“Wake up. Hero,” I said.
“...”
“Hero, it’s already one o’clock!” I shouted.
“Just fifteen more minutes...” Sung Ji-Hoon mumbled.
“You have to get up now. Alps had to stand watch in your place because of you,” I said.
“No. I wanna sleep... just a little more...” he continued mumbling.
“How can you sleep hiding like this? If an officer finds out, it’ll be a disaster. You snuck in here! Your identity is fake, too! What are you going to do if they catch something and expose you? I’ll be in danger, too1 Give me the sleeping bag. Now!” I demanded.
“No!”
‘This idiot is a total wreck.’
The sight of him curled up in the sleeping bag like a larva was a spectacle; the way he was shoved into one corner of the tent seemed to say everything about what his life on Earth had been like.
His personal belongings were scattered everywhere, bottles were rolling around on the floor, and piles of things no one could tell why he had even brought them were stacked up to the point that it looked impressive how he managed to fall asleep buried in them.
‘For this idiot, that was a party of a lifetime.’
He only drank two glasses of rum, and all he did was dance a bit in front of the campfire, but for Sung Ji-Hoon, the Holy Sword Hero who had never experienced anything like a party or a festival, it probably was the greatest party of his life.
In that idiot’s brain, last night’s scene was surely being glorified to the extreme. At best, it was just Oksana's group and soldiers from nearby units hanging out together. Even that wasn’t exactly small in scale, but I would bet that, in his head, it had already turned into every soldier in the region becoming one and enjoying the night together.
Sure enough, a satisfied smile tugged at his lips. It seemed he couldn't handle his alcohol well, as it looked like he was hungover and irritated.
I flipped open the sleeping bag, and the squirming idiot finally sat up.
“Ow, my head hurts,” he said.
“It’s a hangover. That’s why you shouldn’t have drunk. You’re weak to alcohol, but you’re pretentious...” I told him.
“I-it’s not a hangover. It’s just that today my condition isn’t great. That happens sometimes, you know. One Tylenol would be perfect, but there’s nothing like that here... Anyway, is everyone else up?” he asked.
“Didn’t you hear me earlier? It’s already one o’clock. Alps covered your shift, and it's been chaotic since morning. They spotted imperial troops nearby, so soldiers were taken away all over the place.
"Our platoon was excluded from the mission, but if we had been deployed, it would’ve been a huge problem. All because of you, Hero!” I yelled at him.
“A-anyway, we didn’t get caught, so it’s fine. Stop the nagging...” he muttered.
“It’s not nagging!” I shouted.
“I-I get it! I get it, so stop nagging. I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry for what?” I asked.
“A-anyway, I said I’m sorry!” he shouted.
‘This bastard is starting to treat me however he wants now that we’ve gotten a bit closer.’
“I mean... it’s not like waking up a little late is some huge crime...” he mumbled.
“Stop grumbling and come outside right now. You call yourself a hero, yet you’re sleeping in until the sun is high in the sky?” I questioned.
“I-I just overslept for once. So, what time did everyone head out?” he asked.
“Around eight,” I answered.
“Where did they say they were going? You said troops were spotted nearby... then they should be coming back about now, right?” he asked.
‘No, they're not coming back. They died there. Chang-Ryeol said that to me.’
It certainly did feel like this idiot lacked any sense of reality.
‘I clearly said they went out to fight a war, yet he’s calmly saying they should be coming back.’
I was sure even he himself had no idea what he was saying.
Had he believed that the comrades he formed ties with were somehow immune to misfortune? Had he believed that the deaths of those around him existed only to serve the protagonist’s growth or survival?
Even without some grand episode, people often died for big and small reasons. Shockingly, their deaths were often meaningless. In a special situation like this, it wasn’t even worth mentioning. It was a world where people died every single day due to war.
Across the entire continent, thousands would lose their lives each day. The victims of war weren't soldiers as well.
Despite living in that kind of continent, the idiot looked as if he hadn't even entertained the assumption that they could have died out there. He yawned wide and moved sluggishly. Even the way he put on his gear was slow.
“...”
“...”
“Well, I think it’s about time they come back. It didn’t seem like they went very far. Judging by how they only took light equipment, it was probably somewhere nearby. I doubt there was a major battle. The force they assembled was very small as well,” I said, informing him.
“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. So they should be coming back soon, right?” Sung Ji-Hoon asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Everyone must be hungry. Should we boil up that stew we had yesterday?” he suggested.
‘Yeah, they won’t have time for that. They’re already on their way back.’
It happened when I left the tent with him. As if the timing had been planned, the troops who had gone out on the sortie finally returned.
The scene we saw the moment we stepped outside was markedly different from last night. It was no longer the place where everyone laughed, talked, and enjoyed themselves. The first thing I saw was the wounded being carried in on stretchers.
“Is there a priest?! No, a medic! A medic!”
“Give them first aid. Damn it. Are there any potions left?!”
“They all got burned yesterday...”
“Hngh... I don’t want to die... ugh...”
“Stay with me. Hey! Stay with me! Katrina![1]”
“There are more wounded, so bring them over fast!”
“W-what is this? What’s going on?!” he questioned.
“...”
“Th-this...”
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
“What are you standing around spacing out for, you idiots?! Didn’t you hear the wounded are coming in?! Move them. Priest! Priest!”
“Fuck! Priest, my ass! Why the hell would there be a priest here?!”
With so many people running around in utter chaos, it was hard to properly take in the surroundings. The Holy Sword Hero, with no room to grasp the situation, stood there blankly watching the scene when he collided with a soldier rushing past.
Thud!
The guy went flying backward and fell flat. Given his absurd stats, there was no way someone could shove him to the ground, but he keeled over so easily that it was absurd.
It could only be explained as him finally grasping reality.
He muttered," uh... uh” over and over, and naturally, what Jin Yoo needed to do was obvious. He wanted to help the wounded, but there was no way he could make that choice. To be honest, he wasn’t even that close to those guys, but since they already died, it was something he could only grieve over.
“H-hero,” I said.
“Huh?”
I immediately ran away.
“J-Jin Yoo! Jin Yoo!” he called out.
I heard a voice calling out to me from behind, but there was no room to respond to it. For now, running blindly came first. After coming to his senses, the Holy Sword Hero chased me. The people rushing in the opposite direction shoved him away, but even so, he continued pushing forward.
The unpleasant stench of blood and medicine filled the air. I could hear people screaming from all sides, and many people had stopped moving altogether. Some had filthy cloths laid over their faces, and some even had missing parts. What lay at the destination we reached after forcing our way through the crowd were the defeated soldiers, those who had barely survived the battle.
Among them, I saw a familiar face sitting quietly.
“Oksana noona...” I muttered.
She was wrapped in bandages. Thankfully, it didn’t look like she had lost any body parts, but she was clearly exhausted. In the midst of that, the Holy Sword Hero still couldn’t speak, leaving me no choice but to speak instead.
“N-noona.”
“Uh...”
“W-what happened, noona?” I asked.
“What do you mean, what happened? We lost the battle,” she replied.
“...”
“...”
“Looks like those idiots from above brought back the wrong intel. They forced us to march quickly... How could the outcome be good? They already knew we were coming. Before the battle even started, arrows hit us, and more than half were killed.
"We barely managed to make it back. If I had just lost a body part, I could’ve been discharged...” she explained.
“A-are you okay, noona?” I asked.
“I’m alive, so I guess that means I’m fine,” she answered.
Even so, her face was far from good. Anyone could tell that something had happened. The atmosphere sank in a strange way, and she seemed reluctant to talk about the battle any further. It would have been nice to just walk past Oksana, but I had a question.
A question that I uttered in a voice tinged with anxiety.
“The hyungs..."
“...”
“They’re okay too, right?” I asked.
“They’re dead,” she answered.
“...”
‘She’s not holding back at all.’
“Those stupid bastards... I told them over and over to be careful... They didn't listen and ran around until they got hit by those arrows. So many people were waiting for those guys back home,” she added.
Oksana didn’t look particularly sad, and it was probably because she had lost many people so far. If she were to grieve every single one of those deaths...
‘She would lose her mind.’
Oksana chose to bury her grief to retain her sanity. I felt like the reason she delivered their deaths so calmly was that she wanted us to make the same choice she had.
Of course, I could understand her feelings well enough, but there was no way warm-hearted Jin Yoo could simply leave their deaths alone.
I didn’t want to become a drama queen, but tears began to well up before I realized it.
As they fell one by one down my chees, Oksana’s face grew even more bitter.
“Heuk...”
“...”
“It’s a common thing,” she commented.
“Heuuuk...”
‘They were good people. They were people who gave us good memories.’
My shoulders trembled, and my breathing became ragged pants. Realizing that this was a moment that called for comfort, Oksana carefully pulled me into an embrace.
Naturally, her gaze landed on our Holy Sword Hero. He still wore the same blank expression as before—a face that said something was wrong and that something like this couldn’t possibly happen.
I expected it, but it seemed he had never considered a situation like this at all. It felt as though he was rejecting the fact that the people who had been laughing, talking, and playing together with him just last night returned dead overnight.
After standing there for quite some time, he finally started moving. At first, I wondered if he was running away, but he was heading toward the figures who had lost their light.
‘Do corpses not look like corpses to you?’
As if drawn by something, he stepped toward one of them. One figure was covered with a filthy cloth. When the cloth wrapped around the figure beside Oksana was pulled back, Charlie’s face—one side of his face was completely crushed—came into view.
'In his eyes, what does Charlie's face look like?'
I quickly found the answer.
“Ah... uh... uh...”
“...”
His pupils shook, and beaded sweat poured down his being. His limbs trembled violently as well.
‘Was it removed? Did he remove it? Or did he simply decide to start recognizing the reality of things?’
“Ugh... oof...”
“...”
“Bleeeech.”
“...”
“Bleeeeeeeeech!”
Sung Ji-Hoon was vomiting up everything inside him.
“Ugh... ugh... bleeech!”
At this moment, the genre changed.
1. Remember her in Chapter 497? ☜