Chapter 25: Night

No gunshots rang out.

The battlefield lay in complete silence.

No smoke of gunpowder, no furious cries—only darkness. A void that had no place on any battlefield spread across my vision, swallowing everything in a suffocating black.

“…Where… am I?”

I tried to take a step forward—

And only then did I notice it.

Something beneath my feet.

“…!”

My breath caught.

What lay at my feet were bodies.

Men—collapsed, drenched in blood, their forms twisted and lifeless.

And I was standing on top of them.

In my hand… was a gun.

“…You…”

My finger rested on the trigger.

It felt unbearably heavy.

At my feet—he was there.

The man whose face I had shot.

The first man I had ever killed.

His blood-soaked face stared up at me.

But there was no hatred in his eyes.

Only confusion.

“Why…?”

His lips moved.

I heard his voice clearly.

“Why did you kill me?”

I couldn’t answer.

Because it was war. Because he was the enemy. Because if I didn’t kill him, I would be the one killed.

There were countless reasons—endless justifications I could string together.

And yet…

Not a single word left my mouth.

Instead—

Another voice echoed.

From behind me.

“Die.”

I turned.

Standing there…

Was myself.

A blood-soaked uniform clung to my body.

My abdomen—already torn open by gunfire—bled heavily, the weight of it dragging me down. My vision was blurred, my body trembling, on the verge of collapse—

And yet, through sheer will alone, I was still standing.

“…Ah…”

That version of me raised the gun—

And fired at the fallen soldier.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Again.

And again.

The bullets did not stop.

“…Stop…”

The words slipped out of me, weak and powerless.

But such a feeble voice could change nothing.

The one pulling the trigger… was me.

There was no way I could stop it.

The fallen soldier turned his gaze toward me.

“I… didn’t want to die yet.”

The words tightened around my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs.

His face began to change.

One after another—

Faces I had seen before surfaced.

A nameless youth.

A trembling recruit.

A man bearing rank insignia.

One by one, the faces of those I had seen—those I had killed—rose into view.

“You did this.”

The voice was quiet.

“Was it… to win?”

No.

“For your family?”

No.

No—no, no, no, no—

The blood beneath my feet began to spread, seeping outward.

It soaked into my boots.

Warm.

Clinging.

No matter how hard I pressed my feet into the ground, I couldn’t shake it off.

My mouth remained silent.

All I could do was listen…

To the voices accusing me from all sides.

“…No.”

At last, a voice escaped me.

“I…”

What was I?

A commander? A conqueror? A murderer? A hero?

Before I could find an answer—

A gunshot rang out.

This time… it pierced my chest.

……

…………

“…!”

I stifled both my voice and my breath.

My trembling hand flew to my chest—

But there was no wet, viscous sensation of blood.

When I opened my eyes, the familiar ceiling came into view.

The ceiling of an inn in the royal capital.

“…Haa…”

Slowly sitting up, I glanced to the side.

Shia lay asleep in the neighboring bed, her breathing soft and steady.

Only after confirming that did I slip out of my own bed.

“…Ugh—”

The nausea came suddenly.

That all-too-familiar sensation rose from deep within me, and I hurried toward the restroom.

“…Ugh—aaah—!”

Trying to keep the noise down—

I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet, everything I had eaten that day spilling out.

“…My organs should be fine…”

Had the surgeon made a mistake?

Lately, I had been vomiting everything I ate.

…No. That wasn’t it.

He had been a skilled doctor. There was no way he had misdiagnosed me.

The problem… was me.

“…Haa…”

After emptying everything, I returned unsteadily to my bed.

“…I really can’t sleep.”

I closed my eyes.

But sleep wouldn’t come.

Ever since I stepped onto the battlefield, I couldn’t remember the last time I had truly rested.

“…Forget it. I can’t afford to die. Not yet. Not tonight either.”

Giving up on sleep, I sat cross-legged on the bed.

I activated the magic within my body, circulating it forcefully through my veins. A faint glow seeped from my form, visible even in the dim room.

Increasing one’s magical power wasn’t particularly difficult.

All it required was to keep it flowing—circulating endlessly within the body.

I had been doing that constantly, building it up little by little.

And beyond that, I set aside time like this—sitting in stillness, focusing solely on driving that power through me, over and over again.

The more intensely I circulated it, the more it grew.

“……”

Sitting in meditation, I honed my magic for the next battlefield.

And like that—

The night quietly slipped away.