Chapter 69

“Run! Run, you sons of b*tches!”

Breath catches. This damned mask keeps clouding my vision, the world blurring before my eyes. Alarms blare throughout the enemy stronghold; soon, a swarm of bodies will descend upon this place.

The time for quiet, careful movement between cover and cover has ended.

“Damn it, damn it…!”

“Haa… haa…!”

Rough breaths and curses explode from the soldiers’ mouths. They ran with a fervor that left them gasping, each soldier’s ears filled only with the sound of their own ragged breathing. Poison-scorched feet throbbed. Their skin was probably fused to the insoles of their boots.

They were tormented by the urge to rip off the masks, but they resisted.

Bell’s legs trembled, his breath just as labored.

“Damn.”

He had diligently trained to avoid being a burden on the battlefield, but he couldn’t compare to these soldiers, hand-picked from the elite of the elite.

The soldiers were beside themselves, guarding their surroundings and mindful of the mage lagging behind.

Wooom—!

An unknown, colossal sound reverberated once more. Heard from afar, it had resembled a ship’s horn, but it grew louder, morphing into the bellow of a gargantuan whale.

“One hundred meters to the objective. Bell, get out the parchment!”

At Menes’ command, Bell retrieved the parchment from inside his robe.

“Finish in one minute!”

Menes nearly barked the order. No need to explain at length that lingering in one place under these circumstances was dangerous.

“…I’ll try my best.”

Bell managed to answer, steadying his breath.

The mask was saturated with moisture, the skin on his feet festering with pain, but he gave no sign of it.

“Infantry! No time to catch your breath, form ranks and prepare! Hold this position for one minute, just one minute, then we break.”

Menes, upon reaching their designated point, immediately began commanding the soldiers. His amplified voice reverberated within their masks.

“As we discussed, Bell does not engage! Assume we are without a general-level asset, understood?!”

In the current situation, Bell is unable to utilize any magic.

A mage is a high-value resource on the battlefield, but simultaneously the least mobile and survivable. For Bell, the most powerful and dangerous of these mages, to risk infiltration of enemy lines is far from ordinary.

The Mazoku, at the sight of Bell’s face… no, even a glimpse of the mage’s robes, will sense something amiss and begin to scour their own formation.

If that happens, it’s only a matter of time before Bell’s hidden scrolls are discovered, and the operation utilizing ‘Vin’ as top-tier bait will become useless.

Bell cannot be exposed under any circumstances. Therefore, Bell cannot participate in combat.

“Curse it, Astella, curse it, please!”

Meaningless wails erupted from the soldiers’ mouths.

The feeling of death crawled vividly across their skin. They could not ignore this sensation.

“Pillar, mountain. Erased space…”

Bell placed the final scroll on the ground and began the incantation. Menes extracted a small scroll from within his gear and tore it right next to Bell. From the two severed parchments arose ochre-colored smoke, concealing Bell’s form.

“…Just the worst.”

The soldiers drew their blades, forming a perimeter around the smoke.

A foolish regret washed over them, ‘I should have worn armor.’

Soon after, that unsettling wail echoed once more, and then, a scream tore from the lips of Corporal Citadel.

“aaah! Haa, a… aaa, I understand. I understand! Please shut up, Denny, this is all your fault!”

The other soldiers, including Add, reacted with a bleak acceptance, as if what was happening was inevitable. None of them seemed to have expected him to remain composed.

“Yes, you can still be saved, right? Can be saved if I go?! Right now, I’ll go right now! So please, just shut up!”

Corporal Citadel shrieked at the empty air and then, abruptly, began walking out of formation.

Some among the soldiers reached out, hands grasping, to halt him by the shoulder.

But Corporal Citadel shrugged them off, his gaze sharp and fierce upon them.

“Traitors! Abandoning a brother!? A brother… abandoning a brotherrrrr!”

With those words, blade lifted high, Corporal Citadel broke into a sprint, vanishing toward some unseen point.

Ed and the other soldiers stared after him, faces drained of color.

No one had the wherewithal, in this moment of utter desperation, to gather up a soldier whose mind had so abruptly fractured and deserted the line.

Wooom—

As if on cue, the ominous thrum resonated once more, invading their ears and pounding within their skulls.

The infantrymen’s legs froze, seized by a sudden paralysis.

Behind that deep, body-shaking resonance followed a heavy, profound silence.

Only the rough, unsteady, wavering breaths fell upon the frigid battlefield.

“No… no, no! Please!”

The voice of Corporal Citadel, filtered through the runic script etched into his mask. Desperate, consumed by terror.

“Get out, damn you! Please, please… leave me… I beg…”

A sound of fracturing. The distinct crack of a mask shattering, followed by another burst of Citadel’s profane outburst.

“…”

Then, the desperate shouting fell silent.

An eternity passed.

Or perhaps, not even a single second.

It was impossible to say.

The infantry, hardened like stone, gasped for breath. Seldom did the wind deign to blow.

Sweat trickled. Skin soaked and leather clung, fused together by the dampness.

“…Over. Move,”

Bell’s low voice cut through the taut silence, reaching the ears of soldiers holding their breath in strained anticipation.

A sensation like the sudden release of tension from a body grown rigid.

A chance to return.

Now, only escape remained.

The thought flickered through the minds of the troops.

That was the crux.

Breaking through the momentarily relaxed guard of the soldiers, something hurtled through the air.

A stark white line bisected the emptiness, aimed for the space between the brows of one of the infantry. The timing, as if it had waited only for this instant, was exquisite.

“Th-that…!”

Their guard down for only a moment, the infantry hastily raised their blades, deflecting the bone fragment.

The keenly honed bone shattered upon impact with the steel, and the soldier, having glimpsed his life flashing before his eyes, stood motionless, as though he had forgotten how to move.

Wind.

The wind stirs.

The air currents, locked in place for so long, finally began to shift again. Gas, laden with venomous fumes, spread in every direction, and the smoke screen laid down by Menes began to dissipate.

*Pop!*

Menes tore and discarded another piece of parchment near the thinning veil of smoke.

With this, all the smoke-producing parchments he had prepared for just such a retreat were gone, but it did not matter.

Under no circumstances could the existence of Bel be revealed to the enemy.

*Thump!*

A sickening tremor traveled from the tips of his toes.

The mud floor rippled like a choppy sea, and the eyes of the living were drawn inexorably to the source of the sound.

Addy looked west, the elf lieutenant east, and the remaining soldiers stared south and north.

…The sound, unidentifiable, seemed to come from everywhere.

Then, a colossal arm entered their field of vision. Large enough to crush a young dragon with a single hand.

Its size was not just gigantic, but overwhelming; and a body to match such a limb. Their mouths were large enough to swallow a small dragon whole. And their eyes, like those of a cat, were marked with long, vertical pupils.

In comparison to its huge body and arms, its lower half was insignificant. The mutant’s legs, an assortment of orcish limbs, hung limply against the ground like useless tails.

Addy froze momentarily, stunned by the mutant’s imposing presence.

“Soldiers, clear a path to the south.”

Bel’s cold voice cut through Addy’s paralysis.

As her voice echoed in the soldiers’ ears, Menes’ arrows whistled past Addy’s face.

The sharp arrows aimed first for the eyes of the southern mutant.

Five arrows pierced the right eye of the mutant, whose body rivaled that of a mature specimen, and an equal number soon followed into the left.

Whether it felt no pain or not, the mutant didn’t emit a single groan, even as a mixture of blood and crystalline fluid dripped from its eyes. It did not even blink.

Menes swiftly pivoted and launched the same attack at the eastern mutant.

His obsession with the eyes was simple: they were the easiest targets, and he couldn’t risk Bel’s robes being glimpsed through the smoke.

The discovery that a mage had infiltrated enemy lines would ruin everything.

That, above all else, had to be prevented.

“Soldiers, south. Fight. Carve a path.”

Bell’s frigid command settled once more upon the battlefield.

“…Son of a b*tch, knew it. We’re all gonna die in the end.”

“Citadel, that cur… should’ve slit his throat the moment my gut went sour.”

“…Water under the bridge. Thinking is poison now, empty your head and focus on what’s in front of you.”

The soldiers’ mouths sang a chorus of despair, yet their eyes and blades remained coldly, precisely fixed on the monster before them.

They advanced.

Hardly the picture of spirited, valorous warriors. Their arms and legs trembled, eyes bloodshot and wide, mouths wailing their despair.

Still, they advanced.

One step at a time.

“Everyone, die here.”

The callous pressure, deaf to the soldiers’ hearts, echoed once more in their ears.

For a fleeting moment, Ed was overcome with the urge to turn his blade and impale the mage hidden amongst the smoke.

“Please.”

…But the impulse, risen from the deepest core of him, soon faded.

“Ha.”

“Guess you hear all sorts of things when your time’s come.”

Splatter!

The soles of their boots smacked against the unusually sodden mud. Filthy water sprayed in all directions.

Wooom—

A gargantuan cry enveloped the soldiers’ ears, but they did not halt their advance.

Once more, mud erupted, revealing the bones of someone concealed beneath.

Soon, the tiny blade of a human confronted a massive monster, a creature of near-whale-like proportions.

“…”

The soldier at the forefront felt despair.

The monster’s shadow was so immense, it seemed his blade couldn’t even scratch its skin.

“aaah!”

The soldier roared to shake off the despair. He raised his blade, and charged forward, his boots sinking into the slick mire.

The Variant lifted a colossal hand, capable of crushing a house or two with ease. A considerable amount of mud cascaded from its palm.

*Thump!*

The hand slammed into the ground with unbelievable speed for its size.

The roaring soldier vanished.