A Sanctuary of Our Own
Every step I take becomes the path for those who follow me.
The choices I make determine whether they can keep marching forward or if they must finally fall to their knees.
How much time had passed since I took that first step into the darkness?
No matter how battle-hardened these elite soldiers were, the endless, damp underground passage and the suffocating, claustrophobic air began to wear on them. Their breathing grew increasingly heavy.
"...General."
Finally, the adjutant following closely behind me could no longer contain himself and whispered in a low voice.
It was Biensen.
He was a man whose loyalty was almost excessively grand—someone whose name I had memorized simply because I had run him ragged so many times.
"Is this truly the right path? If we keep climbing up this abandoned waterway... will King Ades really be at the end of it?"
Biensen's voice was a mixture of deep doubt and anxiety.
And for good reason. We were currently navigating a mapless labyrinth, relying solely on my "intuition"—which was actually just my knowledge of the original novel.
Without stopping my stride in the darkness, I gave a brief reply.
"He has to be."
Upon hearing my answer, Biensen froze in his tracks.
"What? General... are you saying even you aren't certain?!"
Biensen's startled voice echoed along the damp walls of the waterway.
The forty-nine soldiers following behind us clearly showed signs of agitation.
To think their commander had dragged his men into the very depths of the enemy's heart without even being sure of the way.
Maybe I was a bit too honest.
But I had no intention of taking my words back.
Frankly, it was just a belated confession.
Ever since committing treason, I hadn't been certain of a single thing.
"Nothing in this world is certain."
"...General."
"Because the war isn't over yet. Until we pierce the enemy's heart, doubt everything—including me. That doubt is the only weapon that will keep you alive on the battlefield."
Perhaps, if there had been a day or two of breathing room after I transmigrated into Lasen before Sabre Kalista captured me, I might have accepted death as nobly as the original Lasen did.
But now, I couldn't even tell if it was me or Lasen in my speech, my thoughts, and every single moment of my existence.
Which means... Lasen lived his entire life like this.
Even up to the moment of his death.
Even without any certainty.
He had remained fiercely loyal.
"...I will keep that engraved in my heart, General."
Biensen replied, his voice trembling.
Before long, a wall caught in the faint glow of our torches blocked our path.
"T-this is...!"
Biensen, who was leading the way, let out a low groan.
A massive pile of boulders completely blocked the waterway.
In the past, the Europian royal family had sealed this secret waterway by pouring a sticky, clay-like substance similar to concrete, along with molten iron, to tightly and solidly fill the gaps between the rocks.
It's exactly as described in the novel...
However, we were a small, stealthy unit assembled for a surprise attack.
We had only brought crude tools that made little noise—simple pickaxes, chisels, and hammers.
To break through this solid wall of stone with only the strength of fifty elite soldiers and without a single explosive seemed utterly impossible to anyone.
Biensen tapped the stone wall a few times. Taking my advice to heart, he questioned the situation and made a cold, rational judgment.
"It's too solid. We can't do this with our current equipment. General! The right move is to retreat for now."
He was a capable man.
When the war ended and I handed the men over to Sabre Kalista, Biensen would be the one to assist Sabre and ensure the soldiers' rights were fully protected.
"If we retreat, report this to General Sabre and get support from the main army's proper siege weapons and combat engineers, we can easily break through..."
However.
"No."
I rejected Biensen's proposal.
"If we turn back now, this operation will no longer belong to us."
Biensen asked back, flustered.
"But borrowing General Sabre's strength is the most certain way..."
"We must break through it ourselves."
I repeated my answer.
We had to be the ones to do it.
"If we take Ades's head using Sabre's strength, the credit will ultimately go to the Valerian main army. Not to you. Only if we break through this blocked wall ourselves and decapitate Ades... will you finally earn a home to return to and live in here in Europia."
Biensen's eyes wavered.
I seized upon that hesitation.
"General Sabre trusts and cares for us personally. But look at it from the perspective of the entire Valerian Kingdom. Do you really think we, the traitors of Europia, will be welcomed by them?"
"..."
"No. Once the war is over, we will be reduced to nothing more than an eyesore that Valerian wants to sweep away. If we end this war by relying on Sabre, we will forever remain a nuisance to be discarded."
I slammed my palm hard against the stone wall.
"We must become a sanctuary. A sanctuary that even the Valerian royal family cannot dare to touch. The miracle that ended this tedious war! The traitors who abandoned their homeland must become the founding contributors who usher in a new empire!"
My voice rang out, echoing loudly through the narrow waterway.
"General...!"
The sound of sniffing echoed in the darkness.
A great leader who was forcing this reckless plan just to ensure the post-war safety of traitorous scum like them, giving all the credit to his subordinates.
With tears welling in their eyes, Biensen and the fifty elite soldiers gripped their axes and pickaxes.
A fierce fighting spirit erupted from them.
They looked ready to claw through the stone with their bare hands.
"Oooooh! We will follow your will, General!"
"Even if our fingernails are torn off and our bones are crushed, we will break through this wall!"
At the fanatical, cult-like reaction of my subordinates, I nodded solemnly on the outside.
However...
The speech sounded great... but I only spouted all that to buy time to figure out how to actually break through this, guys...
If only passion alone could break through a concrete wall.
Just as the men were about to charge the wall with their tools, Biensen swallowed hard and raised a practical question once more.
"But... General. While we have engraved your noble will into our hearts, how do you plan to break through such a solid pile of stone?"
Everyone's eyes focused on me.
Instead of answering, I stepped closer to the tightly sealed wall.
I flared my nostrils and sniffed the cold surface of the stone.
"Ugh...!"
I barely managed to hold back the urge to vomit up everything in my stomach.
The putrid stench of decades-old rotting corpses was leaking from beyond the wall.
Ah...
"This smell... what is it? Why is there such a foul stench inside this waterway...?"
Biensen also pinched his nose and grimaced.
Suppressing my disgust, I opened my mouth to speak.
There's only one cause for this smell.
"The source of the smell is corpses. The poor Europian laborers who were conscripted to build this waterway decades ago."
The soldiers' eyes widened at my words.
"To keep the secret of this waterway, the Europian royal family didn't let the laborers out when construction stopped. They sealed them deep inside the waterway along with this wall, burying them alive."
"T-to commit such a horrific act...!"
"The royal civil engineers back then probably boasted that they had filled every gap with rocks and clay. But they foolishly failed to calculate the power of nature, brought about by time and decay."
I lightly scraped a section of the wall with a chisel as I continued my explanation.
"The corpses buried alive behind this wall slowly died in this sealed space, and soon began to rot and decompose. The flesh would have bloated and then shrunk back to bone, over and over. In other words, inside this seemingly solid pile of stone... there are countless empty spaces created by the decaying corpses."
"T-then that means..."
Hearing my deduction—a combination of modern scientific knowledge and the novel's setting—the soldiers looked at me with eyes full of awe, as if they were looking at a prophet.
"We can break through it."
I raised my chisel and pointed precisely at the cracked spot where the stench leaked out the most.
"It is only hard on the outside. Inside, it is already rotten and ruined, just like the Kingdom of Europia. If we just dig out that crack... this pile of stone won't be able to support its own weight and will collapse on its own."
I was finally certain.
I declared it with the conviction of Lasen.
At my command, the elite soldiers charged toward the spot I pointed out, their eyes blazing.
Clang!
Clink!
The sound of chisels and hammers striking stone echoed relentlessly in the darkness.
And not long after they began digging.
Crack!
A crack began to spread through the center of the seemingly solid wall.
The moment the soldiers scrambled back at my shout—
Rumble, crash!
Unable to withstand the weight of decades, the pile of stone collapsed all at once.
A cloud of dust rushed out, accompanied by a pungent, nauseating stench.
"Cough, cough!"
"It's open! General, the wall has collapsed!"
Beyond the dust cloud, a hole large enough for a person to easily pass through lay wide open.
Finally, the secret passage leading to the heart of Eurosola lay open beneath our feet.
Stepping over the collapsed debris, we made our way up through the darkness once more.
As the slope grew steeper and the damp air gradually turned dry.
We saw the end of the waterway blocked by a dead-end ceiling.
Wooden planks and what looked like a rusted iron door were fitted over it.
We've arrived.
Catching my breath, I reined in the tension I had carried all the way from the collapsed ruins.
Biensen approached my side and asked in a hushed whisper.
"General... why was this waterway not completely filled with dirt? How is it that the exit leading into the castle remains intact like this?"
"Because that is the true purpose of this waterway."
I looked up at the ceiling and replied coldly.
The secret of this waterway was top-secret, known only to the royal family—specifically, the king's direct lineage.
In the event that collateral nobles rebelled and breached the castle gates, this was the absolute last resort—an escape bunker left for the king and his immediate family to flee from the palace to the outside.
Of course, because Europia is highly superstitious... they left it for that purpose but failed to maintain it. That's why it was still blocked by the pile of stone.
Who would have thought the pieces would fall together like this?
The very hole dug for escape was now being climbed by grim reapers.
I drew the Kalista family's treasured sword from my waist and raised the heavy axe slung across my back at the same time.
"Raise your axes."
Shring, clang!
At my command, the fifty warriors clad in black armor drew their weapons in unison.
"We must show His Majesty that we have returned."
I swung my axe with all my might toward the ceiling.
Crash!
The rusted lock and worn wooden planks shattered, and the darkness that had weighed heavily upon us vanished in an instant.
The bright morning sun pouring down from above welcomed us.
The final morning of Europia had arrived.
And pushing away the putrid smell of rotting corpses, the sweet scent of flowers rushed in.
The exit of the waterway was connected to the floor of a storehouse, which had originally been built over a filled-in well as a disguise.
Creak—
I kicked open the broken storehouse door and stepped outside.
"..."
"..."
The soldiers who crawled out of the hole behind me held their breath at the sight before them.
The eyes of the soldiers, who had been wallowing in filth and stench just moments ago, stung from the brilliance.
The blindingly beautiful and luxurious garden of the Europian royal palace sparkled under the sunlight.
Clad in Valerian's pitch-black armor and clutching axes covered in dirt and dust, the fifty traitors...
...now...
...stood right in the middle of the palace garden of the Europia Kingdom.
Just you wait, King Ades.