Sera leapt down from the wall, and fortunately, she managed to control her momentum well enough to avoid injury upon landing.
Val lay motionless on the ground, blood flowing from his head.
“Val!” A Blight approached from behind Sera, but fortunately, Arturia managed to defeat it before it could reach her.
“Sera!
What are you doing?!” Arturia asked, realizing that Sera was not paying attention to her surroundings.
“Val fell,” Sera answered briefly.
Arturia looked at Val lying on the ground and sighed.
“He’s dead.” Arturia knew that Val had landed headfirst, and judging from the impact, she assumed he was already dead.
Sera looked as though she wanted to deny it, but the sight before her was undeniable.
The image of the corpses she had seen at the mansion resurfaced in her mind, making her realize that something like this could happen again.
“I see…” Sera sighed.
“That’s a shame.” “Fall back!
Fall back inside the building!” Meila shouted loudly, and everyone heard her clearly.
The Blight continued to advance.
Their numbers were several times greater than the forces inside the fortress.
Arturia and Sera moved toward the main building, but a Blight descended from the sky and targeted them.
Arturia tried to block the attack from above, but unfortunately, her sword was knocked from her hand and landed beside Val, its blade piercing into the ground.
Sera shot the Blight down before moving into the building together with Arturia, leaving Val’s body behind.
The humans who had tried to fight back were eventually forced into the main building, while the Blight surrounded them from outside.
The sky grew darker.
Lightning flashed across the clouds, followed by heavy rain that suddenly poured down alongside powerful winds.
A storm had arrived at the worst possible time, causing the soldiers’ morale to plummet even further.
After being forced to retreat inside the building, something strange happened.
The Blight did not break through the doors or attempt to destroy the fortress’s main building.
Instead, they simply stared at the humans from outside, like predators waiting for their prey to come out on its own.
They seemed to be toying with them.
On the other side, the T-rex-like Blight slowly approached the fortress.
Its deep, heavy laughter echoed through the storm, accompanied by a terrifying grin that revealed rows of sharp teeth.
Every step it took left a deep footprint in the ground.
Slowly, the sun disappeared.
Night descended, leaving the fortress shrouded in darkness.
No lights were turned on inside the fortress.
Only corpses scattered across the ground and countless horrifying creatures of various indescribable forms remained outside.
The humans trapped inside the main building did not dare to speak loudly.
Their morale had completely collapsed, and some of them were already on the verge of losing their sanity.
Arturia checked on the wounded soldiers with Sera’s assistance.
Meila stood in front of a window, staring outside.
A Blight could be clearly seen standing outside, silently staring inward through the window.
There was no smile on Meila’s face.
Only a cold expression, as still as a statue.
Meila walked away to check on the soldiers who were still holding out.
Some were sitting weakly against the walls.
Others were curled up in fear.
And some were crying over their fallen comrades.
Everyone was worried about their own survival, thinking that they would not make it through the night.
Arturia approached Meila and asked about her condition.
“Meila, are you hurt?” “No.
You don’t need to worry about me.” Meila looked toward Arturia and noticed that her sword was missing.
“Where’s your sword?” “It was knocked away.” Seeing Arturia reminded Meila of the black-haired man.
“Where is that man named Val?” “That…” BOOM!
Before Arturia could answer, a loud explosion struck the main building.
A powerful tremor shook the entire structure, causing the soldiers’ morale to collapse even further.
“At the very least, we have to hold out until tomorrow.
The transportation from the capital will arrive tomorrow.” Meila still refused to lose hope.
Arturia remained silent as she looked out the window.
She wasn’t sure they could survive until tomorrow.
Elsewhere, Marc could be seen walking quickly past soldiers sitting weakly on the floor.
He knew about the Blight attack, but because he was injured, he had been sent to the underground shelter together with the villagers.
However, he was worried about Sera and immediately went looking for her.
He had never expected the situation to become so chaotic that the soldiers would be forced to retreat into the main building.
Marc looked outside the window.
The Blight were simply standing there, silently staring inward.
He did not understand why they were just standing there, but he knew one thing.
They were being toyed with.
“Why did it come to this?!” Marc was afraid, but he refused to let his fear interfere with him.
Even though the soldiers’ morale had fallen, some of them still refused to give up.
Some continued gripping their weapons.
Others tended to their wounded comrades.
BOOM!
Another explosion echoed through the fortress, shaking the building.
Sera walked around, checking the condition of the soldiers while also searching for Marc.
Suddenly, she collapsed, her face hitting the floor.
She slowly pushed herself back up and realized that her nose was bleeding.
Her hands trembled.
Her legs felt as though they no longer had any strength.
Sera realized that she was afraid.
Val was sitting on top of a rock.
He was standing on a small patch of land no larger than ten square meters.
Endless water surrounded it, while the sky above was dark, dotted with tiny points of light scattered throughout the darkness.
Val looked around, his mind filled with questions.
“Am I dead?
Is this the afterlife?” He could still remember the moments before his vision went dark.
The sudden chaos.
The soldiers being pushed back by the Blight.
“Why did I end up like this?
And how did I even come to this world?” Val still remembered his old life on Earth.
He had been an ordinary young man without any particular hobbies, although he often read manga and novels to relieve his boredom.
His life had never been particularly interesting.
Although he had experienced unpleasant problems with other people, those experiences eventually turned him into an introvert—or, more accurately, someone who struggled to communicate with others.
He had lived in solitude.
He had been abandoned by his younger sibling, the only family he had left.
He had been abandoned by the person he loved, who left with someone else.
He had been falsely accused of something terrible by a coworker despite never committing it, eventually losing his job.
That had become one of the reasons his family and the person he loved left him.
“I forgot all about that after coming to this world.” Val stood and walked forward until his feet touched the water.
He looked down and saw his reflection staring back at him.
“If this is the end, then so be it.” His lifeless face was reflected clearly on the surface of the water.
“Even though it was short, I’m grateful that I was able to forget my old life and end up here.” He showed no sense of conviction within himself.
“My survival plan is useless now anyway.” Val remembered the corpses of the soldiers who had defended the village.
He looked down at his own hands.
He still remembered the soldiers fighting against the Blight.
They knew their lives were on the line, yet they still fought those terrifying creatures and protected the villagers.
Val remembered the determination of the soldiers defending the walls.
The soldiers torn apart by the Blight remained vividly engraved in his mind.
But so did the faces of those desperate soldiers who continued fighting despite everything.
“Why do I remember all of that?” Meila’s face appeared in his mind.
He remembered her interacting with Arturia in the garden, Meila smiling as she teased Arturia and Arturia responding with embarrassment.
Marc’s face also flashed through his mind.
An old, weathered face with a gaze that always looked straight ahead.
“Why…?” Sera’s face appeared next.
Her smile at her mother’s grave remained vivid in Val’s mind.
Arturia’s sword suddenly appeared beside him, embedded in the ground and standing upon the surface of the water.
Val stared at the sword for a moment.
He recognized the shape.
It was Arturia’s sword.
Then he remembered something else.
There were still five bullets remaining from the flintlock that Arturia had confiscated from him.
Val picked up the five bullets.
Indeed, five rounds remained in his palm, although the gunpowder inside them had become damp.
The uncertainty and emptiness within him slowly began to disappear.
They were replaced by something else.
Concern.
And respect for the soldiers.
The five bullets slowly floated above his head and began spinning rapidly.
They continued rotating faster and faster until their temperature increased.
Their color gradually changed, growing brighter as their temperature rose.
Val did not understand what was happening.
But he wanted to return to the battlefield.
He wanted to honor those who had died.
He did not want their struggles to have been meaningless.
With determination, Val tightly gripped the sword.
Under the heavy rain of the storm, surrounded by countless Blight, someone stood in the middle of the battlefield while gripping a sword.
A golden ring formed above his head as the five bullets continued spinning rapidly.
His body was soaked by the rain.
The bleeding from his head had stopped.
The Blight that had previously shown little interest in him now turned their eyes toward him.
“I didn’t die peacefully.” The five bullets continued spinning before suddenly scattering in every direction.
They targeted the surrounding Blight, piercing through their bodies one after another before changing direction and seeking out new targets.
The Blight began moving toward Val, attacking him from every direction.
Val swung his sword forward.
He wielded the two-handed sword with only one hand.
The weapon was long and heavy, far heavier than an ordinary sword.
Even though the blade itself never touched the Blight, the force behind his swing struck them directly.
Several Blight were sliced apart simultaneously.
His crimson eyes glowed in the middle of the storm.
His expression remained emotionless.
But his presence resembled death itself.