Chapter 24: The Lifted Veil

Ed waited outside the building for his superior to emerge, but the scene unfolding before him left him momentarily speechless.

Just what in the world happened in there?

He stared blankly as the man casually slicked back his blood-soaked hair, then quickly shifted his gaze to the interior of the building.

He intended to see how many had been killed, but the sight that greeted him was unexpected.

‘No bodies…?’

Clearly, the amount of blood splattered on him suggested a massacre had taken place.

An unnatural silence filled the air, but at least on the first floor visible through the windows, no corpses were in sight.

Ultimately, he had no choice but to ask. Ed hesitantly opened his mouth.

“What happened…? No, before that, whose blood is on you…?”

“It’s not Demon-nim’s blood,” Ben answered for him. Ed bristled for a moment.

Did he think Ed was so clueless as to ask that?

If he couldn’t even distinguish whether the blood on someone belonged to them or someone else, he wouldn’t have climbed this high in the ranks to begin with.

Just as he gritted his teeth and was about to speak again, Ben’s expression caught his eye.

A look of utter weariness.

It was an expression often seen on those who had witnessed Demon-nim’s battles firsthand.

Having worn that expression himself many times, he quickly understood its meaning.

‘Ah.’

‘Right, that. How could I be so oblivious?’

He’d been too immersed in the peace lately and had momentarily forgotten.

The 0th Legion Commander’s fighting style.

He hadn’t considered his distinctly different battle method compared to the other legion commanders, instead comparing it to ordinary combat, so of course, he wouldn’t find any bodies.

How could he forget such a thing?

Ignoring the dumbfounded Ed, Deon wiped the blood splattered on his cheek with his palm and licked it off his finger.

The decidedly abnormal smile spreading across his face and the red glint in his eyes, hinting at the madness resurfacing, made Ed panic. He quickly pulled out a handkerchief and offered it.

“Please use this to wipe it off.”

“There’s really no need. Weren’t we going to fight anyway?”

“The blood might obstruct your vision. At least wipe it off your face.”

“Hmm.”

Thankfully, there were no further objections.

Ed watched his superior accept the handkerchief and wipe his face with growing unease, thinking they needed to get to the battlefield before anything else happened. He straightened up.

“…We should hurry to the walls. They say the scale this time is unlike anything before.”

“I don’t care about any of that. The important question is, ‘do the monsters have feelings?’”

“They definitely do.”

“I know.”

That’s why I’m here.

A teasing remark, laced with laughter, escaped his lips.

Despite the clear amusement and playfulness in his tone, Ed didn’t ease his stiff expression, as if he knew he wasn’t being called overly serious. Instead, he bowed deeply.

—When he first became the 0th Legion Commander’s aide, and the commander first displayed this side of himself, Ed was utterly bewildered.

He was clearly the same person, yet different.

He spent a long time agonizing over how to address and interact with his superior, who was exhibiting a personality completely opposite to what he’d shown before. In the end, he arrived at a simple conclusion, so obvious it made the time spent worrying seem wasted.

There was no need to overthink it in the first place.

He simply needed to match the attitude his superior displayed.

A change in personality didn’t change the person. Their memories remained intact, so he just had to think of it as dealing with an exceptionally capricious individual.

And it was best to treat the current 0th Legion Commander with the utmost caution.

A moment of laxness, a slight offense, and ‘he’ would show no mercy.

“My apologies.”

“It’s fine. So, where are my weapons?”

“They’re here.”

He presented several daggers and sheaths his superior could wear.

Deon received them with familiarity and began attaching them to his body one by one.

He secured daggers to his thighs, both sides of his waist, and crossed on his lower back, totaling six daggers. Finally, he glanced between the robe and cloak Ed held in his hands and chose the cloak.

“Since the opponents aren’t human, there’s no need for the robe.”

Swish.

The black cloak billowed out.

Checking to make sure nothing was missing, Deon began to walk, then paused and glanced back.

The demons inside the building were staring with blank expressions.

He could vaguely hear whispers mentioning the 0th Legion Commander; it seemed they had figured out his identity.

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter.’

He watched them scramble away at the mere meeting of their eyes, then chuckled and turned back.

A chilling madness, reeking of blood, now filled his red eyes.

In stark contrast, a cheerful smile stretched across Deon’s face as he drew a dagger from his waist and then sheathed it.

“Let’s go.”

***

I opened my eyes.

Soldiers stood in somewhat neat, if clumsy, ranks.

Widening my gaze, I saw the endless sky stretching behind them.

I stared blankly at the clear sky, an odd contrast to the battlefield where a slaughter would soon unfold, then lowered my gaze again.

‘I’ was standing on a platform.

Looking at the soldiers concealing their fear, tension, unease, and dissatisfaction with impassive faces, ‘I’ spoke.

“Vanguard units are broadly divided into two categories.”

He held up two fingers as they wordlessly raised their heads.

“One is the true vanguard, using overwhelming force to break through traps, trample enemies, and boost allied morale. The other is the so-called meat shield, identifying traps with their bodies and absorbing attacks from powerful enemies. Strictly speaking, we’re the latter.”

I saw some of them clench their jaws.

They probably wanted to argue, to shout their disagreement and hurl insults. But they knew the truth.

‘I’, a common soldier who had just become a commander, and the soldiers hastily assembled for this command.

No one here was brazen enough to deny this obvious fact.

Therefore, ‘I’ calmly addressed their silence.

“Everyone here has participated in battles, so you all know the atmosphere of the battlefield. I doubt anyone has forgotten. The screams and shouts echoing everywhere, the incessant din of weapons clashing, the ground soaked crimson with blood. And, the ‘madness’ that permeates everything.”

“…”

“Some of you have resisted the madness trying to consume your minds, others have succumbed. So, I’ll say this now.”

Judging by their expressions, they knew what I was going to say.

They were probably expecting some cliché about ‘not being consumed by madness.’

How absurd.

‘I’ have survived in this insane place with this ridiculously weak body.

The words of someone like that couldn’t possibly be cliché.

“Embrace the madness.”

A chilling silence descended.

‘I’ displayed the rising madness within me, addressing their surprised expressions as if they doubted their ears.

Some flinched at the madness வெளிப்படும் in my expression and eyes. One person barely managed to stop themselves from stepping back.

“But don’t be consumed halfway. Be completely consumed. Reason is only necessary to distinguish friend from foe.”

Telling someone not to be consumed by madness is only applicable to those at least as skilled as a knight with proper swordsmanship.

What good would maintaining our reason do when none of us have even mastered basic swordsmanship?

A predator succeeds in its hunt by being calm, while a sheep that wildly flees is harder to catch.

We were merely sheep, and the only way to survive in this place teeming with predators, at least in ‘my’ opinion, was this.

“Don’t leave behind an intact corpse. Even if you think they’re dead, don’t stop mutilating them. Gut them and rummage through their entrails. Stop only when you decide they can’t be made any more mangled.”

Disgusted looks.

To turn pale just from words, how pathetic.

With such fragile minds, they’d all die on the battlefield.

I didn’t want to be the vanguard commander, but since I was stuck in this position, I had no intention of letting my soldiers die.

It wasn’t about responsibility. ‘I’ was worried about the disadvantages of losing all my troops.

What was left for a commander who lost all their soldiers?

Someone like ‘me’ with no backing would certainly lose their head.

How could I have survived this far only to die because of these bastards?

“You’ve all forgotten where you are, haven’t you? Get your heads in the game!”

That was something I couldn’t accept out of sheer spite.

Surprised eyes widened and turned towards me.

‘I’ glared at each and every one of those eyes, shouting at the top of my lungs with a voice full of fury.

“Do you think the enemies will consider who they swing their swords at? If you cry that you were forced here, will they sympathize? If there’s anyone here who wants to talk about morality and righteousness, step forward right now. I’ll personally throw you in front of the enemies so you can have a discussion about ethics with them!”

A cold wind blew.

The sound of sand being swept by the wind. The rustling of fallen leaves, the faint trembling of branches.

Silence descended upon the open field, so profound that all these sounds could be heard.

“We are weak. And this is a battlefield where the weak are eliminated. How many ways do you think there are for us to survive in such a place?”

Had they still not realized that we were in no position to be picky?

That was the meaning behind my reprimand.

In the silence of unanswered questions, whether they understood or not, ‘I’ slowly continued.

“We can’t fight well, nor can we retreat from battle. As far as I know, there’s only one method we can use.”

──”Psychological warfare.”

Instill ‘fear’ in the enemies.

So they wouldn’t dare attack recklessly. So they wouldn’t easily brandish their swords.

So, how do we instill fear?

“A sense of incongruity. Make them feel out of place. Incongruity on the battlefield, regardless of the process, will ultimately lead to fear. Fear will make the enemy clumsy, and in the end, prevent them from using their full strength. We’ll take the heads of those kinds of guys.”

Yes, we will become the hyenas of the battlefield.

Don’t think of it as cowardly. What does cowardice matter when you’re trying to survive?

Now it seems like it’s time to discuss how to create that sense of incongruity, which brings us back to the beginning.

“There aren’t many ways to create a sense of incongruity in the limited space of a battlefield. In fact, there’s essentially only one thing we can do. Let me tell you everything—”

I pointedly raised my arm, meticulously wrapped in white bandages up to the fingertips.

“In a battlefield full of those covered in blood and dust, maintain a pristine state, without a speck of dust or a drop of blood.”

This time, I fluttered the specially issued white cloak.

“Or, among those stained with blood and dust, be so covered in blood that you stand out.”

Since there’s no way for us, who have to dodge swords and fall to the ground, to maintain a clean state, there’s only one method we can use.

Seeing the soldiers’ faces darken further as they realized they had no choice, ‘I’ smiled.

It was a smile that even I thought reeked of blood.

“We will be covered in blood. We will display a brutality that even those accustomed to war will find appalling. We will laugh as we wield our swords, a sight that will send shivers down their spines. And it’s best if we appear obsessed with the enemy.”

In short, be consumed by madness.

Those who flee become targets.

But madmen who charge with bloodshot eyes become objects of avoidance.

“I’ll say it again. We cannot be the ‘true vanguard.’”

“…”

“But we don’t want to be meat shields either. So, we’ll take a similar but different path.”

Did I say the true vanguard boosts the morale of allies?

If so, then we will….

“We will drag down the morale of the enemies.”