9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 206 - Damier (1)

“Hello, everyone. Your friend who always brings you fast and accurate news, Sophia Kohl here.

The Eastern Front has entered winter as well, but the heat of war shows no signs of cooling. Yesterday’s estimated casualties were around 17,600 for the Schufaben side and about 14,000 for Rubellia. That’s a bit higher than usual. No wonder, considering the particularly fierce battle that took place. The Rubellia trenches almost got completely breached, weren’t they? Unfortunately for you Schufaben soldiers, you were ultimately stopped at the final defensive line.

Still, it’s quite remarkable how the war situation got turned around with Ferint joining the fray. Truly worthy of being called Supreme Leader Kruger’s secret weapon, wouldn’t you say? Oh, how did I know Ferint appeared, you ask? Well, from up here you can see quite a lot more than you’d think.

If there are beings who wrap themselves in amazing magic and obliterate an entire trench in an instant, they could only be Ferint, couldn’t they? Don’t worry about me, everyone. Ferint can’t climb up into the clouds either. I just need to run away quickly. The only ones who could chase me are the Schufaben air force, but I hear they were decimated on the southern front not long ago.

Oh, speaking of which, let me share the Schufaben news you’ve all been dying to hear. I already reported that Ossel was disbanded, right? The aftermath seems to be causing quite serious security gaps. These days most citizens depend on rations, but the rationing system has become terribly disrupted. The police are too overwhelmed dealing with protesters to have any capacity left to supervise distribution. I keep hearing reports of hungry people grinding up old turnips to make bread, or eating sawdust. It’s truly heartbreaking…”

Ralph Brandt lay blankly in the trench, listening to the cheerful woman’s voice drifting down from the sky.

It must be echoing loudly up there. Down here on the ground, it’s just the right volume to listen to comfortably. Of course, when there’s bombing or fighting, it gets completely drowned out, but when that happens Sophia Kohl wisely suspends her broadcast.

The broadcasts that used to happen briefly every few days had become quite systematic over the months. Perhaps because there wasn’t enough air force left to stop that airship.

The officers gnashed their teeth and sternly ordered the soldiers never to listen. They even went so far as to make earplugs from scarce supplies and distribute them. But hardly any soldiers followed orders. Even Ralph himself was listening to her voice like it was light entertainment, despite knowing full well that those grim reports were eating away at his heart.

Snow is falling.

White snowflakes were drifting down from the gloomy sky with gentle rustling sounds.

Ralph opened his mouth to catch the snowflakes. Along with the cold sensation, the snow crystals melted away, moistening his parched tongue.

The canteen at his waist was completely empty. He’d have to scoop some snow into it when he had the energy later.

Clean drinking water was hard to come by here now.

The rear areas with water pipes installed were far away, and fuel for boiling water on site was a luxury. Even if they cut down trees from forests that hadn’t burned yet, the reality was they lacked the manpower to gather firewood.

How much water would hundreds of thousands of soldiers consume in a single day?

To meet that demand, tens of thousands would have to rush into logging, and several times that number would have to be deployed on perimeter security to protect them. Even causing all that commotion, the efficiency wouldn’t reach half that of mana stones.

“Damn it, what’s this ‘mana water’ or whatever that some people supposedly have? They’re using some unheard-of stuff like it’s nothing.”

Just then, one of the soldiers in the same trench complained.

A few days ago, Sophia Kohl had broadcast something like that. That a new resource called mana water had been discovered in the Great Desert and was being actively exported to Cortana and Rubellia. So Rubellia’s supply offensive would become even more severe…

It was preposterous. There’s no such thing as mana water in the world. It was just false rumors spread by the Rubellia side to demoralize our troops.

That’s how headquarters dismissed it anyway.

“Soon the words of our Great Supreme Leader will ring out! Everyone listen carefully and strengthen your loyalty! But first, let’s hear a rousing military song!”

Suddenly a booming voice vibrated through the air, drowning out Sophia Kohl’s broadcast. This too was familiar.

“The storm winds are coming!

The blizzard is swirling!

In the burning heat of midday,

In the frost-bitten bitter night,

Charge forward!

Charge forward!”

A melody that made the blood boil, with inspiring lyrics. A year ago, he definitely would have felt that way.

“Long live our Great Supreme Leader!”

Ralph opened his eyes. A simple-looking private was standing in front of him.

“Long live our Great Supreme Leader.”

“Squad leader, I’ve just returned after escorting the wounded to the rear!”

“Well done. Go get some rest.”

“Yes sir! Thank you!”

Ralph watched the private salute smartly and walk away before getting to his feet.

‘I used to be like that when I was a private too.’

It’s because idiots like that keep appearing that this war never ends.

He brushed off his dirty insignia and struggled out of the trench. During the brief lull in fighting, soldiers were moving around doing their respective tasks.

Ralph’s original squad had been wiped out. Leaving only Ralph Brandt behind.

When the numbers dropped below five, he was naturally transferred to another squad, but everyone there died too.

The last person to die was the squad leader who had taken special care of Ralph.

He was killed by a stray bullet.

It wasn’t instant death. Before the medic could even arrive, the wound became infected, and he died slowly and painfully.

What were that man’s final words again? With his already fierce face scrunched up in pain, what had he struggled to say?

“Corporal Brandt… you…”

Don’t die like a dog.

Ralph muttered what he remembered. It was probably right.

After that, even the newly joined squad was torn apart due to lack of personnel, and Ralph became the squad leader of a ragtag unit formed by combining several squads.

Simply because he had survived the longest.

He never thought he had the experience for it, but somehow he’d ended up in the position. And yesterday, and today. He continued to witness death.

Wheeeeee!

Wheeeeeeeee!

While Ralph was scooping snow into his canteen, a sudden air raid siren began blaring. Looking up at the sky, Sophia Kohl’s airship had already disappeared. Instead, dragons belonging to the Rubellia air force were filling the sky like a black mass.

It was a scale even Ralph, who had been rolling around the battlefield for over a year, had never seen before. He had no basis for it, but somehow he had a feeling that ground forces would come flooding in too.

And Ralph’s intuition was exactly right.

This was the beginning of what would later be called the “Winter Grand Offensive of 1904″—the final decisive battle.

***

Slash!

Along with the heavy sensation felt in his right hand, the soldier’s body was cleanly severed.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

Movements that flowed without leaving even a moment’s gap. Like performing a sword dance, he sliced through everything before his eyes with a blade that was neither large nor long.

Damier felt his muscles swelling. His blood was boiling. Time flowed slowly while his body moved too fast for his vision to follow. He wrapped his legs in blue light and leaped high, diving into the midst of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. As he swept his arm wide, sword energy flashed and blood spurted out.

Not a single word spoken—slaughter in silence.

Mechanical massacre.

He repeated, and repeated again, acts that were far too easy and far too tedious.

Until the mana in his body was completely drained. Relying on the drug’s effects to ignore the pain from his wounds as much as he could ignore them.

After crossing this trench, what comes next?

Yet another new trench.

And another trench appears.

Trenches, trenches, trenches—dozens of layers intertwined.

Inside them, the Rubellia forces were frantically operating machine guns and hurling bombs. Explosions constantly overturned the ground around Damier, creating new terrain. But Damier, his body wrapped in a mana barrier, ignored all attacks and simply kept running forward while swinging his sword.

“Aaaaargh! Stop that monster!”

One soldier, mad with terror, fired his machine gun wildly before dying the moment Damier brushed past him.

Behind them, Rubellia mages were creating waves of fire and spears of lightning to roast entire groups of Schufaben forces.

The once-quiet no man’s land was now covered in blood, screams, and battle cries. Now terms like “front” and “rear” were meaningless. Soldiers from both sides simply clashed to kill as many enemies as possible.

It was truly a battle of attrition.

Swooooosh…

With a faint sound, Damier crossed the snowfield and leaped into a fairly large trench. Too quickly for the soldiers who hadn’t even spotted him to react, their necks fell away one after another.

In the now-quiet trench, Damier paused to catch his breath. He was getting out of breath faster and more often than before. His heart was pounding like it might burst from the canil side effects. His fingertips throbbed as if the skin might peel off.

After taking deep breaths for a while, when his breathing calmed down a bit, he pulled out a clinking medicine bottle from his inner pocket. He drew it into a syringe and injected it without hesitation.

His forearm was already covered with injection marks and scabs. Wounds that would have disappeared within hours in the past were different now. His recovery ability was gradually declining.

‘This must be a side effect too.’

There were no medics stationed nearby to care for him like at the Supreme Leader’s residence. He lacked even the mana needed for combat, let alone self-treatment.

He’d heard talk of developing a canil neutralizer, but that plan seemed to have fallen through now. Since Dr. Moritz Riepen was dead.

Damier didn’t know much about Dr. Riepen. There was no reason he needed to know.

He’d only vaguely heard that he was conducting various dangerous research under the Supreme Leader’s orders, with canil research being the top priority.

Only the knight commander who led Ferint could freely meet with Dr. Riepen. He regularly visited the doctor to receive reports. That’s how Damier knew only the bare outlines of recent events.

Colonel Johann Werner of Ossel had infiltrated the national research institute. Whether he killed Dr. Riepen or the doctor was already dead, either way the doctor was dead, and Colonel Werner brought down Ossel and fled.

Only the knight commander would know what he saw that made him disappear so quickly. Damier and his colleagues weren’t curious. They simply realized that canil neutralizer research was effectively finished.

Which meant the only hope for extending Ferint’s lives had vanished.

‘A few months at most.’

Damier muttered emotionlessly as he pressed the syringe. As canil spread throughout his body, happiness and fighting spirit surged again.

***

The grand offensive was truly a grand offensive.

The Rubellia side poured out mages and bombs as if there were no tomorrow. Each bomb falling from the sky, each bullet fired, each mage’s spell—every single one cost money.

Could mana water actually exist?

Even if it did, when had they imported such quantities from the distant Great Desert? Or were they believing in future trade agreements and scraping together all the mana stones in Rubellia to throw them here?

Why were they doing this? Why were they trying to end things now?

Ralph looked up at the sky where dragons shrieked and flew about.

His ears were ringing.

One arm, gushing blood in spurts, lay powerlessly in the snow. Separated from his shoulder.

The only reason he hadn’t died from shock was purely thanks to canil. They’d had to take canil again this morning.

The ground touching his back was cold.

The white snowfield had already been trampled muddy by countless military boots. Red pools of blood spread outward.

Ah, Sophia Kohl.

He wished that woman’s airship, whose face he’d never seen, would appear and say something. Anything to make him understand why he had to die like a dog in this place.

During the grand offensive, Sophia Kohl’s pirate broadcasts were suspended. Even if she’d shouted over the din, it wouldn’t have been heard on the ground anyway.

But even without her broadcasts, information came from somewhere, and rumors spread endlessly.

Batalland’s prime minister had betrayed the military government and begun providing military support to Rubellia. Pontinell’s government in exile had reclaimed its capital. The Cortana parliament had issued a statement.

He didn’t know how much was true and how much was false, but there wasn’t a single hopeful story.

‘Empire of evil…’

Schufaben was probably already known throughout the continent as an empire of evil. Even Ralph, who wasn’t particularly bright, could guess that.

Why had it come to this?

Who had thrown this country into the flames of war?

‘Damn it, I want to see my mother.’

Tears flowed down Ralph’s young face. His eyes closed.

Just as his fragile consciousness was about to flicker out like a candle in the wind.

He heard footsteps approaching. Careful hands wrapping around his arm wound.

Opening his eyes, he saw a man in a blood-stained white uniform treating his injury.

“Ugh!”

Unable to help himself, Ralph groaned as the bandage was pulled tight.

The unidentified man calmly applied medicine and put sugar cubes in his mouth, then helped Ralph to his feet.

With each step, his whole body ached and he felt ready to collapse, but he was able to move thanks to the man’s inhuman strength.

A few steps per minute.

Moving slower than a turtle, Ralph’s mind gradually returned as they walked.

“Who… why…”

“Damier. You were the only person alive in the area.”

The man’s voice was surprisingly emotionless and dry. His face was the same.

If not for the white breath puffing out with each breath, Ralph might have mistaken him for a vision seen on the way to heaven.

The man—no, Damier—set Ralph down at a rear base and disappeared.

As if he had never appeared at all.