My Desertion Would Be Faster Than Heros' Obsession-Chapter 151

64 Days Until Discharge.

“Where the hell is the logistics officer?”

It was the middle of the night, and here I was, wandering through the hallway, looking for him.

I had already checked his office, but he wasn’t there. He was probably in the break room or the supply storage.

I just want to go back to my room and sleep.

But no matter how I looked at it, the blankets that /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ came in with this round of supplies were absolute garbage. Sure, military supplies were always bad, but this was next level. The damn thing wasn’t warm at all!

Determined to complain about it, I kept walking—until I noticed a light coming from the company commander’s office.

Muffled voices filtered through the door.

Who’s in there?

The commander didn’t interact much with the other officers. The only people he really spoke to were the other Imperial-born non-commissioned officers.

“Who said I was demoted, huh?!”

Bang!

The sound of a fist slamming down on a desk echoed from inside, followed by the slurred speech of a drunk man.

So, he’s been drinking.

Not surprising. I already knew officers secretly smuggled in alcohol.

But the topic of his demotion was interesting.

I leaned against the door, pressing my ear closer. The commander’s drunken voice was thick with resentment.

“It’s not like I did anything big! Just took a reasonable amount for myself, that’s all!”

...So, embezzlement, huh?

“They act like it’s demotion, but come on! I’ve given plenty to the higher-ups! They’ll bring me back eventually!”

Ah. So, he bribed them, but they still threw him away.

Pathetic.

People who got abandoned never realized they had been abandoned.

As I clicked my tongue at his pitiful excuse for a brain, the other voice in the room spoke up.

“How is the Imperial Guard compared to here?”

It was a voice I recognized. One of the NCOs, an Imperial-born career soldier. He was known for his bootlicking, so of course, he was sucking up to the new company commander, hoping for scraps.

“Compared?! Compared?!”

The commander practically roared.

“The Imperial Guard is the heart of the nation! And this place? This place is where they dump people who can die without consequence!”

...Die without consequence?

I felt my temper flare.

This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.

As I shot a glare toward the door, the commander suddenly lowered his voice.

I pressed my ear even closer.

“You have no idea what the higher-ups told me.”

“...You know something important?”

“Of course! If I spilled this, the whole damn Empire would be turned upside down! That’s why they’ll have no choice but to bring me back. You want me to take you with me?”

“I would be honored, sir.”

Emboldened by the flattery, the commander chuckled and spoke in a hushed, almost conspiratorial tone.

“The Empire does not want these bastards surviving.”

“...What do you mean?”

“They’d rather have the dangerous hetero sapiens fighting monsters, no matter the cost.”

A chill ran down my spine.

Every instinct told me to walk away. Now.

But I swallowed dryly and kept listening.

“Think about it. The contract magic. The way the monsters appear. Equivalent exchange.”

“...Are you saying—”

“It’s a cycle. An endless one. To keep their attention occupied.”

What the hell am I listening to?

“There’s been some talk recently, though,” the commander continued. “Some folks are saying that since hetero sapiens’ blood has been diluted enough, they might not be that dangerous anymore. Maybe it’s time to let them into Imperial society.”

“That makes sense. I heard weaker units are drafting people who aren’t that different from Imperials physically.”

“Exactly. They’ve been decreasing recruitment for the Border Defense Army little by little. If they decide the blood’s diluted enough, the drafting might stop completely. Of course, who knows what the higher-ups really think?”

I stood there, my mind racing.

It was too much to process at once.

Wait, wait. If I think about it... this explains a lot.

Monsters appeared out of nowhere, beyond the borders.

But back when Arkons lived there, there were no records of such occurrences.

And the contract magic—there had to be a price. But no one had ever figured out what that price was.

Most importantly—

“The contract magic activates based on specific numbers of hetero sapiens awakening every year. Now that there’s more Imperial blood mixed in, even those with diluted lineage are being drafted into the Border Defense Army.”

“You’re being used by the Emperor, and yet you still serve him?!”

The words of the dark mage we captured.

Those bastards—

They had been telling the truth.

Those damn dark mages had been honest the whole time.

“...Motherf—”

Thinking about the countless Arkons who had been used and discarded by the imperial schemes made my whole body tremble.

How many deaths had I witnessed in the Border Defense Army? How many people had fought meaningless battles, only to die without anyone even remembering them?

How many young Arkons had lost their lives before they even had a chance to chase their dreams?

A surge of rage climbed up my spine, burning at the top of my head. It was an emotion unlike anything I had ever felt before—so explosive that I couldn’t suppress it.

‘I have to fix this.’

Just like April had said, the current system wasn’t natural. It was an artificial structure, twisted and manipulated by the imperial family.

“You XX XX...”

I couldn’t hold back and muttered a curse under my breath.

Crunch—!

...Crunch?

Wait, why did I hear that sound?

I slowly lowered my head, my pupils trembling, to check what I had just stepped on.

‘What kind of lunatic...?’

Some deranged idiot had left behind an unidentifiable piece of a biscuit on the floor.

But the problem wasn’t just that I had stepped on it. The crunching sound it made was unexpectedly loud.

“Wait a second, did anyone else hear something just now?”

“I’ll go check.”

The people inside the company commander’s office had heard it too!

If they found out that I had eavesdropped on their conversation, my fate was sealed. I’d be dragged away to some unknown place and become monster fodder, never to be seen again.

That was when I fully grasped the situation I was in.

‘I'm screwed.’

I could already hear the officer’s boots clicking against the floor as he walked toward the door.

Before he could step outside and catch sight of me—

Tap, tap, tap—!

“Hey, who’s there?!”

“Catch them, now!”

I bolted down the hallway like a madwoman, turning a corner just before the officer emerged.

One thought dominated my mind as I ran.

‘I’m so screwed. I’m completely screwed!’

There was no way I was getting discharged peacefully after this.

As I dashed through the corridor, a new realization struck me—I had to erase any evidence.

So I kicked off my boots and carried them in my hands, padding barefoot down the hall. That way, they wouldn’t be able to track me by sound.

After making my way back to the women’s barracks as if nothing had happened, another concern hit me.

‘What if they track my footprints by the boot treads?’

So I hurried to the window corner and scrubbed the soles of my boots against it, distorting the patterns as much as possible. Sure, they could still track the boot size, but in this unit, plenty of soldiers wore the same size as me.

Because of the army’s terrible supply system, there were barely any size options. I had to wear boots far too big for my feet.

Once I was convinced I had erased all traces, I slipped under my blanket and went to sleep like nothing had happened.

And the next morning, my legendary survival show began.

***

At sunrise, the company commander gathered everyone in the unit.

“Did anyone leave their post last night?”

XX, as expected. He was trying to find and eliminate the one who overheard classified information.

“No one, sir...”

“I was asleep, so I wouldn’t know.”

Of course, none of the soldiers gave him a useful answer. After all, I was the only one who had snuck out.

The soldiers, who were used to passing out from exhaustion after training, looked utterly confused. Seeing that he wouldn’t get anything from them, the company commander turned to the officers.

“Did any of you leave your quarters last night?”

“No, sir.”

He began scanning each of us, locking eyes as if to gauge whether we were telling the truth. He then turned to Red, who stood beside me, and after confirming her response, his gaze finally settled on me.

“As you know, sir, I don’t really like moving around much.”

The commander paused, deep in thought, probably recalling my usual behavior.

Specifically, how I always slacked off whenever others were training. And, more importantly, how he often slacked off right beside me.

“What exactly are you doing here?”

“Oh, Company Commander? I, uh... I thought there was some maintenance work being done at the border wall...”

“Then why are you here?”

“...It’s really cozy here, sir.”

“Oh, good to know. A perfect spot to hide from the battalion commander.”

His recollection seemed to convince him that I, of all people, wouldn’t be sneaking around at night. He passed over me and moved on to the next person.

But when questioning alone didn’t yield results, he tried another approach—checking the boot prints left in the corridor.

However...

“Why are all the sizes the same?!”

One by one, the soldiers lined up, placing their boots next to the footprints. The commander’s face twisted in frustration.

“The supply situation is so bad that most of us have to wear the wrong shoe sizes, sir...”

“Damn it! Is there anything in this unit that functions properly?!”

The Border Defense Army’s legendary incompetence had come through for me this time.

Since he couldn’t match the footprints to a soldier, his last hope was identifying the culprit by the worn-down patterns on the boot soles.

Except...

“None of them match?!”

He had each of us compare our boots to the print, but my clever last-minute scuffing had erased any clear trace.

After exhausting every possible method and still failing to find the culprit, he gritted his teeth and glared at all of us.

“The culprit is definitely among us...”