The Charge

Jung Jin-young burst out.

"What? That's a complete waste of money—"

"We need to recruit soldiers."

"Look, we could put that money to far better use. Offer the people sitting around this city doing nothing a hundred thousand won a head—no, even fifty thousand—and we could raise a force out of them!"

Gaon nodded.

"Then we'll recruit those guys too, and hire the skeletons separately."

He was really going to hire them? At that price?

While everyone stood speechless, the Lich unleashed a psychic transmission.

"So you know it's expensive, huh?"

"What's the additional compensation?"

It was not a condition he couldn't accept.

"Deal."

So saying, the Lich laughed inside their minds and vanished—the same teleportation as when it had appeared. The people left behind stared at Gaon in stunned silence.

"Uh..."

While Jijonmussang stood there unable to close his mouth, Gaon asked Jung Jin-young a question.

"You said we can recruit the spectators as soldiers for a hundred thousand a head?"

"Yes, probably."

"Then, Mr. Mayor? I'll put up the money, so get recruiting. If it feels unfair that I'm covering everything, well—we're defending this city anyway, so you could chip in."

Jung Jin-young nodded without thinking. This was the moment he ought to have asked whether Gaon actually had the money, and how he planned to prove it—but the sheer, overflowing confidence in the man's manner made him forget even that.

The broadcast began at once. The compensation offered was a hundred thousand won a head—quite a generous wage for a single battle. Before long, mercenaries had gathered in the city center.

Jung Jin-young looked them over. There were certainly more than before. But it still did not look like enough.

"We scraped together eight hundred, but we still can't win with this. Even adding the skeletons, that's barely nine hundred—they'll just get slaughtered charging the enemy lines. I haven't confirmed it myself, but they've definitely got more artillery than we do..."

Gaon answered him.

"Hey, why'd you lose your nerve already? We can win."

"What, you have some brilliant plan?"

"Of course I do."

"What is it?"

"Charge."

Jung Jin-young had forgotten that this was what he himself had argued for earlier. He just asked, incredulous.

"So you're saying we just throw these troops straight into the enemy lines?"

"Yes."

"The enemy's already finished fortifying their positions. What good is that going to do now—"

Gaon shook his head.

"It's not that hopeless. Look—their trench lines are thin. Just two rows, right? First defensive line, second defensive line. That's it."

"Well, they're trying to encircle us with barely over a thousand troops..."

It was a situation possible only because this was a game, its map compressed so players wouldn't struggle to get around. The city they had to defend was, by any real-world measure, barely the size of a village, and the encirclement and trench lines were correspondingly short—absurdly so, compared to a genuine war.

"On a real modern battlefield, the field would be so wide you couldn't take it all in at a glance. Here it's so cramped you can see everything from a high-rise."

Gaon kept explaining, but Jung Jin-young couldn't follow at all.

"Sure, it's a game, so it's not actual war scale—but so what? We're still outnumbered and we still have to A-move into them..."

Then Gaon shouted.

"I'm telling you, we can do this!"

The 1910s. Not long after the Archmage had opened the dimensional gate—the years of the First World War. Earth's soldiers were still green then. The doctrines of trench warfare, the principles of combined arms: none of it had fully taken root. Armies of the time concentrated most of their forces on the forward trench line.

Commanders of that age believed victory was won by the bold charge. Leave too many troops in the rear, they thought, and the assault would lose its momentum. For that reason, the forces left in the rear trenches were only a fraction of the army. The result: in the 1910s, the Swordmaster rose as the nightmare of the trenches.

Earthlings fought not only in their own world but on As as well, clawing for every extra inch of ground. Ordinary people of As could only stand by, powerless spectators, while strangers waged war on their soil as they pleased. But that did not apply to the superhumans who poured light from their blades.

The "valiant" Lord Hyungtun was a Swordmaster and a Margrave, and he did not care for the rabble of another world running wild on his frontier. If some vermin started fighting near his land, he would ally with whichever of the two was slightly less insolent and join the fray. Then he would charge the enemy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trenches himself.

It was no easy feat, even for a Swordmaster. A hail of bullets, merciless artillery, machine-gun fire—things that could kill even him. That he pressed on through all those dangers was reason enough to praise Lord Hyungtun as valiant. Crawling for kilometers, or accepting the mass death of the knights charging beside him, Lord Hyungtun charged.

Once he overcame all those hardships and somehow made it into the enemy trench, that was the end. The trench he entered became walls shielding both his flanks. Inside, fields of fire were extremely limited. You cannot suppress a Swordmaster with a restricted field of fire.

In the early 1910s alone, Lord Hyungtun charged eleven times, survived two brushes with death, and annihilated eleven forward trench lines. And in the early 1910s, the annihilation of a forward trench line meant the annihilation of a division. Earthlings were horrified. They were shocked. And they turned that shock into doctrine.

They had already been learning, besides, that concentrating forces on the forward trench line invited catastrophic losses from artillery. Earthlings mastered the proper method of deployment: a fraction of the force in front, the bulk in the rear. The results showed immediately.

Lord Hyungtun continued to insert himself into battle after battle, charging with the same valor. He remained the nightmare of trench warfare—but he no longer had quite as much fun. The trench lines he entered now held only as many troops as could be lost without it being fatal. A single terrifying swordsman succeeding in a charge no longer meant more than half a unit getting wiped out.

Moreover, a friendly trench was a place exposed to every friendly artillery battery—and Earthlings now understood that a Swordmaster was an enemy to be eliminated even at the cost of friendly fire. The moment a Swordmaster's position was revealed, headquarters did not hesitate to concentrate bombardment there, friendly casualties be damned. Lord Hyungtun, whose only talent was swinging a glowing sword well, did not weather that excess of attention gracefully.

His charges now carried greater risk and yielded far smaller results. In the end, Lord Hyungtun had to become less brave. Earthlings, flush with this achievement, congratulated themselves that civilization had triumphed once again. Pride and arrogance tend to scale together.

Earthlings took their newfound ability to check As's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠finest warrior as license to treat the people of As with even greater insolence. In the course of that insolence—in the course of a hostage stunt meant to frighten Lord Hyungtun—his four-year-old son was killed.

The "valiant" Lord Hyungtun became the "raging" Lord Hyungtun.

Lee Bok-dong stared at the enemy lines. The trench line encircling the city stretched beyond the ridge, so far he could barely see it. And they were supposed to charge that? Even knowing it was a game, his courage was failing him when Gaon asked:

"What's your job, you two?"

Jijonmussang answered weakly.

"Run with you and provide covering fire..."

Ahead of them was the group that would charge first. Eight hundred players. Toward them, the mayor gave the order to charge.

At the same time, the handful of howitzers they had opened fire on the enemy trenches—preparatory bombardment, to ease their own charge by cutting down the enemy's response.

Boom. Thud. Boom.

Footsteps thundered as the guns roared. They fired and fired until ears went numb, until the rear—where their own side stood—felt more threatening than the front where the enemy lay waiting. They wouldn't be able to keep it up long. They had few guns to begin with, and those guns were exposed close to the enemy lines; hostile fire would suppress them in moments.

Of course, none of that—friendly firepower, tactics, any of it—mattered in the slightest to the infantry charging the enemy lines. They didn't have the mental bandwidth. All that remained was whether they lived or died while running.

Of course, on a battlefield, running faster than everyone else is generally considered an attempt to die faster than everyone else. But there are those who run to die first. Those already dead. A waiting pack of skeletons began their charge.

Skeletons.

In those skeletal hands, nothing but bone, each gripped an AK-47. They clattered forward, muzzles spitting fire. These undead had been made by ancient sorcery, but it was the twentieth century that finally recognized their worth. They were beneficiaries of modern war.

In the age of cold steel, skeletons had not been particularly frightening enemies. With no muscle, nothing but bone, they were as frail as they looked—disposable bags of bones that ordinary soldiers could overpower with brute strength. But now, in the age of firearms, skeletons had an absurdly small target profile and outlasted regular soldiers. All they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠needed was just enough strength to hold a gun, which made them mass-producible incarnations of the charge.

A hail of bullets hissed through their ribcages. Skeletons whose skulls had been destroyed ran even faster, lightened of the weight. Those unlucky enough to take a hit to the spine, left with only a torso, found themselves in a prone position—and sprayed fire all the more safely.

"These fuckers just won't die..."

The soldiers hidden in the trenches couldn't stop these skeletons well. Shells were already falling over their heads. Eventually the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠machine guns turned on them. If one bullet wouldn't put them down, dozens would—that was the logic, and they emptied their belts, vomiting merciless lines of fire. Shells falling at the same time. Soon the skeletons were shattered to pieces, reduced to remains.

Into the places where the already-dead had fallen, living infantry came running. Thanks to the sacrifice of the dead who went first, a fair number had survived. Infantry who had closed enough distance dropped prone and opened aimed fire. And among them were those who did not drop—who kept running.

"Thanks for the pocket money!"

Swordsmen. They had been enjoying their sword practice when the offer of a hundred and fifty thousand won a head lured them into this battle, figuring they might as well earn some account money. Some of the rifle-armed infantry ran with them, assault rifles blazing.

They died. They fell. They died. And through that sacrifice, some of the force finally reached the inside of the trench.

"Hey hey!"

Gaon, leaping into the trench, leveled his weapons. A sword in his left hand, a pistol in his right.

"Uh..."

The moment he met the enemies in the trench, he rapid-fired. The pistol spat fire five times, and five men died.