“Heave, ho!”

With a deep, unified shout, a log resembling a battering ram slammed into the ground. It was a cylindrical timber fitted with four handles, used for packing the soil. Steam rose from the men’s bodies from the heavy labor, and streaks of sweat ran down them as they had stripped off everything but the clothing on their lower halves, not even wearing armor.

The construction work was nearing completion thanks to those dirt-covered soldiers. As the retaining boards holding back the soil were removed, Walm stepped onto the newly formed trapezoidal earthwork.

“For something thrown together in a hurry… it’s impressively solid.”

Feeling the reassuring firmness beneath the soles of his boots, he gave silent praise to their dedication. By compacting the soil and forcing the air and moisture out of the ground, the piled earth had been transformed into a defensive wall.

“It’s better than the temporary walls at Dandurg Castle. Everything there was rushed, but this pass was meant to be filled back in from the start.”

Deborah answered without taking her eyes off the distance. The half-baked men of the training company busily carried supplies up onto the top of the earthwork. In peacetime Orzelika pass had been one of the six passes of Zerebes supporting traffic across the Selta Peninsula, but now, it once again became an impassable ridge, denying passage.

“The only difference is the color, I guess.”

The cut-through section, now packed with earth, had essentially been restored to its original, pre-excavation form. The only real difference was the bald patch interrupting the green carpet covering the slope.

“The ridge itself still has grass to prevent landslides. So, if there’s a bald patch, it stands out.”

Yogim lovingly stroked back his receding hairline as he spoke. It was best not to touch that subject, Walm thought. He quietly looked away and turned his attention to the recruits gathered on the rampart. Having finished the construction work and washed off the dirt, they were now dressed once again in the gear they had cast aside earlier.

“From a distance, they look like a fully equipped army, at least.”

Walm, who had walked through countless battlefields, could see how fragile they really were. Their outward appearance was convincing enough, but beneath the surface, flaws showed everywhere. One recruit kept taking shallow breaths to suppress the nausea rising in his throat. Another gripped his spear with trembling hands as if he was freezing, his face stiff and drawn. Tension spread easily. Though it varied from man to man, the newcomers who had completed the construction work were in bad shape. In fact, those still exhausted from labor almost looked healthier by comparison.

“…Maybe we wrapped up the work too quickly,” Deborah muttered.

“Well, our guests were rude not to announce their arrival,” Yogim replied in a hushed tone.

Walm silently agreed with the couple. If they had seasoned non-commissioned officers, they would’ve made their rounds while lightly teasing the new recruits, checking on the troops’ condition. But with the current Mayard front army, especially this training company, that was too much to hope for. Still, everyone had a first time, Walm included. Old memories surfaced. The first time he killed a man deep in that forest, he had been covered in blood and vomit, in a display as pathetic as it was unforgettable. But inexperience wasn’t an excuse, and some intervention was needed.

“I’ll step away for a bit.”

“Yeah… I’m counting on you.”

With the chief instructor’s approval, Walm began walking along the rampart. Deborah and Yogim weren’t making small talk because they were bored. They knew from experience that too much tension led to collapsing morale and exhaustion. That’s why the veterans, though their eyes remained sharp and alert, laughed out loud at stories that weren’t even particularly funny.

Walm, swaying a little as he thought about where to start loosening them up, settled on one recruit. The young man had his eyes tightly shut, almost as if he were praying to something, and hadn’t even noticed Walm approaching.

“With the sunlight filtering through the leaves like this, it makes you sleepy, doesn’t it?”

“Huh… what?”

The soldier’s response was slow, his mind still drifting somewhere far away.

“Gaston! That’s the Guardian Chief!”

Unable to watch any longer, the soldier beside him spoke up, announcing the imperial knight’s presence. The man called Gaston widened his eyes like an office worker who had just overslept. He hastily turned around… in completely the wrong direction. Seeing how utterly flustered he was, Walm tapped him on the shoulder and turned him to face forward.

“Hey now, you half-asleep or what?”

“N-no, sir, I…”

Though stammering badly, the recruit remembered the manners drilled into him through military life and tried to salute, but Walm gently stopped him.

“No need for that. Relax, Gaston.”

“S-sorry, sir! I’m not… I’m not sleepy.”

Thinking he was about to be scolded by an imperial knight, Gaston straightened his back and stood rigidly at attention. The soldiers around them watched the situation unfold, sympathizing with their comrade’s blunder.

“I see. Me, I’m so sleepy I’ve been walking around to stay awake. If I nod off, that terrifying chief instructor will beat me for it. You saw her sparring on the training grounds, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It was a splendid display of skill—”

Walm cut off the overly flattering praise before it could continue.

“Haha, spare me. I’m the one who ended up bruised all over. And thanks to that, the healing mage chewed me out. I’d rather not go through that again.”

When the imperial knight twisted his face in genuine discomfort, Gaston couldn’t help but smile. He must’ve been on the receiving end of Deborah’s brutal hands-on teachings as well. That shared, bitter memory delivered by fists bridged the gap between knight and recruit. What began as broken little scraps of conversation slowly picked up as mutual understanding grew, and the conversation began to flow. In the suffocating tension of the battlefield, all it took was a small opening for people to become surprisingly talkative.

“And that guy over there?”

The sight of a foreign knight casually chatting away like this was unusual. Curiosity killed the cat. Without relying on his blue flames, Walm drew in other recruits, not letting anyone who met his gaze slip away.

“That’s Evlark.”

Gaston, now deep in conversation, was the first to offer up his comrade’s name. Walm had first thought him unreliable, but perhaps the man was more capable than he looked.

“From the same hometown?”

“Yes, sir. Most of us are from the same area.”

Keeping units made up of people from the same region was a sound strategy if all one cared about was solidarity. The problem was that if the unit was annihilated, that entire region would lose its workforce all at once. Keeping that grim thought to himself, Walm continued his questioning.

“Evlark, huh? You don’t look so lively. Did you get your rations?”

“We were given flatbread and beans at one of the supporting castles on the way here.”

“Ah… that rock-hard stuff that feels like it’ll break your jaw? Judging by your face, you didn’t manage to eat it.”

The whole-grain bread, baked hard for long storage, was nearly impossible to eat as-is. Even a knife wouldn’t bite into it. Those who knew better would soak what they needed ahead of time, but the recruit in front of him clearly hadn’t. It wasn’t something you could casually eat while marching.

“…I’m ashamed to admit it, but I couldn’t bite through it… so I just kept it in my pocket.”

“Thought so. Without soaking it in hot water, it’s barely edible. I’ve still got some left myself.”

Walm pulled out a fist-sized chunk of hard-baked bread from his pouch. It was a thing that demanded every last drop of moisture in your mouth just to be considered edible.

“It’s softened a bit. After that, just fill your mouth with saliva and keep chewing. Eat when you can.”

With that, Walm tore the bread in half by brute force, handed one piece to Evlark, and shoved the other into his own mouth. As hard as ever. The more he chewed, the more it drained the moisture from his mouth. A flicker of regret crossed his mind but in front of the soldiers, he couldn’t take it back now.

“Th-thank you very much!”

Evlark voiced his thanks and, copying the imperial knight, stuffed the bread into his mouth in one go. Even Walm had struggled to chew it. The result of cramming in more than half of it at once came quickly enough. Chew, chew, chew… the recruit was caught in miserable battle with its clay-like stickiness and hardness.

“Looks like you’re enjoying it.”

“Hey, look at Evlark’s face. It’s terrible.”

“The Guardian Chief’s jaw must be specially made. That’s what you get for copying him.”

“Sh-shut… up…”

Locked in a losing battle between jaw and hardtack would become an unforgettable lesson for him. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. The other recruits laughed and jeered at their comrade’s situation, and the excessive tension that had weighed on them earlier was nowhere to be found. This was how Walm had learned military life, too. Loud, troublesome men… those ordinary days that would never return. A bitterness like tar spread through his mind, numbing his thoughts.

Keeping a faint smile plastered on his face, the imperial knight left them and moved on. He smiled at some soldiers, joked with others, tossed out playful remarks here and there. It was a terrible fraud. He could listen to their complaints and anxieties, but in his position as a knight, he could never let them see his own. Even that boisterous squad leader he once knew… had he carried the same burdens inside? The reason he had always refused promotion flickered through Walm’s mind. After exchanging enough hollow words to leave only a dry thirst in his throat, Walm completed his round of the rampart and returned to Deborah.

“Sorry to put you through that.”

“Eh, it was a decent way to kill time.”

Walm answered lightly out of sheer bluff, but the husband and wife’s serious expressions made him straighten up.

“Walm, I’ve got a favor to ask… would you keep looking after the soldiers like this?”

At Yogim’s request, Walm felt a wave of dizziness and shook his head.

“Quit joking. I’m supposed to be used as fire support, right?”

“I’m not asking you to command the troops. Just keep an eye on them, that’s all. I wanted Moiz to do it, but he’s not holding up well.”

“…Your son? After what he went through at Dandurg?”

“That’s exactly why. Maybe I’ve been too soft on him as a parent. Even on the same battlefield, fighting people and fighting monsters are completely different things. You understand that, don’t you?”

Walm understood perfectly what he meant. Plenty of people could kill monsters while humming to themselves yet feel overwhelming resistance at the thought of killing another person, even if sparing that person meant their own death. Even adventurers hardened by violence were like that. They weren’t the same as war dogs who specialized in killing people.

“…It’s hard to refuse a beautiful woman’s request.”

“Hah, you’ve got a tongue on you. I’m counting on you. Teach them what a battlefield is.”

Though he accepted on the surface, Walm stepped away and took a position at the edge of the open ground. He pulled out a soldier’s cigarette he had tucked away and lit it with his blue flame. The purple smoke drifted off in the mountain wind and dissolved into the noise of the camp.

“Damn nagging thing… let me slack off a little.”

He let out a sigh mixed with white smoke at the demon mask that rattled accusingly at his idleness. When he lifted his gaze, he saw Moiz directing the construction on the earthwork. Letting his eyes drift, the recruits he had spoken to earlier came into view.

“Heh… they look like they’re having fun. Well… I guess I set that in motion.”

Pure and innocent, they still knew nothing of the color of war. Not the sensation of tearing into flesh, not the death cries of enemy soldiers, not comrades dying beside them. In truth, instead of giving them convenient words, he should’ve been teaching them the gruesome, hideous reality of war as someone whose only real talent was killing people.

In that sense, the Highserk empire had been kind if one judged only by the fact that it never showed anyone the illusion called hope. Walm drew in a lungful of smoke and exhaled it slowly. The figures before him blurred, as though veiled in mist. In that world cut off by white smoke, Walm let his true feelings spill out.

“…I shouldn’t have learned their names.”

With his tongue coated in bitterness and his face twisting at the unbearable aftertaste, he put an end to his escape from reality and returned to the line.

Translator – Lyxxna