Chapter. 16. Saint and Perfectionist (7)
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Absolutely. Gradually.
A knight covered in blood was walking on the castle wall, dragging his legs. A long, terrible night. This time, the castle walls were barely protected and the rising sun.
In theology, in magic, in all kinds of history books and in the songs of bards, the rising sun was a symbol of hope.
“…Philo. Diggory. Alstein. Paris… were you here too?”
If what the morning sun shines on is the castle wall covered with fragmented allies and the comrades who collapsed from exhaustion on top of it, how can it be said to be a symbol of hope?
Gradually. Chin –
His toe got caught in the scattered bodies with no room for him to step, and by the time he noticed that it was a familiar face that had stopped him, his trembling hands were already moving towards the bodies.
A comrade who couldn’t even close his eyes. He died honorably on the king’s land, but due to military law, even his remains could not be recovered, so the sight of him being neglected like this, as if everything he had as a knight had been denied, was cutting even the heart of the once strong Castle Knight.
Even if I can’t help you with the shattered remains, if only I could close your eyes. If the dead eyes of a comrade who faced a death that cannot be called rest can prevent us from endlessly looking at this tragedy….
Okay.
“Night Siran.”
“…Mr. Charlotte.”
With that thought in mind, someone’s gauntlet caught the hand that was pointing downwards.
One of the few people in this hellish place who can be called hope. Charlotte de Agat was a knight of the dawn of time.
“For several months now, priests have been taking a break from collapsing from overwork instead of sleeping. If you become infected while collecting a comrade’s body, the sacred power that saved the other comrade’s life will be used for your purification. “If we fall, who will protect this place?”
“Lord Agath. “Is there anything left here that we need to protect?”
Charlotte could not easily answer the knight’s empty question.
Although he lost everything and the last place he ended up in was Kingsland. Is it really meaningful for them to protect the capital of an empty city, having already lost the people and territory they were supposed to protect?
Instead of answering, Charlotte collected the dead knight’s swords and placed them in the hands of the kneeling knight.
“Remains. “Your pledge to remain here even if you turn around and run away.”
Even if you escape and survive, your chivalry left on the castle walls will die.
This is a fortress. Everything they had to protect was gone, but they couldn’t back down because there were still lands and people left behind who had not been caught up in the phone.
“…Stop it. “There is no time to rest.”
“Are you an enemy?”
“no.”
Charlotte said, recalling the ship crashing down in the sky over the southern part of the capital around dawn.
“We are old comrades whose paths crossed.”
It was truly a hope I had encountered for the first time in a long time.
****
“Well! Where can I dig a well? Do you purify and use what was originally there?”
“no! To the highest point nearby! You’re going to change the water vein with magic anyway! Originally, I couldn’t use the well because the ground was low! And please remove all the rotten water that has accumulated on the floor! “There will be an epidemic!”
“I understand!”
Sigh!
“Ventilation! Wind wizards, let’s get some ventilation! Putrid gases and smoke from burning corpses filled the castle! The suffocation zone is approximately up to your knees! “As soon as the patient is laid down, the euthanasia count begins!”
Whiuuuung-
“Hahaha haha!” Friend! What can I make! I brought some magic circuits and magic stones, so I just need to procure the materials locally – ugh! town!!”
“Captain! Captain niiiiim!!!”
“Did you call Boo!”
Craddangtangtang!
“Take this bastard and return to Teldrat immediately! Sort the shipments in the order of food, dry goods, weapons, and materials, and stack them in the royal palace lobby!”
“Woah- look! Shouldn’t there be at least one more capable person on the battlefield? “If you’re as big as me – ugh!”
“Fuck you, you bastard! Go home, Voltaire, and grab that man by the collar, pull his beard, or whatever it takes to get at least one more of these! “The more the better!”
“Oh, I see! Hey there you two! Come and get Lord Manson!”
Wow! Sigh –
I took a moment to sigh as I watched the sailors, who had been sailors until a few days ago, capture Roman with professional skill.
The reason there is such a fuss now is because as soon as I got off the airship and laid eyes on Kingsland, it became clear to me that this was not the time to be discussing strategy or the situation.
“Should I say this was timed well or not?…”
Everything from the condition of the castle walls, the quality and number of defense troops, to the overall supply including food and weapons, to the shattered command system due to the lack of lower-level commanders, everything was handled sloppily. There was nothing, but the most urgent thing was ‘fraud’, which, contrary to rumors, was at a very low level.
‘…I don’t know about noble or knight hero level units, but most infantry units have lost the will to fight.’
The biggest problem I felt as soon as I arrived on the battlefield. The point was that there was no distinction between the environment outside the walls and the environment inside. There is no distinction between the battle field and the barracks.
I don’t have any professional knowledge about PTSD or post-traumatic stress syndrome, but as someone who has been in a battlefield for some time, I have learned through experience what drives people crazy and what makes them endure.
[Uh… But this isn’t a battlefield between humans, right?]
‘Personally, I get used to killing people once I cross a certain line. ‘What drives a soldier crazy is something a little more fundamental than that.’
During World War III. The moment I felt that place was hell was not the moment when bullets rained down and 10,000 units of slaughter occurred in an hour.
It was a sentiment that came immediately after the battle was over.
‘When I peeled back the shell of a human being, I realized that it was dirtier than I thought. Not metaphorically, just as I said. If you peel off the skin and take out the bones, everything inside is filth.’
stink.
Not to mention the strong smell of blood that makes your nose run off. What’s in the stomach is what we call vomit, and the small intestine, large intestine, and bladder contain everything we flush down the toilet. They flow out of the torn and punctured body, first over the dead body, and mix with the smell of putrid protein. This is called tasting.
Those who are engulfed in the joy of survival find themselves rolling around in the filth and extreme stench in the middle of a battlefield that has become as quiet as a lie, and look back on themselves with joy. And then I realize. Oh how I have walked into the center of hell and become a part of it.
Those are the things that drive people crazy on the battlefield.
‘Mental illness is not simply triggered by mental emotions. Rather, the five senses that you can’t help but feel even without thinking about them drive people even more crazy. The moment of murder is surprisingly consumed by adrenaline and becomes a bit blurry. I’ll have a nightmare later.’
In that sense, the Kingsland Front was the perfect environment to undermine the soldiers’ will.
On the battlefield, you breathe in blood fog, and in castles, you breathe in the smoke of burning corpses. In the past six months, they have not breathed clean air even once.
I survived because I overcame my fear and learned to become insensitive to death, but that also means I became insensitive to the act of throwing my life away.
The battle was repeated day and night, sometimes every day, sometimes less than 10 minutes after the horn of victory was blown. Irregular battles made it impossible to let go of tension and wore people down.
‘Rather, it is a phenomenon that stands out even more because these are people who have a reason and will to risk their lives to defend this place. Perhaps they wouldn’t feel any different even if the enemy raid bell rang right now? What you’re holding just changes from cargo to a weapon. If the soldiers’ condition is like that, even if Zhuge Liang emerges from the grave, they won’t be able to win.’
So, as soon as they got off the ship, they rushed the wizards and started cleaning up the environment.
‘At least when going into battle, there has to be a distinction between [going out] and [coming back] to be considered rest. In the current situation, even if you come back after the battle, it won’t be much different from when you were standing on the battlefield.’
Looking at the soldiers sitting and taking turns resting even though there is a shortage of manpower, it is clear that the commander here does not know the importance of rest. It’s just that it doesn’t relax even if you rest.
‘At least an environment where soldiers can relax when they return from the battlefield. This is the first step and foundation for morale recovery.’
The knights who choose Aurors because their will cannot reach the sky do not know the situation of ordinary people like this. In modern military science, feeding soldiers well and resting does not mean protecting basic human rights. From a military perspective, providing a restful environment to some extent is necessary to maintain combat power longer. Where are human rights in war? I’m doing this because I need it all.
Otman’s water-based magic cleans up the rotten water flowing from the corpse and provides clean drinking water.
Use wind magic to remove bad smells and provide fresh air. Since firewood was not enough for earth magic, the remains of allies left until they rotted were cleaned up with oil and a pit.
First of all, if the most urgent rest environment and infectious disease risk are at this level, it can be said that the urgent fire has been put out. While I was looking around with my eyes wide open to see where to start
,
Idrasil, which had been moving in sync with its surroundings, landed next to me.
“I’m home.”
“Good job. “It wouldn’t have been easy to look after Wangseong even if he was rotten.”
“Unfortunately, it was easy.”
“…Did you really not meet anyone? Climbing the walls of the royal castle?”
“I did check the royal guard guarding the presumed king from afar. “Perhaps the king is hiding somewhere under magical protection.”
“…I was wondering why no one came out when supplies were falling from the sky.”
King Siod III. I heard that the King of Roderick, who was renowned as a fair king and knight, died while protecting the empty throne of Kingsland, where he lost his land and people and even sold all of his national treasures. It is said that Roderick, who had a long history, committed a suicide-like attack because he could not bear the fall of his generation. Anyway, the king is dead. You might think that this is just the death of a king in a ruined country, but this is not such a simple matter. Roderick is a country of knights, and many of the knights who symbolize that country are still alive and have achieved remarkable achievements on various fronts.
‘The same goes for Charlotte, a morale-level buff floor knight, and Roderick’s pride, the Castle Knight, is carrying out near-impossible water-based warfare, befitting the name of a horse-riding castle wall.’
The problem is that these people are knights to their core. All of Rodrik’s knights are fundamentally the king’s knights, and their oath of allegiance is to the royal family of Rodrik. The moment the king dies, like soldiers who lose their generals in a strategy game, they will receive a huge debuff and become an asshole. Maybe once you become a royal guard knight, you won’t even be able to use an auror?
that. they say. west.
The person who hastily ascended to the throne is Siod IV, who is trembling in a high castle over there.
Third son of Siod III. 11 years old. The young king ascended to the throne without learning anything, as his first son died on the battlefield and his second son died on the castle wall.
Idrasil, who came to inspect the palace, let out a frustrated sigh as if he was thinking the same thing as me.
“To be honest, I don’t know how this city survived this long. It is said that talented men and skilled soldiers from other countries were sent to the flanking front lines to maintain the offensive that had finally arrived…” “
….Probably because other pillars were holding out instead of the pillars that were not functioning properly.”
“If it’s another pillar….”
“That one. “Hey, you’re coming.”
A female knight was seen coming back from afar, supporting a knight.
The 1st Knight Roderick once faced him as a conscript on the same front.
As I remembered the image of her clashing swords with Edeorna, as strong as the blazing dawn, I felt even more sorry to see her in danger as if she were about to go out.
A paladin who understood the glance I sent quickly rushed forward and took over the knight she was supporting. The knight looked towards me at the paladin’s quiet voice and walked towards me with tired steps.
It took a moment for her to see a welcome look in her eyes as she placed one hand on her chest and bowed her head deeply.
“Charlotte des Agates. Please forgive me for not speaking low to the disloyal knight who lost his master. “Even though I am insignificant, I am still the person who holds the position of Roderick’s commander.”
“Let’s not make that person feel bad. shallot. I remember these people as comrades who risked their lives and stood shoulder to shoulder, so why are they saying they respect me and forgive me? Since the Battle of Turan… it’s been about a year and a half, right?”
“…It’s been a little longer than that. I apologize if I was offended. “I also cherished you as a comrade in arms, but Roderick now desperately needs your help.”
“Well, he’s a saint in his own way, but I guess he’s a bit rude and should throw away all his remaining life and leave.”
“Saint… When I think back, there are more than one or two things I have to apologize to you for. He was sold as a wizard’s experiment. In some ways, it can be seen as my fault that someone with a strong will like you has to rely on a being called God. If I had recovered from my injuries then, I might be Roderick’s knight now….”
“Isn’t this all guidance of light? “Hehehehe.”
I understand. When I found Charlotte from afar, I thought, ‘Should I respect her like in the past or treat her like a saint?’ Because I thought the same thing.
When I saw that the shadow on Charlotte’s face had disappeared a little, I helped her stand up, put my hands together, and bowed.
“Rathura lo-haram. “He is said to be a professor, a saint of light, who is responsible for all instruments of light that participated in the temple.”
“…I am Charlotte de Agat, Commander of the Knights of Dawn Roderick. “I would like to thank you for reaching out to me in a difficult situation and apologize for not being able to convey that gratitude to you due to your illness.”
A greeting where past friendship and current status intersect. It’s a position and I also have subordinates, so I needed to do this. Just by looking at the uncomfortable expression of Gregory, who is sitting behind me right now, I can clearly see the thought, ‘How dare the saint come to reign, but the king of the ruined country doesn’t even come out?’ It was a necessary procedure because noise could occur regardless of my thoughts.
Now, we exchanged official greetings. At this rate, Gregory won’t rush into the castle shouting ‘blasphemous!!!’ –
Slam!
“Self, Sir Agath? Then, can we hear about the situation from the field commander? The church’s information network clearly says that the human coalition has been victorious for a long time, but I don’t understand why it looks like they are on the verge of death no matter how I look at it. Why are there so few troops in Kingsland, the center of the front line? Where are all the warriors of each country imprisoned, and only the knights and soldiers remain? Why does a commander who has arrived at the front have to think about his allies before wondering about the enemy?”
…Haaaaa.
Charlotte’s face, which had been slightly relaxed with joy, was shadowed again.
This means that there is a problem that is so obvious that Charlotte, who is busy fighting the daily slaughter, is aware of it.
“…For now, since it’s confidential, let’s go inside and talk.”
The place she pointed to was not a royal castle, but a tent similar to a field barracks.
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