The earth was riddled with scars, pockmarked everywhere by shell craters. The trenches dug by combat engineers ran across the terrain like deep, jagged gashes.
"Boom!"
An artillery shell slammed down beside a group of soldiers, churning up a storm of dust laced with shrapnel, and several mud-caked bodies tumbled to the ground.
"Incoming! Shelling!"
Accompanied by brief, frantic shouts, every soldier instinctively threw themselves into the trench in the span of a heartbeat.
Anyone who had failed to develop this instinct was either a raw recruit dragged in from the provinces or a charred corpse blown to cinders.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Sure enough, shells rained down, bursting around them again and again.
Apart from one unlucky bastard whose skull was split open from behind by a shell, the others emerged virtually unscathed.
"It stopped!"
"The shelling stopped!"
"Damn those Cassandrians, they can all rot in hell!"
Someone wailed in agony, rolling in the trench while clutching the bloody stump where his leg had been sheared away by a shell.
There were no doctors here, nor any means of disinfection. Suffering such a catastrophic wound on the front lines was practically a death sentence.
"Poor Busa!"
The Veteran sighed with practiced detachment. Though called the "Veteran," he was only in his twenties—yet that did not stop men older than him from calling him the same.
The reason was simple: he had survived the longest on this battlefield, having held this position for more than five months.
In that time, batch after batch of his comrades had been replaced.
Of course, the Veteran once had a name of his own—Bauer Stanton—but everyone still found it natural to call him the Veteran.
"It hurts so damn much!"
"Fuck... so this is what losing a leg feels like... It's worse than hell!"
"Veteran..."
Busa lay on the ground, still groaning. He looked toward Bauer, a complex gaze shining through eyes blurred with tears of agony.
Bauer could read what it meant—it was a plea.
Busa did not want to live anymore.
Instantly, the surrounding soldiers fell silent. They turned hesitant eyes toward Bauer, seemingly waiting for his decision.
"Goddammit."
Bauer spat on the ground.
Practiced and methodical, he chambered a round into his rifle, took several steps forward, and pressed the muzzle against Busa's temple.
"May you have eternal life in the divine kingdom of Amaunator."
"Thank you."
"Bang!"
A sharp gunshot rang out, sending blood and brains spattering across the trench.
Busa had been a merchant, his entire family devout believers of Amaunator. In daily life, he rarely even cursed, until Wilhelm's conscription order had dragged him to the front lines three months ago.
In the final minutes of his life, he had hurled curses, exhausting a lifetime's worth of profanity, before a single bullet ended his suffering five seconds ago.
*Busa was the last survivor of our second batch of recruits. He didn't do anything wrong; he just ran out of luck,*
Bauer thought to himself.
He turned around with a calm expression, though the hand gripping the rifle trembled faintly.
"Move out. Even if their barrage just ended, conditions on the battlefield shift in an instant. Who knows what'll happen next?"
"Just like... this unlucky bastard who had his leg lopped off by shrapnel."
The remaining dozen or so soldiers pressed forward. The seasoned veterans who had stared down death paid it little mind, but the fresh recruits who had just witnessed the demise of a comrade they shared every day with were paralyzed with fear.
Life was simply too cheap on this battlefield.
For some reason, the air grew thick and stagnant, as though submerged in a bowl of congealed blood.
Before long, after traversing that agonizingly familiar gully strewn with corpses, the soldiers finally reached a safe sector.
Suddenly, someone asked, "Veteran, got a smoke?"
"Piss off. I barely managed to scrounge up a few packs, not even enough for myself. If you want some, go dig through the dead men's pockets yourself," Bauer snapped with an irritated glare.
He waved them off and pulled a crumpled cardboard pack from his pocket, cradling it in his hand like a treasured relic.
The surrounding soldiers instantly stared at it with hungry eyes.
"Whoa! Imperial-made!"
"Veteran, you're still sitting on good stuff like that!"
Printed on the pack was an emblem of a vertical pupil and flame, along with the faint, faded words: *Imperial Made*.
The wooden stock of the rifle in Bauer's hands bore the exact same insignia.
The soldiers had no idea where these goods came from, nor did they care about their meaning—they only knew that cigarettes stamped with this mark packed the biggest punch and tasted the best.
And they knew that if Bauer didn't intend to share, he would never have pulled out something he treasured so dearly.
The soldiers surged forward with broad grins, rough hands reaching out one after another, wiping away the earlier tension in a heartbeat.
"Back off! One each—and that's only for Busa's sake."
"I didn't get one yet!"
"Wait, me too!"
"Bullshit! What's clutched in your other hand? I just saw you grab one!"
Once the men dispersed with satisfied smiles, Bauer looked down at the pack containing only a single remaining cigarette, heartache written across his face.
"A bunch of bastards, the lot of them."
He pulled out the final cigarette, cupped one hand against the wind, and deftly struck a light with the other before bringing it to his lips.
"Phoo—"
"As expected of imperial goods. Plenty of kick. Miles better than that cheap, corner-cutting swill."
Bauer leaned against the dirt wall, exhaling a thick plume of smoke, and couldn't help but sigh softly.
The refreshing sensation rushed straight to his crown, pulling his thoughts away from the battlefield for a fleeting moment and carrying them to his distant hometown.
He thought back to Strong Town of the past. It was merely a small town in eastern Thrace, yet it had been so peaceful, so wonderful.
Back then, Bauer was just an ordinary blacksmith's apprentice. He had made a promise with Jenny from the flower shop next door—once he was capable of running the forge on his own, the two of them would get married.
He remembered her flushed face that evening, her shy yet blissfully happy smile.
The memory was exceptionally warm, more beautiful in his eyes than paradise itself. He could almost smell the fresh scent of wild flowers clinging to her.
Yet in the next heartbeat, explosions and billowing smoke shattered that tender vision, forcing an involuntary cry from Bauer's lips.
"Ah—"
He continued down that train of thought.
Ruthless warfare had ripped all of it apart. Soon, every young man in town was drafted by officers of the Kingdom of Thrace, and Bauer had been no exception.
"Jenny..."
"Is she doing all right now? I heard folks saying Cassandrian cavalry pushed into the eastern part of the kingdom..."
"Maybe... maybe..."
A gnawing worry took root in Bauer's heart.
The air hung gray and hazy with artillery smoke and mist, leaving a bitter tang of soot on the tip of his tongue.
Bauer detested the stench of cordite, but he loved to smoke—because on this battlefield, it was one of the few ways left to relieve the crushing pressure.
With every breath of smoke he exhaled, his mind felt clear and refreshed, granting his perpetually strained nerves a brief respite.
"Damn it all."
"Curse this... fucking war."
Bauer took a deep drag, suddenly struck by the realization that the war had wormed its way into every facet of his life, pervasive and inescapable.
Even when fleeing reality, he could never escape the war's suffocating shadow.
With total war underway, armies from both sides rampaged across each other's territory, making burning, killing, and looting everyday occurrences—and Bauer was merely an ordinary soldier on the southern front.
If there was anything setting him apart from the rest, it was simply that he had stayed alive a little longer.
He couldn't change a single thing.
"Veteran..."
A timid voice piped up.
Bauer turned his head to see a filthy, youthful face.
The boy wore a uniform several sizes too large, sleeves rolled up and bunched in crumpled folds around his wrists.
That was Tommy, a fresh recruit said to be only sixteen. Because of his unmistakable baby face, everyone called him "the Kid."
Bauer shot him a sideways glance.
"Kid, the smokes are gone."
Tommy shook his head with an earnest expression. "No, that's not why I came looking for you. There's just a question I've never been able to figure out, and I wanted you to answer it."
"What question?"
Bauer narrowed his eyes, blowing out a stream of smoke as he answered dismissively, "I've been on this battlefield the longest. Ask whatever you want. The more you know, the longer you live."
"That poor bastard Busa knew plenty, too. Shame his luck just ran out."
Tommy hesitated for a moment, then met Bauer's gaze and asked in a low voice, "Do you know... why we're fighting this war?"
Bauer's eyes widened. He hadn't expected the kid to ask such an... odd question.
Tommy went on, "My father told me that the Holy Fadlan Empire was originally one whole. Whether Thracians or Cassandrians, we were all proud citizens of the empire."
"Yet now, we're tearing each other apart, slaughtering one another. Why, exactly?"
"My father said Otis betrayed the great Sun God and became an emissary of the hells, and that His Majesty Wilhelm came to stop him."
The surrounding soldiers had already gathered round, thoroughly amused by their conversation. After all, entertainment on the battlefield was practically nonexistent.
Bauer didn't know the answer.
He didn't care about the causes of the war, nor its grand meaning. He only wanted to survive, return to his town, and marry Jenny.
Bauer was about to shake his head and say he had no idea, but for some reason, a "joke" he had once heard from an officer popped into his head.
So, Bauer adopted a knowing tone and said, "The old emperor left behind a chair made of solid gold. Our own His Majesty Wilhelm wants to sit in it, and that wicked Archfiend Otis wants to sit in it too, so..."
He drew out his final words, making it sound deliberate and mysterious.
Tommy stared in stunned disbelief. "That's the reason for this war? So many people dying, so many people losing their homes, all for a chair?"
"Exactly—so what the hell does any of it have to do with us! It's just a joke! No matter how hard we fight, no matter how many lives we butcher, we're just helping the big shots squabble over a chair."
Bauer drew on the cigarette until only a pinky-wide butt remained, letting out an unsatisfied sigh.
"I..."
Realizing he had been made a fool of, Tommy's face flushed crimson, unable to squeeze out another word for the longest time.
"Hahahahaha!"
"A kid through and through!"
The soldiers burst into raucous laughter.
"Kid, just focus on staying alive. To hell with the Sun God up in heaven; as long as I can see tomorrow's sun, I'm plenty satisfied."
Bauer stretched lazily and dusted off the grime on his uniform.
He spoke of the war, yet at this very moment, what rose in his mind was Jenny's rosy face—the future he longed for.
In the distance, the sharp cracks of rifles and the rumbling thunder of artillery continued unabated.
At this moment, neither Bauer, Tommy, nor the soldiers laughing so merrily had any inkling that their unit, stationed on the southern front and relatively close to the Holy City, had been selected by General Misael Benasserraf as reinforcements.
They would soon be deployed to that most brutal meat grinder of all—the Holy City campaign.
Among these lively men currently joking, bickering, and laughing, who knew how many would ever make it back alive?
***
Isdalia, Factory No. 13 of the Claubau Military Industry Group.
Massive machines hummed and droned, spewing plumes of smoke like giant beasts forged of steel.
Along the assembly lines, before colossal machine tools, hundreds of workers carried out their duties at their respective stations: some inspecting, some sorting, some assembling.
They, too, resembled machines, performing mind-numbing, simplistic tasks without pausing their hands for even a second.
"Keep your eyes peeled, all of you!"
"The defect rate on the last batch exceeded eight percent!"
"You bunch of idiots, can't you even handle work this simple? The higher-ups are furious!"
The overseer's irate voice echoed through the workshop, setting every worker on edge.
*Just hold out a little longer...*
*My shift ends in half an hour,*
Raj Pink thought to himself.
He was a worker tasked with sorting parts. His job was simple enough: categorizing different components.
Yet after six hours of continuous, uninterrupted labor, staring at those parts made his vision swim with dizziness.
"What the hell are you doing!"
A neighboring worker made a slip, letting a flawed part slip through, only to be caught by the sharp-eyed overseer.
The worker apologized profusely. "I-I'm sorry, sir! My mind drifted for a second!"
"Don't let it happen again! One more mistake, and you lose half a month's pay!"
Hearing that, Raj hurriedly pulled himself together, forcing his eyelids wide open.
He worked here purely to keep food on the table.
Money.
As the most developed metropolis in Anzeta, prices in Isdalia were exorbitant.
For an assembly-line worker like him, the wage was barely enough to keep from starving. Dreaming of buying a home in this city was sheer delusion.
According to the overseer, the components they produced would be assembled into precision firearms and sold to the south, each fetching a steep price of one gold dinar.
A whole gold dinar!
For a full month of diligent, backbreaking toil, he earned only a single gold dinar, and that was before deducting everyday living expenses.
Yet thousands of firearms passed through his hands every month. Raj often wondered: where did all the money from those weapons go?
He had no idea.
Perhaps it all vanished into the pockets of the big shots.
The overseer had once explained to them with obvious impatience: if the dragonblood nobility hadn't invested in building factories and supplying machinery, they wouldn't even have the chance to work in Isdalia, let alone earn wages.
After many discussions, Raj and his fellow workers agreed that the overseer made a lot of sense.
Raj's idol was also a dragonblood noble—his name was George.
George's story had been featured in the *Imperial Daily*, beloved by the working masses. Raj had even spent good money to buy that issue of the paper, clipping out the article and pasting it on the wall of his dormitory.
That Baron George came from humble origins, once a serf in the Northlands. He had started as a bottom-tier laborer, climbing up step by step through grit and effort until he finally became part of the dragonblood nobility.
That was the man Raj dreamed of becoming, the very ideal envisioned by countless workers who came to try their luck in Isdalia.
*Come to think of it, I've even seen Lord George's former coworker. Howard, I think his name was, an overseer in the neighboring factory.*
*I wonder if I'll ever get to meet Lord George in person...*
Raj mused.
Suddenly, a harsh bark shattered his daydream.
"Raj! Your head's in the clouds too!"
"I knew it, daydreaming every day is bound to cause screw-ups! Look at that, you put a Type 2 part straight into the Type 3 bin!"
"I'm sorry, sir, I..."
Cold sweat instantly drenched Raj's back. Flustered and panicked, he wanted to explain himself, but words failed him.
The overseer merely shot him a cold glance and turned away. "Save your excuses! That's your second mistake this month. Get ready to collect your wages in silver dinars at the end of the month!"
Left standing in place, Raj's face turned ashen. He lowered his head and silently resumed sorting parts.
His dream was to buy a small house of his own in the outer districts of Isdalia and open a flower shop inside.
Yet houses in Isdalia did not come cheap; even those on the outermost fringe cost over a thousand gold dinars.
And Raj's wage was one gold dinar a month—half of which would be docked this month.
When would he ever achieve his dream?
Chapter 473