Aaron, and the Frontline Soldiers Reading the Newspaper!

December 21.

Only ten days remained until the arrival of 2966.

Nijia, Republic of Burkina.

The frontline positions.

Although they were farther north, there was little snow on the ground.

There were only sunken trenches, pitch-black shell craters, and cold corpses... crisscrossing and scattered haphazardly across the battlefield.

Life was so precious, yet so cheap.

As far as the eye could see,

there were over a hundred corpses on this battlefield alone!

Whose fathers had they been? Whose sons? Whose husbands?

Behind each of these corpses might have been a shattered family!

In the air,

apart from the acrid smell of gunpowder, there was the nauseating stench of blood.

And... the foul odor given off by decomposing corpses!

But this was war!

In the sky, a black crow flapped its wings, flew beneath the white clouds, and finally landed on a corpse that had begun to rot.

Judging by its clothing, the corpse was probably a National Liberation Alliance militant.

Roughly a dozen meters west of the corpse

lay trenches controlled by government troops. Judging by the military flag planted on their position, this unit's designation was-

The 213th Battalion, 2nd Infantry Brigade, Dugagu Division.

After becoming absolutely certain that Claude, Bal, and the others-men who were not warlords but outdid warlords-had thoroughly fallen into line,

the Ministry of National Defense began following Sankara's supreme directive, ordering the troops stationed in Nijia to join the battlefield and take part in combat in battalion- and company-sized units, rotating every two days.

Of course, to prevent anything unexpected from happening,

the positions they held were mostly of little importance, and the fighting would not be too intense either.

This would achieve the goal of "using actual combat in place of training."

The plan had been in effect for five days.

The 213th Battalion was the third unit rotated in, having only taken over this position from the 212th Battalion that morning.

Behind the position,

a group of soldiers serving as reserves were chatting quietly.

To avoid being picked off by enemy snipers, none of them wore rank insignia, so for the moment, they could only be called soldiers.

"I heard the 211th Battalion, the first ones sent up, lost eight dead and twenty-five wounded. The 212th Battalion that just pulled out lost five dead and thirty-two wounded."

"Hiss... that many casualties in just two days of fighting?!"

"Our position is one of the better ones. I heard the positions held by those local troops are where it's really bad. At worst, they suffered over a hundred casualties in a single day!"

"Anyway, what kind of results can our battalion get? I heard the 211th Battalion killed or wounded 147 enemies. The 212th Battalion did even better, killing or wounding 201!"

"Killing enemies? We'll be lucky not to die here ourselves!"

"Pah! You and that crow's mouth of yours!"

"Exactly! With all this good equipment, how could we get killed so easily? Didn't you see that the vast majority of the casualties in the previous two battalions were wounded?"

Their conversation showed that they were not actually all that afraid, though their tones revealed that they were still somewhat nervous.

But that was entirely understandable.

After all, most of them were recruits who had only trained for a little over a month. Some nervousness was inevitable!

Just as their conversation was getting lively,

a soldier jogged toward them along the trench, bent at the waist, a stack of newspapers in his hands. As he drew near, he said:

"Aaron, Aaron! Here's today's new paper. Hurry up and tell us what interesting things are in it today!"

"Wow!"

"We're already out on the front line, and you can still get newspapers, Platoon Leader?!"

"You're fucking amazing, Platoon Leader!"

"Aaron, hurry up and tell us!"

"That story yesterday was really good. Too bad we have to wait a week for the next installment."

The soldiers were astonished.

The Aaron they spoke of... was precisely the Aaron who had dropped out of school to enlist, the one William and William's mother worried about.

At that moment, Aaron wore camouflage fatigues and a thick bulletproof vest.

He held an all-black fully automatic rifle in his arms, its design somewhat resembling a black AK-47, with grenades hanging from his chest and magazines filling his belt.

His once somewhat boyish face now held only resolve. His tanned skin had not diminished his looks; instead, it made his already handsome face look even more striking.

Even his eyes, once somewhat dispirited and lost, now shone like stars in the sky, as though filled with hope!

No one knew just what Aaron had experienced in the army to become like this, as though he were an entirely different person.

Perhaps only he knew the answer to that question.

"Let me see..."

Aaron took the newspaper the platoon leader handed him, and the first thing he saw when he opened it was:

"Alain Kanel, once knighted by the emperor of the Third Empire of France, was the backer behind the terrorists of the National Liberation Alliance?!

To coordinate with the National Liberation Alliance and influence the fighting at the front, Kanel decided to launch a large-scale terrorist attack in the capital, Dugagu!!?"

"What?!"

"A terrorist attack?"

"Aaron, hurry up and read the rest!"

"My family hasn't been hurt, has it?"

"Aaron, what does it say next?"

The soldiers were instantly startled and visibly began to panic.

Most of them came from Dugagu, and their families and friends were there as well.

Urged on by the soldiers, Aaron continued reading:

"But fortunately, under the wise command of our great President Sankara, the National Security Committee uncovered Kanel's plot and stopped this terrorist attack, which could have caused over a thousand casualties, in time. There were no casualties."

"Phew-"

"Thank goodness!"

"Long live the president!"

"As long as everyone's all right. As long as everyone's all right!"

Hearing that there had been no casualties, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the hearts that had leaped into their throats slowly settled back down.

If Sankara had been there,

he would certainly have been surprised to discover that this newspaper report had actually raised these soldiers' already considerable loyalty to him by quite a lot!

"That damned Kanel! Good thing his plot didn't succeed!"

"Anyway, who is this Alain Kanel?"

"Who cares who he is? All I care about now is what happened to him!"

"The president didn't let him get away, did he?"

"Aaron, hurry up and tell us. Did they catch this Kanel?"

Having breathed a sigh of relief, the soldiers immediately directed the hatred born of their earlier fear straight at Kanel.

Aaron, who had also breathed a sigh of relief, picked out the key points and continued reading at his comrades' urging:

"Under President Sankara's supreme directive, the National Security Committee, the Ministry of Police and Public Security Administration, and the Republic of Burkina's Ministry of National Defense worked together.

They successfully shot dead 474 armed terrorists in Nayafaso Village and arrested Alain Kanel, who was preparing to flee to escape punishment, along with fifty-four other terrorists.

Following a fair, impartial, and public trial by the Supreme Court, Alain Kanel and the other terrorists, fifty-four in total, were ultimately sentenced to death, with immediate execution!

At the time this report was published, Alain Kanel and the other terrorists, fifty-five in total, had all been executed by firing squad."

The moment Aaron finished speaking,

the nearby soldiers who heard this immediately clapped and cheered:

"Well done!"

"Just shooting him was letting him off easy!"

"Good riddance! Good fucking riddance!"

"That really sets things right!"

But just as they were cheering happily, a soldier hurried over to them.

He panted lightly a few times, caught his breath, and immediately said:

"Platoon Leader Blondin, urgent orders from the company commander!"