The piling corpses of monsters reached halfway up the fortress walls.
Once you cut one down, you stepped over it, only for more monsters to be cut down and piled on top.
But there was not a single monster among them that posed a genuine threat.
The fortress bombarded them without mercy, and from the sky, the Kirin rained down attacks. Trapped with nowhere to flee, the monsters had no choice but to wait for death.
Amid all of this, the Fifth Generation's voice came from within the Jewel.
"There's something oddly unsatisfying about this. The only boss-class is a Giant Kong... Not enough."
She seemed to feel unfulfilled, given that fighting had practically turned into routine labor by now.
(I'd rather not fight any more than this, personally. If I ended up "leveling up" here, that would be a serious problem.)
Continuing the fight would leave me bedridden for days, possibly even a full week if things went badly.
Since I couldn't afford to be sidelined for that long, I'd been trying to avoid fighting ever since arriving at the fortress.
A vast army of monsters — yet the overwhelming majority of them were considered weak.
Goblins were the most typical example, but insect-type monsters were abundant as well.
Once you took out the major threats, all that remained was to trap the rest and hammer them into submission.
Numbers are a formidable force.
However, even in numbers, we now held the advantage.
And so, a new problem arose: we were killing too many.
Eva came to confirm something with me.
"Lyle, the Blast Arrows are a waste now. Regular arrows would be better."
Aria said the same.
"A large cannonball would be wasted on scattered monsters anyway."
Clara said the same.
"I can still prepare some, but anything more would probably be pointless."
We were sharing visual information, and everyone connected by the Line could see the same view from atop the fortress. Seeing that, Clara must have judged that the catapults served no further purpose.
The Seventh Generation's voice came from the Jewel.
"...Lyle, it's time to finish this. Blast away what's in front of the gate."
I gripped the Jewel and gave Miranda her orders.
"Miranda, clear out the front of the gate. We're breaking out from here."
"Roger. So, what about us?"
She was asking whether they should head out too. I shook my head in refusal.
"...It'll be hectic even after this is over. Rest up for now. All of you."
I wanted everyone to rest. After all, with a battlefield this size, there was also the matter of cleanup.
The Fourth Generation was in high spirits.
"Well, from here on out it's my turn. To use the recovered Magic Stones and materials as bargaining leverage, let's get to work efficiently. Lyle, Monica, Clara — how about you rotate over to support Adele?"
Paperwork was waiting for us. The fighting itself was nearing its end, but we were far from done. We'd continue collecting Magic Stones and materials.
There were plenty of other things to handle as well — transporting the wounded, for one, and compensation for the fallen. Yes, the number of casualties had not been small.
"...I'll leave command of the charge to Alette. She'll want to work off her frustration by tearing through them."
That was when Aria and Eva spoke up.
"...Wouldn't it be a problem if nobody comes out from our side?"
"Exactly! We should send at least one or two people! Yes! I'll volunteer!"
"I-I'll go too!"
When Aria and Eva volunteered, I more or less understood their reasoning. They could tell things were about to get busy, and they'd probably guessed it was the kind of tedious paperwork they hated.
Then Miranda spoke up.
"Fine. But when you get back, you're absolutely helping us with our share too."
With that, she fell silent.
I had some vague sense of why Aria and Eva were feeling deflated. After letting out a small laugh, I looked down at the Monsters making their last stand in front of the fortress.
"...It's over."
——It took several days for word of Redant Fortress to reach Baim's Guild headquarters.
At the executive meeting, all eyes were on the reports about Laiel's allied forces of Zayin and Rolfis, who had expanded the fortress into a stronghold and defeated over ten times their number in enemies.
Tahnia, who had attended alongside her superior, was equally stunned upon hearing the news.
"What are we going to do?! Most of our adventurers haven't been entering the Dungeon! We don't have enough Magic Stones or materials either!"
"...We could just buy them from the two victorious nations. No wait — it's Baim's territory. If we claim the Magic Stones and materials they've acquired as our own—"
"You really think that would fly? If we do that, we'll lose all credibility."
The meeting's agenda revolved entirely around Laiel and the others' victory. Meanwhile, the damage sustained by Baim's adventurers was being completely ignored.
"We're taking losses too, you know."
When Tahnia said this, her superior skimmed through the documents.
"They were highly rated adventurers from the Eastern Branch. Bad luck. Who would've thought they'd end up in one of the areas that took only minor damage."
The adventurers from the Eastern Branch had been stationed to defend critical facilities. However, Monsters that had leapt over Redant Fortress had attacked, and battles had broken out.
It was terrible luck.
If it had been Griffon, they might have managed somehow. But these were black, massive, crow-like Monsters — Ravens.
Attacked by such Monsters, the party had suffered considerable damage. Fortunately, other parties had managed to drive them off, but the losses were still not insignificant.
The superior scanned the flow of the meeting.
"My, my. Still, things are looking a bit rough for Baim. We've got a massive surplus of weapons and armor on hand. We haven't ventured into the Dungeon for Magic Stones or materials in a while, so the question is how to make up for that deficit... Though when you look at the numbers as a whole, it's a drop in the bucket."
It was negligible in purely numerical terms. But it wasn't the kind of number that could simply be ignored.
In reality, their plans had fallen through, leaving them with an enormous stockpile of weapons and armor.
The superior studied the figures in the documents.
"Ah, I see what this is... The idea is to ship weapons and armor off to Zayin or Rolfis and recover Magic Stones in return, isn't it? I can already hear what the merchants will have to say about that."
Grimacing about the headache it would cause, the superior appeared to be already formulating countermeasures for the way forward.
Tahnia was struck once again by the realization that, to the leadership, adventurers were nothing more than numbers.
---Baim Eastern Branch.
At the reception desk, Ryue had no idea what expression to wear.
"...Huh?"
One of the adventurers who had returned was gravely injured. His arm was wrapped in bandages. The missing portion was plainly evident. Continuing as an adventurer would surely be impossible for him now.
But more than that...
"...These are their Guild Cards. I came to return them. And this one was his."
It was an ornate piece of jewelry. The expensive quality was apparent at a glance.
And the adventurer returning it had been a comrade of one Ryue had been close to.
"As for the rewards, I'll be taking over for anyone without a will instructing payment to their surviving family. But I figured I'd hand this much over to you."
Ryue accepted it, but it didn't feel real. Then, in a daze, Ryue went to look for the Guild Cards stored at the Guild.
There existed two Guild Cards for each adventurer, and when one died, a scar would appear on their name. In this way, the Guild was able to confirm deaths as well.
When Ryue went to look for the stored Guild Cards, he found ones with scars on them.
The names of adventurers he'd been close with bore the marks, confirming their deaths.
"...Eh, but... she said... she'd have something to tell me when she came back..."
Ryue sank to the spot, tears falling one by one onto the floor——.
Inside the fortress, corpses in body bags were lined up.
Comrades were identifying the remains and recording them. After all, compensation payments would later be issued to the families of those killed in battle.
In that place, I stood rooted to the spot.
Many of the body bags had the faces exposed for identification. Some corpses were in terrible condition. Our subordinates, and our superiors, had been killed in action.
Some had broken down sobbing.
One soldier was pouring sake over a corpse.
"Look, this is the expensive sake I bought so I could drink with you guys. It's good, right... Come on, say it's good!"
Crying, the man in his thirties kept pouring sake over the body of a teenage soldier. Around him, hands reached out to stop him, but stopped halfway.
Elsewhere, people from the same hometown had gathered.
There, a teenager in his teens was being comforted by those around him.
"Your father was a great man. He really was."
"Y-yeah!"
Zayin, and Rolfis... I'd dragged unrelated people into this. There was the matter of repaying debts as well, but that was a concern for the country's upper echelons. It might not feel real to them.
Then, Mireia's voice came through.
"Ryel, show your face inside the Jewel for a moment."
The toll had been staggering. The dead exceeded one thousand, and the wounded surpassed three thousand.
With that going on, I returned to my room and shifted my consciousness inside the Jewel.
At the round table, the Successive Heads — their numbers had dwindled considerably, and I couldn't help but feel a twinge of loneliness.
The Third Generation stood up from his chair and addressed me.
"Ryel, I want to ask you now since we have the chance. Have you decided what comes next? Defeating Ceres is a given. Beyond that… what is it that you want to do? I'll say this upfront — if you talk about taking responsibility by killing yourself, I won't forgive you."
His tone and expression were gentle, as always. Yet there was something in those final words that felt almost intimidating.
"…I have no intention of dying."
The Fourth Generation heard that and nodded.
The Fifth Generation spoke to me.
"Then what will you do? Will you raise someone up to support you? Or will you stand on your own?"
Two choices. Under the current circumstances, only the latter was viable.
"That's not a bit convenient, is it? Realistically, there's no one around who could serve as the figurehead to defeat Ceres. Zayin's holy maiden is too weak. Rolfis's princess is out of the question. There's no one like that in Baim, is there?"
The Seventh Generation was nodding. Nodding, yes, but in a tone that was somewhat cold toward me.
"I've been saying this for a while. And you need to start looking ahead and acting accordingly now, Ryel. What did you think when you saw all those corpses? How did you feel when you saw the wounded? Do you want to run? The moment you couldn't find anyone more suitable than yourself, that was on you."
There had been time. But no one who could serve as a figurehead to fight against Ceres — and against Banseim — had been found.
The Fourth Generation spoke gently.
"If there were someone more suitable than you, we'd tell you to assist that person too. But the fact that no one was found — isn't that exactly what that means?"
I bowed my head just once and clenched my fist. What I remembered was the sight of the wounded that Novem had seen, and the rows of body bags.
All of it was my responsibility.
If I had stayed silent, I would have fought in Baim without ever feeling this way. I could have pinned it on someone else.
I raised my head and let my gaze sweep across the five before me. And then I spoke.
"...I will aim for the top. Becoming a king may be difficult, but the destination is still the summit."
When I said I would stand there myself, that I would be the one to lead from the front, the Third Generation smiled. He didn't crack a joke, for once.
"...Good. You decided that of your own free will?"
"Yes. I decided it myself."
Finally, Mireia stood up, faced me, and opened her mouth with a serious expression. She placed her right hand over her heart and spoke to me—.
"Lyle, both you and Ceres will kill many. You may be able to minimize the damage, but you will build a mountain of corpses. Many enemies will die. And many of those who followed you will die as well. So, stand atop that heap of friend and foe alike. Never forget that the summit you aspire to is built on the dead."
When I nodded, Mireia smiled.
"Lyle, the place you're aiming for is somewhere no previous head has ever reached."
I laughed and addressed them all.
"It's because it has to be done that I'm doing it. I don't enjoy fighting. But if I don't, the continent will descend into chaos. ...If we strike Banseim down and leave it at that, the neighboring nations will carve up the weakened remains. That would bring about an age of warfare."
It wasn't as simple as defeating them and calling it a day. Thinking about what came after, someone needed to hold it together. You couldn't ask neighboring nations for cooperation without offering anything in return—no one would accept that.
But you couldn't just stand by and let everyone carve Banseim apart, either.
Once Banseim had been stripped away piece by piece and ceased to exist, new nations would end up sharing borders. At worst, territorial disputes would erupt, and from there, war would continue indefinitely.
It could take decades to settle. No—perhaps centuries of conflict.
"That's it. While we're at it, why don't we just go ahead and found an empire?"
When I said that, the Third Generation laughed.
"Oh, I like it."
The Fourth Generation pushed his glasses up with a fingertip.
"As far as options go, it's not bad. Even setting aside the fact that you've brought Zayin and Rolfis together, crushing them outright would meet with resistance. But you can't just leave things as they are either."
The Fifth Generation didn't seem interested. Still, he offered a mild objection to my judgment.
"Why do you have to make things so troublesome? Laiel, you've got a self-defeating personality too, you know."
The Seventh Generation was delighted.
"So my grandchild is the emperor… not bad at all. To think the time has come for House Walt to make its move toward continental domination."
I looked up at the ceiling. That's when Mireia spoke to me.
"Laiel, that decision isn't a joke, is it?"
I turned my face toward Mireia and nodded. Then I told her that my feelings were sincere.
"I can't exactly ask someone else to do this kind of job, and I can't leave it to someone who says they want to do it just for fun. Continental domination is putting it too strongly, but I will at least show them Baim and its surrounding nations as a whole. After all, I am a member of House Walt too. I'd like to accomplish something impressive enough not to lose to the Successive Heads."
When I said that with a joking tone, Mireia let out a soft laugh. But she also looked just a little sad.
"That path is a harsh one. You're sure there's no turning back now?"
"That's fine with me."
"Very well. Then we'll have to give you our full support too."