Praying that he had simply misheard, Walm questioned his brother, who stood with his head lowered.

“Hey, Hayes, answer me. You’re a Libertoa soldier… even now?”

“…Yeah. I’m still serving in the Libertoa army.”

To escape the Great Rampage, a great number of Highserk people had scattered to foreign lands, and that remained true even now, as the reconstruction of their homeland was finally underway. They had endured discrimination and prejudice, put down roots in foreign soil, and resolved to be buried there. It must have taken tremendous effort and patience. Compared to them, Walm, who had let himself rot away in the Archipelago Countries doing nothing but wasting time, felt they were far more forward-looking and productive. But he simply couldn’t accept the country where his brother had washed ashore.

“Have you lost your mind? That’s Libertoa we’re talking about!”

The prevailing theory held that the cause of the Great Rampage was the self-destruction of the King of Felius in a fit of despair. Others said it had been a scheme by allied nations, led by the Libertoa Trade Federation. The truth had never been made clear. At the very least, a leader of a small unit like Walm had no means of knowing.

Even so, one fact was certain. Libertoa had been one corner of the Four-Nation Alliance blamed for bringing Highserk to ruin, and even now, it was a nation that wished for Highserk’s demise.

“Yeah. I’m perfectly sane… Walm, I was looking for you because I wanted you to come live in Libertoa. Unlike before, I can at least support my little brother now. If you want, I can even introduce you to work that doesn’t involve fighting. You don’t have to serve as a soldier anymore.”

Had those words come from some unfamiliar Libertoa man, they would have sounded like pure provocation to a Highserk soldier. But his brother spoke not from malice, but from genuine goodwill.

Somehow that made it worse. A helpless, directionless anger grew inside Walm.

“You know, I knew what happened to father and mother. I went back to the village, and I killed them with my own hands after they became undead. And not just them, I burned the neighbors too. I still remember it. There’s no way I could ever forget… so why the hell are you serving under the people who caused all of this?!”

“…So you did it, Walm. You were made to do something horrible. I’m really sorry for that.”

Hayes seemed to regret it as his clenched fists trembled, nails digging into his palms. Though Walm had lashed out in anger, Hayes responded only with remorse and apology. Breathing heavily, he began to explain.

“I became a soldier in Libertoa because I thought the country had fallen. In the west, the army collapsed completely. We couldn’t resist the monsters flooding in… there was no room for doubt. And back then, Libertoa was the only place I could desperately flee to. I had no home to return to, no family left. And work for someone driven from their country is limited, so I had no other choice. If I hesitated, if I wavered… I would’ve died.”

Walm, who knew the devastation from the retreat at Dandurg Castle to the imperial capital, had no way to deny those words. Then he realized something.

The Jeyf Cavalry Battalion had lured part of the Great Rampage toward the Libertoa Trade Federation. They had substituted Libertoa’s forces for their own insufficient frontline strength. Militarily, it had likely been a brilliant decision. Given that time, Highserk evacuated human resources to the south and east, laying the foundation for later reconstruction.

It had probably been a necessary operation, but what had become of the western and northern regions, including his homeland, that served as the corridor for the Great Rampage? The answer was obvious.

Only dark thoughts surfaced.

“Hayes, come back to Highserk. We can still start over.”

Suppressing the storm of emotions he could not fully sort out, Walm tried to reason with his brother.

“I want that from the bottom of my heart. If this had been a year and a half earlier, maybe. But now… it’s impossible. I have a family. A Libertoa wife. Two children have been born. I can’t go back… I can’t. I’m a Libertoa man now.”

Hayes’s face twisted bitterly as he spoke.

What should have been joyful news, his marriage, the existence of nieces or nephews, only deepened the complexity of the situation. At last, Walm understood the agony tearing at his brother, caught between a Libertoa family and his Highserk blood.

“Maybe they’re the root cause, I can’t stand the bastards who triggered the Great Rampage either. But the ones who saved me when I should’ve died were Libertoa soldiers. They took in an outsider, even a man from an enemy nation. While working to get back the demonic territory, I found people I can trust with my back. I don’t want to fight my own brother. If not Libertoa, then some other country. Please, leave Highserk.”

“Hayes… I can’t. I can’t do that.”

Walm bit his lip and shook his head but Hayes pressed on.

“Think about the difference in power between them. And this won’t be like the battle at Sarajevo Fortress. Unlike a stretched expedition, Libertoa can pour its full strength into Highserk. Even the border garrisons that stayed behind will be mobilized. How many troops can Highserk even field right now? After taking in the lost Felius and Highserk people, Libertoa can mobilize maybe 50,000 soldiers.”

Still Walm refused to nod. Hayes’s voice sharpened.

“They’ve gained real combat experience and hard lessons from the Great Rampage and the war against the Four-Nation Alliance. The difference in training has closed, and the gap in numbers keeps widening. Are you planning to die for the state?! Haven’t you done enough already? Libertoa has its faults, sure, but it isn’t completely merciless. There’s calculation in it, but they accepted me, and other former Highserk people too.”

At last, Walm spoke his true feelings.

“If it comes to total war with Libertoa, our chances are slim, and I might die. I don’t want to die either.”

“Then—”

“But I can’t abandon the community that is my country. More than that, I can’t leave behind my comrades or the people who still believe in this nation. The title’s mostly hollow, but I’m still something like a knight. And besides, at Sarajevo, at Dandurg, what did they die for? What were those sacrifices for? I don’t want their deaths to be meaningless. Highserk isn’t a flawless nation either, it’s poor, the land’s barren, the food’s bad and scarce. There’s conscription. In enemy lands, there’s even organized plunder. We’ve made countless terrible mistakes. Even so, aren’t humans meant to learn from past failures and grow? I don’t want to give up without doing anything.”

Without looking away, he conveyed his feelings to his brother. On the day the nation fell, standing on the hill overlooking the imperial capital, Walm had made that wish. Faced with the unbridgeable divide between them, Hayes let his shoulders sag and muttered, his voice trembling.

“How did it come to this?”

Walm felt the same. If it were possible, he would have liked to laugh innocently again with his brother and family, just as they had in childhood.

“Who knows… I really don’t know. I don’t know if today will be our last meeting. Maybe we’ll see each other again, but I don’t want to meet as enemies.”

As Walm rose to his feet, Hayes called out to him.

“Wait! We’re not finished talking!”

At the shout, Walm frowned helplessly. His emotions were so shaken that even his mask trembled.

“Wait for what? The environment, the situation… we can’t meet halfway. If we keep going, it’ll just get more pathetic. Just being able to meet again, alive like this has already made me happy. I’m not running away. I just need a moment to cool my hea—”

He had no desire to quarrel with his brother. Walm intended to step away briefly and calm down. With a cooler head, perhaps some better idea would come. Before he could finish his sentence, Hayes, who had been glancing elsewhere, cut him off with a shout unlike him.

“That’s not— ngh, stop!! Walm, get out!”

Bloodshot eyes, a desperate voice, a conversation that no longer aligned… it was like being in the middle of a battlefield. Sensing something wrong in Hayes’s cry, Walm frowned and realized it too late. Hayes hadn’t been calling out to his brother.

To say he had let his guard down would be unfair. His emotions had been shaken so deeply that most of his awareness had been fixed on his brother. The killing intent and magic power had been meticulously prepared and concealed. What surrounded them was a unit of Libertoa soldiers who shouldn’t have been there.

“Why…?”

The Libertoa soldiers cast off their disguises and struck with terrifying speed. Hayes dashed forward, reaching out to his brother but as if that movement had been the signal, blinding attack magic converged all at once.

A torrent of mana turned into pain too great to process and mercilessly swallowed Walm whole.

Translator – Lyxxna