Arknights, Suika's Messenger Journey

Suika sat up straight. "Great Yan has a saying: where there's a will, there's a way. It means that if you set a goal and are willing to work for it, there'll always come a day when you succeed.

Conversely, if you don't even have a goal, you'll never have a chance to succeed."

"So your goal is to travel across Terra?" Alina tilted her head as she looked at Suika. Though Suika looked very young, what she said made far more sense than anything Alina could have come up with.

"That's right. I don't want to look back on my life someday when I'm old and realize I accomplished nothing, that I'd just been an ordinary, unremarkable person all my life.

But I'm not like Talulah, someone with unique charisma who's good at bringing others together. So I can only start with myself and change myself. My goal is to travel all over Terra, then write a travelogue about it. Maybe I'll even become a great writer famous throughout Terra."

Suika gazed at the twin moons in the sky, recalling the impulse that had arisen from the depths of her heart when she learned she had come to this world. She couldn't help feeling full of lofty ambition.

"That's amazing!" Alina clapped her hands, then suddenly remembered something when she saw what was on them.

"Oh, right. Let me help you take care of your horns. I found the wax I bought before while cleaning up the house. It'd be such a waste if we moved and I tossed it somewhere or forgot about it."

Suika didn't refuse. She lay down, resting her head on Alina's lap.

Not far away, Talulah, who had heard their entire conversation, turned and disappeared behind a large tree.

The next day, Suika helped Alina carry a bundle of clothes as they followed the convoy along the evacuation route.

That afternoon, when the crowd passed through the forest and reached a riverbank, dozens of Ursus soldiers suddenly appeared in the distance.

Both sides froze when they saw each other.

The Reunion Movement thought they had already escaped Ursus's pursuit, while the Ursus soldiers never expected that getting lost would lead them straight to Reunion Movement members.

Especially when they saw that nearly everyone here was old, weak, sick, or disabled, they immediately felt military merit beckoning to them.

"Run!" Alina grabbed Suika and tried to flee.

Suika reached out and stopped her.

"No. Most of us are elderly people, children, and patients. We can't outrun these Ursus soldiers."

"Then what do we do?" Alina asked anxiously.

At the moment, Talulah was leading a group at the front to clear the way, while Patriot and FrostNova were bringing the Shieldguards and Yeti Squad up the rear. None of them had expected the central group to run into Ursus soldiers.

Even if both groups rushed back, it would take more than ten minutes. There was no time.

"I'll handle it. I've been eating for free here for so long, after all. It's about time I did something to help everyone."

Suika patted Alina's shoulder to reassure her, then walked alone toward the Ursus soldiers charging straight at them.

Only when they were less than ten meters apart did Suika calmly take out the Ibuki Gourd and pull out a wine cup.

"Greetings, heroes! How about a drink before we fight!"

The charging Ursus soldiers seemed possessed after Suika finished speaking. They stopped what they were doing and walked over to her.

"Come on, come on. Two cups each. Don't rush, don't panic. Line up and drink!"

While the crowd was still fleeing in terror at the arrival of the Ursus soldiers, Alina stared in shock from afar as Suika stood there with a cheerful smile, pouring drink after drink and knocking every last Ursus soldier to the ground.

"Done!" After the final soldier collapsed drunk onto the ground, Suika turned and gave Alina, who was too stunned by the bizarre scene to speak, a thumbs-up.

"This..." Alina felt that she had seen plenty while following Talulah, but she had never imagined someone would offer the enemy a drink on a battlefield. The key was that, despite the tension, the enemy had actually stopped and accepted the drinks.

And gotten drunk.

For a moment, she felt as though her entire worldview and outlook on life had suffered a devastating blow.

"Alina!" Talulah came rushing over with an anxious expression, snapping Alina out of her stupor over Suika's "fighting style."

"Are you all right?"

After arriving, Talulah ran her hands all over Alina, only relaxing once she found no injuries.

"She, I..." Alina had no idea what to say.

"Where are the enemies?" FrostNova, who had been at the rear, had received the news and arrived as well, bringing a chill with her.

Alina pointed at the Ursus soldiers lying on the ground nearby. Only then did Talulah and Alina realize that aside from those few men on the ground, there were no wounds, no bloodstains, and no other corpses around.

When they got closer, they smelled the heavy stench of alcohol coming from the Ursus soldiers.

They were familiar with that smell. It was exactly the same as the alcohol Suika had been giving the hospital patients as "anesthetic" these past few days.

"So, you two aren't even going to ask me?" Suika said helplessly after being ignored by them.

Singing While Drunk

Hearing Suika's voice, the others looked down and found her sitting nearby with bleary, drunken eyes.

"What exactly...?"

Yelena refused to believe those soldiers had suddenly gone mad on the battlefield and decided to compete with Suika in drinking.

And it hadn't been just one or two of them. It had been all of them.

And they had lost.

Ursus people might enjoy drinking and sometimes had little restraint, but that didn't mean they would drink under any circumstances.

At the very least, no one would get roaring drunk with the enemy on a battlefield.

After all, no matter how delicious the drink was, it wasn't worth more than one's life. No one would throw away their life for a mouthful of alcohol.

"Hehe, just a little mental suggestion."

Suika held up a tiny gap between her fingers.

"Their goal was to defeat us. There's no doubt about that. I just needed to make them think that beating me in a drinking contest also counted as winning. Then getting them to stop wasn't hard."

After hearing Suika's explanation, everyone's expressions became rather strange.

"Then why did you choose a drinking contest?"

"Just like you saw, because they definitely can't drink more than me!"

Suika said it as though it were only natural.

Just as Yelena was about to say something else, Patriot arrived from behind with the Shieldguards.

Seeing this, Talulah said,

"Now isn't the time to ask questions. We need to leave."

Patriot didn't know what had happened here, but he agreed with Talulah. Staying was too dangerous, because the Ursus army would catch up soon.

"What about these people?" Yelena asked, pointing at the drunken Ursus soldiers nearby.

"Leave them here. They can buy us some time." After saying that, Talulah looked at Suika.

"Although I don't know how you did this, thank you for saving everyone."

"No need for formalities. I didn't do it just to save everyone else. I was saving myself too.

This place is too dangerous. Let's go!"

Suika looked in the direction they had come from. In the forest not far away, feathered beasts circled in the sky without daring to land. It was obvious that people had appeared there.

Now that even Patriot, who had been at the very rear of the Reunion Movement, had arrived here, the people in the forest could only be the pursuing Ursus army.

Less than ten minutes after the group left, the Ursus army arrived.

When the leader saw the soldiers sprawled all over the ground, he initially thought they had been killed by the Reunion Movement.

But as soon as he approached, the overpowering smell of alcohol made the veins on his forehead throb.

After checking, it was exactly as expected. These soldiers had all collapsed here drunk.

"Damn it! Those Reunion Movement rats must have gone this way. If these idiots hadn't gotten drunk and delayed us, we would've already caught their trail."

The leader furiously prepared to execute all the soldiers who had delayed military affairs by drinking.

But the adjutant beside him stopped him.

"Lieutenant, something isn't right.

I know these men. They're our soldiers, loyal warriors. Not long ago, before we split up, they followed our plan to pursue those Reunion Movement members.

Besides, there's no alcohol in the army. How could they have gotten drunk like this in such a short time?"

"Then wake them up and find out what happened!"

The leader naturally understood that something was suspicious, but the credit for capturing the Reunion Movement had been right in front of him, only to slip away before his eyes. It left him furious.

Combined with the fact that these men had actually been drinking on the battlefield, he had nearly decided to execute them on the spot.

After the adjutant's reminder, he also noticed how strange it was. He knew his own soldiers. No matter how fond of drink or how prone to drunkenness they were, they would never drink themselves into this state on the enemy's likely route.

After spending several minutes forcibly waking a few soldiers, the lieutenant walked up to one of them.

"What happened to you? I ordered you to search for those Reunion Movement rats. Why did you all get drunk...?"

Hearing his superior's question, the man clutched his head and tried to recall what had happened.

"We found the old, weak, sick, and disabled people protected in the middle. The captain led us in preparing to attack them.

Then... ah..."

The soldier fell silent at that point, because he couldn't explain why his group had suddenly started competing in drinking with a little girl on a battlefield.

And, worse still, they had all been drunk under the table by that girl.

The others being questioned wore expressions as though the sky had fallen. None of them could understand why they had acted that way.

"Could they have been hit by Originium Arts?" someone in the group suggested.

After he said that, the soldiers all nodded in sudden realization. Since they couldn't explain why they had suddenly done something so absurd, the only possibility was that the other side possessed mysterious Originium Arts that had reduced them to this state.

"Take them back and have the army's casters examine them thoroughly.

The rest of you, keep following me."

After hearing their accounts, the lieutenant found it too bizarre. His soldiers had suddenly put down their weapons in the middle of battle to compete in drinking with a child from the other side, and all of them had gotten drunk.

The report sounded absurd no matter how he thought about it. At that moment, he also suspected that someone in the Reunion Movement possessed strange Originium Arts. To keep himself from falling victim as well, he ordered casters to examine the men.

He led the rest of his subordinates onward, following the traces left behind by the Reunion Movement during their evacuation.

But after being delayed here for more than ten minutes, the Reunion Movement had gone much farther away. In the end, he failed to catch up with them.

Meanwhile, after successfully escaping the Ursus pursuit, everyone in the Reunion Movement finally relaxed.

Inside the temporary camp, Talulah and the other officers discussed their plans going forward.

After the discussion ended, Yelena looked at Talulah and asked,

"Are you planning to keep that child called Suika with us?"

Talulah thought for a few seconds, then nodded.

"I'm certain she didn't come to Ursus merely because she was curious about our Reunion Movement, as she claimed.

But ever since she arrived, she hasn't done anything that harmed any of us. She even saved everyone earlier.

Even though she's very mysterious and there are all sorts of doubts surrounding her, we can't turn someone away simply because they have secrets they're hiding.

Don't forget why the Reunion Movement was founded. It was to resist Ursus's unjust treatment of us Infected.

But that doesn't mean we should be completely hostile toward the uninfected.

More precisely, resisting tyranny while winning over ordinary Ursus people at the bottom, allowing more Infected to survive—that is the path we should take."

The Day That Will Eventually Arrive

"Ibuki Suika having secrets is her own business. It has nothing to do with the Reunion Movement.

Besides, are you really going to drive away someone who saved us?"

Faced with Talulah's question, Yelena had nothing more to say.

Even if Ibuki Suika had schemes and secrets, before she revealed them, she was still a benefactor of the Reunion Movement.

If they thought not about repaying someone who had helped the Reunion Movement, but about driving her out instead, word getting out would be extremely harmful to the Reunion Movement's recruitment.

Even if ordinary Ursus people wouldn't join an organization made entirely of Infected, the Reunion Movement still needed ordinary people for many things—food, for example.

"I think Talulah is right. Secrets are normal. If she isn't an enemy, no need to deal with her." Patriot spoke from the side, settling the discussion concerning Ibuki Suika.

Elsewhere, in the new house, Alina looked curiously at Suika.

"Why have you been staring at me?" Sitting on a stool, Suika read a sentence from a book aloud, then rewarded herself with a sip of alcohol. Feeling Alina's gaze, she scratched the back of her head.

"Can you really never get drunk?" Alina calculated that, from the beginning until now, Suika had drunk enough alcohol to knock out two grown men even if measured by quantity.