112: Sanders

Sanders

South Carolina, the Graham House.

The moonlight shone brightly, illuminating two old men in the backyard. They were each sitting on a comfy couch, staring at each other with a weird smug smile.

"Are you sure they can manage this?" The first old man asked with a worried expression.

"They'll be fine. This grandson-in-law of mine is very slick in escaping, so even if he fails, nothing will happen." Nathan shrugged.

"Oi, we're still talking about a few thousand of our soldiers." He glared at him, telling him to get serious.

"I know. I want him to accumulate experiences in the front lines as much as possible since he will marry my lovely granddaughter. If we are talking about his brain, as far as I know, every time he gives an order, it's only after he has fully calculated in advance how many of them he expects to die. Being smart alone is not enough…" Nathan sighed.

"So you are training him by using my son?" He was a bit annoyed.

"Of course," he admitted it with a poker face, not feeling any guilt. "Though, I also have another objective in mind."

"That little lass?"

"Yeah."

The old man narrowed his eyes. "It's all good, but I feel that the movement of magical beasts this time is very weird. Unlike a normal horde, they give off a stench."

"Someone is controlling them?" He furrowed his eyebrows.

"I think so. Under normal circumstances, magical beasts move with their instincts, but this time, they gave off a weird stench to my nose. This is why I allowed that brat to take control of the base. I remember that he managed to locate a base that those useless elites could not. Maybe, he could discover something from this incident."

"I see…" Nathan looked down, pondering for a while. "Well, Tasha can use teleportation magic to escape, so I guess it's fine."

"I won't underestimate them if I were you."

He tilted his head in confusion, noticing that they were not on the same page. Out of curiosity, he asked, "Who are they?"

"This is because you have retired from the military for too long, and you made this plan without discussing it with your son…" He sighed. "They are…"

They continued to discuss the matter, making Nathan's expression darken. At first, he thought about canceling the mission, but he decided not to. Ultimately, he chose to believe Kai's power, but still planned on sending 500 elite soldiers from their Graham House.

…

On the other hand, Kai and the others just arrived at the military base and were currently meeting a brown-haired middle-aged man. His muscular body gave a sense of ferocity, telling them he was a fighter like them, not an office general.

"Ah, you are…" Michelle instantly recognized this person. As the son of her grandfather's best friend, she had seen him on a few occasions.

"You must be Sir Nathan's granddaughter, Michelle. A pleasure to meet you here." He nodded before looking at the two men beside her. He checked which one had headphones on and asked to confirm, "You're Kai Carter, right?"

"Yes."

"I've seen your report about the battle in Prince Rupert and the record of your battle against Eagle Group. Although part of it is because my old man says so, I welcome you as my deputy.

"I'll treat you as my intern advisor in this base and let you take command of the army. However, when I feel I need to step in, you are not to give any orders anymore, are we clear?"

"I understand." He certainly understood how absurd it was for a student to command the army, more so a young man less than 18 years old. If not because of the good record where he managed to save the soldiers in Prince Rupert, he would most likely have declined even if the request came from his old man.

"Good. A pleasure to work with you. My name is Sanders. You can just call me Sir Sanders or General Sanders," he stretched his hand for a handshake.

Kai knew that they couldn't get too familiar. Even Michelle still had to call him the same despite their relationship, so Kai smiled and shook his hand. "Yes, Sir."

"We have an empty room in a barrack, so assuming you have no issue in sleeping with your entire group, I will lead you there. We can talk tomorrow morning."

Kai glanced at his teammates, including Sanae, and saw that they had no qualms. "Thank you, Sir."

Sanders then led him to their room and left.

The room had one table for reading and five bunk beds, which was supposed to be a small ten-person room.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, since there were only five of them, they agreed to each take a bunk bed for themselves, using the top bed to place their luggage.

"What are we going to do tomorrow?" Michelle asked Kai.

Kai didn't answer her immediately. Instead, he looked over the map, checking the terrain around the area.

Seeing this, Sanae also took out her communication device and searched for the map before furrowing her eyebrows.

"Fifteen thousand sea creatures and five thousand flying beasts…" Sanae muttered to herself, weighing something in her mind.

The room fell into silence. Meanwhile, Evan only stared at them, not doing anything. Michelle walked to Kai, sitting beside him as she looked at the map, also not saying anything. On the other hand, Tasha simply had no interest in this as she was never good with this kind of stuff.

Kai let out a long sigh, followed by Sanae also sighing. Michelle tilted her head in confusion, "What is it? Is there any problem with this battle?"

"I'll just let him explain it." Sanae shrugged, pointing her finger at Kai.

Kai let her see the map and asked, "According to our position, where do you think we'll fight?"

"Hmm… This base is close to the sea, so around this base," she answered with an unsure tone.

"Well… The magical beasts would surely spread out if we fight around the base, so we need to move our fronts elsewhere. According to the information provided by Sir Nathan, they came from the direction of The Bahamas. If I were the general, I would move my soldiers to three fronts.

"I would station a thousand soldiers in the hill on our left, giving them the terrain advantage. In the middle, there's a small town that we can use to slow them down. On the other hand, in the right field, we only have a large wheat field, without any advantage at all," he explained.

"So, they are going to have the most brutal fight?"

"You can say so, but there's another problem with this… and I assume this is the reason Teacher Sanae sighed." Kai glanced at Sanae, who nodded her head.

"You're right. The problem is the number. They have twenty thousand, while we only have four thousand. It's already far too disadvantageous considering how we won't only be fighting sea creatures alone. I would also split the soldiers the same way Kai would, with a thousand reserve soldiers to fight the flying beasts. As for the problem, you can explain it." Sanae shrugged, not wanting to say more.

Kai nodded and continued. "Their number is too big. With how the magical beasts usually move, they'll certainly split evenly. For example, if the right army is hit by five thousand sea creatures alone, they would need at least two days before they could fight them… In other words, the soldiers would fight tirelessly like magical beasts, leaving them at a disadvantage."

"That's the purpose of the terrain?"

"Yeah. The middle and left armies should be able to finish them by splitting their groups into two and doing rotations. This way, we can conserve the soldiers' strength.

"Unfortunately, the right army has none of that. Even if we send our reserve soldiers, we need to be wary of the flying beasts." He sighed.

"I somehow understand it." Michelle nodded. "Should we go to the right army and kill those magical beasts? I mean, Tasha can teach them how to fly again."

"My limit is two thousand," Tasha added, afraid that they would put too much expectation on her.

"Three thousand left… still not enough with that open field and no pincer attack…" Kai closed his eyes, picturing how the battle would progress.

Evan suggested to him, "I can stay in the right army to heal as many as I can. Although I can't recover their energy, with a few hours of recovery, they should be able to enter the fight again."

"Yeah. That's also what I have in mind, but I still need to see if there are other ways." He looked at Sanae and asked, "Teacher, do you want to add something? Maybe I'm missing something. Please share your wisdom."

"My wisdom? Why are you talking as if I'm already elderly? I'm only 7 or 8 years older than you." She snorted.

"Well, I have a few suggestions, but they won't affect your plan that much except this one advice. Take a look at the town's position." Sanae shrugged.

Kai couldn't understand her advice and took a look at the map again. He stared at the town, the hill, and the wheat field for a while, formulating a plan. He smiled and muttered, "Interesting."

Sanae just shrugged, the corners of her mouth lifting a little.

…2

At the same time.

Ayaka arrived at her destination, finding a run-down house in front of her.

She left the group for a while just to seek a person according to Nathan's instruction. Gathering her resolve for the last time, she finally took a step forward and rang the bell.

"I've been waiting for you, come in."

A woman's voice could be heard from inside, prompting her to open the door. She gulped before opening the door slowly and stepping inside. "Excuse me."

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