The Stupid Cannon Fodder is Stunning Today

Chapter 2: Village

This chapter is brought to you by Much Madness by aeseaes. 

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It took a month before Nine settled properly into his new life. 

The human settlement he was living in was a secluded pastoral farming village hidden by mountains and trees. The people were friendly, and Nine took care to learn the names of those who greeted him every morning. 

His new mother was a woman who moved to the village with her husband many years ago.

Said husband was now missing and likely dead. 

Nine was able to figure it out after he looked through the hut he and his mother lived in.

The man had only taken the bare minimum when he left for a trip and the joint savings between him and his wife were mostly untouched when he left, according to the ledgers Nine found while his new mother was sleeping. 

The likelihood of his new father abandoning them was slim. 

"Good morning, Toby. Going to the farm again?" 

Nine was passing through the marketplace when one of the vendors stopped him. 

He nodded and was promptly given a freshly wrapped loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.

"... Thank you." 

One of the major differences Nine realized between this world and his, was the treatment of children. 

The villagers were kind to kids his age, and Nine was unused to it. In his time, the war had forced drafts on children as young as five. Desperate for manpower, all children were sent to military orphanages and assigned a serial code. 

The world he was reborn into was from a story he once heard called Poison-Laced Dagger.

The book was written by his roommate's younger sister in her free time. 

They were cadets at the time and lived in a small dorm with a few others. Every once in a while, the roommate would gather them around in a circle after dinner so he could read the story out loud. 

The story was set in the hidden city of Vesna—the secret jewel of the Tiber Empire.

"O Dreaded Vesna, with its dark corners and darker corridors, where the most innocent and pure was tainted pitch black by its countless sins..."

"That's cringy."

"Shhhh... you're ruining the mood."

In other words, Vesna was a legally sanctioned criminal underworld rife with crime and corruption. Not only did it house the largest black market in the Empire, but it was also the home base of the two most powerful mercenary families on the continent.

House Monttevi and House Calypto.

The leads of the novel were children and heirs to these two families, but they inevitably fell in love with one another when they were sent out on a mission together.

Putting romance into the backdrop of political intrigue, war, death, and strife was a recipe for disaster.

Eventually, to no one's surprise, the hero and heroine's forbidden love led to their deaths.

"Isn't this just a rip-off of Rumeo and Joliet?"

"She's sixteen!"

"Ah."

The ending was predictable, but much of the story still focused on the internal problems of the hero and heroine. With any tale of love and woe, there were bound to be friends and foes, alike.