There were rigorous lessons every day, using the stone of writing, a white piece of stone we used to write on rocks, Slaine gave us the lessons on the new tactics we never have heard of, there were also some tactics that relied on shock power, ambush, hiding and hiding in the shadows.

He also knew more about the dark elves, although he didn"t tell us where he got the information he told us about their thought process.

Back then when we were still on toe-to-toe against them, we didn"t try to understand the enemy — we were too shaken, prideful and we let our emotions flow out, and we merely looked at them as mindless murderers and monsters, that could only be wiped out by force, however he was different from us, he understood the enemy and even got this information that could turn the tides of war.

On the practical training day, we will be using the knowledge that he gave us in order to fight the enemy. I wonder how he will train us?

But I was naïve, the "practical training" that he told us, was to ambush small camps of dark-elves with him.

"Slaine… are you really sure about this?"

I told him as we were at a p.r.o.ne position at the top of the hill while we watched the small camp of dark-elves, in their mindless activities, some of them sharpened their weapons, some of them fed their beasts and some of them cooked food and some of them played with the slaves they have caught, they were clearly female elves.

Seeing the sight made me want to vomit and erase them from this world once and for all. However, I was also reminded of the terror of those species after facing them many times, and what it meant to fight them if you think on their level.

"What? If you have time to ask, can you give me the enemy count now?"

After teaching us for so long, he became so fluent in elven that he seemed to become a different person compared to when I met him first.

Despite being fluent though, he is hard to communicate as he has terms we didn"t know before, that sometimes I would just sigh and give up. He would then click his tongue insultingly to me not being able to know what he means.

Or was he really clicking his tongue because I don"t understand him? Or because he can"t make me understand what he means? He is a hard fellow to understand, but he isn"t as friendly as I thought he would be.

The misunderstanding was because of the language barrier.

But I know from deep inside, he is a righteous person.

I think I have become closer to him in the past month, I"m the only one he could speak to in a straight manner, without any reserve, unlike when he"s speaking with the higher ups.

Because, even when he is fluent, he"s still reclusive to others aside from me. After all, we sleep in the same quarters, that has two rooms, in order for me to attend to his needs in writing the plans.

He also has a good hand in drawing, though it was becoming very hard to understand lately.

It"s not that I"m special, it"s because I"m the one who does lots of things for him, it"s a natural part of the work a.s.signed to me by the council of ten, and also it"s my opportunity to work for him and learn from him just like what an apprentice would do.

"Hah… you really have been rude to me lately… wait, weren"t you rude to me from the beginning?"

"E-NE-MY COU-NT."

He murmured under his bandana as he counted something on his belt, which he called "utility belt" its the first time I heard such a pairing of words.

"Two hundred… Three hundred… Four hundred…. climbing up to Fi-Five Hundred! It"s around five hundred! It isn"t an ordinary camp we can use for that training you planned for Slaine!"

I stuttered as he pressured to give him the numbers immediately.

"Against a measly half-battalion? Did you really fight at that defensive war against many divisions?"

"But… Slaine… it"s… half a battalion you know… we only have 10 squads… I have notice for a while but your view point is a bit… "

"A bit?"

"No… nevermind."

I prevented myself for digging a deeper hole.

"Ah, I might have been mistaken, I should call them a mob of monsters or something, calling them a battalion has caused some misunderstanding and is an insult to real soldiers. How silly of me."

"Real… soldiers? It"s been long since real soldiers have perished, what are the soldiers in your country like?"

"Stop the small talk, we have to start soon."

He"s been unfriendly to me lately just like this… but if this is what makes him comfortable, I"m fine with it. It makes me feel better he"s getting used to his daily life at the camp. It eases some of my worries about him.

Wait… why am I even getting worried? I should be worried about myself first if I could keep up with this man, just look at his absurd viewpoint in this battle!

"Okay, just the right numbers… everyone, mission start!"

He puts his index finger and thumb together to his mouth and whistles.

What followed was the screech of the bird named Eagle, Slaine gave orders to Eagle, and Eagle screeched the orders in one long screech.

There were also other patterns we have devised in order to understand orders coming from Eagle.

Because Slaine can"t learn Mr. Wistari"s communication magic, it"s the best way he can give orders without being noticed, and we the squads will communicate with the communication person in our squads.

Eagle"s screech reached the other elves who hid at the hills scattered in squads and the communication started to happen between us.

All of us wore our new clothes, these looked like our usual uniforms except that it"s color was very different from before, it looked very irregular and strange, to be honest it doesn"t look good to me.

Also, the new uniform is stuffy and hides our legs and our arms, we could still move freely but this uniform makes it hard for us to climb on trees, but thanks to this even when we are near the enemy they haven"t spotted us yet. I hope Mr. Alre would make a version for this where it"s easy to jump on trees, its too heavy at the moment.

Our uniform in the past was just clothes Ms. Alre made for us. It"s usually a bright green cloth with a brown belt and a red bandana, ribbon or armband, which symbolizes our resistance.

The new version is still green however there are patches of different colors of green which makes us able to blend naturally with the forest and the surrounding area — it"s an astonis.h.i.+ng idea, and strangely… it feels like this kind of uniform was made for us to be able to make p.r.o.ne positions like this.

Does wars like this happen in Slaine"s home country? Maybe he isn"t really from the continent after all.

As if he has been in non-honourable wars and battles where sneaking behind the enemy"s back is the norm. It"s too irregular and unfair, but as he has said before, it"s what has to be done in order to win. The dark-elves also has their own tricks, such as taking hostages, this is why the first objective of this mission is to save the slaves before they can use them as hostages.

After eagle screeched he swooped down to Andrei and carried him at the shoulder.

When I see them both, it just looked like Slaine have grown fierce and mighty black wings.

He loaded his weapon, called the gun and loaded a golden bullet to it.

"Hey… maggots, up here!"

He screamed at them in elven, and fired the bullet where a lightning magic circle appeared in the air in front of his weapon.

A roaring thunder cracked and blasted the ground of the camp, however no dark-elves was. .h.i.t. But this is all within his plans that we laid out on the quarters.

In order for us to learn, he knew he had to be the diversion, but I didn"t know that being a diversion can become so cool as he hovered in the skies of the camp.