9. Recollections in Black and White p1
By this point, the tide of the battle had decisively turned.
The main battlegrounds in Fort Balaboa were the northern magic room and the central part of the fort. The northern magic room, in particular, had become a gruesome scene. Corpses littered the corridor floor, and scorch marks and bloodstains covered the walls. Flickering lights illuminated the bodies, exposing the traces of the fierce battle.
Most of the corpses belonged to the Imperial side. However, there were also some from the Kingdom side. While being toyed with by the assault force, who were familiar with the fort’s interior, the Imperial army was steadily whittling down the Kingdom’s forces. This was only natural. As the saying “a large army has no strategy” implied, a small force could only initially gain an advantage over a large army through surprise attacks or assaults. Winning with a small force was nothing more than a romanticized ideal in stories.
However, a select few could surpass a large army.
Such an improbable feat was achieved by—.
(I’ve missed my chance to retreat.)
In a corner of the corridor, in a deliberately created recess in the wall, a man was holding his breath, his back against the wall.
He was a corporal in the Imperial army, Baldo.
After ringing the alarm bell at the main gate to alert the entire fort of the assault force’s attack, he called out to the surrounding Imperial soldiers and headed straight for the northern magic room. This was because, considering its position relative to the direction of the intrusion—the south—he thought it was necessary to quickly strengthen its defenses. He didn’t think there would be enough time to prepare for a counterattack in the west or east. Recklessly dispersing their forces to the nearby magic rooms and establishing thin defensive lines would only increase the risk of being overrun.
Then, concentrate their forces at the most vulnerable point.
Establish an impregnable final defensive line there and defend it to the death.
(Thinking that we might be able to prevent the fort from falling if we did that was a pessimistic idea, even for me. It’s just the shallow thinking of a foot soldier from a peasant background… I’m relieved that things turned out well, haha.)
They had been able to defend the northern magic room until now. Moreover, they had successfully repelled the threat by defeating a group led by Second Lieutenant Matardo Rattalt, who seemed to be one of the leaders of the assault force. However, the cost had been high, and the northern front had already practically collapsed. The number of combat-ready soldiers had dwindled to a handful.
What remained were those who had miraculously survived, including Baldo.
(At least we’ve managed to protect the magician stationed in the magic room. Well, we held out longer than expected… They attacked the fort with a small force, after all. They weren’t overwhelmingly strong like hero-class, but they were composed of individuals close to that level. I can’t believe we managed to defend it.)
His shoulders heaved with ragged breaths. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. He roughly wiped it away with his right arm and looked around.
Among the corpses drowning in blood, there were few survivors. Including himself, there were only a dozen or so. And all of them were wounded without exception. Some were leaning against the wall, barely able to sit up, while others were writhing on the floor like caterpillars, groaning in pain. While the corridor was filled with their moans—, he also saw a few who, despite their exhaustion, still carried an unwavering fighting spirit.
There was a squad leader who planted his sword on the floor and stood up. There was a soldier whose eyes burned with fighting spirit, even after losing an arm. There was a sergeant who hadn’t let go of his sword, even after his ankle was gouged.
(Including me, we’re all just barely alive. Why is our fighting spirit still so strong?)
—I know that too.
After all, the weakened cowards had become fertilizer for the corridor. No, perhaps those who had lost their will to fight were hiding among the carpet of corpses. Honestly, that was the smartest survival tactic. If you want to hide a tree, hide it in a forest. If you want to hide a person, hide them among a mountain of corpses and a river of blood. Baldo himself, seeing that he had fulfilled his duty, had intended to survive using the same method.
But in the end, he didn’t take that survival tactic.
(I guess… the bleeding won’t stop. The one I took in the gut earlier was fatal.)
“…I’m… not long for this world either.”
Phlegm caught in his hoarse voice, and he opened his mouth to spit it out. That cleared the blockage in his throat. But at the same time, blood gushed from the wound on his abdomen, which he had been holding with his right hand. It splattered on the floor, forming a pool of red. Looking at it, the phlegm he had just spat out seemed to have been a blood clot, and a much larger pool of blood had formed than he had imagined. Perhaps that was the final blow, as his dizziness rapidly worsened, and the lines in his vision blurred.
Red. A color that made him dizzy just by looking at it.
He could barely maintain consciousness. If he relaxed even for a moment, he would collapse on the floor.
The hope of survival was slim. All he had was resolve.
“Baldo.”
A creaking sound, no, a definite call shook his ears.
He looked towards the source of the voice. It was a man crawling on the floor. His forehead was stained reddish-purple, and blood was constantly dripping from the left half of his face, its glossy, sap-like sheen catching his eye. His right arm was bent at an unnatural angle, as if broken, and he was crawling towards him, rubbing his left shoulder.
He was the one who had been on gate duty with Baldo tonight.
“…Oh. You’re still alive.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t give you a witty reply.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic here.”
They chuckled weakly at each other. It was a laughter almost indistinguishable from a breath.
“Baldo, how’s your wound?”
“Not good. Just like you, I’ll die if I stay like this. Should we go back to headquarters or wait our turn for healing?”
Baldo jerked his chin towards the other side of the wall. The wounded were being treated one by one in the corridor.
A young man was holding his palms towards each of the lying Imperial soldiers. Each time, a faint, pale blue phosphorescence emanated from their wounds. From afar, he couldn’t see the wounds closing, but that was healing magic. Although it couldn’t completely heal the wounds, it created a membrane over the skin or broken blood vessels, preventing excessive bleeding and the entry of germs. It was often used as first aid.
The man before him sarcastically raised one corner of his mouth.
“It’s packed. If we don’t cut in line, it’ll be too late.”
“I’m fine waiting. There seem to be more useful and seriously injured people there than me, and I can still endure this. I’ll wait my turn.”
“You’re the one being sarcastic.”
“Shut up. I’m just trying to endure it.”
Baldo turned away to hide his embarrassment and started talking.
“What are we going to do? Are we staying here?”
“I want to go home… to be honest. But we’ve fulfilled our duty just by defending this place, haven’t we?”
“No way. We’re not in a winning position overall.”
Currently, Fort Balaboa was in dire straits.
The only magic room confirmed to have fallen was the southern one, which had been crushed first. The status of the eastern magic room was unknown. “A temporary headquarters has been set up in the western magic room,” a messenger from the west had said before the second attack. Of course, in this situation, there was no guarantee that the headquarters was still in the west.
According to the messenger, no messenger had returned from the east. It had probably already fallen into enemy hands.
In other words, if this northern magic room was captured, the fort would be driven into a corner. The only one left would be the western magic room where the headquarters was located. If that happened, it would be like having a blade held to their throats. There was currently no effective countermeasure, and the situation was one step away from checkmate.
Their only hope was the promised arrival of the Six Wings.
And then, despair appeared before them.
“Next, next person! Seriously injured, line up! Those healed, move to the side of the corridor! We need to regroup before the next wave comes! Those who can stand, hide in the recesses, and the others…”
“Sorry, seems like you’re too late.”
No one questioned the interrupting voice.
The Imperial soldier who had been using healing magic—was cut down.
“Huh?”
He was split in two. Blood gushed from his abdomen.
The soldier, who had been sincerely providing aid, fell with a stunned, mask-like expression. Only his upper body rolled on the ground. His lower body remained kneeling, rooted to the spot. In the air above him was a steel blade radiating a violet light, spreading like branches.
It was a greatsword. Baldo’s naive assessment of the situation echoed in his mind.
“Well then, time to clean up after the seniors. I’ll make your dreams come true, one by one.”
Thus, the northern magic room faced the return of the assault force. A squad of a dozen or so, and at their head, a large man walking majestically.
He didn’t swing the broadsword he carried on his back. He literally kicked the surrounding Imperial soldiers aside. And then, he unleashed a swift slash at those who crashed against the wall. A dull thud echoed through the space, followed by a gush of blood and cries of pain.
Baldo rapidly lost his sense of reality. Perhaps because the sudden threat transcended ordinary comprehension, his mental defense mechanism kicked in, and he felt like he was watching the distant carnage through a translucent membrane. But while the outlines of the carnage seemed blurred and hazy, they were vividly etched into his senses.
The sounds echoed in his ears, the smell clung to his nose, and his skin trembled.
“No resistance at all. Just a bunch of small fry. The great Imperial army is nothing more than a laughingstock.”
His sooty blond hair was like a mane. His muscles seemed like armor.
He was the champion of Laptenon, the one who had started this battle.
Bogart Ramholt. The giant who had kicked down the main gate of the fort, reinforced with barrier magic. Leading a dozen or so men and spearheading the assault force as their leader, he truly seemed to be a hero with extraordinary abilities.
The man mowed down the Imperial soldiers who stood in his way one by one. Sometimes he blew them away with a kick, sometimes he split them in two with his broadsword from the start, sometimes he turned his enemies into blood and chunks of flesh with an explosive burst of fire magic, and finally, without exception, he turned them all into rust on his greatsword. He mercilessly cut down the hands of the Imperial soldiers who confronted him with tragic resolve and reckless courage, clinging to a glimmer of hope that shouldn’t exist.
It was like mowing weeds, he thought honestly.
Lives were so easily reaped with a single stroke. People burst like bubbles, like fleeting dreams.
“Gaaaaah—!”
While Baldo was stunned, flames erupted nearby. A scorching wind blew. He instinctively covered his eyes with his arm, and the intense heat that washed over him felt like it was burning his skin. It flowed into his eardrums from the wound on his abdomen, and a scream that couldn’t be drowned out by the explosion echoed through the space. When the momentary wind died down, he moved his arm, and the Imperial soldiers inside the corridor had been blown away several meters as if swept away by a broom.
It was an instant. It was just an instant. He realized that an instant was enough.
—For a human being to become a silent object.
Such a transformation didn’t require much time or drama.
“Gah…!”
He closed his eyes against the gust of wind and pressed his back against the wall.
(This is no laughing matter.)
He had been clearly shown the overwhelming difference in strength.
His physical strength surpassed that of Baldo and the others, and he skillfully wielded fire-attribute magic. The difference in their Od capacity was too great. The difference in their talent was too great. Facing him with a small number of people was out of the question.
Faced with the power that made him famous as a hero—, a whistling sound escaped Baldo’s lips.
(I can’t win. If someone like that comes, it’s over.)
Over. Such a meager word was squeezed out.
He couldn’t express it with any other words. He remembered putting his sister’s child to sleep in his hometown. The boy, who was about to turn five, was as active as if he had sunlight in his body even after the sun had set, and even as a substitute father, Baldo had had a hard time with him. He had memorized children’s stories, and when asked, he had memorized and told the heroic tales of the current Six Wings.
And he thought. No matter what the story, the closing words were the same.
The story ended with such simple words, “The end.”
(Haha. There are no words more fitting for this absurdity.)
Hero. For him, it was almost a hateful word. He had once admired them. Their heroic appearance sweeping across the blood-soaked battlefield, their overwhelming power that mowed down any obstacle, their cool demeanor wielding extravagant magic tools and magic swords, their position praised by everyone in the country, their lavish lifestyle he had heard about—perhaps he had also harbored a grand delusion, half-expecting that he could become like them, that he might be able to.
Looking back now, it was an embarrassing, common delusion.
(It’s impossible. Once you try to aim for it, you realize it’s impossible. And once you see a hero with your own eyes, you inevitably notice the difference. Like waking up from a dream, you start to think it was crazy to admire such a weapon of violence, such a killer.)
The proof was that Baldo was now trembling.
He was terrified of the heroes he had once admired.
(The ‘Six Wings’… aren’t here yet? Yeah, that’s right.)
He could cruelly answer his own question.
They would arrive in a few days at the earliest, a week at the latest.
They had to suppress the uprising in the central part of the Empire and then come to Fort Balaboa, located at the edge of the Imperial territory. The distance weighed heavily on Baldo’s mind. At least, they wouldn’t conveniently arrive now, when their fate was at stake.
The heroes of fairy tales were imaginary creatures. Miracles weren’t handed out casually. He couldn’t expect a sudden turn of events that would save them from this predicament.
—My dream is to become a hero.
(Hey, Sol. Such convenient things like a child’s dream coming true don’t happen often. Those whose dreams come true, come true, and those whose dreams don’t, don’t. It can’t be helped, given talent and circumstances. And I’m the one who gave up.)
The little girl’s words, unaware of reality, crossed his mind.
(But.)
Still, Baldo gripped his sword in a crouched position.
“I’m not giving up my life so easily.”
—I’ll show you why human wave tactics are so terrifying.
The moment he muttered those words, the corridor was filled with flashes of light.
