PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

′′ Then those lizardmen came out of nowhere, in a matter of minutes they annihilated my entire unit so I took my weapon and finished them all; By the time I finished the barrel of my rifle was as red as the blood of those bastards HAHAHAHA. ′′

Desmond almost stumbled when he heard a soldier brag so blatantly about the incident of the invisible killers, one had to remember that it was Desmond who had killed the lizardmen and if not for him there wouldn′t be a single survivor on the north wall.

Of course, Desmond would not be stupid enough to mention such a thing, on the contrary, Desmond was one of the people who seemed most excited to hear such a story; fateful to his role as a naive rookie Desmond had to act like one.

The person it was bragging about had become Desmond’s target, he was an older man who had a rather loose mouth and looked like he had a taste for drinking alcohol in large quantities; so all Desmond had to do was buy him beer after beer to get the old veteran to start talking.

From the mouth of the now drunken soldier, Desmond learned a thing or two, firstly, it seemed that there had been mutant beast attacks around the entire country almost simultaneously on roughly the same day this town was attacked.

More than one city had gone through serious trouble during the defensive battle but no fallen city was reported so far, the problem was that it had become obvious that something was going on with the mutant beasts for them to attack like that.

The higher-ups had found several clues of humanoid mutant beasts directing the attacks, but as all of them were always kept within the tide of mutant beasts, none of them were killed or captured; with the only exception being the lizardmen that were found in this city.

Unfortunately, the old soldier did not know anything else, it was already a miracle that he knew so much considering that the man does not seem to have a high position in the army, even so, Desmond remained in the bar a couple of hours more; buying a few beers to a couple more soldiers and acting humble so as not to stand out.

.....

At that time Desmond discovered some interesting clues, it seems that the recruitment of fresh blood by the army was not limited to a couple of cities and was rather on a national scale, even neighboring countries were nervous about all the fuss so they are likely to follow the trend.

He also discovered that because of this the army had had to open its coffers and offer all kinds of benefits for recruitment so it was the perfect time for powerful and opportunistic expects to appear; although this also meant that the military would seek to squeeze every last penny they could from the recruits.

Another detail that caught his attention was the issue of commanding officers, it seems that due to the huge recruitment campaign the military lacked officers with adequate training, so if Desmond showed up for recruitment and took the proper exams for the formal post of lieutenant was likely to gain additional favoritism from the army, which was quite in favor of his plans.

Do not forget that Desmond is at the end of the day the son of a military man and his father was not a simple soldier, Desmond’s father had been part of a special forces unit during his youth and later he was part of a special military police department; he had always been proud of his work and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps which is why he had begun to instill in Desmond all kinds of military knowledge from an early age.

Being the kind of monstrous genius that Desmond was, he had assimilated all that knowledge in a short time and although that knowledge related mainly to military protocols and regulations it was enough for Desmond to take the lieutenant exams; not to mention that in terms of combat either hand-to-hand or with a firearm Desmond was nothing short of exceptional at worst.

Having all the information Desmond came for, he started to act like he was drunk and after asking some old veterans a couple of questions about where to find a girl to warm his bed for a few coins, Desmond staggered away while the veterans laughed at the naive but lustful young man.

When leaving the bar Desmond was in a complicated frame of mind, although the situation with the military seemed complicated in reality it was the perfect opportunity for Desmond to enlist and obtain all kinds of resources so that Claire would strengthen her ability.

The reason why Desmond was in a bad mood was another matter, in the bar he heard something that bothered him, it was about Paulina the girl he had slept with after having exterminated her entire squad. It seems that the girl hadn’t done well since then; As he hear, the higher-ups did not take very kindly that the girl deserted so they had been harassing her ever since trying to make her return to the army.

It had been Desmond’s idea for the girl to quit the army and it made a lot of sense, the girl just wasn’t cut out for it, the problem is that the military didn’t care and normally Desmond wouldn’t care either, he hardly knew the girl and he had never been the type to feel responsible just for sleeping with someone.

But a lot had changed in his life and he had changed a lot, not that he was in love with the girl or anything like that, but he still felt a bit responsible for everything that happened that day; but there was little that Desmond could do now ... of course once his plans to join the army were completed it would be a different story ... having thought so far and deciding in his heart, Desmond disappeared into the dead of night and no one else would see the naive young soldier named John again.