Shadowed Gaze: The Highserk War Saga - Chapter 70

Even as Walm awoke, reality remained unchanged. The only difference was the rapidly increasing number of monsters below.

“Is this… reality?”

Walm had to accept that there were no longer any living humans in Dandurg Castle.

His dulled thoughts struggled to turn. What to do now? The military organization that once issued orders had collapsed; everything now depended on Walm’s own decisions.

Mentally worn, but maintaining appearances, Walm decided to return to his homeland. He gathered his scattered equipment and stuffed preserved food taken from the supplies into his mouth.

Wheat, dried grapes, oil compressed into preserved food – they stole moisture and saliva from Walm. He washed them down with water, but then his stomach cried out in pain.

“Ugh… cough cough… huff…”

He desperately suppressed the reflux of gastric juices. The sourness spreading in his mouth tasted awful. Walm resisted the urge to drink alcohol and left the room.

His search for halberds, daggers, parts of armament, and coins among the corpses made him feel no different from a monster scavenging for meat from corpses. Having gathered what he needed, Walm climbed to the top of the tower’s roof, storing everything in his magic bag.

A gigantic path had been carved through mountains, valleys, and rivers, unmistakably the work of the Flame Emperor Dragon. Following this path would lead him back to his homeland.

Encounters with numerous monsters were inevitable along the way. Normally, this would have been a hesitant choice, but for Walm now, it was a trivial matter. Time spent doing nothing was torturous; indulging in killing was easier, requiring no thought.

Even if he met a hapless end in battle, it would be a fitting conclusion for a lonely Highserk soldier, dying unnoticed. This thought was a clear and suitable ending for a defeated soldier like Walm. He descended from the makeshift walls and looked back.

The old castle, stained with blood, seemed on the verge of collapse after repeated fierce attacks, almost symbolizing the downfall of the Highserk Empire.

Outside the city, monsters were not as numerous. Lured into populated areas, they were sparse, and after cutting down dozens every hour or two, encounters ceased.

Ironically, the path created by the Flame Emperor Dragon had shortened Walm’s travel time. Mountains and trees were trampled alike, valleys and rivers burned and destroyed. This truly was a walking natural disaster, reshaping even the terrain.

Half a day’s walk brought him to a small village, swallowed up in the great rampage, barely hinting at human life.

All houses were destroyed, with only their foundations barely remaining. There were no signs of humans, not even corpses or bloodstains. Only countless monster footprints told of their devastation.

The next city he reached, proportionate to its size, had some buildings left, but from afar, he could see the bodies of monsters and humans. It seemed they had resisted, centered around the defense forces and volunteers, but ultimately fell.

“Even Canoa is lost.”

Walm bypassed the ruined city, not his intended destination, and continued his journey home.

The national border checkpoint, deviating from the path of the Flame Emperor Dragon, had seen fierce resistance, unlike other battlefields. The walls and moats were filled with the bodies of monsters.

Soldiers who had fought to a standstill with Orthroses lay intertwined as if hugging. The two-headed wolves had their arms and throats bitten off, while the soldiers had pierced the wolves’ chests with longswords.

Collapsed side towers were buried under rubble and Cyclops corpses, with the sad protrusion of human and monster limbs. Walm thought he could have ended up the same way. He crossed the ruined border wall.

Barracks and command centers were ravaged. Soldiers lay fallen, fused with the walls of the collapsed barracks, while in the command center, a general with a great sword lay slain among a mass of monster corpses, his body torn apart.

Walm continued searching the checkpoint. Though monsters that favored the flesh from corpses remained, they only added to the existing pile of dead monsters.

After clearing the surrounding monsters, Walm made a bed atop a half-destroyed watchtower. He tied his cloak to the tower’s shield and pillars to block the outside air and prevent light from leaking.

In Dandurg Castle, he had borrowed several cloaks, some stained with blood, but they were fitting for Walm now.

Despite his loss of appetite, he needed to eat to maintain his physical and magical strength. Walm took out a small pot, filled it with water, and boiled it using magic, adding beans, sliced dried fish, and salt.

He could not taste the food, and the pain in his stomach increased. Walm mindlessly sipped the soup and chewed on soaked black bread.

Having filled his stomach, Walm suppressed nausea and let go of his consciousness. He repeated cycles of sleep and awakening until the twin moons began to set, finally ousted by the sun. Walm packed up his bed and left the checkpoint.

He ran at a forced march pace. He killed all the monsters that swarmed him like gnats, but his heart never cleared.

The number of refugees’ corpses on the road increased. Exhausted soldiers were pecked at by countless birds, and the eyes of a staring infant were gouged out.

Walm lacked the energy to drive them away or the hands to mourn them. He silently moved on.

Reluctant to even spare time for maintenance, Walm picked up and discarded abandoned weapons. When a spear broke, he used a sword; when the sword broke, he wielded a war hammer. As the day ended, Walm climbed a large tree and spent the third night since leaving Dandurg Castle.

He was close to his homeland now. Walm ran breathlessly along the vividly remembered road. Memories of his childhood flashed through his mind.

The forests where Walm played with the neighborhood ruffians and his brother until dusk, the well-trodden country roads, rocks and trees used as landmarks, it felt both short and long since he had left the village. The sour taste of the sweet and tangy raspberries he ate with his brother came to his mind.

Running through the entrance of the village, the unrepaired fence remained just as Walm had left it.

Passing through the familiar gate of his home, Walm opened his mouth.

“…I’m home.”

His family greeted him. Tears flowed uncontrollably from Walm’s eyes.

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

Walm wouldn’t declare his as the best family in the world, but they were the family he spent his time with until he was conscripted.

Despite being in a household that couldn’t be called wealthy, on the day his conscription was decided, a feast like Walm had never seen in his life overflowed on the table.

He stuffed himself until he could burst, drinking with his father and brother until he lost memory. Looking back, they had never spoken so honestly. It might have been affected by Walm, who carried memories of a past life and kept a certain distance. Walm regretted it. As his brother advised, he should have prioritized his time with his parents more.

His parents, with vacant eyes, reached out their hands towards Walm, as if longing for an embrace. They approached Walm, dragging their mutilated bodies, their mouths half-open.

“I’ve become strong. I won’t lose to any soldier or monster, even dragons or the Three Heroes of Crest. But still, I couldn’t protect anything I didn’t want to lose, not my comrades, not my family.”

Walm accepted the embrace. Their skin was terribly cold. The sight of their mouths, caked with dried blood, filled his vision.

“I’m sorry, so sorry, I love you mom, dad.”

He plunged his longsword into their lower jaws, gifting his family a second death. Walm crawled outside the house and vomited.

“Ugh… ahg… guuh… aah…”

His kind neighbor, his strong-willed childhood friend, even the neurotic village chief, welcomed Walm’s return.

Even his kind uncle, who taught Walm about war and shared his experiences, joined in.

The entire village had turned into a nest of undead.

Gasping for breath, unable to stop his sobs, Walm clenched his fist, sand slipping through his fingers. Tears blurred his vision, distorting it. Unable to hold back, he looked up at the sky. Contrary to his feelings, it was a cloudless, clear day, as if the heavens refused to overlook the folly of foolish humanity.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Walm cried out and conjured his magic at full power, spreading blue flames throughout the village. Relatives and neighbors alike were equally consumed by the flames. The fire spread to the houses, and the whole village burned in blue.

“What kind of knight am I, what kind of Demon Fire user, if I can’t save a single person?! I’m a useless idiot!”

Sobbing, Walm continued to spew Demon Fire. As a final tribute to those he couldn’t protect, he kept burning the blue flames in the limbo of the underworld, so that no one would wander astray.

◆

Walm didn’t know how or for how many days he walked. When he realized it, he had arrived there.

The hill overlooking the capital of the Highserk Empire, the heart and largest population center.

On that hill, loved by emperors and the military god Gerald, a few lost Highserk soldiers had gathered. Walm joined them without speaking to anyone. His tears had long since dried.

There was no need for words among those gathered on the hill. They all harbored the same feelings, gazing at the capital. They were the surviving soldiers who had lost their place to die.

Unable to abandon their country, yet unable to protect it, and unable to find death. The capital, swallowed by monsters, witnessed the great buildings built by Highserk over its history burning down. The impregnable walls had collapsed under attacks beyond human understanding. Transplanted eyes heated up, sharp pain running through them.

People vanished, fields overflowed with monsters, the country collapsed.

Sacrifices for ideals. Peace built on oppressing other nations. Repeating history.

Good and evil changed depending on one’s position, but now Walm couldn’t understand what he had been fighting for. If the world matured through lessons coated in blood and vomit, Walm hoped that today’s tragedy would not be in vain, his eyes clouding once more.

[End of Arc 1]