Luna pointed a finger into the darkness ahead. "There. Look."

Following the direction in which her finger was pointing at he saw what she was pointing at. A tent standing at the distance of a few dozen meters away from them.

It was completely different from every other tent in the camp.

The normal soldier tents were small and were made of a drab and pale canvas. They looked fragile and were held up by a few small sticks but this tent was huge.

It was almost the same as the size of Lishia's command tent back at the outpost. It was supported by thick and dark log pillars and looked much rigid and permanent compared to the other tents.

But the most obvious thing about it was the color. The heavy cloth of the tent was not pale canvas but rather a deep and rich red.

In the faint moonlight it looked almost black but its shape stood out clearly against the other, lighter tents.

"We finally found it," Luna whispered with a wave of relief washing over in her voice. "After all that, the hardest part is over."

Allen nodded. "Yeah. Looks like it."

Luna looked around and the large and empty space around the tent was silent. There weren't any guards walking around nor was there anyone sitting by the dead campfire out front.

"I don't see anyone," she said, her voice excited. "Allen, this is it. This is our chance."

She crouched low with her hand already on her sword. "Let's go. If he's in there then we can end this right now. And even if he's not we can get a look inside which would help us to plan better for another attempt."

"Hmm, fine," Allen agreed. "Let's move."

They both kept low and their bodies were bent over. They moved out of the shadow of the nearby tent as they crossed the open and empty ground slowly heading for the red tent.

The pale, thin moonlight was weak but it just barely illuminated the ground in front of them. It hit their stolen, muddy armor and the faint light glinted off the metal plates on their chests.

The red rose emblems were cracked from having one of their petals removed, and reflected the inside of the glass through the moonlight.

The two moved like two ghosts with their footsteps silent on the ground. Although it was clear that Allen was having a hard time keeping up and his movements were a lot clumsy and not so sneaky compared to Luna.

But still, he was doing all he could physically to mirror her behaviour and not mess things up.

The camp and their surroundings were quiet and all they could hear was the distant crackle of a dying fire and the low murmur of voices from the barracks far behind them.

They slowly and carefully closed the distance with the red tent. Fifty feet. Forty feet. Thirty.

Allen suddenly felt a cold knot in his stomach. It was a strange and prickling feeling like an alarm bell ringing far away.

Something felt wrong. He slowed his pace just a little.

What is this? he thought. Nerves? Sigh, seriously? What am I, a kid going for his first stage performance?

He pushed the feeling down. Of course he was nervous. He wasn't a real soldier and this was his first real infiltration.

He didn't really want to do something as lame as letting his nerves get the best of him though therefore he decided not to be so paranoid and kept walking forward.

They reached the side of the tent and it was even bigger up close and looming over them like a dark, red shadow. Luna didn't want to waste even a second of time.

She put her ear to the fabric of the tent and listening intently for any noise from the inside while her other hand rested on the hilt of her sword. She was ready to draw and strike in an instant.

Allen stood beside her but he felt distracted. He wasn't paying attention. He was still trying to figure out that cold and heavy feeling that just wasn't ready to go away no matter how much he ignored it.

In fact it was getting stronger.

Okay this can't just be my nerves. He thought to himself. Something definitely feels off.

Luna pulled her head back from the tent wall and looked at Allen.

"I don't hear anything," she whispered with her voice barely a breath. "Either there's no one inside or he's probably asleep. Or maybe he's not even in there. This is perfect."

She has more or less expected for him to not be there. After all, even if he was a dumbfuck he wouldn't be staying in a camp with no guards around.

But she wanted to go in there anyway because knowing the layout of his camp from the inside would help a lot.

And as she said, this was the perfect opportunity for that. Hence following that she moved silently toward the front of the tent.

"Let's go," she said.

She reached the entrance or the "gate" of the tent if you want to call it that.

It was a heavy and thick curtain of the same dark red material with multiple patterns embroidered into it. She looked back at Allen and gave him a sharp nod before she raised her hand, her fingers reaching for the edge of the cloth flap.

Allen was still out of it and just wasn't able to focus no matter how much he tried.

What is it? What am I missing? There's no one inside the tent so there's even less reason to be nervous about.

The clouds in the sky were moved apart by the nightly breeze, revealing more of the moon. Its faint moonlight falling onto the red fabric of the tent.

…wait, red?

The hard leather of the armor he was wearing scraped against his shoulder as he walked. He still wasn't used to wearing this armor.

Those knights patrolling in the dark… he thought to himself. He thought back to the conversation they had with that big knight.

Randolf had told them to do night patrols even though all the knights were tired to death after coming from a battle…even though there was no chance the Preservation knights would attack tonight after having an entire battalion wiped out…

Why would he do that? Because he's a dumbfuck who doesn't know how things work? No, that's way too convenient. He wouldn't have kept the Preservation knights stuck in a stalemate for so long here if that was the case.

He did that because he still hadn't let go of the slight possibility that we might launch a surprise attack tonight.

Meaning he knew there's a possibility we might come. Wait…

In that moment, everything suddenly clicked in Allen's brain.

The red tent. The isolation. The lack of guards. The dark patrol. It all came together like pieces of a puzzle.

Fuck!

"Luna, no!" he hissed as soon realization hit him.

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