A Hero Must Not Fall
The soldiers' cheers quickly twisted into agonized wails. From every direction came desperate cries for help and shouts for a medic.
"...How horrific."
It was horrific. Chunks of flesh were scattered everywhere. The private before me wasn't the only one who had died. Far more bodies lay crumpled across the ground. Which meant... it was time to eat.
For a normal commander, this would have been the moment to assess allied casualties and issue orders. But for me, a vampire, it was both salvation and hell intertwined.
"Ugh...!!"
It was a truly revolting time. My mind knew it was wrong, yet I gripped the private's dog tag with all my strength and sank my small fangs into the side of his neck.
"Graaaagh...!!!"
...No. No, Valentine. Calm down...
"Medic...!! Medic!! We can still save him!!!"
...He's already gone. It's all right, Valentine...
Then the screams of fallen soldiers across the battlefield reached me—their raw howls begging to be saved. Those voices sounded too much like the private whose blood I was drinking, and I felt my sanity slipping away.
Still, I swallowed the metallic blood along with the rising nausea. Without it, I could not survive. This fate of mine made me want to lose my mind. I wished I truly would go mad.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. The private's voice, filled with terror yet still carrying out his duty only moments ago, echoed clearly in my ears. I could see the pure young men who had smiled at the news that chocolate would be added to their rations, now lying dead all around me.
"...Everyone, please get up. Get up and report that you're still alive."
I murmured this as I looked at them. No one answered.
"...Are you all just sleeping in?"
After finishing my meal, I clutched the private's dog tag tightly and whispered the words. There were no replies, no reports. Only a desolate silence remained. My soldiers, my subordinates, had fallen into a deep sleep from which they would never awaken.
"...Thank you for your service."
I spoke while gazing at the private, the small puncture wound visible on his neck.
"I will definitely... definitely achieve victory and atone for driving you to your death. Please wait for me until then."
As I said this, the private's entire life seemed to flash before my eyes. I could clearly picture his mother receiving the letter announcing his death and breaking down in sobs.
"...Your older brother died on this battlefield too, didn't he?"
I could not imagine how devastating it must be for a mother to lose two sons. How enormous her grief would be. How utterly tragic.
My hand trembled violently.
"......"
I looked back and forth between my shaking hand and the dead private.
"...No. Valentine, please."
What was I even begging for? I didn't know. What I did know was that tears were falling from my eyes, one after another.
The Empire's hero could not collapse in front of others. Could not break down before her subordinates. Yet I had already shattered completely.
Yes, simply surviving this long as a vampire had been too much. My body was on the verge of breaking into pieces, and my mind had fractured, its shards drifting farther and farther apart.
I wanted to wail. To hell with survival strategies—I wanted to reveal my true self and cry. I wanted to bury my face in this blood-soaked mud, in the soft earth created by my fallen subordinates, and scream until my throat gave out.
"...I don't know anymore."
Even in this much pain, I could not die. I had already experienced the terror of death once before. I had become a creature that could not even run away.
PTSD remained strangely quiet in moments like this. The urge to take my black sword and drive it into my stomach dominated my thoughts.
"...Let's die."
Die and atone.
"I'm scared... I'm so scared......"
After snatching away so many lives on a whim. After becoming a filthy, worthless thing with no right to exist, how dare I utter such words?
Yes, just as Eryk had said, I was nothing but a dirty vampire. A useless being that even humans had no need for—one whose own purpose I could not comprehend. Pitiful, petty, arrogant, and weak.
"Urgh...!!!"
I stopped the blade just before it could pierce my stomach. My hand shook uncontrollably.
"Ah......"
"Aaaah......"
Something inside me was collapsing. I could feel a part of me snapping.
I had thought I had discarded all emotion long ago.
"Can this arm... be reattached...?"
"My leg... Sergeant, have you seen my leg!?"
"Graaaagh...!!"
"There's a hole in my stomach...! Ugh...!!"
I had believed I had grown used to such screams from the soldiers. Yes, I had fooled myself into thinking so. But seeing those scenes again, truly seeing them once more—
Plop. Plop.
I felt tears landing on the back of my hand. In a daze, I looked down at my reflection in the pooled blood.
That lovely face was still expressionless. Cold and utterly blank. But there was one difference from usual: hot tears were streaming down that icy, emotionless face.
......
I'm sorry......
...I'm truly, truly sorry.
Guilt tore at my chest like claws. Because of my hypocrisy, even more people had died and been wounded. The thought made my legs give out.
Just as I began to fall, someone caught me from behind.
"......?"
The hand was too large to belong to Kriha or Jenny. It felt like a man's, yet Kyle would never dare lay hands on me. Wondering who it could be, I looked up.
"...Lieutenant Colonel...?"
"......"
Eryk—that Eryk—held me steady with a complicated expression, keeping me from collapsing.
He was someone who irritated me just by existing. Someone I hated, found tiresome, and utterly loathed. So why was my heart...
...The blood between the bandages.
Why did it feel like it was melting warmly, just like that red blood?
The warm tears stopped. Only the cold, expressionless mask remained on my face.
Only then did Eryk's frown smooth back into an emotionless stare.
"Major. Are you all right?"
"...Yes, I am."
"......"
"I-I'm fine. Really."
When I answered while swaying, Eryk frowned, then knelt on one knee in the dirt. He looked up at me with clear displeasure.
"...The Empire's hero must not collapse in front of others. No matter how heavy the burden, you must never show weakness to the enemy or your own troops."
Eryk regarded me as if I were a poorly raised child, his eyes moving to the blood at the corner of my mouth.
"...?"
When I tilted my head in confusion, he glanced at the dog tag in my hand and the private's corpse.
"Did you drink blood again?"
"......"
I nodded silently. Eryk let out a long sigh.
"...Disgusting."
"......"
"Can you drink from corpses without hesitation? Is that the nature of vampires? Are you exactly the creature I imagined?"
Eryk suddenly hurled the strange question at me. When I stared at him in bewilderment, he gripped my shoulder firmly. Yet it wasn't as painful as before.
"...Are vampires the filthy, ugly, revolting race I believed them to be?"
Honestly, I thought they were. I found my own existence as a vampire so repulsive I could barely stand it. So I nodded.
Eryk's frown deepened as he continued.
"...Then what about the Empire's hero, Valentine?"
"...Pardon?"
"Pretending you didn't hear won't work. Answer the question."
"I... don't know."
My reply made his scowl even harsher.
"Is Valentine disgusting? So disgustingly repulsive that she keeps catching my eye, obstructing my path, devouring the Empire from within, and plans to kill even Kriha, Jenny, and Kyle with her own hands? Is that correct?"
His voice had grown heated. I shook my head.
"...N-no... I don't want to kill my subordinates. Please believe me."
"No."
Eryk cut off my denial without hesitation.
"...At least in my mind, even now, in this very moment, you see us as nothing more than lumps of meat—mere tools for your survival."
That wasn't true. It wasn't. Even though I had been thrown into this game, this was a real world. I... I cared for my subordinates more than anything. The pain of taking their lives was unbearable.
"...That's not true. I cherish my subordinates more than anyone—"
"Then prove it."
"...Pardon?"
"Prove it."
So saying, Eryk placed his own cigarette between my lips and lit it.
"...Show me with your actions that everything I think about you has been a misunderstanding."
It was bewildering. His expression looked sorrowful. There had been times when his eyes held sadness when looking at me, but his face had always remained fixed in disgust.
"...What do you mean by that?"
"......"
"Lieutenant Colonel?"
Eryk didn't answer. He simply stared at me blankly for a moment before hiding his expression once more. Then he guided my hand to the cigarette so it wouldn't fall from my lips.
I inhaled the smoke out of habit. It tasted sweet. The sensation of it going down my throat was sweeter than it had ever been.
When my face went slack with confusion, the frowning Eryk asked me.
"...You, a vampire, are still repulsive to me. But if all of it was a misunderstanding..."
He hesitated briefly.
"...Never mind. Pretend you didn't hear that."
With those words, Eryk turned away and ordered the soldiers to prepare their defenses at once.