Chapter 351
Chapter 351
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Saint and Completer (7)
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Clank. Clank.
A single knight, covered head to toe in blood, dragged his leg along the top of the ramparts. A long and horrific night. The walls they had barely managed to defend once again, and the rising sun.
In theology, in magic studies, in every history book and every bard's song, the rising sun symbolized hope.
“....Philo. Digory. Alstein. Paris.... You were here too, huh.”
But if that morning sun shone upon ramparts covered in the shattered remains of allies and comrades slumped in exhaustion atop them, how could anyone call it a symbol of hope?
Clank. Thud—
His toe caught on one of the countless scattered corpses with no room to step, halting his foot. Realizing it was a familiar face, his trembling hand was already reaching toward the body.
A comrade whose eyes hadn’t even been closed. He had died honorably on the king’s land, but military law forbade even recovering his remains, leaving him abandoned like this—as if every part of his knighthood had been denied. The sight gnawed even at the heart of a steadfast Castle Knight.
He couldn’t gather the fragmented remains, but at least he could close the eyes. At least spare this comrade—who had met a death unworthy of rest—from staring endlessly at this horror....
Clank.
“Knight Siran.”
“....Lady Charlotte.”
As his hand moved downward with that thought, someone’s gauntlet grabbed it.
One of the few things worth calling hope in this hellish place. Charlotte de Agate, the Knight of Dawn.
“The priests have been collapsing from overwork instead of sleeping for months now. If you get infected while handling your comrade’s body, that divine power—which could save other comrades—will be used to purify you. If we fall, who will defend this place?”
“Lady Agate. Is there truly anything left here worth defending?”
Charlotte couldn’t easily answer the knight’s hollow question.
Kingsland was their last bastion after losing everything. But they had already lost the people and lands they were meant to protect, even their lord. What meaning was there in defending the capital of an empty city?
Instead of answering, Charlotte gathered the swords of the fallen knight and placed them into the kneeling knight’s hands.
“It remains. Your oath, which will stay here even if you turn and flee.”
Even if he fled and survived, his knighthood would die on those walls.
This was their bulwark. Everything they had sworn to protect was gone, but behind them still lay lands and people untouched by the flames of war. They could not retreat.
“....Enough. There’s no time to rest.”
“Enemies?”
“No.”
Charlotte recalled the ship that had descended into the skies over the capital’s southern district at dawn.
“An old comrade whose path diverged from ours.”
It was hope they hadn’t seen in a very long time.
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“A well! Where should we dig the well? Purify the old one and use it?”
“No! The highest spot nearby! We’re rerouting the aquifer with magic anyway! The old well’s too low-lying to use! And drain all that stagnant rotten water from the bottom! It’ll breed plague!”
“Got it!”
Splash!
“Ventilation! Wind mages, ventilate! The castle’s choked with decay gas and smoke from burning bodies! Knee-deep in suffocation zones! Lay a patient down, and it’s straight to euthanasia countdown!”
Whoooosh—
“Hahaha! Friend! What shall I build? I brought some magic circuits and public magic stones, so if we source materials locally— Mmph! Mmph!!”
“Captain! Captaaain!!!”
“You called?”
Crash! Clatter!
“Drag this bastard back to Tel Drat right now! Sort the cargo—food, cloth, weapons, materials—and stack it in the palace lobby!”
“Mmph— Listen! Shouldn’t even one more capable man stay at the front? Someone like me— Urk!”
“Out with you, you bastard! Go home, grab that Voltaire bastard by the collar or yank his beard, squeeze him however—get even one more of these! The more, the better!”
“G-Got it! You two there! Come take Lord Manson away!”
Grab! Drag drag drag—
Watching the sailors—who’d been dockhands just days ago—secure Roman with professional skill, I caught my breath for a moment.
The chaos now stemmed from stepping off the airship and taking in Kingsland with my own eyes. No time for strategy or battle reports—it hit me crystal clear.
“Should I call this good timing or bad....”
From the ramparts’ condition to defenses, troop quality and numbers, food and gear, supplies overall, to the command structure shattered by lack of junior officers—nothing could be taken lightly. But most urgent, contrary to rumors, was the morale scraping the absolute bottom.
‘....Nobles, knights, hero units aside—the rank-and-file infantry have mostly lost their will to fight.’
The biggest issue I sensed upon arrival: no distinction between the battlefield outside the walls and inside. No line between frontline and barracks.
I wasn’t an expert on PTSD or post-traumatic stress, but with my wartime experience, I knew what drove people mad and what let them endure.
[Uh.... But this isn’t human-vs-human warfare, right?]
‘Personally, killing people gets habitual once you cross a line. What breaks soldiers is something more fundamental.’
During World War III. The moments I felt hell weren’t the bullet storms or hourly mass slaughters.
It was the sentiment right after battle ended.
‘Peel back a person, and they’re dirtier than expected. Not metaphorically—literally. Strip the skin, pull the bones, and inside it’s all filth.’
The stench.
The thick blood smell that could rot your nose was one thing. Stomachs held what we called vomit; small and large intestines, bladders—what we flush away. Burst bodies spilled it out, flowing over earlier corpses, mixing with rotting protein smells. That’s corpse odor.
Survivors, drunk on joy, roll in the filth and extreme stench at the battlefield’s suddenly silent center. Then they realize: Ah, I’ve walked into hell’s heart and become part of it.
That’s what drives people mad in war.
‘Mental breakdowns aren’t just from emotional triggers. The inescapable assault on all five senses does it more. The kill moment blurs under adrenaline. Nightmares come later.’
In that sense, the Kingsland front was perfect for grinding down soldiers’ will.
Blood mist outside, body-burning smoke inside. For six months, they hadn’t breathed clean air once.
They survived by conquering fear and growing numb to death—but that meant numb to throwing away their own lives too.
Battles ignored day or night, sometimes daily, sometimes restarting before victory horns had sounded ten minutes. Irregular fights prevented relaxation, wore people down.
‘All the more stark because they have reason and will to stake their lives here. Even if the alarm rang now, they’d feel nothing special. Just switch from cargo to weapons. Zhuge Liang rising from the grave couldn’t win with troops like that.’
So I’d rushed mages off the ship to clean the environment first.
‘At minimum, distinguish [going out] from [returning] for rest to mean anything. Now, coming back from battle feels no different from being there.’
Even amid manpower shortages, soldiers rested in shifts—but commanders knew rest’s importance. It just didn’t refresh them.
‘At least give an environment where tension eases upon return from the field. That’s morale recovery’s first step, the basics.’
Knights drawing aura to the heavens don’t grasp us mortals’ needs. Modern military science isn’t about human rights. Provide rest and food from a tactical view—sustains combat power longer. War has no rights. It’s all necessity.
Othman’s water magic cleared corpse runoff, provided clean drinking water.
Wind magic swept stench, brought fresh air; earth magic handled insufficient firewood—enemy remains left to rot—via oil and pits, all at once.
For now, urgent rest environment and plague risk: fire out.
Crackle—
Scanning where to tackle next, Idrasil—blending into surroundings—landed beside me.
“I’m back.”
“Good work. Even rotten tuna’s still tuna—scouting the palace couldn’t have been easy.”
“Unfortunately, it was.”
“....No one at all? While scaling the walls?”
“Spotted royal guards protecting who I assume is the king, from afar. Seems he’s hidden somewhere under magical protection.”
“....No wonder no one emerged with supply drops from the sky.”
Former King Theord III. The just and renowned king, famed as a knight, of Lordric—said to have perished defending Kingsland’s empty throne after selling national treasures, losing lands and people. Rumors said ancient Lordric couldn’t bear falling in his reign, leading to a near-suicidal charge. Anyway, the king was dead. One might think, for a doomed nation, so what—but it wasn’t simple.
‘Charlotte’s morale-buff field aside, Lordric’s Castle Knights live up to “walls on horseback,” holding impossibly.’
The issue: they’re knights to the bone. All Lordric knights serve the king fundamentally, oaths to the royal house. King dies—they crash like generals’ troops in strategy games, massive debuffs. Royal guards might lose aura.
That’s why.
The hastily enthroned one: Theord IV, holed up trembling in that high palace.
Theord III’s third son. Age 11. First son died on the field, second on the walls—untrained boy-king.
Idrasil, back from palace recon, sighed in shared frustration.
“Frankly, I don’t know how this city’s held this long. They sent skilled foreigners and veterans to flanks to hold the line....”
“....Probably other pillars holding in place of the broken one.”
“Other pillars....”
“There. Coming this way.”
From afar, a lady knight supporting another knight approached.
Lordric’s First Knight, once met on the same front as a mere conscript.
Remembering her standing firm as dawn’s blaze, clashing swords with Edeorna, made her precarious flicker all the sadder.
A paladin caught my glance, dashed over, took the supported knight; at the paladin’s quiet word, she looked our way. The knight trudged wearily toward me.
Her eyes lit with joy briefly, then one hand to chest, she bowed deeply.
“Charlotte de Agate. Forgive my lack of formality as a disloyal knight who lost her lord. Worthless as I am, I bear Lordric’s commander role.”
“Hey, don’t make it awkward. Charlotte. I remember us shoulder-to-shoulder, lives on the line. What’s with honorifics and forgiveness? Since Turan battle.... year and a half?”
“....A bit more. If I offended, I apologize. I hold you as comrade in my heart, but your aid is vital to Lordric now.”
“Hey, I’m a saint too—think I’d ditch all remaining lives here over a little rudeness?”
“Saint.... Indeed, looking back, I owe you more apologies than one. Sold as a mage’s test subject. For one with your will to entrust it to a god.... in a way, my fault. If I’d healed you then, perhaps now a Lordric knight....”
“Well, all the Light’s guidance, right? Hahaha.”
I get it. Spotting her from afar, I’d pondered: honorifics like old times, or lord it as saint?
Seeing the shadow lift from her face, I helped her up, clasped hands, bowed.
“Ratura, Ro-Haram. Professor, Saint of Light, responsible for all tools of the Holy War.”
“....Lordric Dawn Knight Captain, Charlotte de Agate. Gratitude for extending aid in dire straits, and apology that His Majesty’s unwell, unable to convey it himself.”
Greetings crossing past bonds and current stations. Position demands it, with my subordinates watching. Gregory’s discomfort behind me screamed ‘Saint descends, yet fallen king doesn’t show?’ Necessary procedure to avoid static, regardless of my thoughts.
Alright, formalities done. Gregory won’t charge the palace yelling ‘blasphemy’ now—
Click!
“So, Lady Agate? Mind briefing the field commander on the situation? Church intel says human alliance seized momentum ages ago—why does it look on death’s door to me? Why so few troops in frontline heart Kingsland? Where’re each nation’s heroes stashed—leaving knights and grunts? Why does the arriving commander question allies before foes?”
....Haaa.
Shadow returned to Charlotte’s face, loosened by reunion.
Meant even battle-drenched Charlotte saw these glaring issues.
“....It’s classified. Let’s talk inside.”
Not the palace—she pointed to a field tent like a command post.
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