Guiding the Male Lead out of His Trauma

Naturally, Mitchel’s claim that nothing would happen turned out to be wrong.

Even though I hadn’t yet resolved my doubts about how things could operate like this, I had collapsed into sleep from exhaustion, almost like fainting.

It hadn’t been long before dawn when someone urgently called my name, waking me.

“Senior… Senior…!”

It was Acteon, who had been lying beside me with wide-open eyes after receiving his sleeping bag.

His anxious voice instantly cleared my foggy mind.

The moment I raised myself, someone else suddenly bolted upright from their sleeping bag—Mitchel.

He immediately began kicking people awake in a rush.

“Get up! Get up now! You planning to die sleeping like an idiot?! It’s a necromancer!”

Instead of asking for clarification, I looked to Acteon with a ‘don’t tell me’ expression.

He quickly picked up on the meaning of my gaze and nodded.

“I can feel the flow of mana. Someone is channeling it from afar.”

Damn it. A night raid.

I hurriedly laced my boots and ran out of the tent with the one who had woken me.

Didn’t they say nothing would happen tonight?

Sure, war is unpredictable, but still.

‘He said it with such confidence… I thought it was just seniority talking!’

He must’ve been similar to Acteon in how sensitive he was to the flow of mana.

As Mitchel kicked platoon members awake, similar commotion could be heard from the adjacent platoon tent in the same unit.

But what was strange was…

“…Why is everywhere else so quiet?”

Ours was the only place reacting so urgently.

The tents where the unawakened soldiers stayed remained eerily silent, as if nothing was happening.

“Those bastards never lift a damn finger, huh? Don’t even think about expecting anything from them! Just hurry over here!”

At Mitchel’s shout, the other platoon members cursed and followed him.

Once we exited the camp, we were met with scorched plains, blackened trees, and sunken craters stretching far across the landscape.

After confirming the platoon’s headcount, Mitchel approached the two of us.

His tone was noticeably sharper than last night.

“I’ll explain briefly. Listen up. You might not feel the mana flow right now, but there’s a huge current being dragged to one point and then dispersed in hundreds of strands. That means an Awakener who manipulated the mana has converted it into their own and is now distributing it into separate entities.”

I listened quietly to his explanation amid the tension.

Acteon’s ability was in a similar category.

But his didn’t scatter over such a wide range, he manipulated mana around himself, shaping it into crystals. His range wasn’t this broad.

“The force this unit is clashing with here is the Kingdom of Uskal. And there’s only one Awakener in Uskal known to disperse mana this way. The Necromancer.”

A codename like ‘Necromancer’ didn’t bode well.

Isn’t that just way too obvious what kind of ability they use?

“That bastard can control already dead beings. From wild animals to fallen soldiers’ corpses, he uses them all, so don’t let your guard down. Got it?”

I responded, but it made me nervous. If I let down my guard, who knows might happen?

The tips of my fingers tingled with the growing tension.

Mitchel went on to describe other Uskal Awakeners who frequently appeared.

There were those who burned mana into flame, or Guides who fought using Nexium like I did.

But hearing about them didn’t make it feel any more real.

Flames burst into the sky from the far end of the plain.

Despite the coming battle, there were barely twenty of us standing before the field.

‘This is ridiculous.’

I turned back, wondering if more would join us from the rear camp—but the area, veiled by a small forest, remained cloaked in darkness and silence.

Mitchel released the locks on the platoon’s bracelets and gave some sort of instruction.

But his voice was a dull hum in my ears. I couldn’t make it out.

I was shaken.

So this… this is what deployed cadets have been going through all this time?

‘No way.’

Yeah, no way.

After returning from deployment, every cadet became withdrawn from the others.

Many dropped below minimum academic standards, staying in Estra as long as possible, or gave up their terms entirely and applied for early graduation.

They called it early graduation, but really it meant they no longer wished to remain enrolled and chose instead to leave for the front.