Page 3440

Should’ve stuck with his initial game plan. Hit-and-run tactics combined with hostage-taking and purposely drawn-out negotiations. Along with a few of his special trump cards thrown in every now and then, of course. It had been slow progress, but it had been working.

Switching over to a more aggressive, ambush-focused strategy had not been the play, clearly.

Kane and Grant weren’t fools, damn them. They’d closed ranks and done the complete opposite of what he’d hoped, apparently not bothered much at all by the death of their long-serving compatriot.

In retrospect, he supposed he should’ve known better. Heartless bastards, the lot of them. Truthfully, strange as it might’ve seemed, it was actually Abolish which was filled with soft-hearted, emotional thinkers. At least when it came to things like that.

The Vanguard didn’t care about each other. The people they fought and died alongside. They only cared about the billions of planet-killing leeches who didn’t give a single shit about them in return.

How absolutely ass-backward this world was.

“...So you rescued me?” said Jercash, turning to look at the dragon man.

“Yes,” said Gohvis. “Though I’m surprised to hear you phrase it that way.”

“Hmm? Why’s that? Think I’m too proud to call a spade a spade?”

“...Yes.”

“Hah! It pains me to learn even after all these years, you still don’t know me better than that. I’m not one to scoff at a helping hand. Especially from an old friend.”

“Mm.”

“How’d you know to show up when you did? The tide turned so quickly that there was no way word could have reached you in time.”

“I knew of their plan in advance.”

Jercash’s expression flattened, and he blinked dully. “Excuse me?”

“It was their long-simmering Project Blacksong. You must’ve heard something of it yourself by now, no?”

He had, but that was beside the point. “If you knew so much more about it ahead of time, then why didn’t you warn us?”

The Monster was quiet a moment. “...I didn’t feel like it.”

Jercash’s head reared back a little as he blinked a few more times. It was immediately obvious that Gohvis just didn’t want to tell him the real reason, but that answer still left him baffled and offended all the same. He took a second to gather his thoughts as he sighed and rubbed his forehead with one hand.