The Shield Crumbles
The beastmen handing out Blood Wall bread and food all perked their ears at once. In the next instant, without exception, they began arming and moving at terrifying speed. No orders were given. No commander stood on the field. Yet they read the terrain and identified positions with perfect unity, flowing to where each belonged.
The massive fortress wall of Pandril, the Blood Wall, still bore its patched breach. Reinforcement work remained incomplete, leaving the weak point exposed to monster assaults. In moments, all five thousand Hellhounds took their assigned positions.
“Disgusting little bastards. Quite the crowd they’ve brought.”
The Adjutant ground her teeth as she counted the monsters beyond the wall. A black tide surged forward, thousands strong, roaring as they charged.
—I’m watching. Adjutant. Quite a number. Even if the artillery thins them out, many will reach the breach.
Volka Adrakin’s thoughts reached her through Transmission.
—Reduce their numbers with long-range fire first.
“Understood!”
Machine guns were mounted along the wall. The 8mm water-cooled heavy machine guns weighed heavily, yet the bear beastmen handled tripods and weapons like toys. The northern army’s defensive net thickened. Soon bullets rained down like a storm upon the monsters.
“All guns—fire at will!”
The 155mm howitzers thundered, belching fire. Monsters were hammered by machine-gun fire and artillery alike, their numbers melting rapidly. Yet the creatures proved resilient. Their unnatural strength, massive frames, and magically hardened hides meant not all could be stopped before reaching the wall.
The distance between monsters and the Blood Wall shrank at an impossible rate.
“Reload, quickly!”
Breechblocks opened; shells and charges slammed home. Another volley thundered out. Monster ranks thinned again. But it was not enough. Before a third salvo could fire, the vanguard reached the breach.
“Where are the knights?”
The northern soldiers on the wall searched desperately, but only about two hundred knights remained in the North, and few were combat-ready.
“Many were wounded in yesterday’s battle! Only thirty-five knights are standing by near the breach!”
“Damn it! Send reinforcements to the breach immediately! Prepare for close combat!”
“It’s too late…!”
A thunderous crash shook the wall as monsters slammed their bodies into the hastily reinforced wooden patch. No amount of layered timber could withstand the charge of car-sized beasts at full speed. The breach tore open.
Monsters roared at the scent of humans and lunged inside—only for the lead beast’s head to be pulverized by a spinning chainsaw blade.
Bear beastmen, wolf beastmen, and rabbit beastmen activated their chainsaw-swords and leapt through the gap. They moved with practiced ease.
“Rest, sirs. You all look exhausted.”
The beastmen stopped the knights from drawing aura blades and charged out, chainsaws screaming as they began the slaughter. Their close-combat prowess was so overwhelming that even the knights could only stare in stunned silence.
One hand gripped a chainsaw blade, the other a 15mm anti-monster revolver. They cut down every monster trying to force its way through the breach.
Meanwhile—
“Next round loaded!”
“Fire!”
Howitzers roared again. Machine guns kept firing until their cooling water boiled. Even monsters could not endure sustained artillery and heavy gunfire. Soon the last beast collapsed, its torso shredded by a chainsaw blade. The battle ended without a single casualty.
“That was too easy.”
The knights offered formal sword salutes as the beastmen returned through the breach, grinning. Discrimination against beastmen existed in the North, yet it was far milder than in the South, East, or West. The North had always valued martial strength above all, and beastmen mercenaries had fought alongside northern forces for generations.
The slain monsters dissolved at unnatural speed, turning to dust. The beastmen stepped over the remains without pause and returned to their posts.
“Bring timber! Start reinforcing!”
“Those bastards just break what we fix!”
The northern soldiers began repairs with weary familiarity. The Adjutant watched from the wall, brow furrowed. She approached the artillery officer who had directed the guns.
“I heard what you said. The knights were injured in yesterday’s battle. Was there an attack of this scale yesterday as well?”
“Yesterday’s assault was smaller, but still considerable. Thanks to the knights’ efforts, the civilians were spared, though many were wounded.”
The Adjutant shook her head, unconvinced.
“We’ve fought monsters for six years and know their habits. Large-scale invasions this frequent seem wrong. Are the northern monsters different from the ones we faced?”
“No. They’re the same. These creatures are clever. They know the Blood Wall is hard to breach, so they wait until their numbers grow large enough. Normally they attack once every three months.”
“And recently?”
“Every three days. Sometimes daily. This frequency is clearly abnormal.”
The Adjutant looked around in silence. The soldiers were exhausted—deeply so.
“When did the attacks become this frequent?”
“I can tell you exactly. It started the day that hole appeared. The day the breach opened.”
The officer lit a cigarette, his expression grim.
“After the war with the Kramkin Duchy… everything changed.”
After successfully repelling the monster assault, another meeting was held in the Sword Chamber. The nobles delivered a clear summary of the North’s situation.
I had known the North was in poor shape. Yet the reality was far worse than I had imagined.
“Our forces, once one hundred and twenty thousand including reserves, have dwindled to twenty thousand after six years of massive monster invasions and four years of war with the Kramkin Duchy.”
“All the various projects the late Duchess had underway have been halted. Frankly, even maintaining the status quo has become difficult.”
“We lack both manpower and funds to repair the damaged walls. With monster attacks growing more frequent, we have no time to complete proper repairs.”
“There is almost no money left in the North. Nobles and commoners alike are impoverished.”
“Politically, our voice carries little weight. The North has always supported the imperial family, but with imperial authority weakened, who will listen to us now?”
“The scars of war still linger throughout Pandril. Destroyed roads and buildings abound, yet we have neither funds nor labor to restore them.”
Where to even begin reconstruction? At least food supplies for the next year could be secured by squeezing the Leonal Trading Company, but the North required far more than mere sustenance. It needed soldiers, weapons, and the vast resources to support them.
“At this rate, we won’t even be able to pay the grain price we agreed upon with the Leonal Trading Company.”
At the mention of the Leonal Trading Company, undisguised fury appeared on the northern nobles’ faces.
“The western, eastern, and southern nobles are deliberately worsening the situation, Your Grace.”
“They’ve lost their minds. Do they not realize that if the North falls, they fall with it?”
They were holding their tongues only because I was present; their expressions suggested they wanted to curse freely.
“You’ve all done well. Rest for now. Rebuilding the North is my responsibility. You may set your minds at ease. I will not let the North collapse.”
Relief flickered across their faces. They offered respectful bows and withdrew.
A man who had vanished for over ten years had suddenly seized power, yet none questioned my legitimacy or raised objections.
‘There is much to take responsibility for and much to salvage, yet nothing to enjoy. Who would want this seat now—unless, like me, they had beastmen subordinates whose future they must secure.’
I sighed and remained alone in the empty Sword Chamber, slowly examining the documents the nobles had left behind. When I had finished reviewing every page—
“The merchant guild is on the verge of bankruptcy, the dwarf artisans have been leased to western nobles for lack of funds, the steelworks project has collapsed, and the population is declining.”
I faced a reality that made me want to flee. I sat for a long while, rubbing my face with dry hands.
‘Think positively. Know yourself and your enemy, and you will win every battle. At least I now clearly understand the North’s current state.’
Reconstruction could begin only after identifying the problems. Setting that aside, there was a second reason I had come to the North.
‘Why did the original male and female leads, who were perfectly fine, suddenly die?’
I needed to understand the sudden simultaneous deaths of the couple. I left the Sword Chamber and summoned the Chief Steward.
“I want to know about my brother’s death. How did he die? Is the body still here?”
“Yes. It has not yet been buried. Both have been preserved with magic and are currently in the mortuary.”
“I’d like to see them. Tell me what happened on the way.”
“I do not know.”
I gave the Chief Steward a strange look. In the original novel, the steward had been highly competent. He might not know everything, but he should certainly be aware of matters concerning the ducal household’s operations and the duke’s private affairs. Yet he claimed ignorance of the cause of death?
“One day they simply passed away in their sleep. When I went to wake them in the morning and received no response, I entered the bedroom without permission, thinking something was wrong. They were lying there, just as they had been sleeping…”
The Chief Steward bit his lip, his body trembling with emotion. I patted his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Truly. They were good people—unlike the mess I used to be.”
“There was no warning, no sign at all. They weren’t ill. They were busy and tired, of course, but both had been in excellent health the day before.”
“What did the mages and physicians find during the autopsy?”
“They performed one. They said it was clean. Simply sudden death of unknown cause.”
“I see.”
“This is the mortuary. They are inside. I… will not enter.”
Leaving the Chief Steward behind, I stepped into the mortuary alone. On cold metal slabs lay the original novel’s protagonists, dressed in white burial shrouds—Theodore Adrakin and his wife, Isila Adrakin, the Korean reincarnator who had used her modern knowledge to develop the North.
‘How did you die? Why?’
I channeled mana into their bodies, but felt nothing. That was to be expected. If it had been a curse or magical assassination, the mages would have detected it during the autopsy. If poison, the physicians would have found it.
I sighed, gazed at them for a moment, then left the mortuary. I could not afford to give up.
“Take me to their bedroom. Show me the places and objects they often touched, Chief Steward.”
“As you wish.”
“Do they have any letters or diaries they exchanged? I want whatever information I can find.”
“They do. I have kept them well organized. However…”
“What is it?”
“You likely will not understand them. The two of them communicated in a private code only they knew. Even if you read the letters, they are written in characters you cannot decipher.”
They had communicated secretly in an unknown script? That detail had never appeared in the original novel. Then again, more than ten years had passed since the novel’s ending; it was plausible that events not covered in the original had occurred.
“There might still be clues. Let me see them anyway.”
“Of course.”
The Chief Steward guided me to my brother’s bedroom. The room was elegant and immaculate, yet felt desolate and cold without its master. It was exactly as described in the novel.
“I will leave you alone. I pray you find some clue.”
Once the Chief Steward withdrew, I stood alone in the room. Moonlight poured through the arched window—the very window where the male and female leads had shared their first kiss in the novel. The desk where the female lead had used her original-world knowledge to torment the western, eastern, and southern nobles. The place where she had often written letters to the male lead.
As I ran my hand over the desk, I noticed a neatly arranged stack of letters and the female lead’s personal records resting on one corner. Where to begin? Perhaps the diary.
I picked up the diary without much thought and opened it. My eyes widened.
The Chief Steward’s words finally made sense. The writing inside was not in the imperial language. It was Korean.
And on the final page, written in Korean, was this sentence:
—There is a traitor in the North. I should investigate the name Crow Brotherhood.