Chapter 76

A single ray of light dimly descends upon the foggy battlefield. The luminance piercing through the storm cloud falls upon the soldiers hidden within the trenches, but none amongst them hold the strength or will to gaze up to the heavens.

Their eyes were fixed on the no man’s land beyond the trenches, their hearing and sense of smell ceaselessly probing the surroundings for new information.

The air was suffocating.

At any moment, another spell could come hurtling through the air. Or, if not magic, a wad of flesh brimming with poison, or a shard of sharply honed bone.

The battlefield was a place where one could die for any reason, or none at all. Those soldiers with the experience and skill to have survived this long knew it all too well.

Even the alcohol and tobacco that briefly soothed their minds offered little solace to the soldiers facing this unprecedented offensive.

No matter how potent the liquor, how refreshing the smoke, neither could kill the enemies before them.

The air of the battlefield hangs heavy. A fog woven of blood clung to the no man’s land. Green and red, blood spread wide across the clotted mud.

One could never become accustomed to it. It was simply impossible.

Not the mages, not the archers, not the infantry.

Nor the officers, issuing orders and controlling the soldiers.

To me, everything around felt like a never-ending nightmare, and surely it was the same for them.

“You’ve arrived.”

The officer offered a light salute upon seeing me and my escorts. I returned the gesture with a nod.

My mouth felt clumsy. The heavy air of the battlefield seemed to choke me without my realizing it.

“I heard you’re relieving Bel starting today… I humbly request your assistance.”

The officer seemed unaware of the specifics of the operation. He simply assumed I was replacing Bel, whose magical reserves were depleted.

“How is Bel’s condition?”

The officer asked me, a worried expression on his face.

“Not good. His magic is almost completely drained. He’ll probably need two days of rest.”

Alter answered the officer’s question in my stead.

This old fox, he was quite the master of lies, it seemed.

“…I see. I understand.”

Truthfully, Bell’s condition wasn’t quite as dire as Alter painted it. He’d saved a sliver of magic precisely for today.

Dizziness and nausea were present, certainly, but he still had enough strength to raise a barrier on the battlefield, and, if needed, to even join the fight.

Yet, Alter had lied about Bell’s state being critical for a very specific reason.

This battlefield needed despair.

To fool the meticulous warmasters, the soldiers’ eyes had to reflect the image of a ‘genuine hell.’

Following the plan, I started moving towards the trench nearest enemy lines. The soldiers wore expressions like men already halfway to death. They barely managed a slight nod as I passed, lacking the energy even for a proper greeting. I returned the gesture with a curt bow.

“…Haa…”

The very front line, on the very edge of it.

The moment I stood before the no-man’s land, a sigh escaped my lips of its own accord.

The air was thick and humid with the stench of blood and decaying flesh, but a sharp chill, colder than the rest, crawled vividly across my skin.

The tension hung thick: a single misstep would lead directly to my death, the deaths of my comrades, the defeat of the war. No matter how veteran they were, no man could maintain his sanity completely under such conditions. Some soldiers wore mirthless smiles, others had lost the light in their eyes, and still others muttered curses under their breath.

“Something, *human-shaped*, is walking across the no-man’s land!”

It was just as I was finding a spot in the corner of the trench, trying to steady my breathing.

Someone shouted, a voice cracking with hysteria. Some soldiers dismissed the cry. Hallucinations were becoming increasingly common. These were…the more optimistic ones, relatively speaking.

“…Damn it, a person? You sure it’s a person!? Are you sure?”

But some soldiers reacted to the report with abnormal sensitivity. These were the ones who’d suffered from delusions of grandeur and paranoia, the hallmarks of a protracted war.

“Crazy or not, who cares! Walking through no-man’s land that casually means they’re the enemy! Get ready to fire!”

“Impenetrable with this fog, but only one figure for now. No need to rush. Hold your fire until we’re certain, friend or foe!”

Thankfully clinging to his senses, the officer bellowed at the mages already chanting their spells.

The magic gathering at the staff tips, the taut bowstrings, slowly lost their tension. Holding their breath, other soldiers focused on the shadowy human form emerging from the mist.

“This is maddening, damn it… Bloody hell! Just let us shoot, Lieutenant!”

One of the archers, still straining against his bow, yelled at the officer. His hand trembled with nervousness and anxiety, doubtful he could hit anything properly in that state.

“Silence! It could be friendly. It’s not too late to deal with him after we identify him. Don’t be hasty! We can’t waste our already scarce magic and arrows on friendly fire!”

Despite the overwhelming unease, the officer, maintaining his reason, shouted at the archer. Only then did the archer lower his bow.

“Approximately 170 centimeters… Carries a longsword at his hip! Seems to be wearing armor… Likely one of ours! He’s limping, moving slowly. Looks like a survivor from yesterday’s battle.”

One of the sharp-eyed elf archers described the figure he was observing in detail.

“A survivor? So he was lying prone in that no man’s land, playing dead all this time?!”

“He was submerged in that poison pit for hours. Highly unlikely someone could live through that, Lieutenant! Permission to fire!”

“Did I not say silence, Sergeant! We lack the magic and arrows to be shooting our own men! Staves down, all of you!”

The lieutenant pressed down on the soldiers with an even louder voice.

“…Shit.”

The mage who relentlessly requested permission to fire finally cursed and lowered his staff.

Silence blanketed the battlefield for a moment.

The figure beyond the fog grew closer, its faint silhouette becoming gradually clearer.

“…Teru! Is that you, Teru?!”

The figure’s identity was human.

One of the soldiers shouted passionately as the blue hair became visible. The man who emerged was completely covered in scarlet blood, and a large branch was impaled in one of his legs.

How he managed to walk unharmed across that desolate wasteland with legs like that, I couldn’t fathom. No, more than that, I couldn’t even begin to understand how he’d survived in that toxic no-man’s-land in the first place.

“That’s the man who went missing two days ago! Private from the 2nd Infantry! He’s under my command! He’s one of us! Don’t shoot! He’s one of us!”

The soldier next to the officer shouted, shoving the knife he was holding back into its sheath at his waist.

Two days?

Two days, you say?

Not even a single day?

Thinking about it logically, it made no sense. This wasn’t the kind of battlefield where an infantryman left alone with no support could survive for two whole days. Infected by the poison of even a common variant or a demon, an ordinary human would have paralysis set in within hours, and infected by a high-ranking demon’s poison, they’d be dead in under three.

The Archdemon’s poison… needless to speak of it. The moment it touched you, you’d probably melt away.

So, judging it rationally, it just didn’t add up.

This is a trap.

“Wait for me, Teru! I’ll help you!”

But expecting such cold judgment from soldiers pushed to their absolute limit was a difficult thing. Especially when a wounded soldier, a soldier they’d shared life and death with, was right there in front of them.

“No! Hold your position!”

The soldier, who had been calling the wounded man approaching from the distance Teru, scrambled up out of the trench and began running across the mud-caked battlefield.

The officer couldn’t stop him in time. His mind seemed unable to properly process after witnessing the miraculous return of his comrade after such extreme levels of exhaustion.

“It’s a miracle, Teru! It’s a god damned miracle! Hahaha! Astella must have been watching over you!”

Running towards the wounded soldier across the no-man’s-land, the soldier cried out loudly.

A miracle.

He said it and laughed. He laughed loud and hearty, the kind of laugh that made the listener feel good.

On this battlefield where only despair rained down mercilessly, that soldier saw hope through the returning soldier named Teru.

If this were a film, a moving score would swell here.

Sunlight, breaking through the clouds for the first time in nearly two weeks, would bathe the two in its glow, and after a beat of silence, the crowd would erupt in cheers.

But this was reality.

“…Teru?”

The soldier who’d rushed out to sling the injured man’s arm over his shoulder, belatedly realizing something was terribly wrong, spoke with a voice now a shade smaller than before.

“Want to live, want to live… I want to live…”

Teru, a private with hair the color of faded blue, stammered, his eyes unfocused, as if his brain was breaking apart.

A chill crawled up the soldier’s spine, and his limbs began to tremble.

The soldier, who had Teru’s arm draped over his shoulder, froze, as if he’d witnessed something he shouldn’t have.

“Please, save me. Save… save me….”

Tears streamed down Teru’s face. His voice was cracking, ruined. He begged for his life to the soldier holding him up.

A moment later, his left eyeball, along with a fresh surge of tears, dropped into the mud.

The mages, realizing something was drastically wrong, hastily raised their staffs, aiming them at him.

“…Wait, wait! He’s one of ours! Hold your fire!”

“One of ours, my ass! Can’t you tell by the way he’s talking, by his condition? He’s a Variant! Already as good as dead! Get away from him, you idiot!”

Seeing the mages and archers aiming at him, Teru cried out louder, a wail that sent shivers down the spine of anyone who heard it.

I remained silent, unable to form a judgment. Neither the officer overseeing the scene, nor Rex or Alter, men seasoned by the battlefield, opened their mouths either.

They simply seemed to have noticed the oddity of the situation, scanning their surroundings as if preparing for what was about to happen.

“Let’s save at least one! Maybe the Saintess can heal him! Has even one soldier returned alive from the missing? Has anyone brought back even one of them alive…!”

From the no-man’s-land, the soldier shouted at his comrades, who had bowstrings and staffs trained on him.

Desperately he cried out, slowly guiding the soldier Teru toward the trench.

And then.

A *rip*.

Something tearing resonated.

Turning, there lay the severed arm of the soldier named Teru.

“…Uh.”

The soldier, seeing his arm ripped off as easily as a wet piece of paper, turned deathly pale.

“Ha, ha…!”

Soon, the soldier Teru collapsed to the ground with a grotesque laugh. His head buried in the venomous mud, the back of his skull a patchwork of rips and stitches.

“Damn it… it’s all over.”

A small voice emerged from the mud. Truly, the voice of a man unhinged. Covered in immense fear and despair, the voice made those who heard it feel the very same.

“We’re all dead. Corporal, Captain, me… we shouldn’t have come here to begin with, to begin with. To begin with…”

The voice flickered out like a flame that had consumed all its fuel. His body slowly sank into the mud, and in the eyes of the soldier who had been supporting Private Teru’s shoulder, a stark terror took hold.

It comes every day.

Every single day.

Someone’s comrade, brother, friend, battle buddy.

Returns looking like *that*.

Almost daily, a specter weighs down on the shoulders of those on the battlefield.

This is a warning.

A warning that we will soon become like this too.

“Damn it, multiple demons detected from the one o’clock position! Stay sharp!”

Before there was even time to mourn the soldier’s wretched death, an officer’s near-screaming voice jolted the trench awake.

Soon after, demons with vast wings, bathed in a ghastly light, appeared in the sky.

They silently raised their fingers, pointing toward the soldiers standing in the no man’s land.

“If you manipulate the brain delicately, you can create a variant that’s ‘half-alive’. A creature in that state can’t think properly, only driven by the instinct to live, moving its body. It’s the most efficient method for finding where you are hiding.”

A hushed voice echoed through the trench, heavy with silence.

The mages and archers scrambled to prepare a counterattack, but it was already too late.

We should have noticed them before they flew over no man’s land and approached us.

But our attention had been drawn to the bait, ‘Teru’, and the discovery was delayed by a few seconds.

And on this battlefield, a few seconds is enough time to change the course of the war.

A crimson light began to gather in their hands, then simultaneously transformed into straight beams, aiming directly at the head of the soldier standing blankly in the no man’s land.

Death saturated the air around the trench.

Most of the soldiers were frozen by the shock and despair, but thanks to my [Composure] trait, I steeled myself and moved to do what needed to be done.

With thin arms, I pushed myself out of the trench, digging my feet into the mud, and began running into the heart of the barrage.

Some who saw me leaving the trench, went pale and shouted, but others, belatedly regaining their senses, started moving to find what they could do.

Time to retrieve the net.