Ch.210Episode 11 – All Quiet on the Northern Front

# When a Star Seeped into the Clouds, a Star Fell to Earth

The falling star rushed down, cutting through the piercingly blue sky. As the star touched the ground, something green engulfed everything nearby.

Withered trees and birds that wouldn’t stop chirping despite the gunfire.

Deer drinking from streams and small forest animals.

And even the pure white snow.

The star that crashed to earth devoured everything.

With an ominous, viscous green liquid.

“…Shit!”

An imperial army mage who had spread a blue barrier shouted urgently.

“The demon bastards are attacking! Put on your gas masks now!”

## Episode 11 – All Quiet on the Northern Front

Humans are creatures of adaptation.

Having been dispatched to the north for quite some time now, I’ve perfectly adapted to the northern environment.

“…Um, are you alright?”

“Ah ahm ahsolutely fhine.”

“…Pardon?”

“…I am absolutely fine. I guess my scarf is muffling my voice. See?”

Thanks to my three years of service in the Empire, it took less time than expected to adapt.

Although the flesh-biting cold and knee-deep snow were difficult to get used to, wearing several layers of thick winter clothes made the biting wind from the frozen ground somewhat bearable.

“Lady Lyudmila. Sorry, but could you help me take off my gloves? I’m wearing two pairs, and they’re frozen so they won’t come off easily.”

“Ah… yes, just a moment.”

A thick fur-lined coat and scarf. I’m wearing two pairs of gloves and two pairs of socks.

With thin clothes layered underneath already thick winter clothes, I might as well be a golem.

When I pass by mirrors on the street, I can’t tell if I’m a human or a yeti.

“Oh, thank you. I feel like I can live now. Was there any trouble at the front line last night?”

“There were a few small battles, from what I understand. I heard they were near the foothills, but not in the area where the Hero and Saint are stationed.”

“Oh dear, another dawn raid? A few days ago, the mage tower’s position was attacked… tsk. Anyway, I need to head to the meeting room. Should I forward the reports from the Holy Knight Order like last time?”

“Yes, that would be fine, Officer.”

The work is manageable too. My role is to inform the military government headquarters about the activities of the Church and Mage Tower—specifically Lucia and Francesca—and coordinate their schedules.

If Lucia tells me that the patients’ conditions have stabilized and she needs to move to the next area but is having trouble passing through checkpoints, or if Francesca mentions safety concerns because golems and workers are mixed together under the supervision team’s direction, I immediately rush to the military government headquarters and complain that the situation is a mess and they need to do their jobs properly.

Of course, I don’t actually berate the Imperial military generals.

The generals in this dictatorship have developed a keen sense of awareness to survive the threat of purges, so when I casually mention, “I spoke with the Saint and Administrator, and it seems things aren’t going well,” a miracle occurs and the problem is resolved with just one phone call.

“Hey! How are you commanding that the Mage Tower is filing complaints? Do I have to be scolded by foreigners in front of the Commander at my rank? Huh?!”

“Start the vehicle. I need to go there myself.”

“Lady Lyudmila, what is that person saying on the phone?”

“…Well, you see….”

It felt a bit like I was abusing my power over the Imperial army, but the complaints were resolved well.

No one in the Empire had the guts to ignore a phone call from a senior official at military government headquarters. If such a person existed, someone would have already burst their exposed liver.

Thus, I’ve been adapting to northern life and settling in. As they say, “near ink, one gets stained black”—being among these twisted people, I feel my own character slowly becoming warped.

However, even though I’ve adapted my body to the northern environment, I couldn’t easily adapt to the food and housing.

Clothes were relatively manageable, but… meals and accommodation were problematic.

The hotel provided slightly inadequate meals with hard rye bread instead of fluffy white bread, and when I turned on the water to wash my face, nothing came out for a while.

Plus, the heating would cut off, waking me up in the middle of the night, and the magical power supply would be interrupted, causing me to lose documents I was working on more than once.

Considering the harsh northern environment, these situations weren’t incomprehensible, but it wasn’t easy to relieve the daily accumulating fatigue and stress.

But what kind of animal is a human? Aren’t we creatures of adaptation?

I constantly pondered this. And finally, I found a solution.

“……”

“……”

“…Excuse me, may I ask you something?”

“Go ahead, Saint Lucia.”

“This is a line for providing food to refugees, so why are you standing here?”

“To eat, of course.”

“……”

*

A warm meal and a room full of warmth. Just sitting still makes my eyes close drowsily, like a child listening to a lullaby.

Having eaten food incomparably better than what the hotel and military government headquarters provided, I sat on a cot with a smile as if I owned the world.

“Feeling full and content.”

“……”

Lucia’s cold gaze pierced me.

She was at a loss for words, staring at me—someone who had suddenly appeared, solved lunch at the refugee food station, and then occupied her room.

“This place is good.”

“…I don’t understand why you ate that.”

“Well, don’t churches usually distribute free meals at lunchtime?”

“That’s for people who need help. It’s not free food being handed out at a tasting booth.”

“That’s true, but honestly, nothing tastes as good as food from religious facilities. I use it often.”

“…What the—”

What the hell is this guy doing?

That was the nuance of what Lucia was about to say before she closed her mouth and gave me a questioning look. She must have thought it inappropriate to speak so freely to others.

I shrugged as I received Lucia’s increasingly cold gaze.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d eaten free meals from religious facilities to save money while on overseas assignments. In India, I had lunch at a Sikh temple near the office, and when working in the Middle East, I joined Muslims during Ramadan, stuffing myself with food. All to save meal expenses for activity funds.

Looking back now, I wonder what I was thinking. As I sat quietly reminiscing about the past, I muttered as if possessed.

“Ah, I’m so full…”

“……”

Shaking her head as if giving up on understanding, Lucia composed her expression and approached me.

“You came for treatment again today, right?”

“Well, not exactly for that, though I do have things to do here… but yes, I suppose so.”

“Let’s finish quickly. Please stay still in a comfortable position.”

Sitting on the cot, Lucia took my right hand and closed her eyes. To avoid disturbing Lucia as she concentrated on the treatment, I stopped moving and quietly watched what she was doing.

Every time her lips moved, light clusters like pear blossoms gathered in the air and collected in our clasped hands.

With her eyes closed and hands clasped, reciting scripture, Lucia was the very embodiment of a true religious person. Personally, I wished Veronica would learn from Lucia.

After a while, Lucia’s lips, which had been reciting scripture, gradually stopped moving. The light clusters that had gathered like magnets dispersed again, and when only the warmth of our clasped hands remained in the empty space.

Lucia opened her eyes and raised her blue eyes.

“…It’s done.”

I slowly moved my right thumb.

Tilting it left, tilting it right. Bending it all the way and stretching it out, even picking up and lifting objects.

Still holding my hand, Lucia watched the movement of my thumb muscles and sighed with relief, giving a gentle smile.

“That’s good. Your condition is visibly improving.”

“Is it? I do feel like something is getting better, but I still don’t really notice…”

“Your nerves were damaged, so it can’t be helped. How can you expect something that needs long, slow rehabilitation to improve overnight?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course.”

With a smile so gentle it exuded kindness, Lucia moved on to the next step.

Having been in the north for quite some time, I visit Lucia whenever I have free time to receive treatment and help with the refugee shelter situation.

In truth, with all attention focused on Camilla, who performs combat missions, I would neglect Lucia and Francesca if I didn’t make time like this.

After raising holy power for healing, Lucia wiped my hand with a clean cloth soaked in holy water.

This was more than disinfection—it was treatment to remove scars and alleviate injuries by allowing holy water to seep in.

After watching a few times, I offered to do it myself if she would provide the holy water, but she replied,

“How do you plan to enhance the efficacy of holy water when you can neither use magic nor handle divine power?”

After being hit with that fact, I had nothing to say.

“Instead of fighting unfairly with facts, let’s compete properly with propaganda and fabrication.”

“You’re saying strange things. Did you perhaps hit your head while accompanying Miss Camilla?”

“……”

Lucia’s expression remained perfectly clear as she casually asked if I’d lost my mind.

After wringing out the cloth once, Lucia used her hands to apply holy water to every corner of my thumb. The thumb that had been severed and reattached with Veronica’s help would occasionally twitch when Lucia’s touch reached it.

It was the sudden memory of the beastkin woman biting off my finger. Even knowing she was already dead, the sensation remained somewhere in my mind, constantly resurfacing whenever a scar was touched.

At such times, Lucia would wrap my thumb with her hand soaked in holy water and wait patiently until I calmed down.

The gentle touch with its faint warmth embraced my thumb briefly. After waiting silently, Lucia smiled brightly and asked me a question.

“Are you calmer now?”

“Thanks to you, Saint.”

“I’m glad.”

Lucia finished the treatment with quick hand movements. After raising holy power once more when the holy water had completely soaked in, she cautioned me about a few things, then finally took a breath after tidying up.

“This is tiring.”

Lucia plopped down in a chair and let out a faint sigh. For her sake, I opened the window wide, partly to ventilate the room.

As I opened the small window, the biting December wind rushed in. The frozen earth. The wind from the cursed magical realm instantly dried the sweat clinging to my skin.

“Isn’t it a bit cold? Cold wind probably isn’t good for patients.”

“Should I close it?”

“No. Leave it open.”

Fanning herself, Lucia looked out the window.

Snow piled high. The city turned white overnight and distant snow-capped mountains spread before our eyes. Smoke rising through chimneys and long lines of people shivering in the cold for hours to survive another day were also visible.

Lucia’s eyes grew melancholic as she gazed at the city not far from the northern front line.

“The situation doesn’t look very good.”

“It’s much better than before. When I first came here, things were worse.”

Lucia’s face looking at the refugees seemed calm yet resolute. I couldn’t quite tell, but she seemed to be carrying some burden.

Her hand reaching for her inner pocket suddenly stopped. Touching the empty pocket, Lucia clicked her tongue as if she’d come up empty-handed.

Noticing what she was looking for, I took out a cigarette and handed it to her.

“Have one.”

“Ah… thank you, but I heard you were quitting smoking?”

“Just smoke it.”

Lucia bowed her head in gratitude and took a cigarette. I pulled out the last one from the lightened pack and put it in my mouth.

-Hiss.

The familiar oily taste and cigarette smell stimulated my nose. I didn’t feel the heavy, bitter something described in movies.

Lucia lit the end of her cigarette and suddenly turned to me with a question.

“By the way, what brings you here today? It seems we’ve spent quite some time. Shouldn’t you be checking on the other two?”

“Would it make you feel better if I left early, Saint?”

“Not at all… Actually, I was thinking of asking for your help since you’re here.”

“Civil servants can be punished for taking on unauthorized work, so unfortunately, I don’t think I can help you.”

“Should I write a letter to the Ambassador?”

“……”

Damn it. Even here in the Empire, she’s thinking of putting me to work.

Just below, I could see clerics pushing carts loaded with goods on the road. They were Imperial Inquisition employees who had volunteered with the Mage Tower…

“Hey! Push!”

“Please move forward! Please!”

“I’m not sure if this is right…”

“If you don’t like it, just apostatize.”

“…What happens if we get caught?”

“Just apostatize first and repent later…”

The sound from below made me frown involuntarily. Even stranger was the sight of Chernoi sitting slumped on the cart being pulled by the Inquisition employees.

“The world has elevated me… Now Chernoi has reached a higher state than any nymph…!”

“……”

Why did I bring him along? I wondered if I should request a return to the company.

But Lucia maintained her saintly smile.

“He makes jokes like that sometimes.”

“……”

That doesn’t seem like a joke. He looks like he might actually apostatize.

I glanced at Lucia with a disgusted look and sighed deeply. She’s not normal either.

“Well… anyway, I came to check on this place today. I was worried about how you were doing and wondered if you needed anything. It would be troublesome for many people if something happened to the Saint.”

“I’m not that important, but thank you for your concern. I’m more worried about the citizens than myself.”

At that moment, Lucia paused. She tilted her head slightly.

“By the way, I believe I asked you to call me Lucia comfortably a few months ago. Why do you still call me Saint?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Honestly, I prefer being called more casually…”

“Me?”

“……”

I pointed below the window. A heavily armed holy knight was looking up at us with the eyes of a hawk eyeing its prey.

Though he didn’t say anything, his gaze clearly conveyed the message: “If you mess with the Saint, I’ll destroy you.”

However, when Lucia peeked her head out, the holy knights pretended they hadn’t been looking and gazed elsewhere with solemn expressions.

Tilting her head again in confusion, Lucia asked me with puzzlement.

“I don’t know. They’re good people, so I’m not sure why you’re worried.”

“……”

“Anyway, this is good timing. I wanted to explain the situation here to you.”

“About the shelter?”

“About the city. It’s difficult to explain the shelter and the city separately.”

She meant that the entire city was a shelter, so there wasn’t really a specific facility to call a shelter.

In fact, I had already guessed as much even without Lucia telling me. There were homeless people everywhere—in underpasses, on staircases leading underground, and on snow-covered streets.

This place, which until five years ago was probably a beautiful small city, was now filled with armed soldiers, injured people with missing limbs, and homeless people from who knows where.

The wind from the north blew into the city. The wind circling the collapsed ruins sounded almost like a ghostly wail echoing through the ruins.

Lucia opened her mouth as she looked at the ruined city. A slightly weak voice flowed from her cracked lips.

“Even though those buildings all look abandoned, if you look inside, many people are still there. People who have occupied ownerless buildings and are struggling to survive day by day.”

“Refugees? Or disabled people and the elderly?”

“…They are just refugees.”

Whether disabled, elderly, men, women, young, or old—everyone was equally a refugee.

Lucia said every person’s life was precious, but to my ears, it sounded like all Imperial citizens living in the north were equally screwed.

I looked at the long line for rations.

People who had gotten into fights over line-cutting were wrestling on the ground, only to be caught and beaten by military police. But the refugees didn’t even glance at them, just pulling the shortened line forward.

After examining the refugees on the street, I turned to ask Lucia.

“How many people live here?”

“I haven’t properly assessed it, but I’ve heard around 120,000. Perhaps even more.”

“Then how many people lived here before?”

“……”

Lucia’s eyes closed briefly. She didn’t even notice the cigarette ash falling.

She seemed to be thinking about something, or perhaps steeling herself.

“…I heard 30,000.”

“30,000 people?”

“Yes.”

I couldn’t help but laugh hollowly.

A small city that had housed 30,000 citizens just five years ago now held over 120,000 refugees. Since proper population counts would be impossible during wartime, this was just an estimate, as Lucia said. It could be less than 120,000, perhaps 100,000, or it might be closer to 200,000.

Lucia continued in a calm tone.

“There are too many people. The city’s facilities cannot handle the refugees. They need to be moved somewhere.”

“I don’t know. That doesn’t seem easy…”

The northern cities are already at capacity.

Cities that haven’t suffered major damage because they’re in the rear, or those that have been somehow restored by the military after being destroyed once, can no longer accept refugees.

Of course, there are cities where refugees could go, but such places are so damaged they can hardly be called cities. The city where the black market was held is a prime example. The military had given up on it, so despite the large influx of people, there was no military police enforcement.

The same goes for Novonikolayevsk, the northern capital with the military government headquarters and the Northern Grand Duke’s fortress. It too cannot handle more refugees.

“The entire north is already at capacity. Unless it’s a completely collapsed city, there’s nowhere else to go.”

“What about developing outside the city? The northern lands are vast.”

“Do you think the military government hasn’t considered that? When monsters from the Naroda Mountains are attacking cities, sending refugees outside the city is like throwing them to the monsters as food.”

There’s a reason refugees don’t leave the city despite the filth in the streets and epidemics. Apart from monsters and demons, the city at least has people who can help and sturdy buildings to block the wind.

At minimum, entering a city with stationed armed forces gives psychological comfort that someone is protecting you. But the empty plains outside the city are no-man’s land. Literally nothing is there.

So telling refugees to go outside the city is essentially telling them to go die.

Even if the military government issues orders, the refugees won’t accept them, and even if the Northern Grand Duke commands it, the refugees will resist. They’ll rebel.

And the north is under martial law. It wouldn’t be strange if they labeled resisting citizens as reactionaries and “Tiananmen” them.

When my thoughts reached that point, Lucia nodded with a hardened face.

“My thinking was shallow. Still, the refugees need to be moved somewhere. I wish they could evacuate to the central, eastern, western, or southern regions, but…”

“Movement out of the north is impossible. They’ve completely blocked it with fences.”

“Yes. So we need to evacuate them to the warmest, safest places possible within the north. Even with the relief knight brigade and healing priests working hard like now, there are limits. We can’t take care of every city.”

“…I understand. I’ll talk to the military government headquarters as soon as I return.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Lucia held my hand tightly and pleaded earnestly.

It was admirable that a saint of a religion would go this far, but I quickly pulled my hand away, thinking the holy knight waiting below might jump up and smash my head at any moment.

“Ah, please don’t touch me.”

“……?”

Lucia’s eyes, which had been filled with melancholy as if she might cry at any moment, changed. Her expression said, “What’s wrong with this guy?”

Under that bewildered gaze, I cleared my throat a few times and smiled awkwardly.

“Anyway, I understand what you’ve said. I’ll convey it to the Military Governor.”

“Please do.”

“Even if the refugees can’t evacuate, appropriate measures will be taken. So don’t worry. There won’t be any problems here.”

I casually tossed my cigarette butt out the window.

“Surely the demons won’t push all the way here?”

*

After meeting with Lucia, I got in the car to go to where Francesca was.

I drove north, against the flow of refugees heading south.

Occasionally, people looked at me with puzzled expressions as I headed north, but they quickly averted their gaze when they saw the escort armored vehicle following my car.

I didn’t particularly want to know why they feared the Imperial army.

Anyway, as I was heading north to meet up with Francesca.

I received an urgent call from Pipin and immediately turned the steering wheel to rush to the front line.

And then…

“Aish, shit! Who told you to light fires near the ammunition warehouse, huh?!”

“Ah, aah! My ear! My ear! My ear is about to fall off! It’s falling off!”

“I can’t live like this. What kind of explosion can be heard from kilometers away?! Huh? We could have lost even the corpses, and you think you did well…!”

Camilla, her ear being held, was crying and screaming loudly.

Her clothes were scorched in places, and her thick coat had burn holes with stuffing sticking out.

Looking like a homeless person, Camilla had surprisingly been injured not by demons or monsters, but by a fire she herself had started.

“I didn’t know the ammunition warehouse was there! Really! I was just told it was an empty warehouse! I’m being wronged!”

“So you’re saying the senior officers who’ve been working in the north for years got confused? Huh! Why don’t you light fires near the fuel depot too? Huh? You should at least make excuses that sound like excuses…”

“……”

Imperial army officers in equally ragged condition were slinking away in the background, avoiding eye contact, but I didn’t notice as I was busy scolding Camilla.

After thoroughly scolding Camilla for quite some time, I took out spare clothes I kept in the car and wrapped her up. Although she had unusually high body temperature and didn’t feel the cold much, it wasn’t right for her to look like a beggar.

“What a mess…”

“Hehe.”

“Oh, you troublemaker…”

As she sat on the seat, swinging her feet outside the vehicle mischievously, an Imperial army officer appeared from somewhere and hurriedly explained the situation.

Camilla’s task today was to burn the coniferous forest in the Naroda Mountains. While it would be best to proceed quickly with an operation to raze the entire mountain range, the operation had been temporarily suspended for safety due to the fire spreading to the ammunition warehouse.

For reference, Lady Lyudmila did the translation. I wondered when she had followed us, but she awkwardly crawled out of the armored vehicle.

“What did they say?”

Camilla, who had been swinging her legs, asked me. I answered while looking at the dejected backs of the Imperial army officers.

“The operation is suspended. They say they don’t know how much ammunition was in the warehouse you blew up, so they need to monitor the situation.”

“……”

“Is that so?”

“Apparently the unit in charge of this area evacuated urgently and couldn’t empty the warehouse. They need to check the records to confirm the amount of ammunition. They also need to bring mages to control the fire…”

Camilla’s legs, which had been swinging back and forth, stopped. Her eyes blinked rapidly. Her mouth opened wide and…

“Then it wasn’t my fault!!”

The sudden lion’s roar startled passing Imperial soldiers. And when they saw sparks flying from Camilla’s mouth, they collapsed to the ground.

Wait, she’s not a dragon—how is she breathing fire?

I grabbed Camilla’s chin and crown with my hands and firmly shut her mouth.

“You got in trouble for playing with fire at the lab too, and you still haven’t learned your lesson? Huh?”

“Hmm mmph grmmph…”

“Anyway, we need to go pick up a mage, so get in. I need to close the door, so pull your legs in.”

Thunk. Camilla’s head peeked out through the gap in the closed car window.

“Where are we going?”

I muttered in response as I got into the car.

“The Rift.”

It’s time to meet Francesca.