Chapter 52: Cream Cheese and Casualties

Commander Garran Holtz reached the western station sometime after noon, and the condition of the horse beneath him made it obvious that he had not taken his time to reach the station.

News of High General Elinox Holmes’ arrival had reached the section where he was stationed less than an hour earlier. The commander had already been preparing to send several reports west, so he took them himself and brought Ollie along because Maela had a separate set of casualty records and supply requests that needed to reach the western medical staff.

The moment Holtz entered the station, he handed his horse to one of the soldiers near the road and asked where the High General was. Several officers were already moving toward the command area, and after receiving an answer, he went in the same direction without waiting for the people who had traveled with him.

Ollie had barely gotten down from his own horse when someone called his name from farther ahead.

"Ollie!"

He turned toward the voice and saw Zishan standing beside one of the supply wagons.

The relief on his face did not last very long.

Zishan had changed clothes since the last time Ollie saw him, though enough of the bandaging remained visible around his shoulder and beneath the opening of his uniform that there was no hiding what had happened. He was also standing strangely, keeping some of the pressure away from his side whenever he moved.

Ollie left the soldier holding his horse and headed toward him.

"What happened to you?" the little boy asked.

Zishan had been smiling until then. "Why does everyone ask that before asking how I’m doing?"

"Because you’re injured," Ollie replied. "Of course, I’m worried!"

"Well, I’m doing great. Thank you for asking."

Ollie stopped in front of him and looked over the bandages again. Zishan had already gone through enough examinations that morning, so he stepped away when Ollie reached toward his shoulder.

"I’ve been treated. The injuries are still healing, and my abdomen hurts if I move too much, but that’s already much better than getting kicked through the battlefield again."

Ollie stared at him.

Zishan realized what part of the explanation had gone wrong.

"Ah. You don’t know about that," he said, sighing. "Sorry about that."

Curious, Ollie couldn’t help but ask, "Who kicked you through the battlefield?"

"That’s a long story to tell, Ollie..."

Ollie’s expression became worse.

Zishan sighed. "There was a Level 99 Beast Tamer. His name was Larper, quite a strange name, but regardless, well, he tried to kill me. I tried very hard not to die, and everything worked out in the end because I’m still here."

It was not the entire story, though Zishan thought that was enough for an overview.

Ollie had already started looking at his injuries like he wanted to drag him to the nearest healer, but Zishan told him he had no intention of spending the rest of the afternoon lying on another cot.

The Lieutenant from earlier had come out to meet Commander Holtz near the command area. He gave the commander a short explanation about what had happened since Elinox arrived, then led him inside along with several other officers who had been called there.

Zishan watched them disappear through the entrance. "Commander Holtz came here just because of the High General?"

Ollie adjusted the satchel hanging from his shoulder. "He was already supposed to receive reports from this station, but when someone told him High General Holmes was here, we left before I could even finish eating."

Zishan looked toward the horses behind them.

He had seen Commander Holtz move with purpose before. The man rarely wasted time when something involved the battlefield, and the arrival of an eighteen-year-old Level 1,510 High General seemed to qualify as something worth speeding across several military positions for.

Ollie was still looking at him.

More specifically, at his abdomen.

Zishan noticed after a while. "I’m not dying."

"I didn’t say you were," Ollie argued. "I’m just worried about you. After all, you were the one who saved my life!"

Ollie then asked how long the healers had told him to rest. Zishan gave him an answer vague enough that Ollie asked the question again, which made him realize that changing the subject was probably easier.

He remembered the conversation they had been having before everything went wrong yesterday. "Do you know what cream cheese frosting is?"

Ollie paused.

The question had fortunately done its job.

"What?" Ollie asked, curious again.

"Cream cheese frosting. I realized earlier that I’ve only explained normal frosting to you."

Ollie looked at him for several seconds, probably wondering how they had moved from battlefield injuries to that.

Zishan didn’t wait for him to understand.

He leaned against the supply wagon and started explaining that cupcakes could have far more than one type of frosting. Buttercream was the obvious one because it was easy to work with and held its shape well, though too much sugar could ruin it. Cream cheese frosting had a different taste and worked better with certain cakes. Whipped cream was lighter, chocolate ganache could be used in several ways depending on how much cream was added, and there were also meringue-based frostings that required far more work.

Ollie listened while holding the reports against his side.

He had heard Zishan talk about cupcakes enough times to know stopping him, after he began babbling, was harder than simply letting him finish.

"Then, there... we have fillings," Zishan continued. "Chocolate, caramel, custard, jam, lemon curd, pastry cream. You can make the same cupcake taste completely different just by changing what’s inside or what you put on top. That’s why I keep telling you that whatever small cakes you’ve seen here aren’t automatically cupcakes."

Ollie remembered the pastry Zishan had bought him several days ago and wisely chose not to mention it. He was more interested in the fact that Zishan kept shifting whenever he had been standing in one position for too long.

"Your side still hurts," Ollie suddenly said.

Zishan looked down at it. "Of course it does. I almost got folded several times yesterday."

"Then, shouldn’t you be resting now, sir?" Ollie tried to make himself sound polite. He realized he had not been polite with Zishan all this time. At least from his point of view.

"I rested the whole morning," Zishan replied.

"That’s quite short, sir."

"It felt long to me already, though."

Ollie had already spent enough time around Zishan to know that arguing about rest would probably take longer than the rest itself. He stayed beside him instead, keeping an eye on the way he moved while Zishan went back to explaining why frosting should never overpower the actual cake. Ollie got lost in the conversation and completely forgot he was there for a task that Maela had for him.

Neither of them noticed when the atmosphere inside the command area changed.

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Commander Holtz entered the main hall with the Lieutenant and found most of the senior officers already gathered there. Some of them were already higher than the Lieutenant himself in terms of rank, Captains and Majors mainly.

Several maps had already been spread across the large table in the center, showing the western defensive line, the captured Eastern Reserve Station, nearby supply routes, and several enemy positions across the border.

Elinox stood at the opposite side.

The officers bowed when she looked toward them, and Commander Holtz joined them after taking his place.

He had only raised his head again when a heavy pressure settled over his body.

His boots sank slightly into the ground.

It was not enough to force him down, though the weight continued increasing until his armor felt several times heavier than before. The Lieutenant beside him felt part of the same pressure, along with every officer inside the hall.

However, the commander himself received most of it.

Elinox looked directly at him. "How did you overlook the Eastern Reserve Station’s safety?"

Commander Holtz had expected the question from the moment he learned she had returned.

"We maintained forces at the Reserve Station even after the Western Stampede began, High General. The station still had its assigned troops, along with the barrier crews, artillery teams, and eastern patrols. When the western line started requesting reinforcements, I refused to pull everyone out and only authorized part of the mobile force to move," he explained.

Elinox waited for the rest.

Commander Holtz explained that the Reserve Station had continued sending reports during the western attack. An earlier patrol had found no large movement near the border. Another report arrived through the military relay network after part of the mobile force left, followed by a later confirmation that also passed their normal verification.

Everything said the same thing.

The east remained clear.

"The forward relay had already been compromised before the stampede reached its worst point," the commander continued. "We only learned that after the station fell. The enemy had taken control of the relay point and used it to send reports that passed our normal verification."

Several officers around the table remained silent.

"The second report came through another relay point, so we treated it as separate confirmation. We were wrong. Both locations still depended on information passing through the same eastern network. Once they controlled the source, they could feed the same false report through both."

Elinox glanced down at the map. "And the physical patrols?"

"The next patrol we sent failed to return. I sent another group through the ravine because the main road was already being used to move reinforcements west. That team disappeared as well. Enemy soldiers had taken positions along the route before we knew the eastern line was under attack."

Commander Holtz forced himself to raise at least a hand and pointed toward several markings near the Reserve Station.

"They knew our procedures. The stampede put enough pressure on the western line that redeploying part of the reserve became reasonable, then the false reports kept us from realizing the eastern attack had already started. When communication stopped entirely, we were already dealing with breaches here."

Elinox listened to everything before speaking again. "They knew what you were going to check."

The commander nodded.

"They knew what answer you expected from every check," she continued.

"Yes, High General."

The pressure around his shoulders became heavier.

Several officers bent farther as Gravity spread across the entire hall. The table gave a low creak, and a crack appeared along the ground near one of its legs.