Episode 52
Those who had embraced hope and set out for new lands were caught by wandering dead who had never achieved their dreams, torn apart and devoured, flesh and blood.
They numbered over a hundred.
But as if even that were not enough, the wights merely smacked their lips and licked their tongues.
They even fought one another, claiming they would eat each other.
Then they turned their heads.
When one turned, the other wights fixed their gazes in the same direction.
Not far away, a great wall was visible. And though it lay very far, they could feel the presence of *life* there.
Delicious lifeforms with fresh blood and meat.
The wights threw aside the bones left from their meal.
Now there was no *food* here. If they went there, surely more would be waiting.
The wights moved their feet.
When one moved, two moved; when two moved, four, eight… thirty… one hundred… five hundred….
Thus over a thousand wights moved their feet.
The wall of Harma Territory, reaching 15 meters, had long been in a shoddy state due to ongoing monster invasions.
Places with frequent monster attacks must be inspected thoroughly, and broken sections repaired without fail.
But Harma Territory lacked proper supplies, so in addition to wall repairs, they were vulnerable in many areas, including bows, arrows, and siege weapons needed for defensive battles.
“Ugh! You crazy—!”
A soldier on guard duty atop the wall cursed.
The floor he had stepped on moments ago had crumbled, and he had nearly fallen to his death below.
The wall was high; a fall from there would make survival difficult, and even if one survived by luck, they would obviously be crippled.
“Damn it, every time I stand guard here, I feel like I’ll die from anxiety!”
At his words, fellow soldiers sitting on the wall floor, having tossed aside every piece of equipment to play cards, giggled.
“What can you do? That’s reality.”
“Yeah, we don’t even have money to live on—how are we supposed to repair the wall?”
“Besides, the refugees keep increasing, right? Thanks to that, forget wall repairs, even our food has dwindled, so what do you expect?”
“Ahh, why do we just accept this?”
“What can we do? It’s the knights’ decision. They blabber that ‘even refugees are citizens of Lonia!’…”
“Do they even know that while they enjoy lavish meals, we’re digging dirt and tearing out tree roots?”
“Maybe it’s a good thing. If they ask us to send soldiers to the west or east, we can just pick from the refugees, right?”
The soldiers laughed.
As that soldier said, their own safety was highly likely to be guaranteed.
“Ugh, damn it! At this rate, I can’t even retire and live properly. I was going to live in the countryside once this damn war ended… but I don’t even have the money for that! I found quite a nice village, too.”
“Where?”
“That village not far from Harma Territory. There’s a monastery there, about five days on foot?”
“Ah, that place… it burned down.”
The soldier’s eyes went wide.
“What?”
“Looks like it was attacked by bandits.”
“…There’s no safe place anywhere! And it was such a nice village I finally found.”
Other soldiers asked, perhaps out of curiosity.
“Where are you talking about?”
“That place at the mountain foot.”
It was then that the soldier who had misstepped earlier grumbled and pointed toward the mountain with his finger.
“Uh, uh…?”
A group was approaching.
Usually, refugee groups numbered around ten, a hundred at most. But what was visible now was easily over a thousand.
“Refugees…?”
While everyone was puzzled, one soldier shouted.
“No! That’s an army! They’re wearing armor! If it’s blue-based armor… Lonia’s Eastern Army! But why here?! This is neutral territory!”
“D-damn! Their forces are depleted, so they’re invading even here to conscript…”
“No.”
One soldier, face stiffened, pointed at the group approaching Harma Territory.
“……?”
“Look closely. That’s not Lonia’s Eastern Army….”
The soldiers looked in the direction he pointed.
Something was running at high speed.
It, too, wore blue-based armor, but its face was rotting horrifically.
“Those… they’re all wights.”
The sun was setting, drawn into the mountains.
As darkness fell, everyone was putting out candles and locking their doors to sleep quietly.
“Everyone, get up!”
“Emergency!”
“Those who can move, grab weapons!”
“Gather anything that can be used as a weapon!”
Soldiers ran about urgently with torches. They woke people in every house and dragged refugees from the streets.
At the sudden commotion, the territory’s residents looked bewildered but anxious.
Soldiers burst into the inn where Roki had been resting while examining a continental map.
“……?”
“You, you were an apothecary, right?”
“…I am but an herbalist?”
“Anyway, you can assess the condition of wounded or sick patients, can’t you?”
Roki did not like the soldier shouting so rudely.
Behind the soldier, through the inn’s entrance, Roki saw numerous soldiers running urgently and asked out of curiosity.
“What is going on?”
“…A plague horde is coming here. You all prepare, too.”
“A plague horde?”
He had heard of a horde of rebels, but what was a horde of plague?
As Roki stood there puzzled, the soldier groaned and spoke.
“It’s Worm Pest. Wights infected by Worm Pest are heading here. We need every single person mobilized now.”
Fewer than 800 people gathered atop the wall.
They were soldiers in name only, without proper weapons or armor. The only weapons on the wall were hot water, stones rolling about on the floor, and bows and arrows.
Even among the conscripted were elderly old men and young boys.
By equipment and soldier quality alike, this was not a battle they could win.
“Shouldn’t we… run? It’s the plague! Ordinary people can’t fight that!”
“C-can’t we go out the back gate?”
“No use. Look at that speed! No matter how hard you run, they’ll catch up before long.”
At the refugees’ despairing voices, the commander shouted.
“It’s fine! Even if they are a terrifying plague horde, they have no combat experience! They are less than intelligent monsters! Besides, our numbers are not much different from theirs! To capture a castle in a siege requires twice the defenders’ numbers! We will never fall!”
It was something one of the few knights on the wall said to raise morale, but it was not convincing at all.
It was the refugees who lacked experience even more.
Above all, they had no proper weapons, and their opponents were monsters whose very bodies could not be cut by swords or blocked by shields.
Moreover, a single bite carried a fatal infectious disease that could swell their ranks.
Without the wall, they would become prey without even being able to resist, let alone achieve victory.
Roki came up to the wall to observe the situation. Salret and Ash followed him.
Roki muttered as if mocking the commander’s words.
“…Even with the wall, there’s no winning this.”
Salret turned deathly pale at the black horde running from afar and hid behind Roki, and Ash’s reaction was not much different.
Ash, face pale, asked Roki, desperate to survive.
“What are you going to do? You aren’t staying here like this!”
“Indeed. We shouldn’t get needlessly entangled in troublesome affairs. Let’s leave this place.”
At Roki’s words, Ash pointed a trembling finger at the thousand or so wights charging toward them.
“Leave? Did you say that looking at that?! You and I will become their food the moment we step outside!”
“Not me. You, perhaps.”
At Roki’s jesting tone, Ash gaped. Then he turned his gaze back to the wights and stepped back.
“We… must stay here. That’s safer! They aren’t human. But they aren’t intelligent like monsters either. Those things won’t be able to climb up here!”
He was right.
Wights were beings created when a ‘plant’ known as Worm Plague parasitized them. There was no way they could conduct a siege.
However, they did know how to use ‘weapons.’
After all, when Roki had been in the village where he met Salret, the wights had wielded swords and spears.
If so….
‘It’s not as though they couldn’t use ladders. But such things probably don’t register to them.’
Most were empty-handed.
Normally, if the enemy was unarmed, there was no chance of winning a siege. No matter how powerful a monster.
Roki observed those wights with narrowed eyes.
‘But those things possess terrifying physical abilities.’
Roki had a premonition.
This siege… was humanity’s defeat.
The wights looked at the soldiers on the wall, eyes reddening, mouths gaping wide.
Their skin tore as if their jaws would dislocate. Between the tears, black blood and Worm Plague flowed out.
—Kreeeeeh!
A terrible shriek poured from its mouth, and one rushed with all its might toward Harma Territory.
The wight that had been running on two legs now ran on all fours like a beast.
Though in human form and wearing armor, they charged at speeds no human could achieve.
When one took the lead, the rest quickly followed.
“Hey! Fire the catapults!”
At the knight’s command, the soldiers loaded stones.
Though called catapults, what Harma Territory had were small ones that at most gathered stones the size of an adult’s head to throw.
Normally, such engines would be effective against large armies, but….
“Launch!”
The knight drew his sword and shouted, and the catapult arms swung up violently and flung forward. The loaded stones scattered, and countless rocks fell on the wights like meteors.
Most stones fell between the wights, but those that struck knocked them aside with heavy thuds.
“They’re effective!”
The knights brightened, but Roki smacked his lips.
“…They’re not effective.”
The wights struck and knocked down by the stones twitched and rose shortly after. Those whose heads had been cracked moved without inconvenience, charging at high speed.
They were monsters whose entire bodies were both armor and sword. Above all, they were as tenacious as undead.
“……?!”
“They didn’t die?”
“Keep throwing!”
Stones kept raining down.
But the wights dodged or took the blows and charged again as if nothing had happened.
Their speed was comparable to trained cavalry.
In human form but running on all fours, dripping black blood and maggots from their mouths, they evoked demons from hell.
“Th-they’re coming?!”
The soldiers were terrified.
They were frightened by the wights charging at terrifying speed. But soon, heavy sounds surprised everyone.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The wights reached the wall and leaped at their prey, but the wall was 15 meters high.
It was a height no monster could leap over.
The wights threw their bodies against the wall with what seemed like mindless stupidity, but unable to overcome the impact, they bounced off.
“…Ha, haha… What?! These guys are stupid!”
At one man’s cry, those who had been frightened all cheered.
They thought that if these creatures didn’t know how to scale the wall, it was a won game.
But….
That hope slowly vanished.