28: What Was Called the Siege of Fort Garnalk
For the past three days, Liz and I had been sharing a bed.
If this were a more… titillating story, I’d be happy, but that wasn’t the case.
The night we returned from the Beastman Army encampment, I’d invited her to sleep with me, and while she’d said, “Just sleeping together, okay?” she’d readily accepted. I hope this means my favorability rating has gone up.
Tonight, too, we climbed into bed after turning off the lights.
“This feels… nostalgic.”
“What does?” I could sense Liz turning to look at me.
“Almost being assassinated constantly.”
“…I don’t think that’s something you should feel nostalgic about.”
Liz was right. But I wasn’t wrong either.
“All past memories are nostalgic. Besides, every time I was almost assassinated, you always protected me.”
“Ehehe…” Even in the near-darkness, I could tell Liz was smiling.
I reached out and found her hand. She grasped it, intertwining our fingers.
“…But Master, I was really scared this time.”
“You were? Why?”
“…I thought I was going to lose you.”
“…It’s okay. I always think I might be killed… but I don’t want to die.”
I had reasons to be killed. Probably plenty of justifiable reasons.
“I’ll survive, using everything I have as the Virus King.”
But none of those reasons were enough to make me accept death passively.
“…Please do.”
“By the way, was that a confession?”
She let go of my hand. Slap.
“Don’t be ridiculous. And we’re both women, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Then stop joking around.”
“I’m not joking. —Not since I came to this world.”
I couldn’t see her face clearly, but I could sense Liz’s exasperation. Since Liz, being a dark elf, could see my expression even in this darkness, I put on my most serious face.
“That statement itself is a jo—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
“Something wrong?”
“…I’ve been wondering… how much you actually know…”
“About?”
“About what happened when you first came to this world.”
“…What do you mean? You know pretty much everything, don’t you?”
“There’s a period I don’t know about.”
A period Liz didn’t know about.
“…Was there?”
I was the Virus King, Lord of Disease.
The name I used was given to me by Liz.
The clothes I wore were made by Liz.
Liz was always beside me as I performed my duties as a supreme commander.
“I’m talking about the time between you arriving in this world… and meeting me.”
“I think I told you.”
“You were joking, weren’t you?”
I didn’t remember joking. But I did remember omitting and embellishing certain details.
“What do you know?”
“That you made significant contributions during the siege of Fort Garnalk. That earned you an audience with His Majesty the Demon King, and your proposal at that meeting led to your appointment… and later, you were given the name Virus King, and the position of supreme commander.”
That was my official profile. Liz knew everything she needed to know.
“What about the contents of that audience?”
“I don’t know. As you know, I was in charge of your surveillance and protection until the audience… but during the audience itself, His Majesty’s personal guards took over.”
Hmm.
Now that she mentioned it, I didn’t think I’d ever seriously discussed what I’d done when I first arrived in this world with Liz.
Partly because I didn’t want to remember.
But as I’d told her earlier, it was all in the past. Even though it had only been a little over a year, it felt nostalgic now.
“…Master, what did you do at Fort Garnalk?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t mind. …I want to hear it from you.”
Liz’s voice was earnest. Hearing that voice in the darkness, I wanted to tell her.
“Okay. Let’s see… where should I begin…”
I thought back to the day I first arrived in this world, the memories tinged with nostalgia.
I turned on the bedside lamp, dimming it slightly, since we wouldn’t be sleeping for a while. While magic lamps were common, this one was a luxury item, with its ornate lampshade, dimming function, and soft, even glow. A future I couldn’t have imagined was now my reality.
I looked at Liz, her eyes fixed on me, then shifted my gaze to the canopy above.
“—I was on the ramparts.”
I was there, on that battlefield. The only siege in the nation’s history where the demons were on the offensive.
The Siege of Fort Garnalk.
A large fortress near the border, built with the combined forces of the three great human nations: Rank Kingdom, the Empire, and the Holy Kingdom.
It was a dagger pointed at the throat of the Listrea Demon Kingdom.
A fortress constructed in secrecy, using illusion magic, appearing overnight as far as the demons were concerned. It had to be captured.
We couldn’t allow such a fortress, a potential bridgehead for an invasion of our homeland, to remain.
But the reason the demons had successfully defended their borders for four hundred years was that they’d been fighting defensive battles. And the humans had decided to do the same.
If the demons attacked, they would repel them and inflict heavy casualties.
If the demons did nothing, they would simply use the fortress as a staging ground for an invasion of the Listrea Demon Kingdom.
It was a ‘brilliant strategy,’ killing multiple birds with one stone. It allowed the humans to deal with the warmongering factions while weakening their own armies, which were a drain on resources even in peacetime.
Even victory wouldn’t feel like a victory.
And yet, if we left the threat unaddressed, we wouldn’t even be able to defend our borders.
The Listrea Demon Kingdom selected its most suitable forces for a siege. They decided to attack Fort Garnalk with a combined force of demons from the Fifth Army and dark knights from the Second Army.
The commander was Bringit Finis, the Blood Knight, leader of the Second Army, the dark knights, and a supreme commander of the Listrea Demon Kingdom.
And I was summoned there.
I wasn’t summoned by the Listrea Demon Kingdom—not by the demons.
I was summoned by fellow humans.
Even now, I didn’t know why I was summoned. Anyone would have sufficed.
Because the humans who summoned me didn’t care about precision.
Their objective was to use humans as ‘mana batteries,’ as fuel tanks for offensive and defensive magic.
Anyone with a reasonable amount of magical power would do. Anyone but themselves.
I wasn’t the only one summoned to this world. There were many others.
I learned this later, but it wasn’t a rogue operation. It was an officially sanctioned strategy, approved by the Human Alliance Against Demons.
To win, with minimal losses.
I didn’t even know who they were fighting.
I was simply pulled into a magic circle, still in my business suit, on my way home from work. Subjected to mind magic, bound, and fed nothing but thin soup.
But thanks to the mind magic, my memories were hazy. Perhaps that was a blessing. Or perhaps it was a defense mechanism.
The summoning ritual was… crude. Now that I understood magic, I could see it. A ‘summoning spell’ without a specific target… it was a miracle it hadn’t failed.
Well, it hadn’t ‘failed.’
There were two main types of summoning failures. When the summoning circle went haywire, causing damage, including the death of the caster. And when it summoned something other than the intended target.
So, it hadn’t failed in the latter sense.
There was no intended target. Any human would do. Or perhaps, not even a human. Anything with magical power.
Anything they could drain of its magical energy.
It was like casting a net indiscriminately, catching any fish, a practice frowned upon from a conservation standpoint. It was beyond indiscriminate.
Something that should never have been done to a human being, if you applied even a shred of ‘human rights’ or ‘ethics.’ And yet, they did it.
Summoning magic was still in its developmental stages.
The spell used to summon me was flawed. Aside from knowing it was supposed to summon a human, they didn’t even know where it was summoning from.
But at least, it wasn’t from their own nation. Nor was it from an allied nation.
Therefore, they went through with it.
Being summoned was incredibly taxing. Memories became jumbled, consciousness blurred. No one subjected to mind magic in that state could resist.
And if they viewed humans as mana batteries, they could compensate for their inferior magical power compared to demons with sheer numbers.
That was why I was on the ramparts.
That day, under a cold, overcast sky. Dressed in nothing but ragged, poorly made white cloth, crudely stitched together, barely qualifying as clothing… stripped of my dignity as a human being.
Dragged to the ramparts, along with dozens, hundreds of others.
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