Fly the Flag of Fire!

"I did keep it. Undoubtedly I promise to deliver."

Marco, who receives a bunch of letters from members of the convoy, wraps them in a silk woven cloth. The work is polite and unpleasant and conveys respect for the weight of what it receives. Yarucco watched only by nodding.

"The transfer of the identity to the territorial capital will take place in three days. Call outside if you need anything."

No reply, but the gaze of the voiced men is poured on Marco with a strong fever. Yarucco snorts at this too, wondering how this boy can be around to take it without moving a little. The way your stomach sits is unusual. It is a situation in which he has lived on the battlefield for a long time and focuses on his belly down.

The men who sit with their hands and feet tied together are horse thieves. Those who were captured in the battle ahead. There are more than thirty people pushed into this tent, and there are guard corps surveillance both inside and outside. Several other tents were set up. Because there was no proper facility in town to house them.

Finally, let the surveillance crew snort, and Marco leaves the tent. Yarucco followed it but looked back. I was following Marco's back, just one point, so that the eye would bring light to itself. As he went outside, Yarucco kept the entrance and exit cloth open for a long time. The boy's back was there without leaving.

The sky is idyllic and hot again today. Fever seems like a testament to life to Yarucco. Live the world with this, and people die with this cold.

"... it's okay for me to be alone, right?

Yarucco apparently sighed unknowingly. Reply to Marco holding the package and peeking in.

"Don't treat me like an old man. Everyone hates seasons. Nong, Xia. That's all."

If I curled up so, Marco's grin bloomed small. It is Yarucco, who makes his face look even more glamorous. The good sense of this boy's conjecture has something to fear, and it doesn't make sense such as his own boring thoughts. I knew it.

"I... winter, I guess. Because I won't be able to move."

There was something far from the sound of my voice. Yarucco doesn't respond. He's seen a lot of people, and he's talked about it, so he's trying to figure out where the words are going. Marco's now. That's far. People are creatures that can fly their minds beyond time and space.

"Do you think I'm cruel?

There's nothing shaky about the blue-eyed. Again, Yarucco smiles.

"Is there a man who works in battle who doesn't?"

"I'm here. For example, you."

It was a quiet voice. Not to blame or praise, it just sounds like you're pointing the facts pale. But there is something seeping behind it, so Yarucco pushes his lower lip out to further stifle the tannic surface.

"A lot of gentle people get hurt. Because you take on other people's pain. I hope you can get drunk, but you can't do it with the help of booze."

It was a fact.

The battle against the horse thieves ended in a convoy victory, and Yarucco survived another battlefield. Infantry had infantry work to do while the cavalry was collecting military horses that had lost their riders. Admitted the death to the dead enemy, stabbed a stop to the seriously wounded enemy, and responded appropriately to the wounded enemy there, and the slightly wounded enemy tied him up. I hid and licked the liquor with Tyroli.

Later, the all-night persuasion to Marco became an embarrassing oath seat at some point, and Yarucco exchanged it of his own accord. I slept a little and mourned the dead members the next day. I did the booze with Gabriel.

War is the production of death. It is Yarucco, who has lived there without counting, and has seen an end without counting. I get used to it. What I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears can eventually be forgotten in an elephant. I can't even remember what I smelled with my nose in the first place. Maybe that has to do with Yarucco being a taste tone deaf.

But you can't just feel it.

I grabbed people, slashed people, stabbed people, slapped people. A lot. Yarucco felt each one of them tremble his own life and accumulate it in his soul. The deepest sound is heat. I can't afford the experience of something that was warm to the touch getting cold. I did have a fever until earlier, but once that fever was lost, I would never go back. Only the hand you were touching stays cold.

Alcohol warms the body. And it warms my heart, too. I'm a friend who needs to be in this life. But as I get closer with that friend, the amount of alcohol increases, and now that my old stomach has become unbearable to that amount, the intoxicating thin cold creeps up on Yarucco.

"You are strong. That's for sure. How much pain you have had before you stood here as an ancient soldier... you have warmed them by grieving and grieving firmly, even though they are all someone's pain, you are like the mother birds of the soldiers"

At least it would be my father bird, but should I have said that? Yarucco went all the way out to his throat. He blushed his cheeks without being able to say it. I did my best.

"Because you... I need you."

Without answering Marco's voice, Yarucco strengthened his strength.

"I go the path of ruthlessness. Besides, it will take a lot of people, so all the cruelty will be scattered before and behind. You will be resented a lot and feared a lot. It's not hard to imagine the end of that road."

That was neither self-derision nor self-infliction, but a tone as if counting the arrows in the arrows.

"Soldiers run with me to the dead, but never relax beneath me. Because I step on death. [M] I want you to warm it up. As long as possible… if possible…"

The words got farther and farther away, and Yarucco couldn't hear the last one. How many years from now does Marco's eye look at the future? But I felt like I was the last to say a word that wasn't good, and Yarucco snorted loudly.

"Hung! After all I've said about the spicy stuff... I don't think you know that young people have the role of young people! It's a job to treat old people as if they were in the way, or to talk about big, bright dreams like fools!

I don't like it, I'll tell you in the face, Yarucco.

"Speaking of which, you didn't even know how tasty the liquor was. You did your job of keeping the amount of liquor down or something...... man!

I turned sideways with Puy but didn't miss another grin blooming on Marco during that slight swing of my head. Yarucco was feeling his face getting strangely hot. And I don't think I have a choice. It would be young to have this kind of conversation in a simple way, but isn't it good for us to be caught again?

I'm walking with you. Much needs to be done.

Marco walking ahead is low. He seems to be working out, but not yet, shoulder-width or meaty. But Rin's stretched spine and flowing figure often showed his agility, and in a couple of years, he thought he would grow into a reliable young martial artist.

What kind of Marco would you see after seeing this?

Yarucco honestly looked forward to it, his cheeks nearly broke, but soon restrained himself from it. He is not tolerable, such as to appear in the public eye. The face, which also had many unresolved wrinkles, was gymnastically moved with a sea urchin and securely fixed to the temple.

And the night came.

Yarucco couldn't sleep as he looked up at the cloth ceiling. I hear other members snoring. The bug buzzes are also lively. Without the ceiling, the star's brightness would be repeated again.

The convoys take turns on the town's beds, but Yarucco and Oiva are always camped out. In the unlikely event that a horse thief strikes back, it is to take command immediately. Conversely, the accessories are always packed in the town branch, which is to become a politically oriented point of contact, but is perceived as useful, not to say a little. Daniel and Lauri are on their way to the territorial capital for various negotiations.

The freezing of the mind is conscious and invincible for nights spent sleepless. Yarucco wanted to drink, but he was just prompted to refrain from taking the cup. I can't even think of a complete alcohol rejection, but it seems like you can at least show the will of a veteran tonight or so.

So he decided to get drunk with a replacement. It is Marco.

What I recall is what happened the day after I mourned the members… the selection of prisoners by Marco, who took all 206 people outside to sit down and surrounded them with armed members. No one had revealed how to select them. It was just strict enough that no one, including executives, would talk about anything.

Standing on the platform, Marco spoke without a name.

"Now you have nothing. You are arrested criminals and defeated in battle. What we are waiting for after this is the death penalty or forced labour or trafficking in human beings...... there is no way left to live as a person first. No matter what purpose you have in your chest, people's dreams are what people dream of. The dream no longer belongs to you. You don't have anything."

The prisoners seemed to have no doubt whatsoever about what was said or about the human appearance age they said. I was just staring at Marco to eat in and listening. Marco was spending the day with the captives when Yarucco and the others hit him with rest and mourning, so I'm sure that affected him. I just think so.

"It's something strange," said Lauri, who often said so. It's the word of a man who knows Marco better than Yarucco. I felt this must be one of those wonders.

"Let me give you one path."

A small hand was stretched out against the prisoners, but it was as if he were the one issuing military orders to more than 10,000 soldiers.

"Choose one hundred men who will destroy me. Hundreds of people to run through the wilderness of death. The end of those who were not chosen will either be corpses, tools in the form of people, or they will stop people either way...... those who were chosen will also abandon people. Because the blade of madness that sprinkles death on the battlefield and scrapes up blood is what its hundred people should be incarnated with. I'll tailor you."

Marco's face, who said so, had terrible blue eyes.

"Breathe death, you wretched, defeated, and degraded captives. You have nothing. [M] You ran the battlefield without a flag, you're miserable. No matter how strong you get, no matter how much you put your thoughts together, you've been trapped in a swamp of violence since the beginning of things, and you can't see tomorrow."

The indicated hand flickered, so that the night breeze could soften the meadows, and raised his dark hair.

"So... hey... I'll pick you up"

What an awesome smile it was! Yarucco saw the captives sitting victorious as if the members surrounding him had been struck by lightning. He himself remembered the war, but it was not his first time so he could pretend to be at peace. The other executives would have been the same.

That was at the guard headquarters in the territorial capital. Marco had the same grin when he explained the conclusion of his analysis of horse thieves and the last time he spoke of one prediction. The hang-up is the name of one man.

Salomon.

A man who rose himself from a locally requisitioned prostitute and became a general who led more than 10,000 troops. Yarucco has had several battlefields with the man. I remember him as an extremely good commander. There was something somewhat horrible about rational soldiers by the time they were ruthless, in contrast to the flashy and heroic soldiers of the brave.

Memories staggered...... Yarucco experienced one wonder.

The figure of Marco, who smiled and invited the prisoners on the platform, was seen as a clear memory, which somehow was recalled as the figure of Salomon. A man sentenced to burning as a demon and a 10-year-old with dark hair and blue eyes overlap like something elusive and can't leave.

"I'll pick you up. out of that swamp. I'll let you stand, in the land of samurai."

Wonders keep talking. with a high voice that remains young. with a low voice immersed in the bitterness of an adult.

"I'll get you a flag, too. The flag of war we deserve. It's more red than blood, more brilliant than flames, like burning down everything that stands in your way and killing it black...... I'll let you have such a battle flag. You're the ones who list it."

My arm was stretched. Your fingers open with your palms flat up, and it bends loosely. I'm asking you out. Some kind of demonic invitation was made. Whether you are a general, a demon, an adult, or a boy... Demonic nature where everything is uncertain as a blend, but even its indissolubleness is a difficult attraction to resist.

The wonder made Yarucco drunk. So what I glimpsed afterwards must also be an illusion.

There was an army walking down the battlefield with a flag I had never seen before. A frightening army. The appearance of death on the battlefield, as if it were a flame unleashed on a dead field. Even Yarucco felt the heat. Hot. This army fever is not an ordinary thing. It may burn down the continent itself and melt it down.

The knight who was at the heart of that army... is that...?

"Whoa!?

Speaking out, Yarucco woke himself up to the world in the tent. The surroundings are full of sound. The members are tired of everyone, and the summer bugs don't get tired of singing at night. He seemed to have been asleep for a short time.

Moving on the bed with Guissili, Yarucco noticed his hands twitching and sweating. I can't feel the freeze. I had a stronger fever than when I was well drunk. The pain of the seasons is also relieved. I felt like I was young.

"... Hung, you're still an old soldier, non"

Squirting, Yarucco decided to seek sleep without cold. The continuation of illusions does not come. Yarucco thinks that's fine. Deep liquor is just as bad. The better is everything. If there was a secret to a long life, it would be.

(Long live... the most important task of a young man is to keep his life in order. Show me your death, Marco...)

Sleep soon came and Yarucco began to sleep with Suyasuya.

A grin that you can't see when you're awake was on that harsh face.