Chapter 83: Iron

“Damn it—!? What the hell are our artillery doing!? Return fire—now…!”

“They say we’ve been hit by an air raid!?”

“I—I can’t get through to headquarters…! What—what is happening to us!?”

Chaos.

That was all that remained—raw, suffocating chaos, thick as smoke, swallowing every command, every thought, every shred of order that had once held the battlefield together.

“Incoming shell—!? …I-it’s coming!”

The Army of the Kingdom of Friez, which only moments ago had believed itself firmly in control, now found itself under a full-scale assault from the Kingdom of Lunoa. The tide had turned so violently it felt unreal, as if the ground itself had betrayed them.

“Run! Run for it! The machine-gun nest’s been blown to hell! If we stay here, we can’t stop their advance!”

Shells crashed down in relentless succession.

And as soon as the Lunoa forces confirmed that the Friez machine-gun positions had been obliterated, they began crawling out of their trenches, like a rising tide of determined shadows.

“What are you whining for!? There’s been no order to retreat!”

“Fire! Fire! FIIIRE—!?”

Amid the scattering retreat of some Friez soldiers abandoning their trenches, others stayed behind, planting their feet, raising their rifles with trembling hands, and firing desperately at the approaching Lunoa troops. Each shot was laced with fear and stubborn defiance.

“…Ah… ahh…”

One by one, Lunoa soldiers fell. Another body collapsed. And another.

But still, the charge did not falter.

Driven by something deeper than fear, something sharper than pain, the Lunoa soldiers surged forward—until at last, they spilled directly into the trenches themselves.

“Drive them out!!”

“Eek—!?”

At the very front, where orders flew like shrapnel, a Friez soldier seized a nearby shovel. With a ragged scream, he raised it high above his head and brought it down toward a Lunoa soldier who had just leapt into the trench.

“—Close one!?”

A gunshot cracked through the air.

Before the shovel could fully descend, a bullet tore through the Friez soldier’s chest from behind. His body jerked, strength vanishing instantly, and he collapsed lifelessly into the dirt at his own feet.

“What the hell are you doing!?”

The Lunoa soldier who had nearly had his skull split open shouted angrily at the comrade who had saved him.

“Sorry!”

“Don’t let your guard down! This is where it starts! We’re taking this position ourselves!”

“Yeah!”

Dozens upon dozens of shells had already rained down. Trenches were buried, shattered, and stained. Countless Friez soldiers had been reduced to nothing more than fertilizer for the earth.

And yet, the Lunoa army was far from unscathed. They had suffered crushing defeats, retreated time and again, and even in this very charge, their casualties continued to mount. By sheer numbers alone, their losses still outweighed those of Friez.

“Let’s take back our homeland…!”

But they had something else—something stronger than numbers.

Rage.

Rage at having their homeland trampled beneath foreign boots. Rage that burned hotter than fear, that drove their legs forward even as bullets tore through flesh.

Meanwhile, the Friez army carried something far more fragile.

Complacency.

They had believed victory was already theirs, that the capture of key strongholds had sealed the war.

“Uwaaaaaaaahhhhhh!?”

The fangs that struck those who thought themselves victorious did not merely wound—it shattered their will.

Even now, more Friez soldiers remained within the trenches than their enemies.

But cracks began to form.

Some fled. Some faltered. Their lines wavered and broke.

And the Lunoa soldiers—burning with resolve, refusing to slow even under gunfire—pressed on with relentless determination, forcing the Friez troops out of the trenches bit by bit.

The Friez front line had begun to collapse.

This breakthrough had been made possible by artillery.

Field guns had torn open the trenches, and through that breach, the Lunoa army poured in like a flood, carving out a foothold.

But war was not so simple.

Artillery shells could not always strike enemy machine-gun positions with precision. Nor was the Friez army so weak as to allow their defenses to crumble so easily. Their fortifications were solid. Their trenches were deep. Their resistance was fierce.

The line should have held.

“…H-hey… what the hell is this…?”

“How should I know!? J-just shoot it—shoot!”

And yet—

Iron rose against them.

Crushing the barricades before the trenches, flattening the barbed wire beneath its weight, a massive hulk of metal advanced, unstoppable, inexorable, tearing open the battlefield itself.

“I-it’s no use…!? We can’t even scratch it!”

Bullets struck its surface—

—and bounced away harmlessly.

“W-what is that!? What is that thing!?”

The side of the iron beast erupted with fire.

Small shells blasted apart sections of the trench. Mounted machine guns spat death, shredding the Friez soldiers who cowered within into bloody fragments.

“CHAAARGE—!!”

Through the breach opened by the iron monster—

—the tank—

the Lunoa army surged forward, flooding into the shattered line like an unstoppable tide.

“Retreat! Fall back—!?”

Faced with a weapon they had no means to counter,

the Friez army could do nothing but break—

and retreat.