Chapter 77

Light shone from behind the soldier, who was slinging Teru’s arm over his shoulder. The beams that sprouted from the fingers of the demons appearing against the ghastly light, advanced with the force of erasing everything in their path.

The soldier standing in the middle of no man’s land stared blankly at the light flying toward him.

There was no time to react. It was too late to quickly brace himself and raise his shield.

Helpless.

The thought that he hadn’t accomplished anything correctly filled his mind. He failed to save the comrade who miraculously made it through the no-man’s land. Needlessly darting out of the trench, yelling not to shoot, he’d drawn the attention of his comrades, delaying the discovery of the demons.

He, leaving no mark, offering no help, would merely transform into an anonymous chunk of meat on this battlefield.

“……”

He wanted to apologize to his comrades for his unsightly figure, so pathetic it didn’t even warrant a hollow laugh.

He yearned to escape this gruesome reality, even for a moment. To find something—anything—alive amongst this damned mud and gore.

A childish desire, an impossible dream. And the price for that desire, that dream, was his life, and the lives of his comrades.

A momentary lapse in focus meant death.

That was the battlefield.

The soldier composed himself in that brief moment, and closed his eyes.

The light was right there, seconds from piercing his skull…

*Thump!*

Then, the sound of air tearing rent the air around him.

…Rent the air, did it?

He hadn’t taken cover, hadn’t raised a shield. A direct hit from a demon’s magic should have blown him apart, but his ears were still receiving a torrent of unknown information.

Explosions, someone’s howl of pain, and the sound of mud soaring skyward before slapping back to the ground.

He’d never died before, but he doubted he’d hear any of this if he were dead.

“……”

Confused, the soldier slowly opened his eyes.

Everything was coated in dust. His eyes burned fiercely.

From amidst the murky battlefield and swirling dust clouds, a radiance descended. It bathed a silver-haired boy in its ethereal glow. His eyes were deep and beautiful, like a single drop of blue ink spilled onto a pristine, white canvas.

There was an inexplicable mystique about the boy, one that threatened to draw the unwary observer in.

“Ugh, damn dust. Why is there so much of it when all that’s around is mud?”

The boy waved a slender wrist, batting away the particles that dared to invade his nostrils. Despite the sudden ambush by the Mazoku, he displayed no sign of panic. His composure suggested he had foreseen it all.

The soldier glanced around, finally understanding how he still drew breath.

A circle, roughly a meter in radius centered on the boy, lay utterly devastated. Some protective magic had certainly been deployed, saving him, but beyond that, his ignorance of the arcane veiled the details.

The trenches around them were a chaotic mess, but casualties seemed minimal. Several soldiers crawled from beneath mounds of earth and began clearing the collapsed trench framework.

“Get down here, you moron!”

An officer’s shout rang from the front lines. Jolted back to reality, the soldier slowly began to move.

His presence would only hinder the white-haired boy from unleashing his full power.

He hastily straightened up, intent on reaching the trench. But then, a soft voice drifted from the boy’s lips.

“…The corpses, please take them if you can. We found them, after all. The least we can do is give them a proper burial.”

The soldier froze.

The faint compassion woven into the boy’s voice pierced his chest, tormenting his very heart.

“…”

Silently, he gazed at the boy’s pure white nape, suppressing the tears that threatened to spill, then gently lifted ‘Teru,’ who lay fallen on the ground.

“What are you doing, you idiot! Get down here now!”

“Leave the corpse and hurry! You’ll get yourself killed worrying about that stuff!”

The soldiers in the trench bellowed at him to abandon the body.

But he simply couldn’t leave it behind.

I couldn’t say why.

Was this the hope he had sought so desperately?

A ludicrous notion. A corpse as hope.

…A corpse as hope.

“Shit.”

Yes.

Even so, this must be the hope he’d been searching for.

Proof that they had fought bravely.

Evidence that they had resisted more fiercely than any other.

Proof that someone would remember his sacrifice, his courage.

Yes. Something like this was necessary.

Something like this, he needed.

He hoisted the hope onto his back and moved his legs quickly, tumbling into the trench. The sound of soft flesh being crushed echoed, and the soldiers cursed at the poison-soaked corpse. A chill ran through him as his shoulder became saturated with the venom, followed by a sensation of numbness.

Even so, he couldn’t abandon the corpse.

It was the hope connected to him by the boy who was the continent’s hope.

Wasn’t a modicum of proof that they could be remembered necessary?

He believed so.

“…Leave the corpse in the rear. The battle will become fierce.”

Lex, the orc guarding the boy, believed so too.

Giant boots left the soldier behind and stepped on the collapsed trenches, digging into clods of mud. The huge frame of the orc slowly revealed itself above the no man’s land.

“Indeed, magic of admirable power.”

Rex spoke casually to the boy, hefting his massive axe.

“Comes with the blessing of a spirit, more or less.”

The boy replied with a relaxed smile.

The blessing of a spirit. The ultimate defensive magic the boy had obtained in the Akiliptus Forest.

A special magic that exponentially increased a mage’s survival rate, only attainable by a select few chosen by the spirits.

Nearly a month after acquiring it, the boy wore a look of considerable satisfaction at this moment when the defense magic shone.

“It was wise to experiment with this magic beforehand. Thanks to that, I could dive in with confidence.”

“I only swung my axe at the General a few times…Well, it was an experience, not a bad one.”

The boy and Rex exchanged a private joke, faint smiles gracing their lips. Their relationship had deepened to the point where they could ease each other’s tension before a fierce battle.

“…They’ve appeared.”

The demons floating in the sky, seeing the boy with snow-white hair step onto the battlefield, closed their eyes, then whispered as one.

—…Coming soon, hold them back until then.

“Understood.”

Of the demons in the sky, the one with the largest wings moved the fingers that had just emitted a crimson light and pointed directly at the boy.

“…Not even fifteen seconds have passed.”

“I’m aware.”

The boy, who had been fearlessly rushing into the enemy’s barrage just moments before, quickly hid behind the back of an orc.

“Plunge.”

The demon with the great wings commanded in a low voice. Immediately afterward, the demons behind him folded their wings in unison and began to extend towards the boy in a straight line.

It was not magic used, nor weaponry or mutation.

The Mazoku surged forward towards the boy as if they themselves were missiles.

They judged that clumsy attacks or spells would fail to so much as graze him, and attempted a suicide assault.

A command that would incite desertion from any ordinary lifeform, but these were Mazoku.

A race born to extinguish all life, they chose a method befitting their savagery and brute force.

“One point. Deficient. Unification and Compression.”

From behind Rex, who had raised his axe, the incantation of an aged voice reverberated.

The Orc stared resolutely, unflinchingly, at the sky.

“Bolt.”

Electricity erupted from every pore of the white-bearded elder, until a sphere of concentrated energy, compressed to a single point from the depths of the trench, reached for the heavens. Moments later, dozens of lightning bolts blanketed the sky.

Immense heat enveloped the Orc’s skin. His steel prosthetic hand grew searingly hot as the boy huddled behind him, shielding himself from the blaze.

The Mazoku hurtling straight towards the boy were instantly reduced to charred husks. Blackened flesh rained down from above, which Rex deftly deflected with his axe, protecting the boy behind him.

The Mazoku who had forced suicide upon his subordinates gazed down with a hardened expression at the Orc and the mages.

Enormous wings fluttered cautiously against the backdrop of a black, stormy sky.

“What are you waiting for, instead of coming down here?”

The boy taunted the Mazoku standing above, his face a mask of cold disdain.

“…Everything is for the sake of a unified world.”

The Mazoku folded his wings and, like the others, plunged his body towards the boy.

“Manifestation.”

As if waiting for that very moment, crimson particles flowed from the boy’s chest. The particles swiftly took the form of a red crystal.

*Kreeeak!*

With the sound of gears grinding together, a crimson light shot toward the heavens.

“……You seem to be getting rather skilled?”

Rex spoke, sensing the boy’s aim had improved immensely. It felt like only yesterday he couldn’t reliably hit a spider skittering about, and now he was intercepting demons mid-flight. It was not unreasonable to think so.

“They just fly in a straight line.”

The boy replied, chuckling lightly at Rex’s praise.

The demon’s corpse, cleaved in two by the crimson beam, plummeted to the earth like a waterlogged paper airplane. A putrid stench arose from the remains as they decayed rapidly, dissolving into the muck.