The World We Do Not Know - 190 Who is Ares

“Faust! Hmm you are disqualified. Please try again after two years!”

“But w-who is Ares?” Theodore asks Hades

Queen Uzume is shunned in her tracks listening to the name she has long forgotten.

“Ares~” Hades starts talking.

Year 5015- Mindoro in the past

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Captain Ares!, Captain Ares! …  Wake up, Ares!”- The four soldiers saved by their captain stand beside his bed with their arms and legs wrapped up in bandages, as Ares tries to opens his eyes

“Aryyyyyyy!!….. You are finally awake after 3 weeks of sleep, I was so worried about you” A very fair female soldier, with sparkling eyes, long eyelashes and an exquisite nose, says worryingly in the face of Ares while being awkwardly close to him.

“What the…” Ares (age – 20) confusedly tries to get up, but his body does not respond to any movement he make.

“What happened to my body?” Ares asked in surprise.

“All of your muscles and tendons got torn apart. 7 broken ribs, and multiple fractures.” Gus (age – 15) replies while he is preparing medicine few meters away from Ares sitting at his desk.

All the soldiers were living with Gus in his house on a hill, a little far from the village.

“As the kid says, Captain, you were badly hurt and been on bed for 3 whole weeks. The villagers and this kid took good care of you and us. Tanya, move your goofy face away from captain’s!, let him breathe.” Says another soldier with glasses, he seems to be a very smart, yet nerdy person.

“I’m not a kid oi, I’m almost the same age as you all, just a little short…. arghhhh!” An annoyed Gus shouts to the soldier who called him a kid.

“Among the 50, only five of us survived. The enemy ships were assisted by storms and whirlpools. We lost our soldiers. This shows what happens to a squad if their captain is a young lad. Almost every squad has experienced people as their cap’n and just because you were considered a genius, we are now stuck with someone who is the same age as us. Some genius who managed to get his entire troop killed.” A soldier with a tattoo of Chinese letters on his right arm belittles Ares with a rather arrogant voice, filled with hatred.

“You are right. I’m sorry that we lost them because of my incompetence”- Ares replies with a grim  and gentle look on his face. He is ready to take the blame and shoulder the weights of the dead as his sole responsibility. He feels it was his fault that they had died.

Gus seems surprised and could not digest the fact that Ares saved 4 men without a thought about his own life and brought them to safety all by himself and yet, he blames himself for what happened? This triggered Gus and he was about to speak up for him, but was stopped by what he heard from on of the soldier.

“No-not at all Ares. If you haven’t ordered us to sail the ships into the storm, we wouldn’t have gotten rid of the enemies on our tail. If we kept continuing to fight, none of us would be alive here. I’m deeply thankful to you for saving me” – the youngest of all soldiers, Alex (17), replies with hesitation and gratitude while bowing his head down with utmost respect towards Ares.

Hearing what Alex said, Gus really didn’t have anything to say and his heart settles down.

“Also someone else might still be alive just like us. I’m sure of it” – Tanya (19) the female soldier adds soothing words along with Alex.

“Alex, Tanya, thank you for your kind words, but it doesn’t change that everything happened because of my orders, I’m the one responsible for the lives of my subordinates.” Ares replies bitterly.

“Not at-” Albert, the soldier with glasses (21), tries to say something but was interrupted in the middle by the soldier with the tattoo.

“As far as you remember what had happened, you are making our party a weak one, with your ideals, inexperience and feelings.” Yang(21) the soldier with the tattoo says, storming out of the room angrily.

“What did he say? Does he not even have little gratitude for the person who saved his life?!”- Gus yells after Yang and tries to follow him.

“Please, why are you getting mad at him? That is how a military personnel should behave” Albert says while holding onto Gus’s right arm stopping him from going outside to confront Yang.

The soldiers looks down as if they don’t have anything to say to Yang.

The military soldiers shouldn’t and aren’t supposed to show any emotions or feelings, showing any is considered being weak. Ares always treats his subordinates as his own friends since they are all of same age, but for Yang, it is weakness and weakness is intolerable for him.

He believes being cold and cutting off emotions from the heart is a better way to treat one’s subordinates, only then can a person truly become strong. Not only Yang, but all the soldiers in modern-day were trained and raised that way since they were young children, they never experienced a motherly or fatherly love before.

“Oh Ares!, We still have two nano restoration syringes. If you take two of them you are definitely going to recover instantly.” Alex excitedly reminds Ares as he takes out the syringes.

Nanoresucts or nano restoration syringes are heals for soldiers. When these syringes are injected directly into the nerves, the nano particles combined with a healing element(mixture of a healing substance that is available in main country) instantly start repairing the cuts, internal bleed and even fractures. No matter how much one is near death, when one injection of these nanoresucts is given, it will keep them alive at all costs.

“Huh? Recover instantly? But his whole body is damaged, it’s gonna take him at least 8-12 months for his whole body to heal. Even after 12 months there is no guarantee that his body will go back to the way it was-s…..” Gus starts uttering words without a pause.

Ares want to explain Gus about their heals, but it’s a military secret, so he just changes the topic.

“Ahhh…. By the way Gus, I heard that you guys took care of us when none of us were able to move. I really owe you and your city big time. Let me meet the mayor.” Ares asks one last favor from Gus politely and appreciating him at the same time.

“But Ares, its not like a city…. I don’t really know how to tell you”-Alex, the another nerdy guy in the party checks and inspects around the island after he gained consciousness and strength to walk, and now he wants to show off his knowledge and nerd skills and impress his cap’n, that his nerdy behaviour is nothing less from a badass soldier’s.

“What’s a city?” Gus interrupts in the middle – “And what’s a mayor? If you want to meet someone important, I can take you guys to the Village chief who lives at the foot of the mountain in the village, but there is no one called mayor here”.

“Village?” – Ares says in surprise

“That’s what I was going to tell you about Ares, this village is situated on something we studied in our books. Something which we did not anticipate would exist. It is an island, an island with three villages which are 20- 30kms apart from one another. Also, one of the village seems to have some good weaponry too, It seems they harbour craftsmen and strategists in their village. I can tell by having a glance at their armors and barricades they have around the village. I have concluded this much.” Alex proudly explains everything in a hurry and fear, that someone might interrupt him again.

“Yes, we got raided by a village 3 years ago. They  are well equipped in heavy armor and raised hell, we tried to defend ourselves but in the end we lost everything. They have taken everything precious to me and the villagers.” Gus says in a vicious voice.

The unnamed island has three villages situated on top of it with each village at the each corner of the island. One of the village is Mindoro, the other one called Caracus and the last one is Sable. Caracus is a village which chooses weapons over cultivating lands and seeks blood more than water. Caracus has been raiding both Mindoro and Sable from past 4 decades. Whenever the village goes low on resources and food, they raise a war over other villages. A recent raid happened 3 years ago on Mindoro and it took both of Gus’s parents and ever since then Gus have been left alone, which is why he despises Caracus to the core but he couldn’t do anything to take his vengeance out on them.

“An island you say? That is impossible. Did you really scout the area well?” Ares’s face seems to be brightened up with what he had heard.

Hearing about an island is nothing to get excited about, but Ares and his party is living in the 51st century.  After the catastrophe, the earth only had one continent and no traces of islands has ever discovered by humans. Ares have only lived on a giant land which consisted, desserts, snow and spring all at once and they have only heard and read about the islands in history classes and books. Nobody living on the main land ever came across an island, so this is pretty much new and adventurous to Ares.

“Alex, fast inject me with the nanoresucts but only one is enough. We need to save the other one for ourselves if we get into trouble on our way back from here” Ares smiles very brightly and starts planning excitedly on what he should do on this island as he beckons Alex to give him the heals.

“Oohhhhhh… Cap’n, even after you are on bed without being able to move an limb, you still chose to take only one nanoresuct to save the other for us in future. You truly are our kind cap’n” Alex starts tearing up happily.

*”if we run into trouble my butt, if I took two nanoresucts now, I will be fully healed and you guys will bug me to start going back to the mainland. We will be in war before we know it. If I took only one, it will be hard on my body, but I can stay here on this island until my body heals completely. Now it’s time for me to run around this island and have a perfect holiday, heh! heh! heh!”* Ares laughs mischievously inside his mind

Alex takes out one of the nanoresuct, it is an injection but the fluid inside is green in color. The liquid is sparkling because of the presence of the nano particles inside.

As he inject the nanoresuct into his median vein forearm, Ares is able to get up and sit on his own in mere 20 seconds and is freely able to move his left arm easily, however his right arm feels piercing pain when he try to move it up and down. This makes Ares unable to move his arm well.  When he gets out of his bed to walk, his left leg is not able to bear his weight.

*”Hmm my right hand and left leg are in really bad shape, this is worse than I had imagined. However… heh! this island is life!!!* Ares thinks to himself cheerfully…