Chapter 13 : Chapter 13
༺ 𓆩 Chapter 13 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
The Siegfried Line was a fortress and trench line that spanned the Vanargand mountain range and all its surrounding border region.
Along its staggering 750-kilometer stretch lay observation posts, forward bases, main resistance lines, fixed anti-monster artillery batteries, reserve resistance lines, final resistance lines, and various amenities for the troops stationed there.
‘No wonder it took a hundred years to complete.’
Even for the Sentinel family, who all but ruled the Military State in the palm of their hand, it was a burden of daunting proportions; there were times, in fact, when even the iron-blooded Sentinels had no choice but to halt or scale back construction due to external pressures, the puppet royal faction, political opposition, and the unrest of the public alike.
‘Didn't they say the original construction deadline was supposed to be fifty years?’
And yet, the deadline had been delayed to twice that.
You could bet that for every year of delay, the Sentinels’ patience grew thinner, and for every bout of frustration, another political rival was quietly buried. Pile up all those graves and you’d probably have enough to fill a small cemetery.
Still, in the end, most of it had been completed.
“Yes, most of it.”
Now then, a question.
There’s a state-level construction project that has dragged on for over fifty years, stymied by resistance and countless complications.
Meanwhile, in the upper echelons, every delay results in heads rolling, sometimes quite literally. In such a climate, what’s the most logical response from those on the ground?
"Push the construction forward quickly. Somehow raise the overall progress rate."
Arditi Günther added in an expressionless voice, though a subtle contempt lurked beneath, "Of course, strategic importance or priority wasn't considered in any of that."
“Correct, Major. That’s the hidden side of the Siegfried Line they love to glorify at the academy.”
But was it really hidden?
It’s hard to imagine anyone stationed along the Siegfried Line who didn’t know this, not just Arditi Günther.
“The Vanargand Fortress was turned into a dumping ground. A penal unit in everything but name. Combat power? It was completely trashed. But they clung to this blind faith that it would ‘somehow’ function. And so the section of the line under the Vanargand Fortress was left for last.”
Günther swallowed the trivial objection before it left her lips, while Ain Krieg leaned back, exhaling a ribbon of mana smoke through the window as he murmured,
“Hail the Military State. What a magnificent country we serve.”
It was the kind of thing that made you marvel.
Even two hundred years ago, national projects weren’t run like this, slapped together as if on break time.
…Or were they?
Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, what difference would it make?
He gazed at the construction sites flashing past beyond the window.
Alongside military engineers, laborers from contracted civilian construction companies hustled back and forth, assembling a monstrous amalgam of steel and concrete.
“So that’s why Lieutenant Colonel Dorman was so shaken…”
“Well, for starters, he’s a graduate of the Specialist Officer Academy.”
A Triple Number wouldn’t have the unit normally flinch at something like this; there was no reason to overreact, not unless you knew the system from the inside.
But what if the threat in question was a Dual Number?
“If the Vanargand Fortress falls, then the next line of defense will be the unfinished section of the Siegfried Line. That’s where they’ll meet it.”
If they could hold it there, that would be a miracle.
But if supply lines were cut? The odds tilted sharply toward collapse. And in that case, the burden of holding the line would fall to the 10th Corps.
So what would become of Kotzel Dorman?
Naturally, he'd be headed for the front lines. Noble or not, that was the duty of a Specialist Officer.
"Since he has absolutely no combat experience, encountering a Dual Number would be a nightmare. He's barely scraped by at Grade 5 to begin with."
Among graduates of the Specialist Officer Academy, Class-5 was… well.
…yes, just barely enough to be recognized as a 'graduate.'
Of course, with the right backing or connections, promotions and assignments might come faster, but did monsters ever care about such things?
Once on the field, it didn’t matter whether you were a lowly private or a field officer, when it came to dying, the monsters made no distinction.
Their spears didn’t care for rank; it only took one hit.
Fff—!!!
He lit another mana cigarette, drawing deeply and exhaling toward the open window. Noticing Günther eyeing him from the side, he added nonchalantly,
“Either way, the supplies and reinforcements had to be sent. The Sentinel family won’t like it, sure.”
Maybe Dorman was complaining behind his back now, but once things cooled off, he might just end up bowing toward the north in thanks.
He had, after all, given him a legitimate excuse, a reason to act decisively, no need to waste time on posturing.
"Dialogue and persuasion? Why bother with that?"
You don’t want to send troops? You don’t want to supply the line?
Then die.
“……Still, that—”
Of course, Arditi Günther wore an expression that screamed 'is that really right?' like a proper soldier, but wasn't it better when things worked out well?
If he'd learned anything from seven years in Intelligence, it was the truth that humans as animals typically moved more productively when shown a fucked future rather than a bright one.
And nobles were no exception.
Weren’t they just the same?
“How long until we reach the fortress?”
As their conversation came to a close, Ain Krieg finally addressed the corporal behind the wheel.
“About an hour, sir.”
Soon, the outer gate checkpoint of the Siegfried Line came into view.
And the moment the vehicle rolled to a stop at the post, something, a sense of wrongness, crept up on Ain Krieg. He narrowed his eyes and spoke.
“Major Günther.”
“Yes, sir.”
She felt it too.
The sense of unease hadn’t escaped her either.
Without needing to say who went first, they looked at each other.
Screech—!!!
The vehicle barely halted before both of them stepped out, boots hitting the dirt with urgency.
What greeted them was chaos.
The gate guards were already in disarray, paying no mind to the vehicle’s arrival.
“Sh-Shouldn’t we run?!”
“Get a grip! The 10th Corps is already dispatching brigades and divisions!”
“B-But still—!”
“Still nothing! That’s what Specialist Officers are for!”
“These half-finished monstrosities, how are they supposed to stop monsters?!”
These were the same soldiers who, just hours ago, had let them pass with voices dripping with that military virtue of annoyance.
Now they were running around pale as death, looking rather like cornered rats.
The real problem, of course, was that these rats happened to be theirs.
Tsssk—!!! Ffff—!!!
Ain Krieg clamped a fresh mana cigarette between his lips, eyes narrowing. With a subtle nod, he signaled to Arditi Günther.
After all, these panicking soldiers would likely respond better to a Major than to a Lieutenant Colonel. The chain of command had its uses.
“This is Major Günther of the 13th Special Independent Brigade. What’s going on here?”
“Y-Yes, ma’am!”
Of course, “better” was a relative term.
‘They’re more rattled than I thought.’
But any idle curiosity Ain Krieg might’ve felt quickly evaporated; the soldiers fidgeted and traded uncertain glances before one of them stammered forward.
“Y-You didn’t hear, ma’am?”
“What…?”
“T-The Vanargand Fortress. D-Dual Number-class monsters… not one, there’s two of them…”
There was no time to hear the rest.
Both officers climbed back into the vehicle in unspoken unison, and Krieg kicked the back of the driver’s seat, snapping the stunned corporal out of his stupor.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“W-What? Huh?”
“Shit! You, clear the barricades! Corporal, you floor it, now!”
Goddamn it. The Ashen Order again, those lunatic bastards.
‘So it wasn’t two. It’s three, isn’t it?’
This time, even Ain Krieg couldn’t stop himself from biting down on his lower lip, the curse seething inward before it could escape.
"At this rate, I'll get lung disease faster than petrification."
He took another drag from his mana cigarette.
Right now, he couldn't spare even a single puff.
༒︎
The Vanargand mountain range, with its towering peaks and treacherous terrain, served as a natural fortress guarding the Military State's northern borders.
So formidable were they that even the army’s warhorses, bred from the imperial steeds that had once carried knights across the continent, struggled to navigate the range.
Anyone who had stood before the fortress could not help but understand.
‘How this fortress had sustained the military state for over two hundred years.’
Why, despite facing countless invasions, tens, hundreds, thousands of enemy waves sweeping across the mountains, it had never fallen.
“Ah… ahhh—”
Even as the 13th Special Independent Brigade continued to wither, the soldiers of the military state had told themselves—
‘Nothing will happen.’
‘They can hold.’
‘Surely, what could go wrong?’
It was inertia, complacency born from long habit, and cowardice rooted in fear of displeasing those in power.
And when the reckoning came, brutal and undeserved, it was the soldiers of the Cerberus Brigade who were shoved into that wretched reality.
“…We can’t hold. We can’t stop them.”
In the watchtower along one side of the fortress, Captain Menharn, commander of 1st Battalion, let the words fall from his lips, part lament, part curse, perhaps even pure despair.
On any other day, one of his better-trained company officers might have seized his arm and begged him for orders.
But not now. Not when it was impossible.
“…Why. Why this?”
“We’re going to die. All of us.”
If anything, the fact that Captain Menharn still tried to cling to a shred of rational thought made him the most composed man in sight.
Most of the others simply stood there, hands trembling, staring blankly at the tide of ash-gray bodies rolling toward the fortress walls.
“…The Ash is coming.”
It wasn’t clear whose voice it was, whether it was breath misted by cold air or the final sigh before death, but the desolation in it wrapped around every man and woman present.
―Krrr…
―Awooooooooo!
Through the brush came Triple Number, Number 822, the Ashen Wolves. Hundreds of them prowled forward, eyes the color of rotting ash, glimmering in their decayed sockets.
―Guooo… guoooooo!
A creature like the twisted union of a deer’s head and a chimpanzee’s body.
Its stench made the head throb, and its overgrown claws scraped at the remnants of putrid flesh clinging to them before the tongue swept across lazily. Triple Number, Number 938, No Deer.
―Ahhk… ahhhhk.
It wore the rough semblance of a human form, but with an extra arm or leg sprouting from its frame. From its crushed face, pus dripped in steady beads as it approached. Triple Number, Number 899, Doppelgänger.
“…Every single one in the area’s here.”
“God… damn.”
Monsters each had their own territories, and would often fight and kill each other when their domains overlapped. And among the less intelligent Triple Numbers, that tendency was even stronger.
In other words, under normal circumstances, creatures of different Numbers and different habitats never banded together into a single mass.
That was common sense.
―Krrrk… kkiiiek?
They loomed twice the size of any other creature present, shaped like a scarecrow crudely pieced together from rotted, splintered wood.
“Those are Dual Number, Number 98, Reaper of Ash.”
Not one, but two of them.
The pair, wearing rotting human flesh like cloaks pressed against their forms, who knew when they had donned them, stared at the fortress.
Their eyes gleamed, mouths opened wide.
And finally, they roared.
―Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiek!
―Kikikikikikikik!
It almost sounded like words.
Telling them to tear apart and kill those weak, wretched, pitiful humans.
“H-Ha… haha.”
Some laughed.
“I-I don't want to die. I don't want to die!"
Some broke into despair and fled.
“…Damn it. No wonder my dreams were foul last night.”
Some simply resigned themselves.
‘We need to retreat. We need to save them somehow.’
Captain Menharn did not know which of these he belonged to.
All that filled his mind was a simple yet intense will to survive, and to save others.
“............”
He opened his mouth to shout for retreat.
Or rather, he would have shouted, if not for the broad, strangely warm hand that gripped his shoulder in that instant.
“Are you afraid?”
Just one sentence.
Just those three words could steady his trembling soldiers, could stop them from scattering like dogs, rifles and mortars forgotten in panic.
“It is only natural.”
But the man who had spoken had no intention of letting him say it.
“Yet we must not yield.”
The voice brushed against his ear, calm, gentle, and yet at the same time chilling, fanatic.
“Form ranks and hold them back."
Rier Yung rolled the rosary between his fingers, smiling crookedly at the loathsome beasts of sin he had not laid eyes on in days.
“Deus Vult.”
It was time to offer penance to the Forgotten God.
END σϝ CHAPTER
тяαηѕℓαтσя'ѕ ησтєѕ:-
Deus Vult is the classical Latin for "God wills it" and was the cry of the people at the declaration of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 when the Eastern Orthodox Church requested help in defense from the Seljuk invasion of Anatolia.