Death (1)
Many people carry a certain thought hidden deep in their hearts. What if I had done it differently? What if I had never done that? Who would I be right now?
They attach a simple “what if” to choices long since made, then imagine the outcomes that might have followed. They turn it over and over in their minds, ask themselves the same pointless questions, and finally laugh it off as a stupid game. They know it’s meaningless. Still, they repeat it again and again.
“What… if… I…”
What if I had never enrolled in the military academy? What if I had kept my mouth shut and stayed in line that day? Maybe my life wouldn’t have twisted itself into this ugly shape.
“…A dream?”
Like light slowly seeping into a darkened room, my vision gradually returned. Only then did I realize I had blacked out.
“Ah—khh, ugh…! Cough!”
Blood surged up my throat and spilled out in a hot rush. I tried to stand, but my body refused every command. The pain I hadn’t yet registered now seized total control, shaking me violently. My entire frame felt impossibly heavy, as though what flowed through my veins was not blood but iron pellets studded with thorns. The agony was so sharp it seemed my flesh was being carved apart; a scream gathered in my chest—
“Cough!”
—yet what came from my mouth was not a scream but dark clots of blood mixed with bile.
“Ha… you idiot.”
Of course the only thing that followed was self-mockery and curses. What’s done cannot be undone. That is exactly why these “what if” fantasies are so utterly pointless. I am simply bearing the consequences of every choice I have ever made.
Responsibility for thoughts and actions that could never be called mature—only immature and foolish. That weight had come roaring back like a storm, driving me to the edge.
“Khh… uuuugh!”
I clenched my teeth until they creaked, enduring the torment that wracked every inch of me. My body was in no condition to obey; even forcing myself upright felt like an impossible task. A wreck. The word had never fit anyone so perfectly.
I turned my head and looked ahead. Though my mind was still foggy and my sight blurred, the fierce pain gradually dragged my senses back to life. As my numb ears recovered, the first sounds that reached me were—
“U-aaaaaah!”
“Save… me…!”
Screams from every side. Then—
Heal
a deafening explosion that swallowed even those wretched cries. Violence that ripped the air apart and pulverized the earth. Grief and despair caught in that violence did more than scatter—they flooded the world until nothing else remained.
An endless horde of mutated beasts stretched to the horizon. Humans fought desperately to halt the monsters’ advance, each creature spewing every form of brutality imaginable. The battlefield had split into two clear halves—attack and defense locked in ceaseless, bloody repetition.
“Hell.”
No other word suited the sight so well.
The beasts, armed with countless forms of violence, crushed, impaled, melted, and incinerated human bodies. The humans resisted that unreasonable power with everything they had, yet a numerical advantage greater than two-to-one could not overcome the sheer difference in raw strength between man and monster.
“Attack!”
Uwaaaaaah!
“Graaaagh!”
Shouts hurled like gouts of blood rode the wind in every direction. Even amid the chaos vibrating with human screams and monstrous roars, that particular command struck the ears with unmistakable clarity. It was closer to a mana-reinforced sound wave than a simple voice.
Yet not every soldier on the field obeyed it without question.
“Kugh! You fucking bastard!”
Some cursed and kept fighting the beasts. Others—
“S-save me! I don’t want to die!”
—could not overcome their terror, flung away their weapons, and tried to flee.
As my vision and hearing sharpened, the hell of despair saturating the world grew clearer still.
“Fuck…”
I grimaced and spat the curse. Then I forced my tattered, ruined body to move.
“Huh?”
I reached for the sword lying beside me, only to feel a strange emptiness. I looked toward my left arm.
What should have been there… wasn’t.
“My arm…”
The stump looked as though the flesh had been violently torn away. I scanned the ground for the missing limb.
“……”
My left arm lay pathetically shattered atop the broken earth. Nor was it alone. A severed leg rested nearby. In another spot, the head of a soldier who had already met a miserable end rolled slowly with each tremor.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Every vibration that ran through the ground carved deeper into the soldiers’ hearts, filling them with despair. No matter how many monsters you killed, no matter how desperately you clung to life—if the sight before you was still hell, it was only natural for the spirit to break. Even the hardest rock will eventually be worn away beneath an endless waterfall.
“P-please… please…”
“Get me out of this hell!”
Someone tore the words from their throat, begging for salvation amid the madness.
“Aaaaah! Oh God! Please!”
At the anguished cry ringing from afar, I let out a dry chuckle.
“God? As if something like that exists.”
If a god truly watched over this world, why would it allow things to become so wretched? Why ignore the desperate prayers of those who cried out for rescue? The temples that worshipped the Goddess received their miracles readily enough, yet voices like mine went unanswered. Even though divine power clearly existed in the world, I could only scoff at the very idea of such a “god.”
“Don’t say that.”
Heal
Before I knew it, something began to envelop my body. It had no visible shape, yet it was warm. To a body that had already reached its limit, it felt like a single thread of salvation. The bleeding stopped. Swelling and torn flesh across my frame slowly receded.
Complete recovery was impossible. Still, it had bought my dying body a brief reprieve. In this cruel world, it was the only small miracle that had answered.
It came right after I had denied, criticized, and mocked the existence of any god—as though in direct reply.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
“…Why are you crying?”
The priestess who had granted me that small miracle was weeping.
“Your arm… I couldn’t restore it. I’m truly sorry…”
She stared miserably at the place where my left arm should have been, unable to lift her head.
Lower Priestess Seo Hayun. The woman responsible for recovery and support in our unit. I couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“…Are you an idiot?”
She really was a fool. None of this was her fault, yet she took the blame onto herself and carried it like a sin. She mourned her own inadequacy for failing to heal me completely and drowned in guilt. It was an honest, kind nature—so honest and kind that it would never let her survive long in a place like this.
“Kk…”
I drove the sword I still held into the ground, using it as a crutch to push myself upright. Seo Hayun, who had been kneeling to treat me, rose as well. She hurried to support my staggering body so I wouldn’t collapse.
“Let’s go. The retreat order has been issued. If we move now…”
“Not yet.”
I pushed her supporting hands away, gripped the sword again, and walked forward. Pain still throbbed through me, but thanks to the blessing she had cast, I could at least move.
“Wh-where are you going?!”
Understanding my intention, Seo Hayun’s face filled with horror.
“Are you insane?! You’re going back out to fight in that condition?!”
She stubbornly planted herself in front of me once more.
“You can’t. I won’t let you.”
“Move.”
“I said you can’t!”
I let out a long sigh. Stubbornness in all the wrong places had always been one of her worst habits.
“The retreat order only applies to regular soldiers and priests like you. It doesn’t apply to slave soldiers like me.”
Seo Hayun bit her lip hard enough to draw blood and refused to budge.
“Stop being stubborn.”
“You’re the one being stubborn right now!”
“I don’t have time to argue with—”
BOOOOM!
“Kyaa?!”
Another explosion slammed into us. The ground heaved. Seo Hayun, still blocking my path, staggered and fell. I wavered but forced myself to stay upright, then stepped past her collapsed form.
“Thank you. When you make it back, get discharged and work in the temple. The front lines were never the right place for you.”
“Ah…! Don’t… go!”
Her desperate plea grew fainter behind me.
“…I should have done this from the start.”
I already knew. I knew why, among all the countless slave soldiers, she had stubbornly chosen to help only me. I knew what burden and feelings she carried toward me. It could only be guilt and a sense of responsibility. Because her nature was so upright and kind, she could never erase my existence from her heart.
When she had volunteered for this unit, I regretted not cutting ties coldly and instead accepting her help with that ambiguous attitude of mine.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I should have told her that. The fact that I never did was one of my own small regrets. Even now I wanted to beg her—if she survived, never to return to a battlefield like this and instead live in peace.
“…Kk.”
I ran. Seo Hayun’s magic had restored some of the damage, yet my body screamed that it was already at its limit. My muscles howled. My bones and joints creaked with every step. My heart, which had been pounding without rest, felt ready to burst. The empty absence of my left arm throbbed. My mind frayed under the constant pain, yet I did not stop.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each time the colossal beasts took another step forward, the earth trembled. The farther I advanced, the more the battlefield blanketed by monsters resembled a place where the very concept of death had taken physical shape.
As the shadows stretching across the ground drew closer and the massive creatures that blocked out the sun loomed larger, the soldiers’ morale crumbled helplessly.
“Retreat! All units, retreat!”
The voice at the very front, directing the withdrawal, belonged to Rumia—the captain of my unit. She shouted the order desperately, trying to pull allied forces out of this hopeless slaughter.
KUUUUNG!
Something enormous suddenly appeared before her. A monster that had spotted prey from afar had leaped across the distance and landed directly in her path.
“Kyaa?!”
Rumia felt the ground shake and noticed the massive shadow that fell over her. Trembling, she slowly lifted her gaze to identify its owner.
A brutal, muscular frame. A gigantic double-bladed axe to match. The head of a bull atop a body no sane person would dare face. The Minotaur exhaled a hot, snorting breath as it looked down.
UWOooooooo!
Its savage roar shook the very air.
“Eut?!”
The area engulfed by the monster’s roar was seized by overwhelming dread.
“Ah… ah…”
She had been at the forefront helping the soldiers withdraw. Now she stared up at the creature that had arrived before her, roaring with murderous intent. Crushed beneath its presence and terror, she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe; she simply gazed up at the enormous bull head in horror.
As though surrendering to the instinct to trample and devour the weak, the Minotaur slowly raised its massive double-bladed axe.