Hot breath brushed against his skin, and his armor shifted with the rise and fall of lungs desperate for oxygen. Through the slit of his helmet, Walm moved only his eyes, scanning for movement within his field of vision. In the area that had been engulfed in chaos moments ago, the only sound that remained was his own breathing. Anyone who had approached the church had vanished without a trace.

“Huuh… haah…”

Steam rose from the ground laid with a red carpet, accompanied by a foul stench. Following the distant gazes directed toward him, Walm saw only the residents of the mining town, but he couldn’t lower his guard. After all, the attackers had been former soldiers of the Kingdom of Felius, men who should have already been absorbed under their control. Even civilians who appeared harmless might’ve still harbored hostile intent.

“Justan, can you hear me?”

Calling into the building, Walm lowered his gaze. An attacker, already dead with a war hammer still clenched in his hands, remained stubbornly sprawled against the door. The way he sat there made him look almost like a gatekeeper. Chaotic as the melee had been, Walm at least remembered the men he had killed. Since he didn’t recognize this corpse, the man had likely been struck down by a counterattack through the gap in the door he had been trying to smash open.

“I hear you. Sounds like things are over outside.”

The reply came quickly. Just as Walm was probing the interior, Justan had been observing the situation outside.

“At least as far as I can see. There are probably some that slipped away.”

There was a world of difference between men prepared to be wiped out and men actually wiped out. Some soldiers must have realized defeat was inevitable and fled in disarray.

“Leaving leftovers? That’s not very Highserk of you.”

A remark mocking the true nature of the empire. Walm answered with sarcasm.

“Playing mother now? More importantly, what about your side’s losses?”

“One man had his throat cut through the shutters. Two more were stabbed from behind.”

Walm frowned at the troubling report. They had at least held the main entrance. It had been pounded repeatedly with war hammers and pierced by ice spears, but the holes were far too small for a person to squeeze through. At most, maybe a rat could have made it through.

“From behind? Did they get in through the shutters or the back entrance?”

“Someone had already infiltrated before the attack. One went after the wounded, another after the healing mage.”

“How are the ones who got stabbed?”

“This is a building with a legendary healing mage inside. Unless they died instantly, it’s actually hard to kill anyone here… by the way, is something stuck to the door? It’s heavy as hell.”

“Just some stubborn bastard clinging to it. I’ll move him now.”

The door had been warped by repeated blows, but the real problem was the human weight blocking it. Grabbing the corpse by the neck guard, Walm dragged the obstacle away. Blood poured heavily from the throat wound. The cause of death was likely a stab to the carotid artery, bleeding him out. The silent corpse was as heavy as water-soaked straw, and the blood dripping from it smeared across the ground like faded letters being written and erased.

At last they stood face-to-face, but they were not the kind of men to celebrate reunion with an embrace. Their eyes simply scanned each other from head to toe, confirming the absence of wounds.

“What’s the plan now?”

A bit of grime was nothing to complain about. Seeing that his colleague still had all four limbs intact, Walm asked for instructions.

“I’d like to move under the protection of confirmed friendly forces.”

A vague answer from the former imperial guard. Walm continued assessing the danger.

“The troops in the mining town can’t be relied on. And without any defensive positions, can we really protect the person we’re supposed to guard?”

“Impossible. Our escort is already small. We can’t spare anyone as a messenger. A considerable number of Mayard soldiers are stationed in the mountain fortress. After a commotion like this, they’ll definitely send scouts to assess the situation. Until then, barricading ourselves here is the most reasonable option.”

Justan’s opinion made sense. For a moment, Walm imagined what would happen if even this man had betrayed them. A chill ran down his spine, but if Justan was going to go down that path, the opportunity had already passed. Excessive suspicion would only breed unnecessary discord, so Walm quickly pushed the thought aside.

The basic strategy was forming. The next question was how to defend the place. As Walm considered troop placement, a strange smell disrupted his concentration. It was the familiar odor of death, layered over it was the stench of rotting earth.

“What is that smell… a corpse? No… soil?”

“Hey, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

Justan looked at him suspiciously as Walm muttered to himself. Walm waved him off with a raised hand and searched through his memory desperately. This smell was deeply tied to memory. And if that memory was tied to a harsh experience, it wasn’t something one could easily forget.

The Highserk Empire’s proud light infantry were essentially all-purpose soldiers. From fighting in tight formations to construction work, and sometimes even throwing together ramshackle huts like makeshift carpenters, they did it all. The smell Walm now detected was one he had encountered during those harsh experiences.

“That’s right… the forward earthworks in front of Sarajevo Fortress.”

Before the fortress assault, a series of ramparts had been constructed to force the enemy into open battle and bleed their forces. Their construction reached deep underground. When ancient sediment buried in the earth was exposed to the surface, a terrible stench rose with it. That smell had been etched into his body alongside exhaustion. The question was why he was smelling it now.

“Since we arrived in the mining town… was the soil smelling this rotten?”

Justan, who had quietly been watching him think things through, fell silent for a moment before shaking his head.

“No. Not this strong.”

“Don’t tell me the first landslide was man-made too.”

The target had clearly been Ayane. For the attackers to obtain information and launch an assault so quickly was too efficient. It made more sense that someone had already known the main tunnel would collapse beforehand.

“Hey, what the hell are you talking about?”

“It means a second one might be coming.”

A distant memory from a former life was already beginning to fade. He used to let morning news play out of habit. Once it had been mentioned that just before a landslide, there was a smell of mold and earth in the air. Walm vaguely remembered stopping to watch, drawn in by the commentator’s shrill voice and the horrific footage.

Walm and Justan exchanged a glance, then raced outside as if competing with one another, their eyes fixed on the mine. The surface of the barren mountain trembled faintly. The motion grew stronger, and then the slope collapsed. What had held its form moments before dissolved into a flowing mass, like the mountain itself was melting.

“A mudslide?! Those bastards… the first attack was just to confirm the VIP’s position and finish their preparations!”

“Evacuation—”

“We won’t make it!”

It might have been a two-stage operation, but that hardly mattered now. The black wave had already reached the outer edge of the town, swallowing houses without losing momentum. The sounds of destruction mixed with the screams of townspeople. If they stayed to watch any longer, they would share the same fate.

“That black wave is faster than a horse! High ground! Get to high ground!”

Churches were often built with emergencies in mind. Even in rural villages they served as a final refuge against threats such as monsters or bandits. The clinic constructed in the mining town was no exception. After going around knocking on the inner walls to check their strength, Walm shouted to those inside.

“Get up to the bell tower right now!”

As he rushed deeper into the building, Ayane stopped her emergency treatment and called out to him.

“Walm! What’s happening outside?!”

“A mudslide! It’s coming straight for the mining town! Climb the bell tower!”

“But there are people who can’t move—”

Maya pointed toward a row of over a dozen severely wounded patients. Even farther back, more people were still lying on the floor.

“The more you argue, the more people die. Move!”

Ayane had already experienced battlefield triage on the front lines. In emergencies, one of the most valuable resources was time. The meaning behind his words reached her immediately.

“Get moving, quickly!”

“Anyone who can move, help them!”

Ayane and the others hoisted patients onto their backs and climbed the stairs to the bell tower. The other guards helped as well, but there were not enough hands. They intended to save as many as they could, but there was neither the strength nor the time left to save everyone. With wounded men slung over each shoulder, Walm urged the groaning injured onward.

“Ugh… guh…!”

“I… can’t stand…”

“Move your legs! Hold yourself up!”

“M-my wound…”

“Pull yourself together! You don’t want to die to something like that, do you?!”

The grinding roar of destruction approached like a beast chewing through fragile houses. Pale faces twisted in pain. Freshly healed wounds reopened, blood seeping through bandages. Still, Walm continued shouting and dragging them forward.

“Huh?! It’s coming! It’s comiiiing!”

One of the cavalrymen who had already climbed the bell tower screamed. The meaning was obvious. Panic spread instantly.

“That’s the limit! Get up here!”

“W-wait! Wait for meeee!”

“Move deeper inside! Gain as much height as you can!”

Even from beyond the half-destroyed door, it was impossible to ignore that something was rushing toward them. The moment Walm stepped onto the spiral staircase, mud and debris burst into the room. The landslide that had devoured the mining town carried sharp building fragments within it, making its destructive force even more lethal.

“Gu-Guardian Chief!”

“S-save meeeee!!!”

Screams rose from behind. Some of the wounded who could not fit in the main room had been laid out in separate rooms. Unable to endure their pleas, some soldiers had rushed to help them, only to be swept away by the mud.

“You people! Crawl the rest of the way up!”

Dropping the wounded men from his shoulders onto the steps, Walm started going down the spiral staircase but the first floor was already filled with muddy water almost up to the ceiling.

A deafening barrage of collisions echoed through the building. It was not just water. The current was packed with countless fragments of debris. Inside that churning flow, it was no different from a giant mixer. Human voices had already fallen silent.

“…Damn it. You idiots.”

Walm cursed and turned back. The soldiers who had reached out to save the townspeople even at the brink of death, and the knight who had abandoned them knowing they could not be saved. There was no need to think about which of them were the real fools.

As if demanding further sacrifices, the water level kept rising. Walm scooped up those who had been crawling and ran up to the very top. Inside the bell tower, people were packed together without space to move. With nowhere left to go, miners clung to the support pillars, their shoulders awkwardly striking the bell.

The bell rang out serving as an announcement of the mining town’s destruction.

“The town… it’s sinking.”

“Haha… yeah. That’s it for us.”

One miner laughed hollowly, as if it had nothing to do with him. No one scolded him for it.

Amid the swaying bell, quiet sobs filled the air. Powerless to resist, the mining town sank beneath the mudslide deeper and deeper into a dark, endless abyss.

Translator – Lyxxna