Within the Fourth Army's theater—now shifted primarily to defensive operations—trenches, barbed wire, minefields, and ditches stretched unbroken from east to west, carving the land into jagged segments that disappeared beyond the horizon. This defensive line, several kilometers deep, had been constructed in just over a month at astonishing speed by infantrymen and engineers alike.
For many who arrived at the front, their first experience was not immediate combat with the enemy, but endless digging—just like now.
"I really don't get it. Those tin cans and red robes can't even use rifles. Why the hell are we digging so many trenches?"
Barosai had only just reached the front. He swung his shovel with all his strength, flinging dirt out of a foxhole that was already beginning to take shape, grumbling as he worked.
"Hmph. When the real fighting starts, you'll find out whether that hole you dug can save your life."
Erevax's face was dark and utterly humorless.
He was a veteran who had charged the front lines since the war between the Empire of Dazilet and the Holy State of Davole first broke out. His unit had suffered severe losses in the beginning, unfamiliar as they were with the enemy's methods of warfare. Now, more than half the men in the unit were replacements who had trickled in over time. Several of his old comrades had remained here forever.
"Move it! Faster! If the enemy hits us right now, you're all dead!"
After surviving the brutal fighting earlier, Erevax had been promoted to junior sergeant. He now assisted his squad leader in managing this fifteen-man infantry squad.
The area they were in had only recently been retaken during a counteroffensive. Rumor had it that the Night Knights had assisted in the assault. The position had since become the first salient along the entire defensive line. It was easy to imagine that many future operations would be launched from here.
Hill Eight had originally been a Dazilet position. Later, when Davole's forces pushed in, the Dazilet troops had been forced to retreat. The defensive works left behind were still usable, and the positions were almost unchanged from before the withdrawal. Davole's forces had neither used nor destroyed them, which greatly reduced the engineering workload and the difficulty of defense. Only the newly marked sectors needed fortifications built from scratch—like the one Erevax and his men were working on.
"Don't know what his problem is. Even the squad leader doesn't usually say much, but he's always jumping around barking orders."
The one who chimed in was David. He and Barosai were from the same hometown and had once served in the same squad before being discharged. It wasn't until they received recall notices not long ago that they returned to the barracks. After a brief week of refresher training, they were sent straight to the front.
"Well… he's actually fought with real steel for a while. Let's not run our mouths too much…"
Barosai shook his head helplessly. He stopped digging, drove the shovel into the earth, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Still, Joseph and the others have it better… at least they're surrounded by familiar faces. Why'd the recruitment office send just the two of us here?"
Seeing Erevax walk off, David also paused, planning to rest for a moment.
"We're probably not under the recruitment office. I heard it was arranged by personnel."
"Really? No idea."
They chatted idly as they rested, but they didn't slack off for long. After about two minutes, they returned to work.
"How is it? Any news?"
On the other side, Erevax ran into Lucas—his squad leader—while surveying the terrain.
Lucas, along with three other squad leaders, had just been called to a meeting by the platoon leader. They had briefly discussed the terrain of the sector their platoon was responsible for defending, the distribution of firepower, and the orders passed down by the company commander.
"Looks like there'll be an attack this afternoon. But our company's staying put."
"An attack?"
The news caught Erevax off guard.
Taking the initiative had become unfamiliar to him. The few attempts in the past had left him with nothing but more terrifying memories.
"So that means…"
Precisely because he knew that higher command would not lightly choose to go on the offensive, the implication dawned on him almost immediately.
"That's right. The Night Knights will be assisting the assault forces."
...
"Your Highness Hielaina, you shouldn't be here!"
Otto had been using the trunk of a thick tree as cover while swapping magazines. In that brief moment, the red-robed figures never once took their eyes off him. Five crimson lines shot in from multiple angles, piercing straight through the tree and striking the exact spot where Otto had been standing a split second earlier.
"There are so many people watching from the rear. I can't just sit back there doing nothing."
As Otto sprinted toward them, Hielaina raised her submachine gun and fired in sustained bursts, suppressing the red-robed pursuers close on his heels. On the right, Shatiel clamped her submachine gun beneath her arm, reloading one-handed while tossing two grenades toward the advancing figures. There was no large Davole formation here—no Gus Holy Pillar—so the individual magical barriers of these red robes were far weaker than the ones the Fourth Platoon had encountered during their raid on the camp.
"Then at least stay further back."
Finding his footing beside Hielaina, Otto immediately turned and opened fire again. The red robes no longer charged headlong. Instead, they used trees and brush for cover, weaving and darting through them as they advanced. Their movements seemed irregular, almost chaotic, yet unnervingly efficient. A figure would flicker on the right—Otto would fire—and at once the ones on the left would shift positions again.
"Can we even tell front from rear anymore…?"
Hielaina tried to coordinate with Otto—one watching left, the other right. But their interception capacity was limited. Quite a few red robes had already slipped past them and were cutting into the infantry further behind.
Boom—boom—
A chain of violent explosions echoed from beyond the distant forest. That was their assault artillery at work.
According to plan, tonight the Fourth Platoon would cooperate with the 3rd Regiment of the 136th Infantry Division to attack a medium-sized defensive node of the Holy State's army. These fortress-style positions had been constructed to prevent deep penetration and raids behind the front lines.
Because of the Gus Holy Pillars, direct assaults on the Holy State's main forces rarely yielded results. So the generals of Dazilet had changed tactics—leveraging their mobility advantage to bypass the frontline legions and strike military facilities in Davole's rear. Alternatively, they would dispatch small elite units to infiltrate behind enemy lines and raid supply convoys and depots. In response, the Holy State had begun constructing defensive works deep in their rear areas, consolidating key logistical nodes and relocating resources within them. Though these fortresses lacked the protection of the Gus Holy Pillars, they were sufficient to fend off infiltration forces or units without heavy siege artillery. The underground structures within also shielded supplies and garrisons from Dazilet's air force bombardment.
"This doesn't make sense… Why are there so many red robes here…?"
Normally, a fortress like this would be guarded by regular soldiers and only a handful of Sevar. With the frontline having shifted forward, it was reasonable for Davole to reinforce the garrison and use the fortress as a forward defensive position—but this number of red robes felt excessive. On the right flank of the assault force Otto was responsible for, a group of red robes had already broken through the first line formed by the Night Knights and were carving into the infantry behind. And still more were charging toward them from the front. The sense that they had been fighting for so long without thinning the enemy ranks began to gnaw at Otto.
"Could it be an ambush?"
Hielaina had noticed the same thing. But the reconnaissance before the operation had indicated only a partial garrison here, along with scattered remnants of a previously shattered legion. The Baran River Legion was still over a hundred kilometers away. Given their marching speed, they shouldn't have reached this place so quickly.
"Stay sharp. We can't rule it out."
After all, the enemy wielded magic. The sheer unpredictability of it—things impossible to anticipate without intelligence—was infuriating. There was no clear sign yet, but who knew what other spells Davole might still be holding back?
Casting aside the stray thoughts, Otto forced his focus back onto the fight. Those lethal crimson filaments could lash out from any conceivable direction without warning. He had to stay vigilant.
At the same time, Hielaina, even while firing, carefully observed the subtle shifts across the battlefield. Gunfire. Shouts. The flash of explosions. Mud spraying into the air. Smoke obscuring her sight… She forced herself to filter out the chaos and concentrate on what was happening at different points across the field. This kind of battlefield awareness was something Shatiel had taught her—but compared to Shatiel—
—!!
Suddenly, Hielaina caught sight of a crimson line skimming rapidly along the ground toward her. It was unbelievably fast. In the blink of an eye, it had leapt from the distance to her feet. Coming from below like that was almost impossible to anticipate. Even though she had seen it, there was no time left to react.
Boom—
Unexpectedly, the crimson line was severed at a distance. Orange-red firelight flared together with a dull explosion. The sound was quickly swallowed by the greater cacophony of the battlefield, dissolving into the boundless chaos.
"Your Highness!"
Otto spun around in alarm. He had seen the sudden, lethal strike as well—but like Hielaina, he had been powerless to respond to something so swift. Now, however, the danger had passed.
As the smoke cleared, a long blade stood embedded deep in the earth. Even that violent blast had failed to shake it loose. Hielaina recognized it at once—it was Shatiel's sword.
"Thank goodness…"
Otto let out a long breath, inwardly marveling at the inhuman reaction speed of the princess's personal guard. Having neutralized the threat, Shatiel glanced back. After confirming that Hielaina was unharmed, she gave a slight nod. Then she raised her submachine gun and plunged back into the fight.
"Whew… That was close…"
Hielaina herself had been shaken. Even if this wasn't her first time on a battlefield, brushing so near to death still made her heart pound. Fortunately, Shatiel had reacted in time. She could always protect her at the critical moment—of that, Hielaina had never once doubted.
Steadying herself, Hielaina tore her gaze away from Shatiel's striking figure. Now that she was already on the battlefield, the least she could do was not become a burden.
"Cover me, cover me! I'm out of ammo!!"
No one knew where Edwin had suddenly sprung from. His right hand gripped a submachine gun whose shoulder strap had long since snapped, and he bolted toward Otto in a fluster. Several red-robed figures were in relentless pursuit behind him.
"Damn it… these bastards… they just don't end…"
Panting heavily, Edwin snatched the magazine Otto tossed to him. It looked like he'd just come out of an intense close engagement with the red robes.
"How's your side?" Otto asked.
"Third Battalion and First Battalion have taken heavy losses. If we hadn't held the line, the whole left flank would've been punched clean through by those bastards…"
There were simply too many red robes breaking into their assault formation. The infantry were being cut down like straw, wave after wave. In no time, the attacking force had been chewed into something riddled with holes like a sponge. For a single platoon of Night Knights to keep the entire force from being split apart and devoured was already a minor miracle.
"The order to retreat has come down. Take your people and hold a little longer. Once the friendly units have mostly pulled back, we withdraw too."
Otto wasted no time in issuing the command.
If it came to a straight fight, they might not necessarily lose. The real problem was that the Night Knights couldn't shoulder the entire burden of fighting the red robes alone. The infantry simply couldn't match them. Once casualties reached a certain threshold, the assault force's morale would collapse completely. Better to retreat while the units still retained some cohesion than to rout in chaos.
"Wait—what the hell is that?"
Edwin seemed to notice something. Frowning, he looked up at the sky. Following his gaze, Otto looked as well—
Across the sky, lines of yellow light had appeared without warning, stretching from north to south, like the trails of some flying object. Yet they were too smooth, too uniform—nothing like the vapor trails left by high-altitude fighter jets. And those strange things seemed to be falling… toward them.
"This is…"
A bad premonition stirred in Otto's chest. His instincts screamed that this had something to do with magic.
"Take cover!!"
He suddenly remembered the photographs Andrea had once shown him—and certain spells the Holy State's forces had never used before. His heart leapt into his throat.
The only faint comfort was that the red robes showed no sign of retreating. If this was some kind of magical strike, it probably wasn't meant for their position here. But if it wasn't aimed at the Dazilet assault force in this forest, then what was it targeting…?
They received their answer soon enough.
The yellow streaks looked almost limp. They seemed slower than artillery shells, and when they neared the ground they even appeared to bend slightly, like soft candy. But before they could sag any further, silent detonations followed in rapid succession. Countless golden spheres burst forth like scattered pearls, spraying across Hill Eight. Trees, rocks, reinforced concrete bunkers—whatever those high-velocity spheres struck was left with a molten hole burned straight through it.
The units stationed across Hill Eight had already taken shelter once they realized those strange yellow streaks were descending on them. The golden spheres destroyed some fortifications but failed to cause heavy casualties. Before long, the spheres seemed to lose momentum. They ceased their wild ricocheting, dimmed, and revealed a dull gray-black metallic sheen within—like lead pellets in appearance.
"Shit…"
The attack seemed to be over. David crawled out of his foxhole. Burning shrubs and fallen trees littered the area. Good thing they'd dug deep enough—otherwise his fate might have resembled those trees that had been melted through on impact.
"Barosay! You okay?"
Using his rifle to push aside smoldering branches, David made his way toward another foxhole not far away.
"Hey? Don't tell me you're scared stupid?"
Barosay lay at the bottom of the pit, facing away, motionless and unresponsive to David's calls. A thread of unease began to creep into David's chest.
"Hey—holy shit!!"
From behind, there were no visible wounds. But when David grabbed Barosay by the shoulder and hauled him upright, the sight made him recoil in horror. What remained of the head was little more than a scorched, blackened mass—only part of the forehead intact, the rest caved in and gone, as if melted away.
When David let go, the body slid back into the foxhole. The helmet, its strap burned through, slipped from what remained of that half-head and fell aside.
"Bastard! Get down!!"
Before David could even process what he'd seen, Sergeant Ailevax's voice rang out from the distance. That voice—normally so irritating—became a lifeline. David clung to it desperately, forcing his body to move.
"Fuck… fuck…"
Panic, rage, grief, terror—all of it jammed into his chest at once. He abandoned his rifle where it lay and stumbled toward his own foxhole. But tangled branches caught his legs, and he fell hard—
Boom—boom—boom—
A chain of explosions lit up the entirety of Hill Eight in an instant. The searing heat that seemed to scorch the soul, and the piercing ringing that followed, became David's final memory of his first—and last—battle.