Chapter 63

The barracks where the generals stayed were in a far more wretched state than I had imagined.

Mold bloomed on the blankets covering the barracks, and the smell of stale tobacco was ingrained in every nook and cranny. The floor was poorly kept and muddy, and the thin iron rods that served as the barracks’ pillars swayed as if they would break at any moment.

It was a miserable, precarious tent-barracks, so much so that it wouldn’t be strange if the ceiling collapsed while sleeping at night.

“I have come to see the General on official business. Is the Saintess present?”

I was reviewing the lessons Alter had taught me, with a notebook resting on my chest, when I heard a voice I had never heard before from outside.

“Enter.”

Lying in her cot, Grisha carefully cleared her throat, making sure no one would overhear.

Her voice, so benevolent and warm, possessed the power to set a listener at ease.

Moments later, the flaps of the tent were thrown open, revealing a large woman in an officer’s uniform caked with mud.

“I know it’s not your shift, but the infections are worsening in some of the wounded. Could you take a look when you have a moment?”

She offered the officer, standing at the thick tent opening, a smile that held the warmth of a game sprite. Except this, you could never perceive beyond a screen. A smile radiating an indescribable, almost sacred quality.

“…Give me a moment? I’ll be there shortly.”

She stirred, pushing past her exhaustion for the sake of the injured. Her clothes were thick with dust, and her limbs were stained with blood of unknown origin, but she didn’t let her smile falter.

“I’ll be waiting.”

With those words, the officer turned and stepped back out of the tent.

“…Hah.”

A sigh.

The moment the officer was gone, Grisha let out a small sigh. The benevolent smile vanished from her face, replaced by a cold and detached expression.

“…”

It was a look I’d never seen before in my life. I doubted that even a deep dive into the databases would turn up an illustration or model depicting Grisha with such an expression.

In the depths of her eyes lay a profound and indescribable sense of helplessness.

“Bell, you got any spare tobacco? I need a smoke before I go.”

Saint Grisha spoke, casually uttering words entirely incongruous with her saintly image.

Of course, tobacco in the medieval era was considered a kind of panacea, a popular indulgence promoted by both medical professionals and religious figures alike…

‘Total hipster.’

The thought came to me unbidden.

The Church of Estella is a faith embraced by most on the continent, regardless of their race.

To see the leader of such a massive religion – one with more followers than all modern-day Christians combined – searching for tobacco with such a cold expression was simply shocking to me.

Where had that benevolent, gentle smile gone, leaving only the Saintess, secretly packing tobacco leaves into a pipe and smoking in secret?

…Hipster!

“I’m reduced to burning and re-burning ash because I’m out of tobacco myself.”

“Why is there never enough tobacco?”

“Because you’re always swiping mine. These kinds of indulgences require a separate request for supplies, and the amount is rationed per person.”

“You’re our General, a few words and you could get a bigger portion.”

“That would be outright embezzlement.”

Bell harshly replied, dragging his chair back to his desk.

“You’re being unnecessarily fussy about tobacco. Soldiers on the front lines barely even touch the stuff, so there’s always leftovers, right?”

“The problem could be solved if you just requested a supply of tobacco and pipes in your own name…”

“Announce to the faithful that I smoke?”

“What’s wrong with that? A Saintess is still a person.”

“Not to the faithful, no.”

Grisha sighed, seemingly dejected by her inability to smoke, and slowly dragged her heavy feet toward the entrance of the barracks.

Before stepping outside, she cleared her throat once more and forced the corners of her mouth upwards, pulling them into a smile.

Once more, that familiar, benevolent, beautiful smile settled upon her face.

I don’t know how others might perceive it, but to me, Grisha’s smile simply seemed pathetic and pitiable.

“…Guess I should get moving too.”

Bell, too, watched Grisha’s retreating back as he left the barracks with a touch of pity, and not long after, he walked outside himself, a stack of papers clutched in his hand.

I assumed he was off to replenish his tobacco.

But it was only after a couple of hours had passed that he returned.

“I’ll be borrowing that Edra of yours for a bit.”

A notification, devoid of explanation.

* * *

Bell Artua strode outside with the documents, and barely a few steps gone, he set them ablaze.

The small flame swelled in an instant, consuming the stack whole, and then, as quickly as it had begun, started to slowly die out.

Bell watched the papers turn to a black heap of ash on the muddy ground, then pulled his pipe from his pocket and placed it between his lips.

His personality was so meticulous, so precise, bordering on the obsessive, that he had to witness such top-secret documents reduced to nothing but ash with his own eyes.

Soon the embers were completely extinguished, and a handful of ash greeted Bell Artua.

He kicked the ashen pile with his thick military boot.

What information was contained within those documents, now no one but Bell would ever know.

Bell Artua watched the ashes scatter in all directions before his gaze shifted.

Not far away, a procession of soldiers marched back and forth between the supply wagons and the warehouse. In their hands, they carried boxes, two or three at a time.

There were more privately sourced goods than military issue among them. The officers on duty would have quite the ordeal inspecting all those items, one by one.

‘…The soldiers will be pleased.’

Tobacco, liquor, tea leaves.

Not as essential as blades or arrows, perhaps, but necessities nonetheless for soldiers in wartime.

In a theater where someone beside you could be struck dead any day by an attack from who-knows-where, such things were needed to maintain one’s sanity.

“Didn’t you say you had no experience with the battlefield? Or are you simply clever beyond measure.”

Bell Artois inwardly marveled at the young one, Bean. Leaving aside where such a sum of money had come from, his eye for selecting supplies was remarkable.

“We’ve got a rather bright one joining us, it seems.”

Bell inhaled the acrid smoke of his cigarette, then departed the generals’ quarters, setting off on foot.

Passing through the encampment reeking of blood, he found the officers’ barracks not far off.

“Ah, General. Is there something I can do for you?”

Officers who had been huddled on the barracks floor, or dozing against the support beams, hastily rose and saluted Bell.

“How fares the personnel selection?”

“Still ongoing, sir. It’s proving difficult; just as we put promising candidates on the list, they go and get injured.”

“…We must depart by tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. Time is short, so I will choose the men myself.”

“We will assemble all those fit to move out immediately, sir.”

“Do so.”

Before long, a company of sturdy human and elven soldiers stood arrayed before him.

Orcs and dwarves were excluded from this mission. Though bold and courageous, they were far from discreet and composed.

Roughly three hundred soldiers stood before Bell. Each one a warrior capable of single-handedly defending a village or two with ease.

Elite warriors, their skill beyond question…yet even they seemed overwhelmed by this battlefield; their eyes brimming with despair and fatigue.

“Those excused, return to your posts. You, you, and you for a start.”

Bell observed each soldier intently, beginning to dismiss them back to their stations. The dismissed soldiers looked somewhat bewildered, but wordlessly returned to their duties.

“…You too, step aside. And you.”

A soldier trembling like an aspen, another with listless eyes, a third with ragged breath. The soldiers Bell excused were not outwardly suffering from major injuries.

They were all, to a man, those pushed to their mental limits. No matter how robust their bodies or outstanding their skills, anyone mentally cornered was unusable for this operation.

Continuing the selection in this way, the remaining soldiers totaled about seven.

Three elves and four humans.

“…Why are *you* here?”

Seeing a familiar face among the remaining personnel, Bel scowled.

Add.

The young man, carrying a massive sword almost as big as his own torso on his back, was mixed into the formation.

“Your assignment is to guard Veen. Have you forgotten your duty?”

“General Veen is safe in the barracks right now, isn’t he?”

“…What?”

Bel truly didn’t understand what Add was saying.

“A safe person doesn’t particularly *need* a guard. I didn’t want to twiddle my thumbs until Veen-nim stepped out for his mission. I want to make a name for myself quickly.”

“…”

For a moment, Bel sincerely considered slapping the young man standing before him across the face.

If he participated in another mission and exhausted his strength, making him unable to protect Veen at the truly crucial moment, what meaning would there be to his being in Valerand?

Fame, honor…did this imbecile not realize this was not a battlefield where you could acquire such things?

He should have realized it the moment he so casually spoke of being a hero. This imbecile was far too immature to experience a real battlefield.

“…”

Bel fell into deep thought, looking at Add before him.

Add clearly had talent. He hadn’t seen him fight directly, but this mage – with well over a decade spent simply surviving in extreme battlefields – had a discerning eye for distinguishing talented warriors from those who weren’t.

And that foresight whispered that the youth before him, in ten years… no, even five, would be a warrior known across the continent.

The potential radiating from him now reminded him of Hailoom, the orc who manned their front lines, in his younger days. If this one’s talent was nurtured well, and fortune favored him, he could very well rise beyond a continental name, perhaps even to the level of ‘General.’

And that made it all the more regrettable.

To see such potential, yet witness him clinging to heroism, to glory… such meaningless things.

On the battlefield, such things held no value.

“You whelp.”

Bell addressed Add with the word. Add didn’t seem to realize the ‘whelp’ was directed at him.

“Prepared to die?”

At Bell’s question, every soldier besides Add swallowed hard. When Bell asked if they were prepared to die, it carried a weight that a normal officer or superior’s question simply could not.

Most officers would just toss those words out to test a soldier’s resolve.

But Bell was not that.

Bell was the type of cold-blooded individual who would order a soldier to commit suicide if necessary. A man who would casually throw a soldier or two into a raging fire for the sake of the greater good.

Knowing this, cold sweat beaded on the backs of the other soldiers.

“I am!”

Add, however, didn’t truly know what kind of man Bell was. He was a relatively skilled and recognized adventurer, but as a soldier, he was nothing more than a fresh-faced private.

His head was filled with visions of becoming a hero who saved people, and filled with fantasies about the ‘General’ Bell Artua before him.

…If Bean were here to witness this, he would likely call Add a ‘fool.’

‘So much talent, yet so naive. Though he looks barely twenty, so perhaps it’s to be expected. He must have been born with such a gift that he’s never experienced any major failures or defeats.’

Bell felt a pang of pity as he looked at the confident, self-assured Add.

What was to come would be a brutal trial for Add. The young soldier’s heart would be torn to shreds, and he might never forget this day, forced to lay down his sword and live his life as a fugitive.

“……Good. The operation is in two days. I’ll brief you on the details at this time tomorrow, so rest well today and tomorrow and manage your condition. That is all.”

Bell, knowing the facts, had decided to deploy Add in this operation.

Without feeling despair, without suffering wounds, one cannot move forward.

So, even though he’d devised a horrifying operation that even seasoned veterans would struggle to endure, he deliberately brought the greenhorn Add onto the team.

If Add could withstand what he experienced in this operation, he would surely become a soldier worth using. But if he couldn’t withstand it and broke down?

‘Then he’s just that level, that’s all.’

Bell had no room to coddle this young prospect. This was not a battlefield suitable for waiting for a young man to mature.

This was Valoran.