Episode 59
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 59
Their expressionless faces betrayed nothing of their thoughts.
Evan tested the waters, taking a single step back. The enemy simply stood there in silence. Reassured, he turned his back for a moment, only to feel something warm trickle down his spine.
Then came the pain, a delayed agony. He’d been slashed all the way from his shoulder blade to his waist. Wincing, he spun around to block another descending blade and glanced behind him.
The retreating army had already grown so distant they were no longer in sight. He took another step back, and a different sword lunged at him. He parried it with ease, feeling a cold sweat mix with the blood running down his back.
So that’s it. They’re trying to keep me here.
It made no sense. Eliminating the commander was the most efficient way to fight, yet they were doing the exact opposite.
And now that their commander was trying to pull back, they were holding him down, as if to prevent him from rejoining his army.
He blocked another attack from a soldier swinging an arm shaped like a sword. Immediately, another arm shot out and slashed his right arm. The pain was so intense he almost dropped his sword, but he gritted his teeth and endured.
Even when he cut off their arms and legs, they recovered at a terrifying speed. It was all he could do just to block their incoming attacks. He managed to take down a few by slicing through where their hearts should have been, but the number of wounds on his own body was steadily increasing.
Whenever he tried to dodge their attacks and escape, they relentlessly targeted his legs. His left ankle dangled uselessly, sprained or perhaps broken.
His mind grew hazy from the amount of blood he was losing from his many wounds.
Is this how I die?
At that moment, the enemies who had been reaching for him froze, then suddenly began to melt away.
“...What in the world...”
Evan stared, utterly stunned, as the soldiers disappeared into the ground, dripping black liquid like melting ice sculptures.
Was I dreaming? The scene was so unbelievable it felt unreal.
Whatever had happened, he was no longer bound to this place. Evan hurriedly ran in the direction his adjutant had led the troops.
He was out of breath, his mind a chaotic mess. He had no idea who this third faction could be, if not Alea or Lyne. He wondered if something like magic, the kind that only appeared in fairy tales, could exist in this area.
As he gasped for air, he came to a dead stop, a certain smell flooding his throat.
“...Dammit.”
The cloying stench of blood, thick enough to make him gag, filled the air. The world swayed as dizziness washed over him.
Only then did he look down at the ground he was standing on. What he had thought was black soil was actually sand, soaked dark red with blood.
BOOM! Something exploded in the distance. A wet squelch, and blood splattered. And beyond it, the faces of the soldiers standing there.
“Their faces again...”
They had no faces either.
Nothing made any logical sense. Why had enemies suddenly appeared from the supposedly clear rear? And what was their identity, letting him, the commander, go as if their duty was done the moment his allies were all slaughtered? At the time, before he knew of the “system,” he had no way of understanding.
Evan staggered forward. No. I can’t let them die like this. Not the men I was responsible for, not so meaninglessly...
“Your Excellency! Get down!”
With a sickening thud, the man who had grabbed his leg collapsed, spewing blood. Evan froze, not even thinking to wipe the blood that had splattered across his face.
He was now the only one left standing. For the first time in his life, he felt powerless.
How in God’s name was he supposed to win? He had learned how to fight men, not monsters who toyed with human lives. He had never even conceived that such beings could exist.
He, who had never once given a thought to destiny, wondered in that moment if this defeat was an inevitability decreed by some god.
After cutting down the last soldier, the enemy melted back into the ground and vanished. Only then did Evan realize his cheeks were wet. He couldn’t tell if it was with blood or tears.
One, two, three... He began counting the fallen, then shook his head with a crazed look in his eyes. Ah, what I should be counting isn’t the dead, but the living.
He fell to his knees on the blood-soaked earth, his eyes vacant as he counted the survivors.
“One...”
He prayed desperately for the number two to follow. Please, please. Maybe I miscounted. There might be someone else besides me, so, just one more time.
He collapsed onto the nauseating ground, thick with the scent of his comrades’ blood. Tears streamed down his face uncontrollably. Again, just one more time. He pushed himself up and scanned for any sign of movement.
“O-one...”
The count went no further. He denied it again. It’s because I didn’t check each one carefully. There might be someone I can save...
Slowly, he got to his feet and stared blankly at the blood that clung thickly to his boots with every step.
Will it change anything?
His thoughts spiraled into despair. Perhaps... we were all fated to die. He raised his sharp blade, gauging the direction of his own heart. Did I, too, have to die to complete this fate?
Just then, he heard someone’s faint breathing.
“...Where are you?”
Evan shot to his feet. He was so desperate that he had instantly caught the noise, which was nothing more than a soft wheeze, not even a cough.
He dug through the mountain of bodies, searching for the source of the sound. He saw familiar short brown hair, matted and messy with blood.
As the bodies pressing down on him were cleared away, Gilbert coughed violently. Evan, his expression now blank, called out to him.
“Sir... Sir...”
“Your... Your Excellency. I’m sorr—”
“Don’t speak. Rest.”
He quickly dragged Gilbert’s ruined body to a flat piece of ground and laid him down. Then he began to wander like a madman in search of other survivors. He froze when he found the soldier he had chided for smiling, dead with his eyes wide open.
He gave a self-mocking laugh, his body trembling as he muttered.
“...What was any of that for?”
No one would die today, he’d said? There had never been a battle where so many had died. Recalling his own words, he fought to swallow the bile rising in his throat.
A cold sweat trickled down his smooth forehead, mixing with his tears before dripping to the ground. Still, he frantically searched among the corpses.
Next, he found a few soldiers with severed arms or legs, trembling in shock. He took off his coat, tore it apart with his knife to make makeshift bandages, and tied them tightly around the stumps to stop the bleeding.
“One, two, three... four...”
He searched through the bodies of the fallen once more. There were no new survivors.
Slumping to the ground, he belatedly realized that blood had been steadily dripping from the wound on his back. His entire body felt as cold as ice. His dizzy mind began to wonder.
What about the 1st and 2nd Units that arrived first?
Even the 3rd Unit, which had escaped because he’d bought them time, had been slaughtered by this unknown entity. If so, then they...
He was too exhausted to dwell on the guilt. The will to live felt distant, while fatigue was crushingly close. A heavy drowsiness pressed down on him, forcing his eyelids shut.
It would be better if I never woke up. With that small wish, he lost consciousness.
*
He awoke to a living hell. His tightly shut eyelids flew open at the sound of someone shrieking and thrashing about.
A white ceiling greeted him, a stark contrast to the foul stench that assaulted his nose. Evan realized it was a mix of medicine and festering pus and shot upright.
The sudden movement made every muscle in his body seize up in protest. As he groaned, trying to calm the temporary spasm, someone approached him. An elderly man with a calm expression was looking down at him.
“You’re awake.”
“How many hours has it been?”
The military surgeon chuckled, seemingly surprised. “Most people ask how many days have passed.”
“I haven’t... lost... my sense of time.”
Spotting the blue sky outside the window, he frowned and asked, “About five hours have passed. Is that right?”
“Yes. You lost so much blood, yet your recovery is frighteningly fast. Of course, you still need to rest.”
The old man gently pushed him back down as he tried to get up, then smiled faintly again.
Evan gritted his teeth and forced himself to sit up again. He didn’t deserve to lie here in comfort. The doctor cut him off before he could protest.
“Your Excellency, we just finished setting your left ankle, which was shattered into four pieces, and closing the wound on your back with fifteen stitches. Those are just the major injuries. Many other wounds required treatment, so please rest. If an infection sets in, the recovery time will double.”
A scream of agony erupted from the bed across from them. The old man, who appeared frail, didn’t even flinch at the terrible sound and answered calmly.
“That’s the sound of pus being scraped from a wound.”
“...”
“If you don’t rest now, you’ll be the one making that sound.”
Evan’s lips parted, wanting to ask the man something, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The doctor observed his expression, then extended a hand, his own face unreadable.
“I am Dietrich Aertz. I’ve been working here as a military surgeon for a little over thirty years. I already know your name, Your Excellency.”
“...Is your rank Captain?”
“It is.”
After a long moment of just trying to even out his breathing, Evan finally spat out the question he had wanted to ask—and at the same time, had not wanted to know—since waking up.
“...The survivors, besides myself.”
“There are four, including you.”
Evan let out a hollow laugh and muttered.
“Only... four.”
“Your adjutant, Sir Gilbert Windleton, is in better condition than you are, so do not worry. There’s talk he’ll be court-martialed, but...”
His mind was such a mess that the words about a court-martial didn’t even register.
Evan’s head dropped, and he covered his eyes with one hand. Hearing the sound of Evan trying to control his ragged breathing, Dietrich quietly began to draw the curtain around his bed, then added as if remembering something.
“I don’t know if this will be any comfort, but the soldiers with severed limbs survived thanks to your proper first aid. If they had bled for even a little longer, they wouldn’t have made it.”
The man leaning against the bed seemed not to have heard him at all.
Seeing thick tears fall onto the stark white bedsheets, Dietrich let out a soft sigh and closed the curtain completely. Evan stared down at his hands, which were still stained with blood.