth.
“Who asked you to do something you weren't asked?”