Chapter 98
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Aftermath
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Rex, son of Belzark.
Like other orcs, he enlisted in the army on his coming-of-age day, axe in hand, and cut down his enemies.
In his twenty-second year, he cheated death for the first time. The following year, he cheated it again.
On his twenty-sixth birthday, he achieved a feat worthy of being called a ‘distinguished service’ for the first time, and his name began to circulate among the soldiers.
By the time he turned thirty-three this year, the number of mutants he had slain exceeded ten thousand, and the lives he had saved surpassed one hundred thousand.
Rex, son of Belzark, was by no means what you would call a ‘genius,’ but he was brave and just, a man worthy of being called a hero.
“Damn it.”
Yes, a damn hero.
“Son of a bitch…”
I carefully placed a hand on Rex’s fallen body.
As the adrenaline of battle subsided, the surrounding silence began to pound in my head.
“…”
Cold as ice. The hole in his abdomen was massive, and blood continued to pour out.
I struggled to turn Rex’s body onto his back. Naturally, he didn’t budge.
“Rex, are you awake…?”
No matter how hard I pushed, he wouldn’t move. It couldn’t be easy to breathe with his face pressed into the ground like that.
Having no other choice, I managed to at least turn his head to the side.
“…Fuck.”
The face I turned to the side was deathly pale. His breath was faint, as if about to break, and his skin was as cold as ice.
“Fucking hell…”
I collapsed right there. A faint bolt of lightning erupted from the ground. The crackling of the current echoed between my skin and my robe.
[Calm].
It stopped me from sinking into grief.
I felt like I would be much more at ease if I could just burst into tears.
As of today, I owed Rex my life three times over.
So I remained slumped on the ground, my hands clasped together in endless prayer.
I didn’t know who to pray to.
Right, Rex believed in Astella, so I should at least offer a prayer to her.
“…”
And so the silence returned.
It echoed for an eternity.
“…Get up.”
Before long, that seemingly eternal silence shattered into pieces.
The voice belonged to the Sword Saint. I immediately shot up and fired a bolt of lightning toward where the voice had come from.
A white flame grazed past the Sword Saint.
I glared at him with resentment, and he looked back at me with pity.
“Move…”
“What took you so long?”
I knew.
I knew the Sword Saint had come after dealing with the Overlord. I knew I was in no position to question him.
I also knew that the only reason I’d been able to gain the upper hand against Maltiel was because the pressure of ‘the Sword Saint will be here soon’ had constantly weighed him down.
I knew Rex’s death was entirely due to my own lack of ability.
I knew Alter’s death was also because I was weak.
That it was all wrong from the start, from when I pretended to be a genius I wasn't, deceiving everyone…
“Move. Nothing is over yet.”
“…What do you mean?”
The fight was over.
The fact that this man was here meant that the third Overlord, Mikael, was dead.
Rex himself had killed the fourth, so the war in Vellaland was…
“Get a hold of yourself, General. The battle is over, but the war is not. Tend to the wounded. There are still many lives that can be saved if you move quickly.”
“…Save? Rex?”
“Not just Rex Belzark. Alter Haindel, Master Sergeant Maxwell, Second Lieutenant Matellion, and Private First Class Hames as well. There’s a chance if you move now.”
Alter.
“You saw Alter, too…? Where is he now…?”
“I only have three minutes left on the battlefield. I will take the most critical soldiers to Grisha first. Your wounds are not deep, so wait here for a moment. There’s a limit to how many I can carry.”
With that, the Sword Saint walked into the depths of the crater. Approaching Rex, he tore the sleeve of his clean garment and spread it like a bandage.
“The battle is over, but the war is not yet finished. Remember that, General.”
Repeating his words once more, he briefly examined the large hole in Rex’s abdomen, then, without staunching the wound, immediately hoisted him onto his back.
Did he decide that getting him to Grisha even a second faster gave him a higher chance of survival than clumsily trying to stop the bleeding?
I didn’t know.
All I knew was that there was no hesitation in the Sword Saint’s actions.
Soon, the man with Rex on his back vanished like a mirage.
Only a dark red puddle remained on the ground. The puddle was still, as if it were solid metal.
Then, the electricity that had been crackling noisily between my skin and my robe fell silent.
Silence filled my vision.
* * *
A faint crimson filled my vision.
Soon, something indigo fluttered at the corner of my eye. I lowered my head to find the source of what was teasing my sight. A bright yellow something greeted me.
“…”
Slowly, the faint colors began to take shape.
I soon realized what the unidentified yellow silhouette was.
It was Rireu.
Her robe was soaked in muddy water, turning it indigo, and her pale skin was the same.
Red smudges remained around Rireu’s eyes. I unconsciously raised my hand to them. My slender hand touched her face.
I caressed her face with my right hand, but I felt nothing.
Rireu took hold of my unnaturally moving right hand and asked with a worried look.
“Are you okay? Should I fetch the priests…?”
“It’s fine. I just sprained it.”
I didn’t want Rireu to leave my side, so I lied.
And silently, I prayed for time to stop.
I don’t know why I made such a prayer. Perhaps it was because I was afraid of what was to come.
How many had died, how many had survived, and how many were missing.
The battle was over, and a general had to look after his subordinates.
He had to distinguish the living from the dead and load the corpses strewn across the battlefield onto carts.
I hated it.
I was sick and tired of talking about the battlefield.
I just wanted to throw everything away and trade silly jokes with Rireu.
But I knew I couldn’t.
“…How are Rex and Alter?”
“…”
This time, Rireu’s slender hand touched my face. Her reddened eyes filled with tears, which soon streamed down her cheeks.
“They’re… they’ve passed the crisis. Both of them.”
“…With those wounds? Really?”
I responded to Rireu’s answer with a loud laugh.
For a result I hadn’t wanted to know, even if it meant stopping time, it was far better than I’d expected.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed like this. Two weeks? No, it must have been over three.
“It’s Lady Grisha, after all.”
“Damn, maybe I should start going to church today.”
Rireu, in the midst of her tears, let out a faint laugh.
Seeing her laugh, I laughed again. It still sounded like someone trying to stop air from escaping a balloon, but it was joyful nonetheless.
“…Master is asleep right now. Lady Grisha said he should wake up within two weeks at the least. Rex… Sir Rex’s wounds were severe, but he should wake up within ten days.”
“Rex is waking up first?”
“He’s a strong man. Master is an old man over eighty.”
“Well… Alter being old is a fact. I can vouch for that. One hundred percent pure old man.”
The relief of knowing they were alive and would wake up made my mouth move on its own.
Rireu seemed to find it difficult to laugh freely at my mischievous joke.
But she did laugh.
And that was enough for me.
“…Rest.”
Her slender fingers brushed my hair back.
My gaze naturally followed her fingers upward.
Only then did I notice the sunset, beginning to disappear beyond the distant hill.
“…Those people.”
And silhouetted against that sunset, the long shadow of an orc carrying a large flag on his back stretched out.
Following behind the orc was an elf, a broken longbow in her hand.
A dwarf holding a small hammer and a human clutching a large nail were scurrying to catch up with the orc and elf who had gone ahead.
Soon, the shadows stopped on a moderately sized hill.
The orc planted the flag he was carrying on the highest point of the hill. At a rough guess, it was well over ten meters tall.
The elf placed her hand on the pole of the flag the orc had firmly planted. A thick rope extended from it.
The elf pulled the rope until it was taut, then handed it to the dwarf who had followed. The dwarf immediately took the nail from the human and began hammering.
…That flag, no matter how I looked at it, was ridiculously large. Watching the massive, limp sheet of cloth, sagging because there was no wind, cooled any sense of grandeur that tried to well up inside me.
A flag over ten meters tall. And it wasn’t even foldable. How in the world did they fit that on a wagon?
Nonsensical thoughts kept popping into my head, but for some reason, I didn’t want to voice them.
That wasn’t all.
I even found myself hoping for the wind to pick up and make that flag flutter.
“…”
It was nothing more than a huge sheet of cloth, some paint, and an absurdly long pole.
A simple, ordinary flag, without any magic or special processing.
And yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off it for a long time.
It was the least the living could do for the dead.
And it was also a message from the dead to the living.
*We held the line today. So we entrust tomorrow to you.*
* * *
Deaths: 51,123
Wounded: 4,123
Missing: 11,577
Survivors: 6,781
The Vellaland War
Allied Forces Victory