The highway continued on, threading its way through breaks in the forest and along the mountain foothills. The ground, packed firm by the constant passage of people, horses, and wagons, bore deep traces of wheels and footprints.

It was proof of frequent traffic, and from time to time, Walm passed other travelers. Roads along which people and goods flowed could well be called the arteries of a nation.

He caught the gentle incline beneath the soles of his boots and converted it into forward momentum. Once, his body had grown sluggish from drowning in alcohol, but the battles and training he had undergone in the Archipelago Countries had restored its precision. The strong legs that had carried him across diverse terrain as an infantryman now demonstrated their ability without reservation.

Walm caught up to one of the wagons ahead and fell into pace beside it.

The wagon, loaded with livestock feed and burlap sacks of unknown purpose, rattled noisily as it rolled along, its axle and wheels creaking under friction. Two men strained to pull it forward. The young men, still bearing traces of boyhood in their faces, closely resembled each other in both features and build. They were likely close kin… brothers, Walm guessed. Despite the heavy labor of transporting cargo, the two spoke with one another without complaint.

After fully overtaking them, Walm shifted his gaze forward again and muttered under his breath.

“Ordinary life, huh…”

At a glance, it was an unremarkable road. But to Walm who had witnessed that day a year and a half ago, it was an alien sight.

Back then, both sides of this road had been lined with mangled corpses and those who had collapsed from exhaustion. Refugees cried out in search of salvation that did not exist. Abandoned possessions and supplies left behind during sudden attacks had narrowed the road and thrown everything into chaos.

Even the ground beneath his feet had been different. In those days, blood and spilled entrails from the dead had turned the earth into mud. The half-boots that pressed down upon that red-black carpet of soil had been plagued constantly by a sickening sensation.

“Ngh…”

A year and a half had passed, and though he now walked along a properly maintained road, that sticky, revolting sensation seemed to cling once more to the soles of his boots.

It shouldn’t have remained. Flesh and blood would have been picked clean by birds and insects, rotted away, and consumed by the earth. And yet, the scene smoldered in his mind, and a stench of decay that did not exist filled his nostrils.

It wasn’t real. A hallucination or a recollection of the past. Careful not to let those around him notice, Walm quietly clenched his back teeth.

“…This area has only just begun to recover. Securing the region that had turned into demonic territory, making it usable again… it required tremendous manpower and resources.”

At the words of his companion, Walm stiffened inwardly, wondering if his thoughts had been read. Fortunately, the comment was merely in response to what he had muttered aloud.

Accompanying him on his return to his homeland was Friug. He had served under him as a company commander in the wartime composite battalion of Dandurg Castle. A soldier who had continued fighting on the front lines since the defense of Dandurg Castle… his words carried weight and lingered in the ears.

“Given the circumstances back then, it’s incredible they managed to reclaim this much.”

Walm offered the praise sincerely. While he had fled to another country and wasted his days in escape and self-indulgence, those who remained had continued forward, bearing hardships and pain beyond words.

A faint smile appeared on Friug’s more deeply lined face.

“Thank you. Along the highway, human activity has returned but if you look at it as a whole, it’s not much different from weathered bones. Even in areas considered secured, monsters still appear sporadically, and there are many deserted villages and homes. Even when we retake a hometown village after a year and a half, there are often more houses left standing than survivors.”

After passing through the former territories of the Highserk Empire’s old southern army and heading inland, Walm had seen many abandoned villages. Reconstruction was underway, but aside from key locations, ruins were still more common than restored settlements.

As Walm’s thoughts lingered on what he had seen along the road, Friug continued.

“Even so, people are resilient. In some of the villages we reclaimed from demonic territory after a year, we found survivors. Emaciated, filthy and utterly exhausted but they were human, without question.”

“That’s not pos…”

The denial nearly slipped from Walm’s lips. Fortresses and checkpoints with layered defenses had been swallowed by the black flood of monsters of the Great Rampage. How could villages with neither proper defenses nor fighting forces have survived? But he reconsidered.

“The Great Rampage… regardless of how it started, it was a disaster, not an army.”

Flooding rivers by breaking dams, triggering landslides on mountain slopes… using nature itself as a weapon had long been a tactic of war. The army of the Highserk Empire had done the same in the delaying tactics at Refun Mine.

The Great Rampage resembled such strategies yet differed fundamentally. It lacked control and reproducibility, and above all, its scale was incomparable. It was more akin to an artificially triggered natural catastrophe.

The waves of monsters it produced were undeniably catastrophic, but they had no strict organization, no clearly defined objectives. There might have been tactics, even something resembling battlefield maneuvers but there was no strategy, so naturally, there would be oversights.

“Like a torrent or tsunami, huh… The majority must have been drawn to densely populated areas. The villages that avoided a direct hit survived.”

While monsters had swarmed Dandurg Castle and many cities, remote settlements or those off the main path of invasion had escaped total annihilation, though such fortunate places were few.

“Yes. The survivors said the same thing. They didn’t overcome it, they were simply lucky enough to be overlooked.”

“Even so, to endure while everything around them turned into demonic territory, becoming islands on land… they held out well.”

Maintaining order without any contact from the outside world was immensely difficult. Unlike an offensive with an expected end time, defending a village meant holding out against an unseen, endless threat.

Friug lowered his voice and spoke of what he had experienced.

“To be honest, we couldn’t hide our confusion. It was demonic territory where no humans should have remained. When our unit entered the village… I’ll never forget their faces. They welcomed us with tears and laughter, saying, ‘Thank you for coming. The world hasn’t ended.’ For over a year, they believed no one else had survived.”

For those without even a fragment of information, the Great Rampage had come without warning. If contact with the outside world was cut off for an entire year, it wouldn’t be strange to conclude that the world had fallen to monsters. In fact, the Kingdom of Felius had perished after producing countless refugees, and both Highserk and Mayard had been left crippled.

If events had taken a slightly worse turn, the three nations might have vanished entirely. The number of the dead could have doubled or even tripled.

“Fortunately, retired soldiers and stragglers from units became the core of local militias. I can only admire the work of those who endured a year of isolation.”

Separated from their units, their destination was home. Walm understood that state of mind as he had once walked that road himself.

When comrades fell and the chain of command collapsed, there were few options left, and while Walm had experienced the same, there was a gulf between him and them. Unlike Walm, who had failed to arrive in time, they had made it and seen it through.

“They protected their homes, then.”

“…Yes. They defended them to the end.”

Receiving word of the survival of unknown countrymen, Walm merely nodded. Though the conversation fell silent, emotions like relief, regret, and envy rose one after another within him, swirling beneath the surface. Perhaps it was because his homeland was drawing nearer, both physically and psychologically.

Walm had been prone to escapism and excessive pessimism, and he had neither forgotten the past nor wished to forget it entirely but at the very least, he had stopped stagnating. Finally, he was moving forward even if it was at a crawling pace.

The current Highserk Empire absorbed all manner of people and goods like parched earth drinking in water, gradually filling the void of its thirst. Walm himself was one of those being drawn in.

The destination city for was now less than a day’s journey away. He had never actually set foot inside it. He had only gazed down upon it from afar, from the hill beloved by the military god. Even so, for reasons he could not fully explain, a sense of homesickness welled up within him.

Both in ages past and in the present, the keystone of the Highserk Empire was the imperial capital Variguend, that had once been swallowed by the Flame Emperor Dragon and the Great Rampage, and had now risen again.

Translator – Lyxxna