Why We (1)
It was like the sound of a war horn signaling the start of battle. Or thunder heralding an oncoming storm. It was also the long, drawn-out yawn of something awakening from a deep slumber, a warning and declaration of war to the humans waiting beyond the cliffs.
Whether they had stood on the battlefield fifteen years ago or not, everyone froze in place, all action halted. The clatter of spears and swords slipping from trembling hands and rolling across the ramparts echoed through the air. The monster assault, the human counterattack, even the drifting clouds seemed to pause. Only the setting sun continued its indifferent shift, casting a futile crimson glow to mark the passage of time.
The commander gripped his shabby sword like a straw and stared out beyond the wall. The monsters that, just ten minutes earlier, had been swarming the ramparts with enough force to tear them down completely had vanished without a trace. Yet no one pointed it out. They simply stood in silent awe and terror of the entity beyond the wasteland that had overwhelmed the world with a single roar, bodies shaking uncontrollably.
“B-Behemoth.”
Someone spoke first.
“Was that roar just now… the Behemoth?”
“It’s here… it’s really here…”
The murmurs began. Soldiers and knights alike, everyone atop the wall was gripped by overwhelming dread, speaking of a monster they couldn’t even see. The commander barked at the panicked troops.
“We don’t have time to tremble in fear! The monsters are about to climb up from below, and you’re dropping your spears!”
He deliberately raised his voice and kicked away a spear one soldier had dropped. It rolled behind the wall and tumbled down the stairs.
“Is this how you plan to defend the kingdom’s final bastion? Is this how you’ll protect the kingdom’s throat?”
His voice rose with heat as he jabbed his finger wildly toward the other side of the wall.
“Look beyond that wall…”
Then his voice died in his throat at the sight that greeted him. The finger that had been pointing outward froze, trembling faintly.
“Suddenly… what…”
The commander could only doubt his own eyes. The horde of monsters that had blanketed the land outside the wall like a sea had disappeared like a mirage, as if they had never been there. The wasteland was as desolate as a beach after the tide had receded. Only piles of corpses remained scattered before the wall.
The atmosphere, which had been shifting with the commander’s passionate words, grew even colder. Paola shook her head at the sight.
“This is bad.”
Maxim kept his wary gaze fixed beyond the wall for a moment longer before turning to Paola.
“Most of them have completely lost their will to fight. From the looks of it, the only ones still holding onto their sanity are those who experienced this fifteen years ago. Someone needs to snap them out of it…”
Paola frowned as she looked at Maxim.
“You seem surprisingly composed.”
Maxim shrugged. It wasn’t that he felt no fear. He simply knew how to pull himself out of it quickly.
An enemy whose true form I haven’t even faced yet—why should I fear it now?
There were far too many things he should fear to waste any dread on that creature. The curse. The family left behind in his territory. His gradually fading sense of self and his crumbling body.
“It’s only right to fear it,” Paola said, looking him up and down. “Though the senior who says so doesn’t seem all that terrified himself.”
Maxim was watching the soldiers and knights slowly regaining their composure. There were no more enemies left to fight, but that fact seemed irrelevant to them.
“…Why don’t you step forward, senior?”
Paola let out a sigh. She seemed reluctant to deny Maxim’s suggestion.
“Fear and hatred are separated by a razor’s edge, Maxim. I’m barely standing on that line, which is why I’m like this. Normally, I would have dropped my mace like those soldiers and been shaking uncontrollably.”
Paola spoke directly to Maxim.
“…That is the Behemoth. My deepest hatred is intertwined with my deepest fear. And never once has my hatred for the Behemoth overcome my fear of it, Maxim.”
Her hands were trembling slightly.
“Knowing what those soldiers are afraid of, what more can I say? I cannot do it. At least not here. There is no one in this place who can rally the troops.”
Paola’s words were brutally cold. Maxim could only agree.
The commander was unable to issue orders. The soldiers and knights maintained a meaningless state of combat readiness, while the few veterans who had regained their senses moved among them, desperately trying to pull their terrified comrades back to reality.
At that moment, someone approached the area where Maxim and Paola stood.
“Leave only the minimum personnel and have everyone descend from the wall.”
It was the Margrave, her white hair tied back in a single bundle. Her entire suit of armor was drenched in blood, evidence of the ferocious battle she had fought—though no one there had escaped unscathed.
“Margrave!”
Her face was deathly pale. The splatters of blood across it resembled the war paint of savage warriors. Yet despite her valiant appearance, her voice trembled with faint fear.
When the soldiers and knights showed no visible reaction to her command, the Margrave shouted at them.
“Now!”
Only then did the commander relay her orders.
“Only the minimum necessary personnel remain at each position! Everyone else, descend from the wall! Hurry!”
The veterans moved first. They picked up the spears that had fallen to the ground and prodded their juniors with the blunt ends, ordering them to move. They intended to send down those who hadn’t fully recovered and remain to guard the wall themselves.
“Get down there, you bastards.”
“What wall are you lot going to defend when one monster howl has you pissing your pants…”
Under the veterans’ half-hearted curses, the soldiers staggered away from their posts.
The Margrave watched them with a long sigh before walking toward Paola. Seeing the grim expression on the Margrave’s face, Paola spoke with unconcealed concern.
“…It seems the mood has been somewhat restored.”
“For some reason, after the Behemoth roared, every last one of those countless monsters disappeared. Damn it. What the hell is about to happen?”
Paola gazed at the wasteland below the wall where the monsters had vanished.
“Are the other positions alright?”
“We managed to hold off the attack. Except for the fact that the Behemoth has sent morale straight into the ground.”
The Margrave spoke as if it were nothing, but her entire body was rigid with tension.
“We need to reorganize. I don’t understand why they suddenly withdrew… but we must use this opening to prepare properly to face the Behemoth.”
Not that preparation guarantees we can fight it.
The Margrave added that last part with a bitter tone.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Confirm and collect the wounded and the dead… then we must burn those piles of corpses first. To those damned monsters, those corpse piles serve as both supplies and siege mounds.”
The Margrave turned to Paola and Maxim.
“Any other opinions? I will accept yours at any time.”
The inclusion of Maxim in that statement was only natural. Perhaps it was due to the impression left by the prowess he had displayed at the Edge of the Cliff. Maxim met her uneasy gaze directly and voiced the question that had suddenly come to mind.
“Margrave.”
She turned her head slightly toward him.
“What is it? If you have an opinion…”
“If it’s not too rude, may I ask one question?”
The Margrave nodded once, as if to say go ahead. Maxim stared at the wall, now a mess of monster and human blood, and spoke.
“…If this wall collapses. If the monsters break through.”
For a moment, the Margrave’s expression twitched, but Maxim ignored the change and continued.
“Do you have any measures prepared for after that?”
The Margrave looked at Maxim with icy eyes. The gaze of the white-haired knight, drenched head to toe in monster blood, was quite fierce. However, Maxim did not avert his eyes as he had before, nor did he back down. He met her stare with an emotionless gaze of his own.
“That was a bold statement, Maxim.”
“This is no time to worry about pride, Margrave. You know that.”
Maxim was right. The Margrave held his gaze for a long time before letting out a sigh.
“…You’re right. This is no time to talk about the front lines or the kingdom’s throat. Such useless talk.”
Because if they clung to pride like that, the kingdom’s throat might truly be severed.
“Yes… if this wall falls…”
The Margrave’s expression darkened. The collapse of the wall was supposed to be impossible. Even if a few monsters managed to scale it during a fierce assault, even if several massive creatures pounded at it trying to bring it down, the wall had stood firm. Fifteen years ago, when the monstrous tide had swept across the wasteland, not even then had this wall been breached.
But perhaps. If the monsters’ attack was even more ferocious than back then, and this wall inevitably collapsed.
The Margrave stared at the cracked surface of the wall’s stones.
“…First, if this position is breached, the secondary defense line will automatically shift to the Murat region. It is also the place currently accepting refugees from No Man’s Land.”
This time, the Margrave frowned as she looked toward the road leading to the city. Following that supply route that looked like a winding path would lead to a border city. A now-empty city that had sent away all its people—a city this wall had protected, and which had in turn protected this wall. It was half of the world the Margrave knew, and it was also the place where she would one day die.
“…That border city has magic formations installed throughout since the war fifteen years ago. Extremely powerful spells capable of collapsing the very ground, set by the kingdom’s greatest mages of the time.”
The Margrave’s voice carried a note of bitterness.
“If this fortress falls, that city will meet its end alongside the monsters. It will become a tomb for thousands of them. Whether it can take the Behemoth with it, however, I do not know.”
She tapped the hilt of her sword.
“But the forces of No Man’s Land will not allow the Behemoth to reach the secondary defense line, even if it means destroying the city.”
The Margrave’s eyes sharpened. The trembling fear from before seemed to have vanished. Paola raised an eyebrow in apparent admiration.
“…Our— no, at least my—grave will be that border city.”
She laughed, saying that once the wall fell and the city was destroyed, her mission would end in failure.
“The one who must command this place should not speak such words. A commander does not make preparations to die.”
Paola added coldly.
“If the commander does not prepare to die, how can those who follow her risk their lives in battle?”
At the Margrave’s words, Paola sighed.
“Just say that sort of thing. Don’t actually think it.”
The Margrave shrugged and ordered them to disperse.
“You two should head down as well. You’ll need to help with the corpse disposal. Cleaning all that up will take the entire day.”
If they wanted to sleep even a little earlier, they should hurry and help with the corpses, she joked.
The sunset over No Man’s Land had by then shifted into a violet twilight.
==
“I’m going to die.”
Maxim groaned as he returned to the barracks. It seemed he was the first to arrive. The barracks, lit only by a single lonely lamp, was still empty. Gathering and burning the corpses of what must have been hundreds of monsters was no easy task. In fact, it was far more exhausting than the battle itself. A few mages had made the work easier, but that didn’t mean the knights and soldiers hadn’t suffered.
“Damn it.”
Maxim let out a moan at the faint muscle pain and collapsed onto the floor of the barracks. His body was refusing to listen more than he had expected. Even though today’s battle had only involved cutting down a few monsters and running around briefly on the wall, he felt completely spent.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have used mana back then.”
The sensation of slicing through the werewolf that had been leaping toward the soldiers was still vivid. In his urgency, he had wrapped himself in mana and leaped. As a result, his insides felt shaken, and every muscle in his body screamed as if torn apart. He roughly folded his coat and set it in the corner.
The unchanging cold summer night of No Man’s Land pierced through the dirt floor of the barracks and seeped into Maxim’s bones.
What memory disappeared today?
It felt as though holes were being punched through his mind. He had realized it during his previous leave, while talking with Christine. The curse wasn’t only devouring his body. And the most infuriating part of that loss was that he couldn’t even tell which memories he had lost.
What memories were disappearing in accordance with the curse’s progress, what he had originally known—none of it. The feeling was both filthy and terrifying. It was like waking up to find your toes missing, yet believing they had never existed in the first place. Right now he was comparing it to toes, but he had no idea when it would become ankles, calves, thighs, arms, eyes, or even his heart.
Perhaps the memories corresponding to his heart had already vanished.
Such thoughts swirled through Maxim’s mind.
With a complicated heart, Maxim stepped outside the barracks. The area where the soldiers’ barracks were clustered was gradually filling with returning knights and soldiers.
“Oh, Maxim?”
A familiar voice called out to him. It was Roberto.
“Where are you going?”
“Just… a walk.”
Maxim frowned unconsciously at how much harsher his own voice sounded than intended. Roberto didn’t seem to notice and replied in his usual tone.
“I see. Make sure you’re back by lights-out. We may not need to stand night watch, but we still need to sleep.”
Maxim gave a small, wry laugh and turned away from Roberto, walking off. Roberto watched his retreating figure with narrowed eyes, following him until he disappeared from sight.
It feels like this has happened before.
Maxim thought as he slowly descended the path, lantern in hand. With no grass or trees on the barren wasteland, the light illuminated the way far into the distance. Stones crunched beneath his feet.
Sometime before. Just like now. Someone walking from far away.
Without thinking, Maxim raised the lantern higher. Then he stopped walking.
A short distance away, someone was approaching from the opposite direction. The silhouette felt strangely familiar. The person walking also stopped, raising their own lantern.
“Max…im?”
It was Theodora. Maxim could not bring himself to meet her eyes directly, shadowed as they were by deep darkness.