Harlan still made the amulets and gave them over to Delmet along with a genuine thank you that was met with a great deal of confusion and conflicted feelings before he accepted the gifts.

Now, Harlan had his permit, and he was out with a group of others who he didn’t know, third year students.

David of House Haywood, frontline fighter with training in combat and warmagics, overspecialized in Harlan’s opinion, but a solid shield when he was needed even if he did have an ego issue.

Parnell of House Pearl, didn’t talk much, wards and arrays were his specialty.

Lastly was Shelly of house Mayford, she was the back row fighter.

First year groups were supposed to be 5 people who could cover the faults of the others and had to be accompanied by a more experienced student or a contracted adventurer.

Most first years were denied permits on account of being considered unfit for what might be needed of them.

Second year groups were more often 3 or 4 man groups.

Third year groups were more often duos or trios.

By the fourth year students were allowed to go on solo missions, but duos were still the most common formation.

David was the shield, Parnell was the one who checked for traps and if needed he could set wards and arrays defensively or offensively, Shelly used a bow with enchanted arrows and illusions to hide herself.

The 3 of them were already operating as a team when Harlan was offered as a fourth member to be a healer and divinationist, though he really just did whatever they wanted him to do, they knew what he could do and respected his abilities.

It was his first time in the field but he had spent the day with them already so they could get to know one another.

“Alright, today we are going after Radiant Orcs, there is a war camp in the area that we are going to deal with, meanwhile another camp of Void Orcs nearby is going to be cleared out by the army. Our job is just to take out as many of them as we can, if you don’t feel that you can safely deal with fleeing orcs then you do not need to go after them. We are also operating under the army, so while I am squad leader, you need to listen to commanders above me. Harlan, you and I are going to start by hitting them with nova spells, you know sound spells, right?”

“I can cast a screaming nova.”

“Good, I will follow that up with fire nova on the largest group that I can see. After the first one hits you don’t need to cast another one, we will then rush in to take them out with melee combat. Radiant Orcs are hard to kill, their healing doesn’t seem to take anything out of them so it is an endurance match to run them out of mana.”

“Understood, but why sound magic?”

“Their ears are fairly sensitive and their instinct when they can’t hear is to group up.

If they have any hostages the orcs won’t think to kill them and that will give us time to save them if possible. Are you going to have any problems if there is something really bad in there? I know you’ve said you can handle it, but if you freeze up against an orc you are not going to live long.”

“I can handle blood and guts.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

The camp itself had about 80 orcs in it, 8 per simple yurt.

No clear signs of humans as far as Harlan could tell, but they wanted to still avoid just bombing them all.

Shelly was in a taller tree above them under a veil, as soon as Harlan’s nova hit she would break it and mark an area with an arrow that let out a bright light to show which was the larger group of orcs.

They were the main force, with the area being surrounded by infantry who would catch stragglers.

If they didn’t kill enough orcs first then it would put the rest of them in danger.

Parnell was among the soldiers instead of with them so he could turn on the dormant arrays which would drain the light mana from the area making it faster for them to handle any already weakened orcs.

David was on an amulet with the operation commander and once everything was set he counted down with his fingers.

3, 2, 1.

It took over a minute for him to have the spell ready and David started forming his fire nova shortly after, he didn’t like holding powerful spells for very long.

The screaming nova was entirely silent as it traveled.

The orcs pointed at what looked like a heat haze and then fell to the ground as their eardrums burst and bled.

A bright green light rose on one group of 14 orcs huddled together and 10 seconds afterwards a fire nova struck them, overcoming their healing as their bodies turned to little more than carbon.

Shelly jumped from tree to tree firing arrowheads that would burrow into their target and release fast acting poison that was designed for sapping Radiant Orcs of their strength.

Harlan had his full armor on and turned off hover while above an orc, crushing him from head to legs and blinding the few around them with blood magic.

He moved from target to target, crushing bones and boiling their bodies only to see them reform moments later.

Beams of Radiant, which was a brighter and hotter light element, bounced off the armor, his eye slits were entirely closed and he relied on his mental senses when fighting them.

Their goal was to move from wounded orc to wounded orc and never let any of them return to full power.

An orc of either kind was 8 to 10 feet tall with bungling muscles, thick leathery skin like a rhino and reached maturity in a matter of 7 years.

Much like bandits and goblins, Harlan wanted to make sure that none of them got away, though luckily they were sexually dimorphic enough from their human side that they did not gain the goblins asexual reproduction.

He moved towards a group of 3 people, at least he assumed they were.

Their mental signature was weak and unlike the chaos of an orc.

He opened the slits on his helmet to find 3 men, soldiers from the looks of it, inside a cage and drugged into a coma for transport.

Harlan moved them into the ground and covered them up so a stray orc was less likely to attempt a hostage situation.

They were smarter than goblins, but likely to just kill out of spite rather than to actually try to negotiate with them.

All of the chaos in the area made it harder to focus on all of the minds around him, so when an orc struck him from behind he barely had time to jump and use the rod like a shield to disperse some of the force.

He landed on his feet, the strike would’ve killed a normal man, but between his own body, the jump, and his armor, he was alright.

Harlan ran towards the orc.

“LEAVE IT FOR A SOLDIER, STAY WITH ME.”

David commanded and Harlan let it go.

After another 5 minutes things got easy, the orcs were taking longer and longer to come back after being cut up and melted with acid or burned with fire.

After 30 minutes they were finally done and even Harlan was winded.

“Good work, rest now.”

Harlan laid on the ground, not caring for the fact he was covered in blood and lying on entrails.

10 minutes later and with tonic in both of them they confirmed that the orcs were not coming back and Harlan got the captured soldiers out of the ground.

They were still sleeping, but from what was known of orcish poisons they weren’t in any real danger.

A few days in a military hospital and they would be back in service assuming they weren’t overly traumatized.

“Well, for a first mission, you did pretty damn good. I’d be glad to keep you around. We lost one soldier and only one orc got past the three of us.”

David waved to the trees that Shelly was resting in at the moment and Harlan did the same.

“I heard things went much worse in the other camp, they got them all, but they lost 12 people.”

“The orc I let get away…”

“Stop, I know you want to be upset, but this was well below expected ranges. A camp this size, and you rescued three people? Normal casualty rate would be 8%, with a group of 70 men, losing just one is fantastic. Besides, you didn’t let it get away, you got blindsided and I ordered you to come back. Blame me, not yourself.”

Harlan got up and washed himself off.

Then came the post battle report, the commander was ecstatic with the results.

“What about the one who died?”

“That isn’t your problem, unfortunately all we can do is give his pay to his family what he was worth and give our condolences. He made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation and we will honor that.”

Harlan fought with the ghost for a minute before he spoke.

“Could I go with, to give my condolences?”

“You don’t want to do that, you might believe you want to, but you don’t.”

“Is that a no?”

“He lived in a nearby village, but you really shouldn’t go. I’ve been a soldier for 15 years, and it never gets easier to tell people that their loved ones aren’t coming back. If you do want that burden then go, But please, be respectful. His wife is going to yell at you, tell you it was your fault, that you should’ve died instead of him. Are you sure you want to go?”

“I can’t let myself look away, had I not been distracted I might not have been hit, if I had fired off a lightning bolt it might’ve made enough of a difference that he might not have died. I know that I just followed orders, that maybe if I used more magic I would’ve been tired and made another mistake, but, I still want to take responsibility.”

“I’ll tell the Black Suits. They will pick you up if you wait in the gate tent.”

When they left the tent David pulled him aside.

“You can still get out of this.”

“See you soon, I’ll get better at killing and not make this mistake again.”

He patted Harlan on the shoulder and Shelly and Parnell did the same as they walked away.

Harlan sat inside the gate tent and after 15 minutes two men in Black Suits appeared.

It was standard operating procedure that if no soldiers wanted to do it, then the mourning servicemen would handle the news.

The army gate mages didn’t charge anywhere near what private mages did, and so they were used quite a lot by the army for whatever they needed.

While in this case soldiers who knew the man who died could’ve done something like this, it was never work that somebody wanted to do.

Soldiers more often mourned with cheap alcohol and a remembrance of the man by those who actually knew him well.

“Sir Fomoria?”

“Yes.”

“Take off your helmet, she is going to want to look you in the face.”

Another gate led them near the village, but not directly inside.

They thought it best to appear walking in and out instead of showing up and leaving like a whirlwind by gate.

They had already spoken to Harlan about what he absolutely could not do, and that by choosing to come with them he effectively signed away the right to get upset about what she would say or do.

He also went over what he wanted to say and they believed it was fine to say.

The woman had light blonde hair and pale brown eyes.

As soon as she opened the door Harlan saw a little boy in the living room banging wooden blocks together behind her.

She started by denying it and pushing them away.

The Black Suits knocked again and waited outside.

Eventually she came back and invited them inside.

They spoke to her about what had happened and then let Harlan speak.

She said all the things that he was warned about, that he should be dead, that it wasn’t fair, the better man died, he was a failure.

All he could say was that he was sorry as she screamed and yelled until her little boy started crying, he could not understand what was happening yet.

The experience was soul crushing, Harlan’s mind and soul being so connected caused pain to bleed over mentally until her words felt like daggers in his heart.

He just took it, he could’ve used his empathy to lower her anger or her grief, but that would just be a temporary measure that would stop her from saying cruel words to him, it would not help her.

When they finally left Harlan thought that he would rather go toe to toe with a hundred more orcs than ever sit through that again.

“You handled it well.”

“I kept hearing that killing never gets easier, I think that was a lie. This, this I can’t imagine ever gets easier.”

“There is a reason so few of us take up this job. It is nothing but being yelled at and seeing the darkest moments of somebody’s life. Not many people are willing to take that abuse even once.”

“I didn’t do it entirely selflessly. I’ve lived in fear of losing my loved ones for a long time. To some extent, I wanted to know what it was like through somebody else.”

“Just by being there and giving her a clear target and outlet is going to help her in the long run in my opinion. It doesn’t really matter why, she won’t know the difference.”

Harlan went back to the academy and was ready for bed, but instead he had dinner as normal.

His team invited him over and he decided to join them for the meal.

“How did it go?”

Parnell wasn’t a talker, but he was the heart of the group, the three of them had known each other since they were very young and he fell into the role of mediator just because he wasn’t as hot blooded as the others.

“I took everything she said to me, I didn’t talk back or defend myself.”

“I did that once. I would never do it again. Are you going to be back with us again?”

Harlan didn’t need to think about it.

“Yes.”