Chapter 133 Hardship and Bitter Choice
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
――Demon Continent.
Countless wicked eyes fixed themselves on shifting images. Some gazed into surfaces that resembled mirrors. Others peered into glowing crystals, watching the scenes projected there with unblinking hunger.
???: “…So. Gogog and Gomul have fallen, have they?”
???: “To think such lowly humans managed to bring them down—what disgrace for Demonfolk.”
???: “Fufufu. In the end, those two were never more than bottom-feeders, unfit even to be called true lieutenants of our kind.”
???: “Kukuku. Still, for pawns meant to be discarded, they clung to life longer than expected.”
???: “Well then. Time to move the next piece forward.”
???: “Let them struggle, let them flail as much as they like. The humans cannot change the inevitable.”
???: “In the end, this world belongs to us.”
* * *
”Dammit, what’s going on?! No matter how many we cut down, they just keep coming!”
”Aaahhh—! Crap, I’m hit! Healers! Where are the healing-magic units?!”
”This is bad! We’re running out of arrows! What are the mage troops even doing?!”
”What are you talking about? They’re already out of mana!”
”Uwaaah—the captain’s down! Who’s next in command?!”
”The right wing infantry is breaking! They’re in full retreat! We’re about to be flanked!”
”G—God, help us!!!”
From the day of that so-called “great victory,” only a few weeks had passed—and already the front had become hell incarnate. The moment the demon king’s army was beaten back, the gaping void left in their retreat had begun to fill. Monstrous Beasts surged into it without pause, crashing down upon the Alliance Army day after day, endless and merciless.
No matter how mighty the warrior, if they fought without rest, fatigue would break them. Humans needed food, needed sleep, or else they would collapse. The demon king’s creatures, by contrast, could subsist on meager, crude sustenance, and had no need for safe, comfortable places to rest. Their senses alone—keen enough to detect prey across miles—were their shelter. Worse still, among their ranks were things that required nothing at all: Lost Souls, Bone Soldiers, Wraiths—beasts of ghost and bone that knew neither hunger nor exhaustion.
Low maintenance, overwhelming numbers, and an army that could be hurled forward without pause. It was the sheer cost-performance of this strategy—the unstoppable human-wave tactics—that revealed the true strength of the demon king’s army.
＊＊＊
”We must fight to the end!”
”Are you insane?! Keep this up and we’ll be slaughtered to the last man!”
”No—we must preserve our forces at any cost!”
”My lord, your orders! What shall we do?!”
The chaos was not confined to the battlefield. The Alliance Army’s upper command was divided as well, torn between choices: to keep fighting, or to retreat, saving their soldiers and resources to prepare for the greater battles yet to come.
Either way, the situation was grim.
If they retreated, they would preserve strength, glean lessons from the campaign, and retrain with newfound experience. Yet the price would be humiliation—the loss of honor, prestige, and the despair of their people. If instead they pressed forward with relentless resistance, they would uphold the nobility and reputations of their kings and lords. But the longer the war dragged on, the more it would devour their men, their coffers, and their hope.
”How long will our supplies last?”
The question was asked by Dareios, Royal Knights Commander, entrusted with the Alliance Army’s opening battle by none other than Union King Jack Seron III himself. His hand rubbed unconsciously at the broad scar running across his brow as he spoke, his voice low and heavy. At once, the bickering lords fell silent.
Every nation had its famed elite. The Union Kingdom’s were the Royal Knights, and Dareios their commander. He was more than just a leader; his personal feats were already legend.
Once, when his shield and sword shattered against a Monstrous Beast larger than an elephant, he strangled the creature to death with his bare, log-thick arms. Another time, he leapt into the sky, cleaved a fire-breathing wyvern clean in two from crown to belly with his greatsword. These were tales so outrageous that those who heard them doubted their own ears. But they were true.
And his scarred visage alone was enough to unsettle any room, his sheer presence crushing weaker spirits. Without knowing it, this very man had once terrified a boy named Ayumu so deeply that it drove him to flee at the very beginning of this tale.
”…From current stockpiles… perhaps seven days at most.”
So said a logistics lord. At once, another noble snapped, “Impossible! Where did all those supplies vanish to?!” His ignorance betrayed itself in his outrage; he had no grasp of the sheer labor required to transport and consume those stores.
”Consider,” Dareios said quietly, “two thousand bowguards. Each uses fifty arrows in a single day. Fifty arrows weigh roughly a hundred grams. That’s ten tons of arrows consumed daily. Is it so strange that our stockpiles vanish?”
The logistics lord nodded grimly and elaborated: “Assume a wagon can bear one ton. That means ten wagons just for one day’s arrows. And food must also be supplied—three meals a day, one kilogram per soldier. For ten thousand footsoldiers, that’s ten tons of rations each day, carried across tens of kilometers by horse and hand. And that doesn’t count the food consumed by the transport crews themselves, nor the grass and water needed for the beasts of burden.”
It was enough to quiet even the proudest noble. Their rough estimates were crude, unmeasured, but they were persuasive enough to drive home the point: the labor and cost of supplying armies over distance was monstrous in itself.
Magic did not erase these burdens. Teleportation magic existed, but few could wield it, and the quantity transported was meager. Even the dragonriders of the northeastern empire Nainas found aerial transport costly, for their dragons devoured too much. Magic Bags and Item Pouches—subspace storage tools—existed, but craftsmen were rare, and capacities small. The rare artifacts with vast storage were so precious they were designated national treasures, too dangerous to rely on for everyday supply.
Which was why the loss of Hiyori Sashima, a rare wielder of subspace magic, was so bitter. With her, they could have ferried supplies endlessly, carrying only her person back and forth. But she was gone. Vanished, following after the weakest Hero—Ayumu—the boy they thought dead, only to learn he still lived.
No one had expected to lose a Hero this way. Heroes might fall in battle, yes, but to leave of their own will? To follow the weakest of their kind, whose survival was unthinkable? It was folly. It was betrayal. And yet… what use was regret now?
War demanded cruelty. Heroes or not, losses would come, and sentiment could not be allowed to take root. They had to harden their hearts, for the sake of their homelands, for the lands they must reclaim.
”…In any case, we cannot let our footsoldiers starve. Supplies run thin. There is only one choice left to us. We withdraw.”
Bitter resolve clenched in his scarred face, Dareios forced the words out, knowing it was the only path to survival.
And so the decision spread: the Alliance Army would retreat.
Sayumi Mineyama and others on the front grumbled, but Mineyama herself was in no condition to fight, and the morale of all Heroes save Yukina Yuki had plummeted. The retreat was deemed necessary.
Back they went, falling behind the border once more. Yet they carried with them the hard-won lessons of failure. Their next efforts would be devoted to repairing supply lines, refining strategy, and restoring their strength.
It was a bitter defeat. But it was not the end.
Notes:
• King Jack Seron III – King of the neighboring Union Kingdom.
• Union Kingdom – The neighboring kingdom to Alyurein.
• Hiyori Sashima – A quiet, caring girl from the library committee, empathetic toward Sanai.
• Sashima – Family name of Hiyori. A quiet, caring girl from the library committee, empathetic toward Sanai. She followed as a Barrier Technique Adept.
• Mineyama – Vice class rep, serious and disciplined.
• Sayumi – Vice class rep, serious and disciplined.
• Yukina – Sayumi’s friend, a half-Eastern European girl with silver hair and blue eyes, who offers support and expresses concern about the recent events.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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