Chapter Text
"Men may have escaped the shells, but were destroyed by war."
The whistle blew.
At first, there was a thunderous war cry, and young boys, their hearts filled with courage, surged forward to fight for the glory of the Kingdom. For Saintess and King, they shouted, even as their lives, their sweet memories of home, were all reduced to nothingness by the staccato of machine guns or the pulverizing glows of magic spells. Torn bellies, shattered limbs and fine bloody paste drowned the hellscape together with the watery soil. One moment, he had seen them talking, heard their nervous laughter in the quiet morning hours before the charge; the next, just like that, their bodies collapsed and stopped moving, like puppets with their strings cut.
What were men in the face of a magically enchanted, high-explosive artillery shell repeatedly optimized through centuries of war? What was squishy human flesh against the unfathomable kinetic force of a bullet?
Bravery, Leon bitterly thought, biting the curses on his lips as he crawled through the mud, what bravery?
Ask those who now laid in their eternal rest in the earth, not a coffin to shelter them from the cold and dampness, if it was really the honor and glory of the kingdom that they thought of when bullets and spells cut their lives short.
Suddenly there was a beastly roar, followed by a scorching heat wave that rushed over Leon's face, causing him to instinctively flinch and scrub his head directly into the dirt to avoid being caught in the blazing fire. The literal damp, foul, and ashen taste of the wasteland in his mouth almost made Leon want to puke, but at least it was better than turning into charcoal. When the heat had subsided and Leon was able to regain his awareness of the surroundings, there only remained a canorous choir of death screaming, the writhing, living torches squirming in agony on the ground, desperately trying to put the fire out.
"f*ck f*ck f*ck…" Leon choked for air through the tarry fume of the dying flame runes, his hands still fumbling around with his bolt-action rifle, and the boy's mind went hazy at the hellish image of being so up close and personal, "What the f*ck am I doing here? I shouldn't be here… I need to go… I need to go…"
Three weeks. It was all he had for basic training before the brass decided to launch another large-scale offensive against the enemy trench. The young Bartfort had never thought that war would be so utterly mad, so depraved that only the dredge of humanity could ever find joy in this. And yet, humanity continued to war against each other, even when their ancestors, the great civilizations that now lay in ruins, had all perished in the flames of their own folly.
Leon had become an ardent believer of the Saintess almost immediately during the first few hours into the battle. Even adults perished, so what could barely mature children like him do? Clearly, it had been divine intervention, otherwise he would have been yet another nameless boy among a dime a dozen.
"F-49, you are going in the wrong direction," a bleak, sinister voice abruptly buzzed in Leon's ears, "Objective Julian is on the other side of your position. Are you trying to desert?"
The young Bartfort gritted his teeth so as to not unleash his expanded vocabulary on the caller. Nothing good would ever come out of antagonizing the platoon commissar - or 'pig', as the other veterans called him. The last sod who was dumb enough to do so had been transferred to a forlorn hope and was never heard of again, at least according to a tale of Leon's squad leader. Leon swore he would strangle the life out of any of the bitch who thought that a morale support officer would be necessary to ensure that they fought hard, and died, for the greater good of the kingdom.
Only regiments composed of wholly volunteer career soldiers did not have commissars among their ranks. It was the reason why the casualty rate had been extremely high for the so-called 'meatsack companies' since the kids were mostly on their own and few true soldiers would want to risk their lives sticking up for a bunch of brats in their opinion. Even if there were somebody who wanted to, the rotten roots of the Forest Of Ladies had taken too deep and nobody could do anything to stand up for these young boys being sent to the literal meat grinder without invoking heavy-handed retribution in one way or another.
But fear was only an outward expression. There was a reason why the commissar had never shown up around the barrack unless it was on ceremonial troop inspection days, otherwise, the troops would have murdered him and burnt the corpse. Or some crazy bastard would have attempted to organize a double suicide with a grenade.
"I got lost, lieutenant commissar!" Leon wheezed as he pressed on the comms relay button, at the same time pushing himself along with the combat gears forward through the mud, trying his best to keep his body as close to the ground as possible, "Alzerian guns stonked the sh*t out of our sector. I lost sight of my platoon, you know where they are now sir?"
"f*cking useless meatsack…" Leon could almost hear the toxic dripping from the other side over, "Just run over the top, eighty paces. Then take the right path once you make it to the enemy trench."
"With all respect, lieutenant commissar, that is f*cking suicidal!" Leon's face turned pale white at the phrase 'over the top'. Even as short as thirty paces would be as good as dead. He peeked his head out slightly from the charred edge of the shallow crater he had been using for cover, eyeing the distant silhouettes masked behind the white veil of smoke and mist. He had no idea whether those were friends or enemies, but the boy knew better than to attempt to find out.
"I do not care about your survival. If you want to be a little cowardly bitch, then I suppose I can send you with the forlorn hopes. I hear that they have a very special method to make any gutless sh*t stains like you into a glorious hero in one day."
Leon gulped quietly. At that moment, he contemplated his chance of survival if he decided to destroy the comms neckband to run away then and there, but in the end, decided against it - where would he run? Even if he could fool Holfortian officers into thinking that he was dead by severing the magical-encrypted biolink, the enemies might just shoot him in sight for his uniform, and if he was lucky enough to evade the enemies, then he might still run into the roaming hordes of demonic beasts that were infesting every nook and cranny of the island aside from humans. Even if he managed that, how exactly would he be able to physically leave this place without an airship?
"Order received, sir," the boy could only mutter quietly in response. Resting his weapon on his chest, Leon gave one final look at the long, empty field of ash beyond.
This is it, Leon thought bitterly. Then his mind began to rage. He hated his own sh*tty situation, he hated Zola for selling him to be a slave soldier, and most of all, he hated the literal cesspool of a country that was the Holfort Kingdom for forcing him into this. For once, Leon did not feel like he was hesitant to kill somebody, especially if they were the ilk of those snobbish Holfortian 'noble' ladies and the high aristocrats for enforcing these ridiculous misandrist policies.
But a pig by the name of Victor Fou Anhardt would be on the top of his murder list if he ever made it out alive.
"Saintess, please deliver me. Unveil for my blinded eyes your golden path, for I am but a lost lamb in need of a shepherd's guidance…" Leon began his final prayer in his most earnest. Glancing down at his weapon, he slightly pulled back the bolt of his rifle and used his index finger to ensure that the gun's internal magazine was fully loaded. The last thing he needed was an empty click on an enemy.
"Here goes nothing."
Mustering all the resolve he had left, Leon pushed against the muddy ground and lunged forward over the edge. As much physical training as he had to endure during the boot camp, the boy soon felt his legs burning up in agony from the accumulated stress as they carried his body saddled with heavy equipment across the empty death zone as fast as humanly possible. Even when his lungs had been empty of every breath, the last vestige of his survival instinct pushed on desperately, channeling every last bit of mental and physical strength along with every last drop of mana in his body to augment his legs, never once stopping even for the briefest moment of respite.
There was frantic shouting from somewhere behind the blurry mist. Leon's senses began to turn mushy, all that he could see was some golden light blossoming in the foggy white, the ominous red and dark purple streaks of light that filled his entire vision, the terrifying howling winds whisking by him, and a sudden hot, deafening shock drumming against his right ear. But the young boy couldn't care less, for all that he was thinking was just getting as fast as possible over to where he needed to be.
At long last, Leon could barely make out the outline of a dugout reinforced with wooden supports, and did not for a moment hesitate to jump right into it just as a burst of machine gun ripped through the air where he had been just a fraction of a second earlier. The young boy landed on the mucky duckboard face first. Then with a soft groan, he rolled his body over to avoid being suffocated to death by the mud in his nostrils and mouth and gazed at the ever-gray northern sky while gasping desperately for every bit of air he could.
"Pray be the Saintess, pray be the Saintess," Leon's lips trembled, and his left hand unconsciously clutched the ancestor pendant tucked inside his shirt collar that Barcus gave him. That was close, way too close for his comfort.
After a short pause to catch his breath, the boy sat up while trying to ignore the burning, watery feeling on the side of his head. Then he took off his steel helmet and ran his right hand over the sore spot, only to find his fingers stained in blood.
"sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t," the young Bartfort hissed, his other hand frantically rummaging through the khaki bag clipped to his battle belt for a roll of sterilized gauze. Leon hastily drew his bayonet and cut off a piece to first clean the wound from the dark slush around the wound, then began to wrap the bandage around his head. After a few turns, Leon snapped the roll off, tightened the fabric end into a knot to prevent further bleeding, and put the remaining dressing back into the first aid pouch for another time. And hopefully, that would not come anytime soon.
'Tis but a flesh wound, he attempted to reassure himself while shakily pressing his hand against the cut. Injuries could heal, but being dead could not.
"If you are intending to play dead, F-49, then you'll have to die for real. But maybe that way you will be something of worth instead of a baby sh*t stain of a meatsack."
"Just catching my breath, lieutenant commissar," Leon bit his lips to stem the surging hatred against the pig on the line. Losing his cool right now amidst enemy lines would do him no good, "I'll be joining up with my unit shortly."
"I do not care. Either you make it to Julian, or you don't."
"Crystal clear, sir."
With an excruciating motion, Leon put his olive steel helmet back on and firmly secured it on his head with the strap. Then, he picked up the rifle from the mud, and lightly shook the weapon to remove the gunk from its surface before turning to the sunken labyrinth in front of him, taking a deep inhale before venturing further into the enemy trench lines.
Severe limbs, mutilated bodies, and human guts strewn every here and there, and the rain puddles were stained with a brown and pinkish mixture. The smell of urine and the stench of rot rose from the sodden soil, they mixed together like a thick gel that clogged up the boy's lungs. Leon passed by a few dirt mounds, trying his best not to see an arm or two sticking out from underneath, some were twitching even. Still, the unbounded madness of reality proved too much for the barely fourteen-year-old boy, and Leon immediately rushed over to a small ditch on the side and emptied his entire breakfast into it.
"What the f*ck… what the f*ck…" Leon croaked dryly. He missed Japan, he missed his bratty sister. Even that black company he used to slave away at was better than anything here, "Why? What did I do wrong? Why punish me like this?"
He stared aimlessly at the long-winding trench line still unfurling before him, leaning against the wooden wall to slowly wade through the mud forward as his legs were already on the verge of giving out. Suddenly, Leon froze, his eyes widened as they followed some bloody drag marks on the mud to the trailing intestine and the upper half of a body dressed in a tattered Holfortian uniform, their head half sunken below the swampy ground. But it was just not any faceless dead that Leon had no time to take notice of, this one Leon knew very well.
That thin shoulder, that glaring blue eye, and the chestnut hair. Even if half of the head was melted off into a disfigured blob of charred flesh and chalk-white bare teeth and skull caked in dry clay and mud, Leon could still recognize the face of Charles Fou Hathorne, his squad leader. The older boy had been a veteran of at least five battles, and Leon's closest friend ever since he came here. In addition to combat training with the platoon, Charles also taught Leon extra survival skills that the platoon commander never touched. Saintess' protection aside, Charles was the sole reason why Leon could make it as far as he did.
Leon thought that his squad leader would be able to live through whatever life could throw at him. Five damn battles. What horrors had he faced, what insurmountable odds had he overcome to survive for years in this insanity, and now there he was: lying on the mud, those soulless eyes gazing into the distant, vague horizon and half a face and body missing. Those dirty jokes they shared, those stories from the long-gone childhood, none of them Leon saw in him anymore. That light had long been snuffed out, and forever.
The Bartfort boy clammed his mouth, trying to force down the lump in his throat. "Thanks, Charlie, for taking care of me," Leon slowly kneeled down next to the half-body and set his gun aside, with those wobbly hands he closed his friend's eyelids, and somehow the boy felt that the expression of the dead softened slightly, "Saintess bless your soul, man."
Then he snaked an arm around Charles' neck and took with him his squad leader's neckband. It was an identification tag as much as it was a communication and surveillance device. Even if the brass never cared, the common soldiers always remembered their fallen comrades and always strived to at least bring a piece of those unfortunate souls home for an honorary funeral.
After a brief moment to mourn for his dead friend, Leon grabbed his weapon and got on the move once more. He heard some faint calls in Alzerian echoing in the distance, so lingering any longer than necessary would put him at risk of being found by the enemy soldiers. Leon sloshed heavily through the ankle-deep mud, his feet ached in protest against their master's mistreatment, the oversized adult boots, no matter how much puttee Leon had used to fill the gap, were filled with the ugly and slimy grime coming from the trench. The young Bartfort kept wandering on for ages, and still nothing but littered corpses and the swarms of rats feasting on the carrions, scurrying away only when the boy drew closer. His stomach churned again, but he managed to hold it in.
Just a little bit more, the boy thought to himself. So far the pig had yet to say anything, so the boy could guess that he was on the right track. Once he rejoined with the rest of his platoon, Leon would definitely give his feet their much-needed fresh air and some powder for good measure. He had seen enough people being amputated due to the lack of healing mages for the trench foot disease that was so rampant among the common troopers.
Right then, Leon's ears pricked up. The air turned stale, and only the far-off drumming of artillery barrage rang through the dead atmosphere. Yet, the boy felt his hair rising and an unfathomable terror ran along his spine. The rifle was swiftly raised, his index slowly inserted back inside the guard ring, and hovered over the trigger.
Click-clack.
Leon immediately dove behind the corner just as a gunshot thundered by his ear. The wooden board was shattered by the bullet, showering the boy in sludge and splinters. He gasped in surprise, but then quickly calmed down a little, his hands quickly shouldered the rifle again. The young boy bated his breath to curb the bubbling hysteria in his mind. Then Leon peeked out slightly from behind his cover and saw the silhouette of a distinctively Alzerian helmet on the other end of the moat. With a quick prayer, he swung his rifle around and squeezed on the trigger just at the same time he saw a cold gray barrel staring right into his eyes.
All Leon saw was two bright muzzle flashes and a scorching pain on his left side. The Alzerian bullet had just grazed his flesh, while his shot only skimmed off the side of his nemesis' helmet. The young Bartfort cursed inwardly; he was more used to long-range sniping back at Corrino, not this sort of filthy, up close and personal trench brawl. Both sides then immediately ducked back behind their cover, with Leon quickly grabbing the bolt handle, struggling to cycle another round into the chamber, only for horror to dawn upon him that his gun had jammed.
"f*cking stupid garbage fake sh*t!" The young Bartfort half cursed, half wanting to cry as his hands desperately tried to beat the bolt carrier backward like a hammer. Another gunshot cracked out, and yet another sprinkle of mud and wooden flakes, "Come on!"
At long last, he saw the mechanism slide down and a glimpse of brass flung outward. Leon slammed the bolt forward again and peeked his gun out from cover. But the moment the boy pivoted his body out, he had already seen the towering body of the more experienced Alzerian soldier blocking his entire view, the dull grey bayonet tip fixed on the enemy rifle glinting hauntingly right at the boy's heart. Acting on instinct, Leon tried to pull the trigger again, but the other man was already one moment faster than the green rookie. The Alzerian soldier swiped his gun sideways, the buttstock barely clipping through Leon's lower jaw due to the boy instinctively staggering backward to get some space for maneuvering, though the residual force was still more than enough to force him to inadvertently drop his rifle and his head to go white and for a moment from the sudden trauma.
But now was not the time to die, Leon gritted his teeth to endure the pain and willed himself back into the fight, the muscle memories of those times fighting sky pirates and monsters back at Corrino kicked in. He ducked and rolled, just in time to evade the plunging Alzerian blade that had just impaled through the wooden wall. Taking advantage of his enemy being stuck trying to dislodge his bayonet, in that fraction of a second, Leon unsheathed the 18-in long blade hanging on his belt, channeling every last ounce of his mana to augment and push his body to the absolute breaking point.
One last Hail Mary, the boy charged in. Everything became only a blur, the only thing he felt was a sudden hot, piercing pain somewhere below his ribcage. And when Leon finally regained his full senses, his blade had already buried deep into the chest of the Alzerian man, and blood incessantly spurted from the wound like a fountain and dyed the cuff of Leon's sleeve in a dark brown shade. His enemy glared at him with bloodshot eyes, blood and bile frothing from the man's mouth, his jaw slackened and tongue wiggling around as if he wanted to say something, but only the sharp, unintelligible airy gibberish escaped those shivering lips.
Leon quickly let go of the bayonet handle, his eyes were frozen still on the other soldier from the mental shock. The Alzerian man stumbled back a few steps, his body swaying to and fro as he tried to stand upright for a moment before finally splashing down on the filthy trench puddle like a heavy flour sack. Then the wounded soldier began to convulse hysterically, while both his blackened hands tried to grasp at the bayonet handle on his chest in a paltry attempt to remove the blade.
It was at that moment that the young Holfortian boy saw a shimmer of gold on the man's finger, one that he had not the time to see due to the more urgent need to survive earlier. Leon's eyes widened, every beat of his heart became a hammer of torment at the terrible recognition of his action.
The Alzerian was not Leon's enemy. He was simply yet another man with a family, who happened to wear a different uniform and stood on the opposite end of the battlefield. The cruel turn of fate forced them to kill each other in the name of an arbitrary cause, and now a young boy became a murderer, and a woman became a widow.
"Wh- what… have I done…?" Leon whimpered as immense guilt flooded the boy's mind. He took a step forward and attempted to help the dying man, but a sudden, unimaginable pain soared through his entire body as if someone had just pressed a branding iron against his belly skin stopping him in his tracks. His pupils dilated, his forehead drenched in cold sweats, and blood drained from his face - quite literally so - as the boy looked at the rifle half sunken in the watery ground right at his feet.
Leon's blade had not been the only one to be stained in blood.
The boy slowly turned his eyes down at his own uniform, and the first thing he saw was a large patch of black color slowly diffusing into the fabric. Then, a wide cut on his uniform and a deep gash, enough that Leon could see the mesh of pink flesh and white fat underneath the ceaseless oozing of blood. His left hand jerked reflexively and touched the side, and there was that searing agony on the side of his ribcage again, causing the young soldier to flinch on impulse. He staggered his way forward, leaning his shoulder against the wooden wall of the trench to support his increasingly heavy body before finding an empty wooden crate not too far away from the now motionless Alzerian to sit down on.
"f*ck! It hurts…!" Leon hissed in tears, trying to keep his right palm pressed on the wound to hold back the bleeding while his left hand again frantically searched for a bandage in the first aid bag, "Garrrgghhh…!!"
The moment his fingers found something soft and squishy in the khaki pouch, the boy immediately fished the entire dressing roll out and jammed it into the open wound in panic, his breaths became rougher as he battled against the tearing feeling to stay awake. But with every second passed, Leon felt his body become more sluggish, and his mind seemed to start hallucinating. The memories of the old days began to come back, and for a flicker of a moment the young Bartfort swore he could smell the warm grass of summer, and he was sitting under the shade of an oak playing around with Nicks instead of wherever this godforsaken ditch was.
"F-49, status report. Objective Julian is only thirty paces ahead of you. Why do you stop?"
Leon wanted to lash out, but he found himself running out of will to do so. Exhaustion, and cold. He had never felt so cold, the mind-shredding pain of the cut on his chest gradually turned into a cold, numb throb, and the mortal fear of death began to grip his mind.
"Mo-mom… save me…"
"F-49, do you hear me?"
Then there were voices. Beautiful, lingering, echoing from some unknown distance. It was like a lullaby, that sweet melody - it reminded Leon of Luce's songs, those mesmerizing hymns that she often sang to him when he was younger.
"F-49, are you going against my order? I want a report, NOW!"
Shut up.
He was tired. So tired from having to deal with this living nightmare. He wanted to go back to Corrino. Where he could go and fish with Barcus, or wander underneath the cool shade of the forest near the castle. And when he came home, Luce would already have cooked his favorite dish for dinner.
"F-..#()-..."
Shut up.
Leon's dull eyes circled around. He saw his sister from the previous life. That brat, but he could not bear himself to hate her. Then came into view his parents, his true parents, they were waving at him. Those cheerful words, the congratulations when he made it into university, and on his first job, though awful the latter might have been.
The voices. They were calling his name.
"F-49, if you don't-"
SHUT UP.
The buzzing voice in his ears stopped. Even the drumming shells ceased to be, leaving behind again a dead air. Leon's half-opened eyes stopped moving, glimpsing only a vague shadow approaching him from the other side and the mushy squelching of boots trekking through the marshy trench.
Whether it was friend or foe, he could not care anymore. It was peaceful now.
All quiet on the northern front.
Let it be known that Marie Fou Lafan hated the military. No, she absolutely despised it. And most of all, she was disgusted at her own self for being so powerless to do anything about it.
Had she not suffered enough hardship in her previous life? What sort of cruel joke were the gods playing on her now?
But she bit her lips and decided not to utter the last part. Perhaps it was truly divine punishment for the death of her brother. Though, that did not mean she was willing to just take all the punches lying down. No, she would resist and bite, with all the strength she had. It took a murderer to end her will to live in the old life, sure as hell she was not about to give up on this new one.
She had a plan, a cunning one at that. Marie recognized the world she had been reborn in was in the same setting as that otome game that she had her brother play. Given the foreknowledge glimpsed from the save data her brother sent shortly before he died, in peace rested his soul, Marie drew up a scheme to steal the spotlight away from the utterly moronic and one-dimensional protagonist and went full-speed with the reverse harem route. She knew all the timing, all the dialogues, and if all failed, Marie had her trove of experience seducing men from the previous life to fall back on.
Surely it would be an easy job, and soon she would have the financial and political backing of the greatest houses in the kingdom. If she could also get the Saintess's relics, that was definitely a cherry on top to legitimize her newfound power.
Of course, everything was just that, a plan. Nothing had ever come even close to fruition, and perhaps never would. Her new parents - and Marie just wanted to use the foulest of words every time she was reminded of them - had been rather blind to their own hedonic lifestyle despite the impoverished status of their viscounty. Or perhaps they were blind to both. Excessive vanity and opulence notwithstanding, they even started taking out loans using her name as collaterals - all without her awareness to boot.
It was back when she was fourteen, and a bunch of debt collectors came cornering Marie while she was going about taking odd jobs at the local adventurer branch office back that the petite girl came into full understanding of the bog she was forced into. With the pile of debt that the Lafan family had incurred with their ostentatious social banquets, gilded decorums, and gaudy dresses, she was forced to accept that she had absolutely no leverage at all.
Her mother essentially offered her two options: either she could accept an officer commissioning in the military, or they would hand her over to the debtors - physically, and that meant a whor*house.
So Marie whispered a painful goodbye to her dreamy Royal Academy and the grand plan and put on the green olive uniform, the one that she had always worn for the last three years. The officer camp had been wholly mind-numbing with all the pomp and fanfare since she was going to be a commissar, apparently, a type of officer that was there just to ensure proper etiquette and morale among the troopers. The actual military theory seminars and the combat electives had been far more enjoyable, as Marie could fully flex and further hone her skills as a self-taught adventurer, although she found the tactics and strategies taught in the former rarely applicable for solo or party-dungeoneering. The medical course she also tried looking into, but decided to flunk early because it was becoming too complicated with all the alchemical formulae for healing potions; though at the very least Marie had a better understanding of how to use her Light magic for something other than just stitching up wounds. However, she was still pissed that there was no potion to cure her rather stunted physique from overworking.
However, the reality of war was not a simple game of numbers on a drawing board, and Marie had learned it during the first week she came to Fort Essex on Agincourt. It was only then she realized that she was not going to be a background support officer as she had originally thought, but was informed that her actual role was to push the soldiers forward, by whatever means necessary. Marie did not know anything better. She just screamed in the comms relay for the soldiers of her platoon forward and threatened them half-heartedly with forced labor in the mines. There was the execution for cowardice as well, but Marie dreaded to even think of resorting to that kind of blackmail. The last remnants of her Japanese mindset still hang on for dear life in her mind and her delusions that this might be another scripted event somewhere in the game that she had yet to explore.
She did not think of it much when one by one, the biolink of the soldiers in her platoon went silent and the glowing dots on the telepathic sensor fed through the loitering familiar birds over the battlefield were snuffed out like candles in the wind. She thought that as long as the soldiers made it to the finish line, everything would be all good.
It was not. There was no finish line.
When Marie saw the dossier of her subordinate unit being crossed and tossed into the incinerator, when she looked at the bloody ponchos wrapped in human shapes being thrown into a mass grave behind the central keep and burnt with flamethrowers, her skin began to crawl sinisterly and her heart suddenly was filled with uncertainty. But when someone came to her quarters and handed over a chest full of unsent letters, the blonde immediately broke down at the horrifying realization of the consequences of her ignorance after reading through some of them. These were no NPCs being coded to die, they were actual human beings, with family waiting back at home, and they were slaughtered on her orders. Their futures were cut short because she didn't know better, all that blood was now on her hands.
And the most horrendous part was when she became aware that these letters were written by children. Those chicken scribbles, the limited use of vocabulary, the absurdly pure and innocent doodles and fantasy tales in between the lines, they could have never belonged to adults.
Marie wailed that entire night, praying for forgiveness from those that she had murdered. She had never had another peaceful sleep ever since, the distant howling and vengeful shrieks drenched her in terror and panic, forcing her awake in the dead of the night every so often. Her next few days after that had only been a world of personal torment, especially more so when she overheard some other commissars saying something about how much share of the gratuity check they received from the soldiers' widows for pushing their husbands to die an early, 'glorious' death.
Marie slowly learned the true extent of the rot that had taken hold of this disgusting society called the Holfort Kingdom. And it had only made the nightmares worse, since now she knew they never died for any noble cause, but only to add another penny to those fat pigs back at the capital. Sons of impoverished viscounts, barons, and baronets, wed off to some harlots triple their ages, only to be sent here to die so the so-called wives could enjoy a life of opulence on their husbands' martyrdom.
What have I done?
Marie was all for hedonism, but such callousness and immorality, not even she could fathom how anyone could enjoy it with a clear conscience on their minds. It made her sick when she thought back on her own behaviors, how she saw the people of this new world as nothing more than programmed constructs to be cheated and exploited. Oh, how wrong she was.
Did she not have friends back in her hometown of Ostmel? What of Juliett, the daughter of the baker she always went to buy sweets? What of Christina, the bookstore keeper? While they had been rather childish for her mature mind from her previous life, did she not have fun chatting and gossiping with them about rumors around the town and the urban legends?
If they were nothing more than NPCs, then had her friendships been false? If so, then why did everything feel so alive?
A part of her wanted to repay the sin in her own blood, but hearing the harrowing rumble of shells and seeing the dreadful encroaching infernos of creeping barrages caused her to freeze in terror on the first time she went directly to the front as an attache to a company headquarters. The frontline was definitely not where Marie wanted to be. But instead of escaping reality, she stayed and began to take her job as a support officer in the backline seriously. Marie threw all her efforts into relearning military theories, advanced tactics, and strategies, and even going as far as trying to learn the spoken tongue of the Alzer Republic and the Selusa Principality, two other major contestants for the control of the massive island of Agincourt. Even if death was a constant companion for every man who lived by the sword, the least Marie could do was be the lighthouse in the dark to guide her troops to safety.
She had been receiving some complaint letters from various people, including her own family, about how she was being 'too soft' on the 'wretches of society'. But Marie couldn't care less, and having spent two years at Fort Essex, she had made some connections with the upper echelon - honest and upright men, of course - who could ensure her stability and safety to act somewhat against the Forest Of Ladies. Even if a life saved could never fully absolve her of that heinous crime in the past, at least she could sleep better knowing that someone, someday, may be able to return to their family.
But fate was a fickle thing. It cared not for the machinations of men, only those of its own design. No matter how carefully Marie tried to plan, no one could ever outsmart an artillery shell with their name on it.
"Ah, Senior Lieutenant Commissar Marie, our little precious angel. Just in the nick of time, I have been looking for you."
"My apologies for the tardiness, Captain Anthony," the blonde said tiredly as she pushed into the room and closed the office door behind her back, then her arm raised in a slightly sloppy salute, "My alarm failed this morning for an unknown reason."
"The last time it was a cat stealing it in your sleep," the pepper-haired middle-aged man - a captain in charge of her division personnel matters who went by the name of Anthony Fou Heinessen - did not seem to mind the lack of discipline, instead cracking a gentle smile, "And now you decide to forgo with the excuses altogether. Well, I couldn't say I am not impressed with your boldness, little Marie."
"I appreciate your encouraging words verily, Captain."
"Your appreciation greatly flatters me," the older man simply said as he picked up a pen from the penwell, with one swift motion he dipped it into the black inkpot set on the left corner of his desk and scribbled something on a piece of document. The captain then grabbed the paper and hung it up, flapping it slightly to dry off the ink before neatly folding the sheet and inserting it into an envelope.
"Here you go as requested," Anthony handed the dispatch over to Marie, which the blonde accepted with gratitude, "A little bit hard to pull the funds through those fat bastards upstairs, so try not to lose it, alright?"
"I'm sure the families of the fallen will be very thankful for your kindness, captain," the girl nodded her head slightly, quickly putting away the fund requisition paper into the inner pocket of her black commissar jacket.
"I only regret that I couldn't have done more. Good kids, they all are. It makes me feel disgusted," the captain frowned, his fingers drumming against the table as he was thinking, "Don't take it too hard on yourself, my girl. Bullets and shells don't have eyes, and if one already has your name on it, it will find you, even if you were sitting in a bunker."
"You don't have to console me, Captain Anthony. I have already made peace with my sins and know that this nightmare I am living in is the Saintess' punishment."
The man's amber eyes only stared at the petite girl, a hint of sadness and sympathy glinted behind them as she reminded him of his first time being a commanding officer. But the captain quickly shook that sentiment away and returned with his professionalism as he took out another letter and a thick stack of paper from his desk drawer.
"If you are so determined to walk the path of redemption, then I suppose I have another job for you," Anthony pushed the document forward to Marie, then leaned back on his chair and crossed his fingers, "Like the trials of our Saintess for the worthy, it will not be easy. I really don't want to push this to you, but I don't trust anyone else to not f*ck this up."
The blonde picked up the dispatch letter and pocketed it away, then moved on to the dossier. There was an ominous blood-crimson capital letter 'T' stamped on the cover, and Marie immediately felt a chill spreading down her spine. Thirdiers, she realized, her fingers began to sweat. These were the personal profiles of the so-called 'meatsack' - "husbands" turned slave soldiers - who had managed to survive for three years, the supposed length of service for conscripted soldiers, which they were technically qualified as.
But the longer one survived, the more the brass wanted them to die. Because they kept on being alive, the wenches back at the capital could not get any penny, and those absolutely disgusting bitches would then scream and pull their connections to pressure the military into pushing for ever more aggressive objectives. As such, Marie had never heard of any thirdiers surviving their final mission. And she knew full well why. While that letter 'T' on the cover stood for 'Termination of contract', the pigs upstairs would never let these survivors retire in peace. They would squeeze every last ounce of blood and breath left in these soldiers.
The death of one is a tragedy, and the death of a million is a statistic. The pot-bellied generals earned their medals on statistics, and the widows got their gold to buy new boytoys on tragedies.
"Though before you actually accept this transfer, I have to warn you though, senior lieutenant commissar."
Marie looked up at the senior officer with curiosity, "Yes?"
"Well, you see, the field commander for this platoon is…" Anthony stroked his cleanly shaved chin for a moment, "How should I say, ill-reputed? No, not quite right. Let's just say that he has a rather peculiar temper."
"How so, captain?"
"See for yourself, my girl."
The blonde raised an eyebrow at his remarks but nonetheless decided to do as she was told. Flipping through the cover, right on the first page were the records of her field counterpart of the new 4th Platoon, 9th Vanguard Companies. There was a portrait of the boy clipped on the top left of the page, depicting a bland-looking black-haired boy, though her eyes were immediately drawn to his right ear, which was missing a portion on the top, which Marie easily deduced to have been a wound from combat. Then she began to scan the paper top down.
Leon Fou Bartfort.
Lieutenant, field-post.
Thirteen years old by the time of duty.
Marie's eyes narrowed, and her stomach began to turn queasy, but she forced herself to move on. This Leon fellow turned out to be an iron wall, Marie mused while reading through the combat record section. Eleven combat missions, four of which were major offensive with an absurdly high casualty rate. Eleven! The girl shuddered. Only veteran career soldiers and seasoned mercenaries could survive that long, and this boy had been here since thirteen. Leon must have either insane luck, or some serious skills to stay alive this far.
But what concerned Marie even more was the addendum at the end of his file. Apparently, six commissar officers had been found dead, one of them just two weeks ago, due to unknown reasons while remotely commanding Leon's unit. No matter how many investigations were carried out, no one could really understand what had happened. So to prevent panic, the information was suppressed, and a new commissar was put in charge without being informed of anything.
It reminded her of the common folktales about cursed items or people in this case. Those that brought upon only ruination for anyone that got too close.
"So what do you think?" Anthony leaned forward, anxiously anticipating the blonde's response, "Can you handle this?"
"I will try my best to keep them alive as long as I can," Marie nodded solemnly and tucked the dossier underneath her arm to bring back for further examination, "But…"
"You cannot keep them alive forever, and the world doesn't care about what you want," the captain finished Marie's sentence for her, "But that is okay. As long as you truly work in your noble belief, then I'm sure the Saintess will find a way to open the door for you."
The petite commissar only stared blankly at the floor for a while, before tilting her head silently forward. "If you don't have anything else, then may I excuse myself, captain? I still have some letters to write."
Anthony's face crunched slightly, and a pang of pity rose in his mind for the poor girl in front of him. He had offered to shoulder the responsibility of writing the notifications, but Marie had insisted that it was her burden and hers alone. "No, I don't have anything more to say," the older man shook his head, "You're free to go, Marie."
The blonde once more brought her arm up in salute, before briskly turning around and exiting the captain's office, then making a beeline to her personal command chamber from which she coordinated her unit. Her mind was still in pieces, trying to formulate a suitable plan for her tasks, but all that she saw was the pale, skinny faces staring at her, and the croaked, hateful cries clawing at her flesh. Marie had never commanded a unit of thirdiers, and she felt utterly rotten in her soul to send these men out on a one-way trip to hell, and nothing she could do to save them truly.
She missed her brother. Her idiotic, lazy, but also loving older brother who would always be there to help her in her times of need. A wise man, though jaded by years of corporate exploitation, surely he would know how to guide her in these bleak days.
Big brother, what should I do?
