The war ended inconclusively.
Father's army returned in tatters.
Looking at their state, they might as well have come back defeated, but it seemed the war had been the least of their concerns, and they had turned back of their own accord.
The cause was that spider monster.
It apparently hadn't died during the previous incident—it suddenly appeared on the battlefield.
And it massacred both friend and foe alike without distinction. In the end, the Hero managed to hold it in place while a great magical attack was fired at it, successfully subduing it, or so the story went.
However, both armies had apparently suffered devastating losses, and the war could not continue.
Both sides had called a temporary ceasefire and withdrawn.
I was relieved that Father had returned safely, but at the same time, I felt anxious about a situation that had merely postponed the inevitable.
The Hero, who everyone thought had fought the spider to a standstill, had actually been secretly sheltered by a great mage from the Empire, or so I heard.
Apparently, this person could use teleportation magic and managed to rescue the Hero just moments before the great magic struck directly.
That was all well and good, but the nation was in chaos.
After all, they had just watched half their army get destroyed by the very creature they had been revering as a divine beast.
Originally, this war was ostensibly a campaign of vengeance for that divine beast.
In reality, it was probably rooted in years of friction with the Divine Word Church.
But with this incident, the spider they had revered as a divine beast had been proven to be a dangerous monster, just as the Divine Word Church claimed.
For our side, that meant we had lost our righteous cause.
And that, in turn, gave legitimacy to the Divine Word Church.
That was extremely bad.
We had essentially handed the Divine Word Church an opening to exploit.
Thanks to all this, Father had been rushing around frantically the moment he got back.
This didn't mean the war was over.
If anything, I thought the real battle was only just beginning.
The Divine Word Church had the Goddess Church in its crosshairs, and I couldn't imagine them letting this opportunity slip.
Granted, it would take some time to rebuild their shattered army, but the enemy was a powerful organization with enormous influence over human society.
It was entirely plausible that they could assemble a completely different army from the one that had participated this time.
In contrast, the Saliela Kingdom was superior in terms of raw national power alone.
But it was isolated and without allies, and its army was half destroyed.
If asked whether there was any chance of winning in that state, even someone like me—a layperson—could answer with certainty: no.
From the start, this war had been unwinnable.
If it had only been the Ootsu Kingdom at the center of it all, the Saliela Kingdom would have held a clear advantage. But the moment the Divine Word Church backed them, the odds grew slim.
And if the Empire also threw its support behind the Ootsu Kingdom, that would be an overwhelmingly decisive blow.
And yet, what made religious wars so frightening was that there was simply no backing down.
It was beyond my comprehension, but the Saliela Kingdom had no option not to fight.
This war was meant to be fought army versus army, with the outcome decided on the battlefield.
That way, civilians would be spared, and the Saliela Kingdom would surrender.
The military would be depleted, but by surrendering while the nation still had strength to spare, the idea was to settle for lenient reparations—that was the plan, I believe.
But that strategy was shattered by an intruder who appeared on the battlefield.
Both armies suffered catastrophic damage.
And the outcome remained unresolved.
The war continued.
Under conditions unfavorable to the Saliela Kingdom, no less.
From here on, this would no longer be the kind of clean war where set-piece battles decided the victor.
It would become a quagmire.
The kind where even the towns would suffer damage.
And the first target would be this town.
It was close to the border with the Ootsu Kingdom, and the place where the troublesome spider monster had been lurking.
Father had tried to start evacuating the residents early on.
But the timing and circumstances were terrible.
First, there was the timing.
The problem was that this had happened right in the middle of harvest season.
The territory centered on the town where I lived was also an agricultural region with vast farmlands.
Roads spread out from the town to the surrounding farming villages, and it was along these roads that harvested crops were brought to the town.
From there, they were transported across the entire Saliela Kingdom.
For the Saliela Kingdom, abandoning the harvest was simply not an option.
And so, the workers could not be evacuated.
The transport workers could at least evacuate along with their cargo to the destinations, but those engaged in other tasks were in a position where evacuation was impossible even if they had wanted to.
And then there was the other terrible circumstance.
The Saliela Kingdom's government had decided to sacrifice this town.
In short, they had decided to let the enemy attack and capture this town as part of the war.
They could not end this war without any damage.
So the mother country's intention was to keep the damage as shallow as possible.
Accordingly, while the evacuation of as many crops and supplies as possible, as well as talented personnel, was permitted, the evacuation of ordinary citizens beyond that was not approved.
In other words, we had been handed over to the enemy as slaves.
And that included Father, who governed this town, along with his family.
Father tried his best to get Mother and me out.
But it was not to be.
Grandfather and Grandmother had apparently tried to pull some strings, but even that was crushed by the mother country.
Presumably, a deal had already been struck between the mother country and the enemy's leadership.
Otherwise, the restrictions on our movements were simply too severe.
Between the timing overlapping with harvest season and everything else, the situation couldn't have been worse.
This country had a firm separation between its military and farming classes, so the harvest itself hadn't suffered greatly—but even so, the timing was impossibly bad.
If the enemy had calculated and orchestrated all of this, then the Saliela Kingdom had been utterly defeated.
The approaching enemy army looked like death itself.