The Deserter Dreams of Escape
The moment I opened my eyes, I was already inside a shitty erotic game I had never even played. And now, quite some time later, I found myself in the middle of Liu Bei's military camp. The place was buzzing after a great victory against the Yellow Turbans, and they were throwing a massive feast.
I was the poor bastard who had been possessed, currently gnawing on a hunk of meat. What greeted my eyes was Zhang Fei, that hairy brute, guzzling alcohol like a dog and already on the verge of crawling around on all fours. Guan Yu, the cold beauty, was scolding him while helping him back into the tent—only to let out a girlish scream at the sight of a caterpillar falling from a leaf. Liu Bei, with her enormous breasts jiggling, was going around comforting every single person who had fought in the battle. The volunteer soldiers were drinking as if there was no tomorrow. Everyone was completely relaxed, turning the whole place into a drunken revelry.
And to top it all off, the sky was beginning to darken.
Perfect. This was the exact moment I had been waiting for.
…This is it. No more hesitation.
“…Captain, are you really going through with this?”
“Of course. The carts?”
“All five of them are loaded with only the expensive stuff, sir.”
“The horses?”
“Picked out the sturdiest ones and set them aside.”
“The guards?”
“Once it gets darker, I made sure only our boys are posted on the road toward Luoyang.”
The plan was flawless. I took a deep breath and lifted my head. About twenty young men stood gathered with expressions even more tense than when they had been swinging blades at the Yellow Turbans.
People call those who give their lives for their country loyal subjects. They call a man who sells all the spoils of war for rice and distributes it to starving civilians a gentleman. And if someone walks straight into obvious hardship, they call him an idiot. If he drags his own people into that suffering with him, they’d probably call him a son of a bitch.
I was neither a loyal subject nor a gentleman, but I was most definitely not an idiot, and I sure as hell wasn’t a son of a bitch. That was why I couldn’t let myself or the men who followed me get ground down under Liu Bei’s command.
I had been agonizing over it for a long time without taking action. But then, right before the drinking party started, that woman had announced she would give away every last bit of the spoils to the starving people of Zhuo Commandery. That was the moment I made up my mind.
I was going to desert.
It was an era of rampant corruption and bribery. This wasn’t some romantic age where you could earn a small office with merit even without money, or a big one without merit if you had the cash. No, this was simply the end of days.
In this decaying world, there had been one saintly gentleman who earned achievements through honest means and sold all the spoils to buy rice for the starving masses.
“…Don’t be too nervous. The plan is perfect.”
And beneath that saintly gentleman, there was one son of a bitch who didn’t want to suffer like a dog and was now attempting to desert with five carts full of loot.
“Tonight. We desert no matter what.”