Bandits fell one by one.
We had been defending from the high ground to begin with, and with our numerical advantage added on top of that,
the tide of battle gradually seemed to be turning in our favor.
“Did we win...?”
“Mm...”
There were still some bandits left beyond the moat, but the group that had looked to be fifty strong at first had already been reduced to less than half.
In other words, it was fair to say we had all but won.
But there was no reason for me to open my mouth and raise a flag for no reason.
“Get lost, you damned bastards!”
“Go suck on your mothers’ tits some more!”
“Don’t get worked up! Reform the line!”
The morale of the soldiers and mercenaries was rising visibly.
Hope was spreading that, at this rate, we could definitely drive them back.
That was when it happened.
Boom!
A sudden impact.
The wall shook violently once again.
But this time was different from before.
There was no ear-splitting explosion, no storm of flying fragments.
If it wasn’t an explosion that had happened on our side, then what on earth—
“Captain! The western wall is under attack!!”
“...What?”
From below the wall, an urgent voice rang out.
We had thought this was the only battlefield.
But that misconception had merely been a brief moment of calm.
The bandits had never intended to honestly charge through the gate in the first place.
“Then what’s happening over there?”
“For now, the public order unit has set out—”
Kwaaang!
A sudden roar.
This time, the explosion struck our ears from somewhere much closer.
For an instant, the ground trembled, and dust rushed through the gaps in the wall.
“Ah, fuck... It’s inside the city! Pull the spare men back!”
“Yes, sir!”
As if on cue, everyone turned around.
The soldiers who had been pushing back the bandits clinging to the wall just moments ago now began to retreat, fearing what lay behind them.
The inside of the city had been breached.
The rear was no longer safe.
“Damn it, what kind of bullshit is this?”
“Then what do we do?”
At the bad news, Baldik and Aileen looked at me with anxious eyes.
When both of their gazes fell on me at once, I instinctively shut my mouth.
...Why are you looking at me?
I’m just an ordinary person who got shoved into another world.
Everyone’s eyes were silently fixed on me.
Those gazes settled heavily on my chest.
As if I had become the commander of this battlefield.
I knew nothing properly about swordsmanship, magic, or strategy, yet somehow, I was expected to take responsibility for this situation.
It was far too heavy a burden for me.
Just then, someone hurriedly ran up from below the stairs.
“Survivors on the wall!”
“Yes, are we supposed to go?”
The breathless soldier nodded roughly.
“Yeah, west! The western wall is in danger! Move out immediately!”
Leaving only those words behind, the soldier ran back down again.
Without even a moment to rest, everyone was being shoved into the next crisis.
“We should get out, even now...”
Baldik muttered lowly, glancing outside the wall.
“If we go out, it’s crawling with those guys.”
Sailun shot back immediately.
He shook his head, still panting for breath.
“Fuck me, we’re really screwed.”
Baldik clenched his teeth.
Escape was an instinctive judgment.
But this was a situation where that couldn’t be the answer.
Outside was full of bandits, and there was no way we could cut through all of them alone.
In the end, whether we fought here or went out to die,
only extreme options remained.
“...Let’s go.”
“...Damn it.”
There was nothing else we could do.
We ran toward the western wall.
The closer we got to the site, the clearer the sounds of battle became.
Clang! Clang! Crunch!
The sound of metal clashing, something breaking, and someone screaming.
“When are they coming!”
“Hold on! They’ll be here soon!”
There were soldiers on the wall fighting against the bandits.
Their numbers were pitifully lacking.
Fifteen, no, fourteen?
That small group was barely holding back the bandits swarming in like cockroaches.
Beyond the gap breached in the wall, bandits were pouring in endlessly.
Like a river bursting through a broken embankment.
With no time to catch their breath, the front line was being pushed farther and farther back.
The soldiers who had been barely holding out by firing arrows from atop the wall
saw us, and life returned to their eyes.
“Reinforcements!”
“We’re saved!”
Below, soldiers and mercenaries came running in a mixed crowd.
They immediately joined the line, and the collapsing front was caught once more.
Looking at that opening, I thought briefly to myself.
‘I can’t miss this chance.’
I gripped the frame of the wall tightly and looked down.
The moat dug into the inside of the castle, and the makeshift wooden bridge spanning it.
The reason the bandits were pouring in without pause was obvious.
It was exactly the same as the scene we had seen at the gate earlier.
The soldiers seemed to have grasped the situation as well and shot flaming arrows at it, but—
“What the hell, it won’t burn?”
“Damn it, they must have soaked it in water beforehand!”
The bandits seemed to have prepared in advance.
The makeshift bridge was damp, and even when arrows struck it, they only sank in with a dull thud.
It did not catch fire.
The bandits trampled over it as if chewing their way across, carving a single path into the city.
‘If we leave it like this... we’ll get pushed back again.’
I clenched my teeth.
I had used a lot of strength in the earlier fight.
More than half the mana in my body was already gone.
‘I have to destroy that.’
I gripped my staff tightly and ran to the edge of the wall.
“Aileen! Baldik! I’m going to destroy the bridge! Go down and hold them off!”
At my shout, the two responded immediately.
Aileen adjusted her grip on her sword and prepared to go down with the soldiers atop the gate.
Baldik came toward me and nodded.
“You sure you’ll be okay?”
My canteen was empty, and there was no water left on my staff either.
Even so, there was a way.
“Hold out just a little. I’ll draw water up from the moat.”
With that answer, I closed my eyes and focused my mana.
Beneath the gate, I sensed the moisture in the moat.
Muddy water flowing slowly beneath the cold surface.
I closed my eyes and gripped my staff tightly.
After taking a short deep breath, I slowly awakened the mana remaining in my body.
The distance was rather far, so I had to concentrate even more.
The mana eventually seeped deep into the moat, and the cold water began to stir faintly.
Slosh, slosh.
With the tip of my staff as the center, the water beneath the surface began to swirl and slowly be drawn upward.
Swaaaaaash!
“What is that...!”
As a stream of water began to surge into the air, the eyes of everyone nearby turned toward me all at once.
Below the wall, in the center of the battlefield, a blue dragon was rising into the sky.
“Look at that. Is that really water moving?”
“A mage... Don’t tell me it’s him?”
At the unfamiliar sight, the soldiers’ faces twisted with surprise and wariness.
The bandits crossing the bridge also flinched and took a step back.
With every gaze fixed on me, I tightly compressed the current at the tip of my staff.
‘More, more...! Ugh!’
Mana pushed to its limit brought a stinging pain to my heart.
But it was fine. The preparations were already complete.
I drew in a deep breath and fired the fully compressed blue sphere toward the bridge.
[Water Bomb]
Shwaaaaak.
The gathered mass of water shot out diagonally in a sharp line.
The stream roared as it tore through the air,
Kwaaaaang!!!
and slammed into the center of the bridge.
“Uwaaaaaaaaah!”
The wooden connecting bridge shattered into pieces and split apart in an instant.
Several bandits who had been crossing it sank into the water without even a scream.
“The bridge collapsed!”
“Those bastards are completely isolated, aren’t they?”
“Kill them! Don’t let them get out of here!”
Once the bridge was cut off, the bandits who had crossed over were completely isolated.
They could go neither forward nor back, truly trapped on all sides.
“Don’t fall back! We’re dead either way!”
“You son of a bitch, don’t push! Behind me!”
“Uwaaaaaah!”
A few bow-wielding bandits remaining on the hill behind tried firing arrows,
but their view was already blocked by the backs of their comrades, and the arrows they loosed indiscriminately threatened their own allies more than their enemies.
“It’s over now!”
“Push them!! Kill them all!!!”
The bandits collapsed quickly.
Their escape route was already completely blocked, and the tide had clearly turned in our favor.
The soldiers and mercenaries surged in at once. Swords, shields, and all kinds of weapons dug sharply into the bandits’ openings.
“Those bastards are abandoning us and running!”
“Kill them all!”
The bandits’ screams mixed with the soldiers’ shouts.
Hot blood splashed over the dirt.
In that moment, my body clearly felt that something had ended.
When the last one fell to the ground, leaving behind a brief scream,
only then did the wall grow quiet.
Panting for breath, one soldier shouted.
“...We won! We won!!”
Immediately after, the inside of the fortress filled with cheers.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
Some burst out in joy, while others, exhausted of all strength, sank to the ground and quietly prayed toward the sky.
Inside the walls, people were busy moving injured soldiers, and some sat with their helmets off, resting their weary bodies.
“...We won.”
Sailun rubbed his face with a bloodstained hand. He looked utterly exhausted from drawing his bowstring.
His eyes were blank, as if his mind had not fully returned yet.
The strength drained out of the hand I had braced on my staff as well.
My knees trembled, and I slumped down against the wall.
“Huuu...”
I survived. I survived again. Somehow, again.
I breathed in and out roughly.
That really had not been easy.
There had been no direct threat I had to face head-on, but a single mistake at any moment would have meant the end.
There were so many of them, enduring to the end was no joke, and especially those guys who blew themselves up.
At first, I had thought, ‘Are they just crazy bastards?’ but after thinking it over, that wasn’t it.
Those were dangerous weapons someone had deliberately made.
What on earth was the purpose?
If they had become bandits to survive, then why commit suicide?
No matter how I thought about it, it wasn’t normal behavior.
It made no sense unless there was something hidden behind it.
At least it was fortunate that I hadn’t taken the lead.
Wasn’t that what a mage was supposed to be? One decisive shot at the crucial moment.
If anything, it was strange that I had been standing in the front line and fighting until now.
...But no matter how I think about it, it’s strange.
Even if they had the advantage before thanks to their surprise attack, from what I could see, our side was far stronger. So why did they charge in?
Even without my magic, the city side would have gained the advantage as time passed.
I couldn’t tell if they were stupid, or if they had some other plan.
Looking down below the wall, I saw Baldik sitting with his back turned, while Aileen dusted the dirt off her armor and caught her breath.
Both of them were a complete mess, but when Aileen spotted me, she forced a smile and waved.
“It’s over.”
“Looks like it.”
Baldik climbed the stairs slowly with his helmet tucked under his arm.
Traces of the fierce melee that had taken place below were left all over his armor.
He flopped down beside me.
“...It ended more easily than I thought.”
“...Yeah. Honestly, I was scared shitless until those monster-like guys showed up, but in the end, they were still just bandit bastards.”
The soldiers’ performance had been especially noticeable.
In a game, they would have been nothing more than village NPCs, but real soldiers were definitely different.
With trained bodies and good equipment, they had no choice but to shine when fighting bandits.
Seeing one soldier face three enemies alone made it clear they could never be underestimated.
Of course, that soldier had been finished off immediately by a stray arrow.
Looking at things like that, this place really was brutal. Seriously.
While I was exchanging various words with Baldik, Aileen belatedly climbed the stairs as well.
She looked at me and said,
“Are you all right?”
“Me? I was only up here. Are you all right?”
“Yes!”
Had she already adapted to this situation too?
Whether she had always been highly adaptable or not, she looked much better than Sailun, who was still sitting there in a daze.
‘Is adapting to a place like this a good thing?’
The question suddenly surfaced in my mind.
But in order to survive in a world like this, maybe this wasn’t a choice but a necessity.
Squelch, sssrk. Squelch, sssrk.
Some strange sound caught my ear.
It sounded like mud being stepped on, or perhaps like blood-soaked cloth brushing against something.
“...?”
Just as I was about to lean my head out beyond the wall, someone shouted loudly.
“Th-the corpses are moving!”
At those words, everyone looked toward the battlefield.
Since when had it begun?
The corpses scattered across the ground were sliding together into one place, as if pulled by invisible strings.
Severed arms, crushed skulls, even burst entrails.
Blood-soaked flesh and streams of blood flowed in from all directions and clumped together.
“...What the hell is that?”
A pile of corpses tangled with clots of blood and chunks of flesh rounded into an egg-like shape and began to tremble, as though it were alive.
Thump—
It sounded like a heartbeat.
The soldiers instinctively drew their bowstrings. But the arrows they loosed were all deflected, as if blocked by an invisible wall.
Thump—
Another pulse.
Sticky pieces of meat clung to the surface of the mass and fell away, twisting the body. It looked as though something inside was about to hatch.
“Is something coming out...?”
One soldier flinched and stepped back.
Riiip. Riiiiip.
The surface of the mass split open as if being torn apart.
A long arm burst out from between the wet flesh.
It looked like a human arm, but the fingertips had transformed into sharp blades.
Then legs and a head emerged in turn.
“...Impossible.”
Screams erupted among the soldiers.
The monster had four limbs like it was imitating a person, but its entire body was a soft, sagging tangle of mud and lumps of meat.
The monster had no eyes and no mouth.
But it was unmistakably alive.
Someone shouted.
“Fall back! Reform the line!”
But no one could move.
Terrified legs, trembling hands.
The moment the monster appeared, everyone froze, holding their breath.
‘We’re screwed.’
That was the first thought that crossed my mind.