Volume 7 Chapter 5 The Funeral Procession and the Final Footsteps
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The thick trees choke the morning light.
The sky is gone. I only feel time slipping away. My body heat drains from my fingertips.
How much space is left? How tightly are we packed? My eyes cannot tell anymore. I have to measure by the steps and the wheels catching in the mud.
We stopped.
When we stop, the crowd behind pushes forward. When we are pushed, the crowd gets tighter. When it gets tighter, breathing becomes hard. I fear being pushed. I fear being unable to move. If arrows strike where I cannot move, I cannot run.
”…It’s no use. The gears won’t turn,” the repair man muttered. His voice was short and stiff.
Beside me, the repair man clears his throat. His voice is hard. That hardness tells me it is broken before he even speaks.
I reach into the tool bag with shaking hands. My fingertips touch something wet. Sweat? Mud? Or perhaps someone’s blood.
Since entering the forest, a broken machine means something different. It is no longer about whether it can be fixed. It is about whether we can finish before we die.
The shouting gets louder. I clench my back teeth. I fear that if the noise grows, the forest will remember us.
A messenger returns. His face is covered in sweat. It is not a normal, healthy dampness. His eyes are wild and desperate. He is no longer looking at people.
His words break apart. They have no meaning.
From the other side, another messenger arrives. He yells opposite orders. When orders break, the men on the ground stop thinking. The line jams on its own.
”We can’t find a line of fire! The smoke hides everything!” the gun commander roared. His voice was tight with army tension.
The gun commander screams. Each word is light, yet they hit the ground with the weight of lead.
At that moment, the air tore open in the haze ahead.
Thud-DOOM……!
I thought it was thunder. But for thunder, the ground shakes too hard. The shake drives up from my feet to my bones.
From the front, a wave of human screams rises. I cannot understand what they are saying. They are too far away. Only the sound of voices tearing their throats out reaches me. It comes through the yellow mist.
What happened? What happened ahead?
No one answers. There is no one around me who knows.
I go back to the repair work. I move my hands, looking for something to fix. It will not be perfect. I only need to make it able to fire.
Water grips the machine. Mud works its way into the gears. The Magic Stone dust is wet. The dry, bitter smell is gone. My hands shake as I put on the oil. It is not even cold, yet I shiver.
I need a cloth. I need a rag to wipe this away.
It makes sense that cloths are sent to the medical station.
It makes sense, but the more normal things seem, the more I sink into our own lack of help.
Again, a sound rings out in the distance.
Farther than before. A muffled roar, like distant thunder. The ground shakes faintly.
From the front, thin, bleeding screams cut through the fog. Different from before. Thinner. Farther away.
My hands stop. I cannot move. I still grip the tool.
Then, a human avalanche comes from the front.
Stretchers, blood, broken spears, and shattered screams.
”My leg! My leg is broken!” the man screamed. His voice was tight and panicked.
”Move! Get out of the way!”
The man screaming has a voice that is even more broken.
When voices break, people lose control. When they lose control, the line falls apart. Through the gaps, something sneaks in.
A short burst of gunfire.
But sparse. Too sparse. The crowd is too thick. There is nowhere to aim.
The moment I realize that, the soldier next to me grabs his chest. He drops to his knees.
No sound. No pull of a bowstring, no whistle of wind. Nothing.
Only the dull thud of his body falling. The wetter the ground, the softer the sound of death. A soft sound feels like a dream. It feels unreal, which makes it more terrifying.
Beasts would howl. Monsters would reek.
This, however, smells of a familiar way of killing. The way humans do it.
”Karl!” someone shouted. The name was lost in the fog.
Someone screams. No reply. The scream dissolves into the fog.
The circle of torches dims. The darkness deepens.
As it gets darker, distance vanishes. When distance vanishes, only terror clings to my skin.
And then, that terror suddenly took shape.
Within the circle of torches, a group of soldiers vanishes. They were packed together, but now an unnatural circle is empty.
A gap, as if they had simply been erased.
It is dark. Yet, it is bright enough to burn the eyes.
The screams stop halfway. Snap. The moment the voice is cut, the wind pressure hits my back. Heat… no, it is not heat. It is as if the air turned inside out. It feels like a vacuum sucked everything in.
……Kiiiiiing
The loud silence that follows.
My eardrums ache, though there is no sound. I quickly press my hand over the burn scar on my left arm. It should not hurt now. The old pain is pulled up by the present terror.
The line is completely broken.
Some try to move forward. Some try to flee to the rear. Some try to slip sideways.
The one who tried to slip sideways returns the next moment.
He is pushed back by an unseen force. His feet slide backward on their own. Before he knows it, he is back in his first spot. It was as if the forest itself had erased the way out.
”There’s no exit!”
”No way, the road we came from…!”
The number of missing things grows. Orders fragment. Judgments break. The pieces fall into the mud.
The air behind me suddenly grows cold.
A chill brushes against the back of my neck. Goosebumps rise.
Before I can turn around, a hard impact strikes the back of my head.
BANG.
Light flashes behind my eyes. My mind turns white. My knees buckle on their own.
Before the pain hits, the world twists. The ground jumps up to meet my face.
I try to protect the tool bag. I cannot. My fingers grasp at empty air.
Something is pulled over my head. Rough cloth. The smell of sweat, soil, and something alien. My vision goes pitch black.
When I inhale, the fibers of the cloth stick to my throat. When I cough, my head swims.
I try to scream, but no sound comes out. It is swallowed by the noise around me.
The next moment, my arms are pulled behind my back. My joints scream.
Something hard wraps around my wrists. Fast. The knot pulls tight, and I cannot move.
My ankles, too. A rope binds the back of my knees. My body is folded so I cannot escape.
A series of sharp sounds fly from all around. Are they talking? The sound of breathing out is loud. Even in a whisper, they ring out like blades.
I understand nothing. The sounds just batter my ears. Sometimes, a very short phrase in Common tongue mixes in. A hard, stiff way of speaking. Awkward.
My body floats. I am lifted. My stomach is pressed against a shoulder. My breath is crushed out of me. I feel like vomiting. I sway up and down. It is sick and painful. I cannot breathe. My head feels like it is spinning.
Between the bumps, the distant screams fade away. They are fading, but I do not feel saved. I have been picked up. To be picked up means there is a use for me. I have been captured.
”Haa… huff…”
My own rough breathing echoes inside the cloth bag.
My breath is hot. Every time I inhale, the smell of soil and sweat clings to my throat.
My body drops a few times, as if missing a step. My shoulder bone creaks. They are running with incredible speed. Carrying me.
I am awake. It is agony. I have no idea where I am being taken.
The rhythm of the swaying changes. The ground turns hard. I hear the sound of moving over stone.
I cannot count distance or direction. Only time stretches out.
The air changes, turning cold.
The smell of stone. Wet stone. Low light.
Even when the bag is removed, my eyes cannot adjust. It is not bright, yet it feels blinding.
My wrists hurt. My ankles hurt. The rope bites into my skin, which burns with heat.
There are voices around me. Muffled voices. Groans. The sound of gasping breaths.
I can see now.
We are shoved into a stone room like livestock.
It is cold. The stone is cold. The floor is cold, stealing my warmth.
My sweat cools, and my body shivers. I cannot stop the shaking.
People are crammed together here. Twenty, maybe fewer. Even though they are close enough to see, the darkness hides their faces.
This is a prison. A room built as a cell. The corners are rounded. That roundness strips away any hope of escape.
Without thinking, I look for someone I know. The urge is strongest when I am afraid.
Anna is there. Next to me. Hugging her knees.
”Anna…!” I gasped. My voice was thin and desperate.
Anna’s eyes remained steady. They were focused.
Only Anna’s eyes are calm. Looking into those eyes makes me feel slightly at ease. I am not alone.
Anna speaks. Her mouth barely moves.
”Don’t. Make. A sound. They’re listening outside.”
Outside. That one word makes my back go cold.
Beyond the door, those blade-like whispers leap out. I do not understand them, but the sounds are cold. Sometimes, a very short phrase in Common tongue mixes in. Hard, stiff speaking. Are they checking names?
A voice calls out from the depths of the darkness.
”Listen. Do not say anything unnecessary.” Lieutenant General von Zeck commanded. His voice was a low, heavy weight in the darkness.
Lieutenant General von Zeck is sitting there. He wears the darkness like a coat.
He lowers his voice. Yet, even lowered, it makes the air in the cell hard.
”Do not speak. If you must speak, die here instead. Traitors face execution. If you break your silence, your entire Protagonist family goes with you.”
These are not words to crush fear. They are words that name it. Once named, it becomes real.
Someone stops breathing. They hold it tight.
”Hii… hyaaaaaa!” Liese shrieked. Her voice broke in the darkness.
The unseen darkness screams. That is Liese’s voice. Liese is here. A voice that sounds like she has lost her mind.
The man next to me tries to lean toward me but stops. I knew he had stopped.
”Erika. It’s not over yet,” Corporal Johann murmured. His eyes were fixed ahead.
Corporal Johann is there. He speaks. His mouth barely moves.
”Erika. It’s not over yet.”
His voice is close, yet it feels far away. The shapes of the words hit my ears, but the meaning cannot enter my mind.
The sound of the door scraping. The sound of stone locking. The sound of my own heart. The last one is louder.
Anna grabs the edge of my sleeve. Her fingers are cold. It is so painfully real I want to cry.
Only Anna’s voice is close. It feels like it is inside the cloth bag.
”Erika. Breathe. You are here, right now.”
I inhale just as I am told. My chest hitches once. My breathing, which had almost stopped, returns.
I try to reply but fail. No voice comes out.
Still, I nod, just a fraction.
A key scrapes. The sound of stone moving.
The door opens. The light outside is weak and flickering. The stone room is too dark for the light to cut through. It only flickers.
Two shadows enter. Shadows with broad shoulders. I know they are men.
I cannot see their faces. But the area around their ears sticks out. There is a sharpness to them. The edges of their shadows go beyond a human shape.
Their breathing is frequent. Whispers that feel like blades. It is terrifying that their sounds are calmer than anyone’s breathing in this cell.
One of the shadows drops a name in awkward Common tongue.
”…Zeck.”
The air in the cell sinks.
The Lieutenant General stands. The way he stands is not how one stands in a cell. It is a soldier’s stance. His back does not yield.
He does not look back. He simply leaves a curse behind in a low voice.
”Don’t speak. Assume you will be executed even if you return.”
He leaves, flanked by the shadows. The door closes. The sound of stone locking.
That sound stretches time inside the cell.
When the door opens next, there are again two shadows.
The same movements. No wasted motion. That is why it is terrifying.
A name drops.
”…Rudolf.”
The staff officer looks once at the spot where the Lieutenant General had been sitting. Then he stands.
He leaves without a word. The door closes.
Next.
The Chief of Staff’s name drops.
”…Weiss.”
Colonel Weiss. The Chief of Staff. Only his title still stands.
He almost turns around on his way out but stops himself. The door closes.
From then on, no one returned.
The Lieutenant General did not return. No one returned.
At first, I just thought they were slow.
But when slow becomes long, it is no longer just “slow.”
They do not return. While they do not return, the door opens again. The next name drops. The next back disappears.
No one speaks. No one says a word.
But I know everyone is swallowing the same words.
They might have been killed.
Here. On the other side. Outside the stone.
There is no way to check what is happening. Because we cannot check, our imaginations run wild. We imagine the worst.
Each time the door opens, the number of breaths in the cell decreases.
Amidst the decreasing breaths, things remain.
Fragments. Sounds. Short words. The movement of eyes.
Only those cut into my memory and will not leave.
When Chief Technician Kessler is called, he says without looking at me:
”Don’t say anything about the tools. Before our lives, the tools will die.”
Two shadows approach. Their sharp ears twitch.
The door closes.
That is it. Kessler does not return. My superior.
Dietrich is called, too. The man who shouts for the cannons leaves without shouting.
Right before he exits, he spits out:
”I won’t let them. I won’t let those bastards touch the cannons.”
That is it. Dietrich does not return.
When Karl Schulz is called, it mixes with the screams from the forest earlier.
Karl stands and says in a low voice:
”Glory to the Empire.”
That is it. Karl Schulz does not return.
Corporal Johann tries to say something, then leaves without saying it.
Anna hugs me tightly. I hug her back, just as hard.
Anna whispers in my ear.
”Live.”
No voice comes out. My throat is clogged. I cried. I cried without making a sound.
Only the fragments grow.
The rule, that they do not return, only grows heavier.
As the names are called more, the cell becomes quieter.
The quieter it gets, the better the blade-like whispers are heard.
The better they are heard, the more my own heartbeat gets in the way.
It gets in the way, yet I cannot stop it. If it stops, it is over.
I don’t want to count, but I count anyway.
More than ten people have been taken.
The number who returned is zero.
The number zero is heavy. Too heavy. It loses all reality. The less real it feels, the colder my body becomes.
Each time the door opens, the outside air is slightly different.
Cold. Wet. The smell of stone is thick.
Only that difference tells me time. I do not know how much time has passed. It is more terrifying not to know.
Toward the end, the air changed.
The outside air felt colder than ever before. The moment the door opened, the chill rushed in.
The light flickers weakly. For an instant, the walls of the stone room appear. They appear, then sink back into darkness.
A shadow looks at me.
The sharp point of its ear turns toward me.
A hard, stiff Common tongue drops.
The name drops more clearly than ever before.
”…Erika.”
It is my turn.
My legs, which should not be able to stand, stand. The moment I stand, my knees shake. Even if they shake, I do not fall.
If I fall, I feel that everything I have seen until now will have been for nothing. I do not want it to be for nothing. That is more terrifying than death.
The image of my own tool bag flashes in my mind. That weight, dropped somewhere.
I do not look back. If I look back at the empty cell, I feel like all the darkness will collapse inward toward me.
The air beyond the door is cold.
The blade-like whispers are close.
I step outside.
Behind me, the sound of stone locking echoes.
Whether I can return is no longer in my hands.
Even so, my feet are still kicking the soil.
That faint vibration is what I have decided to call living.
—
Summary:
Erika and her comrades are trapped in a claustrophobic, chaotic military retreat through a dense forest where an unseen enemy systematically picks them off. Amidst the chaos of collapsing lines and confusion, Erika is captured and imprisoned in a cold, stone cell with other survivors. One by one, the prisoners are called out by unseen, inhuman entities, never to return, until only Erika remains to face the inevitable.
—
Trivia:
The forest itself seems to possess a predatory quality, “remembering” the noise of the soldiers.
The captors possess physically distinct features, specifically sharp, extended ears that deviate from human anatomy.
The “Common tongue” spoken by the captors is described as hard, stiff, and awkward, implying it is not their native language.
The prisoners’ fear is heightened by the absence of sound, specifically the lack of traditional combat noises like bowstrings or wind-cutting.
The prisoners are explicitly warned that speaking or revealing information leads to execution, not just for themselves but for their families.
Notes:
• Karl – A mechanic with a hunched back who works in the underground workshop alongside Erika.
• Zeck – Commander of the Empire’s Eastern Expeditionary Force. He wears a luxurious military uniform and carries a saber, favoring heavy artillery bombardment as a solution to problems.
• Johann – A sergeant with pale eyes who relies on Erika for the maintenance of his equipment.
• Erika – A twenty-three-year-old female mechanic with golden hair dulled by oil, blue eyes, and dark circles under her eyes. She carries a burn scar on her left arm and struggles with dissociation.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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