03 - The Plan

“…What do I do when I get there? They aren’t expecting me, so wouldn’t it be a bit rude? But there was no way for them to expect me in the first place. It’s not like I know anyone who could send them a letter for me. Not that I’d be willing to spend money on one anyways…”

Walking down the street was a man who seemed troubled. He was wearing a normal, white tunic that had a bit of dust on it. While contemplating, he stared at his brown sandals that covered most of the top of his feet with his sharp, brown eyes. The man was none other than Ándras.

Clack, clack clack

As Ándras was walking, he noticed that someone was running on the opposite side of the street as him. Since the streets were crowded, Ándras would normally pay this no heed, but…

“Ha… haa…”

When he checked who was making the ruckus, he found that it was Nazarius running. His face was ghostly pale and his eyes had an alarmingly desperate look in them.

This concerned Ándras, who was wondering whether to follow Nazarius or to continue on to the house.

“Oh, I’m almost there. Well, I guess it’s too late to turn back now,” he muttered to himself. As he entered the courtyard of his old residence, he noticed something odd. There was a soft wail coming from inside the house.

Ándras’s brows furrowed as he knocked on the door. No response. As Ándras reached to try the doorknob, he noticed that someone had left the door open. Becoming worried, Ándras creaked open the door.

Their house was pretty small, as it only consisted of five rooms; two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a dining room. Therefore, he could immediately tell that the weeping was coming from a bedroom. Worry escalating into fear, Ándras ran to the bedroom.

…

“Where are they, where are they?”

Nazarius was looking around the marketplace with his friends. Currently, his mind was a mess and he wanted his friends’ help. However, no matter where he looked, he couldn’t seem to find them.

“Damn it,” he cursed. He was glad Aunt Gyn wasn’t around, or else she would have scolded him for it.

“Aunt Gyn…” Due to the shock of the doctor's words, Nazarius hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings, but he remembered Aunt Gyn collapsing from dejection.

‘Would she be okay,’ he asked himself. ‘No, she’ll be fine. All I need to do is get that medicine from the nut and everything will be okay. Everything will go back to normal.’

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of running, Nazarius spotted a familiar shade of black hair.

“Kakó,” Nazarius shouted, drawing a bit more attention than he meant to. Kakó was out in the middle of the marketplace looking at toys again. His family was quite poor, so the most he could do was dream of having them. He was looking down at the toys with a spiteful look on his face, however it was unlikely that the toys were the problem.

“Kakó,” Nazarius shouted; louder this time. Kakó heard him and looked up with a face contorted with disgust. This startled Nazarius a bit, but it didn’t matter at the moment. Now, all he cared about was saving his brother.

“Kakó, help me,” Nazarius repeated as he got closer to Kakó. “What is it? Why are you being so loud? And why do you look like that?”

“There’s no time, come on.” Nazarius grabbed Kakó’s hand and started dragging him to a quieter place. “Wha, hey! Let go of me.” Kakó protested.

However, Nazarius only kept going until he reached a spot in the street with very few people. Then, he turned around with the same ghastly pale expression he’d been wearing all morning. Kakó could easily tell something was wrong.

“Where’s Korítsi,” Nazarius whimpered. “She went home after you didn’t show up,” he growled. He obviously wasn’t happy about this. “Do you remember where she lives?” Nazarius had only been to Korítsi’s house one time, that being when she twisted her ankle and couldn’t get home by herself. Kakó had tried to carry her, but wasn’t strong enough, leaving all of the carrying to Nazarius. From that experience, he learned that she actually lived pretty far away. The next day, both Nazarius and Kakó asked if she wanted to move their meeting place closer to her house, but she declined.

“How should I remember? That was over a year ago. Anyway, isn’t it about time you explain what’s going on?” “…Yeah, I guess so.” Taking a deep breath, Nazarius released Kakó from his grasp. He then proceeded to explain the events that transpired that morning.

Kakó stared at the ground in silence for a moment. He’d only met Nazarius’ brother once, but he was a pretty nice person. After about a second, he sighed. “So what did you drag me over here for, then? I don’t have that kind of money sitting around.” “I wanted you to help me think of a way to get it.”

Kakó sat there for a moment before realizing how impossible it was to accomplish Nazarius’ task. However, he didn’t have to know that…

“Ok, so you’re positive that this pharmacy has your medicine?” “Yeah, I remember seeing ‘salmonella medication’ on one of the bottles of pills. Actually, now that I think of it, there were quite a lot of them that said that.”

From what Kakó had seen, the pharmacy was owned by someone quite rich, which made the lack of medicine options quite bizarre. Not only that, but during the entire visit, Kakó only saw one guard in the entire store. It’s like the pharmacy was trying to get robbed…

“Hm… do you think we could go back to take a look at the place one more time before I try to think of something,” Kakó asked. “Sure, but be fast. We don’t have much time,” Nazarius responded. For all he knew, his brother could be dead already and he was just wasting his time.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”

…

“Aaaugh, damn my back hurts.”

Waking up from a night on the floor was Megálo, who was complaining about his back.

“Hey, Ándras, you up,” Megàlo asked groggily.

“Ugh, I’m not doin’ this again. Sorry, but you’re sleepin’ the floor tonight.”

As Megálo stood up, he realized that Ándras had left.

“When the hell… guy didn’t even make a sound.”

Knock, knock knock

“Hm? Isse back already?” Megálo’s words slurred, most likely from the drowsiness.

Knock knock knock knock knock

“Yeah, m comin’. Cool yer as—sir!”

Megálo’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw the figure at the door.

In the Greek army, there were three main ranks; the Koinós, the Polemistés, and the Kalyteroi Polemistés with each rank having a variety of sub-ranks.

The Koinós were the common soldiers. Their blessings were typically not combat oriented and the most likely reason that they were in the army in the first place was because they were drafted. The sub-ranks included were Private, Private First Class, Corporal, Sergeant, and Sergeant First Class. They made up about 150,000 of the 250,000 in the entire Greek army.

The Polemistés were the mid-ranking soldiers who usually had combat oriented talents from weaker gods. The sub-ranks in this rank numbered the greatest, which is why about 99,000 of them are in the army. The sub-ranks include Master Sergeant, First Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major, Sergeant Major of the Army, Warrant Officer 1, Chief Warrant Officers 2-5, Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel.

Finally, there were the Kalyteroi Polemistés, which numbered around 1,000. However, it is important to note that the power gap between rankings in this section is significantly higher than it is in the others. The sub-ranks here were Brigadier General, Major General, Lieutenant General, General, and finally The Apólytos, who not only led the army, but the country as well.

Each sub-rank had a different insignia that was used to identify itself that was found on the left side of the wearer's armor. The man in front of Megálo had three stars on his armor, indicating that he was a Lieutenant General. On the left side of Megálo’s armor, which was sitting in a corner, was the insignia of a Sergeant Major.

“Good morning Lieutenant General Sir,” Megálo yelled enthusiastically, yet politely.

Freaking out, the Lieutenant General stepped into the room and quickly shut the door.

“What are you doing? Are you trying to give me away,” the Lieutenant General harshly whispered.

“Pardon, sir,” Megálo said, confused.

“Ugh… never mind, have you seen Ándras? I needed to ask him about… what was I gonna ask him again,” the Lieutenant General said while rubbing his chin.

“…I haven’t seen him since last night, Lieutenant General Sir.”

“Hey, stop that.”

“? Stop what, sir?”

“That. I have a name and it’s Peiratís. You can call me Pierre though.”

Someone with that high of military status asking to be talked to normally was nigh unheard of in the entire history of Greece.

To put it simply, Megálo was shocked. But, now that he looked, he could see that Pierre wasn’t exactly professional as he wasn’t wearing a helmet, letting his curly, neck length black hair flow freely. He also noticed that Pierre looked freshly shaven, as what remained of his facial hair was thin and patchy, which barely covered his light brown face. Another odd thing about this abundantly bizarre man was his height. The man had to duck to get through the door. At the very least, the man was 7’6. Perhaps this was an effect of his blessing, Megálo thought.

Authors note: Greek guys really liked having beards, so not having one is pretty weird.

“So anyway, you know where he went,” Pierre asked nonchalantly.

“Hm… I remember him talking about going to see his family today since they live in the area.”

“Huh. Well, I guess I’ll go look for him.”

The more Megálo thought, the weirder the situation got. Why was a Lieutenant General here? Wouldn’t someone tell them about his being here, and more importantly, if he was here, why were they there? A Lieutenant General should easily be able to do most things, including finding weapons if they had such abilities. But if he didn’t have those abilities, that would bring him back to the question of why he was there in the first place.

“Hey Lieu—Pierre sir, why…”

By the time Megálo had looked up, Pierre was already gone.

Feeling a bit strange, Megálo decided to lay down on the bed for a bit.

…

“So, have you thought of something yet,” asked Nazarius impatiently.

“Hold on, give me a second to breathe here,” replied Kakó. Currently, both of them were looking into an empty window frame that led into a pharmacy. The pharmacy was practically sparkling, making it look out of place in the dirt poor town of Ftochós.

“So Nazarius… follow me,”

“Where are we going,” asked Nazarius.

“I’ll tell you later, just come on.”

Following the speed walking Kakó, Nazarius eventually ended up on a street with almost no people.

“Ok, so I have an idea…,” whispered Kakó

“Well, spill it already. Also, why did we come over here,” Nazarius stated, irritated.

“Shh. Whisper.”

“Why,” Nazarius frantically whispered.

“I’ll get to that. Anyway, we've already established that it's pretty much impossible to buy it, so…”

“Ah, so that’s why you drug me over here,” Nazarius replied coldly.

“So, the plan is quite simple. I’ll distract the shopkeeper while you take the medicine. Easy as pie.”

As if. Even if Kakó had the shopkeeper distracted, that still left the guard untouched. Plus, the guard would probably be alert around the two broke looking kids, meaning that Nazarius was bound to be caught; all according to Kakó’s plan.

“So, are you ready,” Kakó asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”