Chapter 24
By the time we had even matched the shoes and men’s clothing, the sun was already sinking behind the mountains.
Spending an afternoon without any labor was a first since I’d been hired as a maid. And yet, why did it feel more exhausting than the days I’d spent silently cleaning? The life of a maid was truly beyond understanding.
“Want some?”
I was dragging my weary body back toward the park behind the bustling streets.
When I turned my head in the direction Lu suddenly pointed, I spotted a colorful ice cream cart.
“…Buy me one?”
Suddenly offering this kindness? Suspicious.
“It’s a principle that whips and carrots work best when given together. Even when training dogs, slipping in sweet treats now and then helps them learn faster.”
Am I a dog right now?
But if it was free kindness like this, maybe becoming a dog for just a brief, brief moment wouldn’t be so bad.
I nodded cautiously, and Lu jerked his chin toward the bench at the park entrance.
“Sit quietly and wait.”
As I obeyed, Lu headed straight to the ice cream cart himself.
A food I’d only eaten a handful of times in my life. What a windfall.
‘Come to think of it, isn’t there a labor office around here?’
Hmm. The days I’d spent sleeping rough in this park already felt like ancient history.
As I scanned the depths of the park, my gaze halted at the expansive cemetery situated up ahead.
‘A cemetery too? I didn’t know—it was only ever at night that I’d come here.’
A cemetery right in the heart of a major city like this had to be a national one.
The landscaping and grass were impeccably groomed, colorful flowers blooming in every direction, erasing any trace of the usual somber cemetery chill.
Focusing my full attention, I examined the hat draped over the nearest gravestone.
It was a Mado Alliance soldier’s cap.
On the stone slab before the bridge linking the park and the national cemetery, the area name was engraved in neat script.
『Midwintry National Peace Park』
Drawn to it like a moth to flame, I walked toward it.
When I reached the bridge. Hundreds, thousands of gravestones stretched out before my eyes.
The gravestones, aligned in perfect blocks, bore the names of those fallen in the Mado War—or names that had gone unrecorded.
So many people had lived in Midwintree. And died.
My arrogance, assuming a northern city far from the front lines could remain ignorant of war’s horrors.
This sight rebuked that arrogance so pointedly that I was left speechless.
‘Are there graves somewhere here for those who never even got to exchange names on the battlefield?’
Lost in those strange sentiments, the instant I crossed the bridge and set foot inside the National Peace Park.
[Hey!]
Pew-woong—
A sharp whooshing sound sliced past me.
The acrid stench of blood stung my nostrils. At that familiar, horrifying scent, I spun around on instinct.
Nothing was there.
No spacious park, no ice cream stand beyond it, no Lu’s back as he paid for the ice cream up ahead.
In their place stood only blazing ruins, corpses, quaking earth, soldiers charging ahead with gritted teeth.
What is this?
[Hey, where are you looking?]
Someone shoved my shoulder in urgency.
A man’s face swam into my shaking field of vision. His grimy features, crusted with blood and dirt, were etched with terror and rage at death.
[What are you doing? Snap out of it, you idiot! Zone out and you’ll die!]
Ah, right. This is a battlefield.
We’re fighting a war.
I shook my head to clear it. Was it because I hadn’t gotten proper sleep these past few days? It felt like I’d dreamed for a split second while standing.
Just moments ago, it had felt like I belonged to another world entirely, but now I couldn’t even recall what the dream had been.
What a bizarre experience.
[The great mage Mephisto’s demon legion is raiding from the east. We abandon this village—too many of them. Hurry and evacuate the residents!]
“You?”
[I’m heading to the Chapel! Heard there are bedridden elderly getting treatment there.]
“Lead on. I’ll cover you.”
The ground shuddered violently. A sign the enemy was closing in fast.
We raced toward the Chapel perched on the village’s high ground.
“Find a cart! If there are too many elderly, we can’t carry them one by one.”
[The Chapel here oversaw a pretty large farm. There have to be carts out back…]
In that instant, a violent cloud of dust engulfed us.
Kwaaang!
A long-range wave attack from a siege demon. The indiscriminate blasts hammered the ground, choking the air with dust.
A sharp pain lanced through my waist, but that was all. Fortunately, nothing serious.
[Cough, cough!]
The soldier moving with me, though, was another story.
“Hey, you…”
[Uwaaaah! My, my leg! My leg!]
One leg sheared clean off, the other mangled.
“Damn it.”
No time to staunch the bleeding right now, of all times. I gripped his arm urgently and yelled.
“Snap out of it! No time to zone out. Grab my neck—I’ll support you. Hurry!”
[Huh, heuk.]
Fear-soaked breaths panted against my ear. With trembling hands, he shoved me away.
[It’s, it’s fine… Leave me behind. In, instead, give my mother my last farewell…]
“Bullshit. Save that for when the war’s over—you’ll tell her yourself!”
[Stop it. No feeling in my left leg either. Can’t move—I’ll just slow you down… Go, at least to the Chapel… And my name, my hometown…]
“Didn’t you hear me? You’ll tell her yourself when the war ends!”
Amid the chaos came a jarringly cold voice.
“No, Daizy. The war is over.”
Daizy? Was that this man’s name?
A pretty name that didn’t suit him at all, I thought as I struggled to haul his body upright.
“Yeah, it’ll end someday! But not now. On your feet, friend. Let’s find that cart first. You can wait there…”
“There are no carts here. No Chapel, no demon legion, no elderly you need to save.”
Something was wrong.
I turned back to the man. He had frozen in place. The swirling dust around us, the trembling ground, the screams, the sobs—gone, all silent.
In a world where time itself had stopped, someone spoke to me.
“The war is over. Time to come back.”
“…It’s over?”
“Yes. No one’s dying anymore. See? The only thing melting away right now is the ice cream in my hand.”
I scanned everywhere, but the voice’s owner was nowhere. What was happening?
“Good. You’re stabilizing now. Seems talking to you is working. …You look young, miss. Were you with the Alliance?”
This time, the voice belonged to someone older.
I glanced at the man I’d been supporting. His body was crumbling, agonizingly slow—like a sandcastle dissolving under the waves.
“I’ve seen soldiers like you before. Sigh. Such a tragedy. An irreversible catastrophe. The very ones who forged peace, tormented even after it’s won.”
An unseen force gently lowered my arm. As I stood there dazed, a warm touch patted my head.
“Let’s head back now. Rest easy.”
Who did that voice belong to?
The question didn’t linger. My body grew heavy, the world flickering.
When I opened my eyes again, a strange sight greeted me.
Outside, darkness had already fallen. But the moon hanging beyond the window was so enormous and bright that the entire room lay illuminated.
My whole body throbbed with exhaustion.
‘…The last voice I heard was Lu’s, so it shouldn’t be anywhere strange.’
With that thought, I peered out the window. A deeply familiar landscape filled my view.
There, beneath the gleaming full moon, stood the Weatherwoods Mansion.
Which meant…
“The water’s over there.”
This was Eschla Mansion.
And the man seated in the chair against the shadowed wall, reading a book, was the mansion’s new master—Lu.
‘Isn’t it uncomfortable reading in such a dark spot?’
Even I, with my hypersensitive senses, would shy away from that.
But Lu’s eccentric habits were nothing new after a day or two, so I took a sip of water first.
Only then did I realize how desperately parched my body was. As my head cleared, the events just before I blacked out resurfaced.
That horrifically vivid hallucination in the National Peace Park.
‘It wasn’t even a daydream. To confuse reality and illusion like that…’
I set the glass down slowly. My hands trembled so finely I nearly dropped it.
Just reliving it soaked my palms in cold sweat, sending chills racing through me.
This sensation of utter weakness.
This loss of control over my own body—it was profoundly unsettling.
And yet, in all my postwar days, I’d never shuddered with raw, instinctive fear like this.
Why was it happening now, of all times?
“…Thanks for helping me.”
