Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

"You..." I squinted my eyes, trying to enhance my focus so I could recognize the blurry figure in front of me that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Surprised?" The familiar voice that had always irritated me, now made me ease up a bit, instead.

"What are you doing here, eel?" I asked with a surprisingly hoarse voice. After realizing that the ashy voice was mine, I quickly cleared my throat which was starting to burn.

"I should be the one asking you. Did the plan fail? Tsk, tsk." He sighed.

"Oh, right. You didn't know what happened ye--ukh!" Even before I could finish explaining our reason to come here, my words were cut off by unrelenting coughs.

'Cough! cough!'

"Hey hey, little cub, don't speak yet." His playful expression immediately changed into a more serious one as he leaned my back against his muscular chest. His brows curled into a frown, and his trademark grin disappeared.

Now that I looked at it, he was the one who caught me when I fell earlier, and he hadn't let me go since. Ah, so that was why I was able to avoid hitting the ground.

"No, listen, it's--"

'Cough!'

I was trying to hurry and explain the whole situation to him, seeing that we were in a race against time. I was pretty sure that general Emilio and Jeanne weren't going to be okay with this much smoke, either. The longer we dilly-dally, the worse it would get.

"I said shut up, didn't I?" General Zhang frowned and opened a bottle of water before shoving its content into my mouth.

"Hrng--!?" I was caught by surprise, and had a hard time to properly swallow the sudden gush of water inside my mouth, so a few drops trickled down the corner of my lips.

"Messy." General Zhang spoke as he wiped the trickling water off the side of my lips with his thumb. He wasn't smiling like usual, rather, he had this intense gaze on his eyes.

"Phuwa!" I gasped for air when the water bottle finally left my lips.

"Drink this."

"Eh?"

Without giving me time to react, he pushed his wet thumb into my mouth, until I could feel his smooth skin touching my equally drenched tongue. He pressed his thumb against my tongue slowly, as if he was playing with my mouth.

Seeing the surpised look on my face, he shot me a mischievous grin as his lips slowly parted, "good girl."

"Wha--"

"Hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?" Luke's irritated voice alerted us, and we immediately look up to find a frowning, golden-eyed man with lustrous dark blue locks.

"Offering a drink." General Zhang answered with a wide smile.

"No no, I know that," he shook his head and let out a deep sigh, "what I mean is your finger!"

My face immediately flushed with scarlet colour when I realized what that eel just did, "no, wait--"

"Don't ever put your finger inside your mouth if you haven't washed your hand!" Luke scolded.

"...Huh?" General Zhang's brows were raised, and he stopped moving.

"Humans are weak, you know. They get sick easily just because they put their dirty, dirty fingers into their mouth, causing bacterias and stuff to come in," Luke continued lecturing, "so do as your parents told you and wash your hand before touching your mouth, capiche?"

...What.

"Pfft-- Haha! Yeah, yeah," general Zhang chuckled, breaking the awkward silence, "that's true, sorry. I'm a dirty, dirty boy."

"Wha-- No! Don't say that!" I smacked general Zhang's head right after he said those ambiguous words.

"Yeah, you're a dirty boy," Luke nodded in agreement, "we're all kinda dirty, though. Make sure you take a proper bath after this trip."

"Let's... Move on, shall we?" I cleared my throat, although it still felt kind of ashy. The water did give me a little bit of relief, but not much.

"Not yet, wait." General Zhang pressed his index finger on my lips to keep me from talking, and I quickly shoved his hand away in embarrassment from his last antic.

"What is it, now?" I questioned while I observed his cheerful figure. He had been fighting here for hours now, and yet, not a hint of fatigue was apparent on him. His clothes were burned all over, sure, but if you looked past the scorched marks, he was still his old, playful self.

"Ta-da! A gas mask~" He joyfully exclaimed as he held up two transparent gas masks from his bag. Transparent? Were they also magic equipment? Well, how convenient.

"Where did you get them from?" My eyes lit up upon seeing the life-saving devices that I should've bought instead of foolishly challenging death like this.

"Haha! I've carried these from the start, little cub," he answered as he helped me adjust the mask, "how else do you think I managed to last this long?"

"Tch. So you had a trick up your sleeve," I clicked my tongue while he wore his own mask, "how come you didn't wear one just now?"

"Oh, my previous one was broken. An annoying elf broke it," he answered shortly and turned to face Luke, "you should be fine without one, right?"

"Uh-huh, don't worry about me. Rather, shouldn't you worry about your three other members?" Luke questioned.

"Three?" General Zhang tilted his head in response.

--------

In only around 5 minutes, I and Luke relayed the information to general Zhang, who just listened to us calmly without moving even one finger. I thought his brain would overheat from the sudden flood of information like mine did, but it turned out he was doing pretty well?

"I see. So now our top objective is to kill that elf prince, right?" He inquired.

"Yeah. You got it right." Luke nodded at his words.

"Hmm. The problem is this barrier that you speak of. We still don't know how it works, and if he has other powers... Though, I do have a vague idea of what it is. I probably can confirm it if I see it by myself." General Zhang said as he looked up, as if he was thinking about something.

Nice. If he could find a feasible plan, then...

"Oh well! Let's just kill him or whatever. I don't like to overcomplicate things~" He giggled.

Gah! What did I expect!

"Hmm. Sure." Luke crossed his arms in front of his chest and observed general Zhang with an unreadable expression.

"Oh, sorry. Let me also get ready." I awkwardly said as I stood up and straightened my shirt. I was so dizzy that I forgot I was still leaning against general Zhang this whole time, even while we were explaining the situation to him. Ah! He better wouldn't tease me about this...

"Do you have any idea where both of them are, little cub?" General Zhang asked me while he stood up himself.

"Probably, wait a bit." I replied and immediately opened my skill window to activate my mentalist skill.

Hmm, here it showed general Emilio's name, so he must be within 1 km range from us, which wasn't far. Should I send him a message? ...Nah, he wouldn't be able to reply, anyway, it'd just disrupt his focus.

"So?" General Zhang nudged me.

"General Emilio's within 1 km from here. No idea about his exact whereabouts." I sighed and closed my skill window.

"Great! Hopefully, the elf prince is also nearby!" General Zhang beamed with joy.

'FWIP!'

'Thud!'

"Hmm, it seems that we need to deal with the underlings first." I remarked as I caught an arrow that was going for my head.

General Zhang whistled, "not bad, little cub~ Now do you want me to help you hunt the elves? Or should you take the stage?"

'Clack!'

I aimed my rifle towards the direction where the arrow came from, and saw a slight rustle in the bush.

"Doesn't matter who does it, as long as the job gets done." I replied.

'BANG!'

The trigger was pulled, and the poor elf's soul left their body.

"Were we too loud? We got spotted." I pouted at both of them, annoyed that it meant extra work for us.

"Nah, some elves just have a heightened sense of awareness," general Zhang explained, "just like how I could feel a particular little lost cub's mana wandering around aimlessly in the forest."

Seeing his grin made me pout even more, "so that's how you stumbled upon us."

"Yup, yup! Everything happens for a reason, after all~ I don't rely on luck." General Zhang said as he gave me a wink.

'BANG!'

"Me, too. But I can't deny that luck had saved my life a few times, though." I replied after I shot another elf that was hopping from trees to trees. Probably an assassin type?

We continued to walk into the forest, and this time, led by general Zhang. We advanced slowly, taking our time to carefully check our surroundings for any signs of the elf prince.

"Hmm..." Luke groaned next to me while we crawled among the bushes.

"What is it?" I whispered. He had been getting a little bit quieter ever since general Zhang appeared, and even more so after we finished explaining the situation. Did something happen? Or was he just not fond of general Zhang?

"That white-haired guy is strange." He muttered with a low voice while leaning closer to my ear.

"I know, right?" I nodded furiously. Ah, yes, an ally!

"I think we're thinking about different types of weird," Luke smacked my head slightly, "I mean his mana... Is weird."

"Hmm?" I looked up, rubbing the part of my head where he smacked me, "maybe because he also fused? You know, just like us?"

"No, not that. Fusing isn't weird, are you calling us weird?"

"No! I was just asking, sheesh. Then, explain." I pouted.

"I knew his mana is strong, ever since we met in my lair, and he's even stronger now." Luke explained, still in a hushed voice.

"Uh-huh. People get stronger. What's weird about that?"

"It's not proportionate. He shouldn't be able to handle these elves alone for hours. Not even with his current power," Luke frowned, "that guy still has something up his sleeves."

"Hmm..." I gazed at general Zhang's back that was covered with a burnt shirt.

I guess what Luke said had some truth to it. Even though our stats differ a lot, how could he still be so full of energy after getting ganged up by elves? At least it would be more believable if he was in a bad condition.

Well, wouldn't hurt to ask, right?

"Hey, eel--"

'BOOM!'

"Ack!" I instinctively covered my ears upon hearing the sudden blast that was coming from somewhere nearby.

"Ooh~ So the fun has started?" General Zhang giggled in delight.