Ch.309Epilogue – Words That Must Be Said (2)

Something lives within the blood pools of Verdun. What it is, no one can tell. Seeing how it can borrow the faces of the fallen soldiers, perhaps it should be called a mass of vengeful spirits.

Brother Robert had entered and exited that hell of Verdun several more times afterward, but there was no way to know what existed there. The entity seemed to have no interest in Brother Robert whatsoever.

Nevertheless, Brother Robert investigated it from October 1, 1938, when he first saw it, until May 8, 1939, just two days ago. He even scooped up a cup from the lake of blood to determine exactly what it was.

What filled the lake of blood wasn’t actually blood. It was some other substance. It was similar to how the War Spirit appeared to be made of human flesh but wasn’t actually human flesh.

If he had researched a bit more, he could have known for certain… but all of that had become unimportant now.

The dwarves had begun invading his homeland. One might as well say that dwarves were all that remained in that land now.

Soldiers who came to the village reassured people that the national army was holding back the dwarf armored units that had suddenly crossed the border. They persuaded everyone that there was enough time to flee.

However, instead of taking comfort in those words and getting into a car, Brother Robert handed the soldier his research on that entity. He had something he needed to say.

“Take this. Someone needs to know what’s here. And I have something I must say. I said something I shouldn’t have to that entity…”

Brother Robert remembered that he had dared to speak of hope to that entity. It was a foolish thing. People would make the same mistakes and fight the same wars.

The soldier who had come to evacuate them didn’t understand those words and reached out to take Brother Robert away, but from some midpoint, his hand stopped extending.

It was a barrier field. A thin but tough barrier field could be felt against his hand. Sophie, who had settled in this village since the day she first encountered that entity in the lake of blood, was extending her hand to create the barrier.

That entity had tried to kill her. It had borrowed the face of her brother, whom she cherished more than anyone, and tried to crush her to death.

So she too wanted to know. She needed to know what wrong she had committed that made her brother’s vengeful spirit, or something that appeared to be so, try to kill her. She had sufficient reason to seek out that entity.

The smell of blood began to rise from within her chest. It was because she had used too much magic recently. Nevertheless, Sophie tried to maintain a relaxed and sneering voice.

“You know you can’t just tear through a barrier field I created to withstand the magical storm of Verdun’s hell pit. Go ahead without us. We need to make one more visit. The hell pit might even be safer than the evacuation route. You can’t take that gamble, but we can.”

Meanwhile, Brother Robert had brought the car and gotten in first. The moment Sophie, who had been maintaining the barrier field, got in, he immediately drove off. Their destination was hell. Hell that had emerged into the mortal world.

The soldiers didn’t pursue them. The main reason was that Brother Robert, a Great War veteran, wouldn’t betray his homeland, and the second reason was the research material he had handed over.

That material contained photographs. Photos showing a massive entity submerged beneath Verdun’s hell pit. Something existed there. They were going to see what that something was.

The battlefield of the Verdun plain, toward which the two were heading, was creating an even fiercer storm as if it had sensed something. The red whirlwinds that originally circulated only within the plain were now spilling over beyond it.

Has it detected signs of war? Brother Robert and Sophie got out of the car a bit farther out than where they should have originally descended. Brother Robert took out a record box that had been loaded in the car.

Even as he felt his bangs fluttering in the magical storm raging before his eyes, he placed the record on the phonograph with almost reverent gestures and inserted the needle to start playing the record.

Lord, have mercy. Children’s voices began to ring out, and the Verdun plain’s storm lost some of its intensity, enough for them to squeeze through. Sophie created a barrier field that wrapped around the two of them.

Sophie carried the bell. Brother Robert began walking with the phonograph he was holding out in front. Even with Sophie’s barrier field, the storm was barely endurable.

Inside the storm, the situation was even more terrible. Not a single War Spirit could be seen. The entities that had been immersed in the memories of the Great War were all gone, leaving the plain empty.

The lake of blood seemed to have swollen since their last visit. The two were afraid. They had no idea what could be in the lake of blood that was causing all this.

Nevertheless, they walked toward the lake of blood. With each ring of the bell, the wind that had been blowing as if trying to tear the barrier field apart subsided a little more. Each time the record’s voice rang out, it subsided once more.

After walking in silence for quite some time, it was Sophie who broke the silence between them. She asked anxiously.

“Um, Brother Robert? Do you remember that thing that shook New York in 1925? The King of Industrial Spirits in America.”

Brother Robert nodded first. He too had wondered what had caused the Great Depression, and the name of the King of Industrial Spirits was essential in explaining the Great Depression.

“I remember. They called it the Machine of the Age.”

“Then… you also know that the Industrial Spirits, including the King of Industrial Spirits, were created by humans, right? Since they were born from humans, they serve humans like parents. Those things.”

Brother Robert could anticipate one ominous statement. Sophie said exactly what he had briefly anticipated.

“The War Spirits were also born because of the Great War… and if the entity within the greatest scar of that Great War is what we’re going to meet, then perhaps…”

“You mean it could be the King of War Spirits?”

Brother Robert wanted to shake his head. War Spirits were beings that had once been human. They were beings that had been twisted in some unknown, terrible way.

A King of War Spirits should not exist. If such a being existed, it would obviously try to destroy humanity as soon as it awoke. A being that had only experienced war and knew only war would do so.

However, they couldn’t continue their small talk for long. With each step they took, the magical storm grew more intense, and after advancing a bit further, bloody handprints began appearing on top of the barrier field.

It didn’t take long before marks resembling human faces and hands began to appear on the repulsive force of the barrier field. They were now standing right in front of the lake of blood.

The storm had now become unbearably strong, and beyond the repulsive force that Sophie was creating with all her might, countless entities were pressing their faces against the barrier and reaching out their hands, trying to grab them.

After inhaling the mana-saturated air of the Verdun plain to the depths of her lungs, she expanded the barrier field. A hemispherical barrier about ten meters in diameter was barely created. She shouted to Brother Robert.

“I can’t hold out for long, Brother! If you have something to say, please say it quickly! We might not even be able to get out of here!”

Brother Pierre knelt before the lake of blood. It seemed to be the very place where he had spoken of hope after seeing only a very temporary, very fragmentary hope.

He had many things he wanted to say. Whoever or whatever is in there, please fight for us. This is not our fault. Please save us. And countless others.

But there was only one thing he had to say. It was a very simple thing, something anyone could say. But it was simply something no one had said. He had to say it.

Brother Robert hunched over as he knelt. Like a sinner hoping for even a shred of absolution, he looked at the unresponsive lake of blood.

“We, we seem to be repeating our mistakes. If it’s permissible to wish for such a thing, please…”

Sophie’s barrier field could have withstood the terribly intensified storm for several minutes, but as soon as Brother Robert opened his mouth and began to speak, it suddenly strengthened and began to engulf them.

Sophie tried with all her might to maintain the barrier field, but it was no use. An entity incomparably stronger than her was trying to tear the barrier field apart. At that moment, Brother Robert spoke his next words.

“Please forgive us…”

The moment those words fell like droplets into the lake of blood, Sophie no longer felt the power of the massive entity that had been tearing at the barrier field. Brother Robert continued speaking nonetheless.

“Perhaps it’s because we feared war. Perhaps it’s because we acted foolishly. I won’t go so far as to ask for absolution… but please, forgive us…”

Sophie shook Brother Robert’s shoulder to tell him that the magical storm raging around them had disappeared, but her shouts were drowned out by the sound that soon reverberated around them, and Brother Robert couldn’t hear her.

A whistle sounded. A whistle signaling a charge began to reverberate loud enough to split eardrums. Next came the battle cries. The cries that soldiers would make to forget the fear of charging rang out.

The ground was vibrating from those cries. The lake of blood began to churn. All the human figures floating in it began to gather in one place. They weren’t silhouettes.

While Brother Robert stared in astonishment, a human hand emerged from the center of the lake of blood with a splash. It was the hand of someone holding a flag.

The two outstretched hands planted a flag in the middle of the lake of blood. And from within the lake of blood, the voices of soldiers who had been sacrificed in the Great War rang out.

“First hill captured! Moving to the next hill! Advance! Advance!”

With those words, a mass of entangled forms of numerous soldiers—the same ones that had tried to crush Sophie—emerged from the lake of blood. It began to crawl, run, and stretch upward toward the sky.

Not just one or two such stems emerged, but about ten. The soldier at the end of each stem was holding a flag. It wasn’t clear which country’s flag it was. It was a flag full of blood-red darkness.

The stems began to intertwine. As if trying to create some form, they began to intertwine and take shape. Brother Robert, who had been kneeling, stumbled backward and fell.

Each time a stem reached its proper position, the soldiers at the end of the stem would plant their flags in the air or on top of another stem and shout that the advance had been successful. They seemed to be simply repeating their actions from when they were alive.

It was weaving together the form of a person. Not an ordinary person. It was a very universal yet very alien human form, so haphazardly intertwined that one couldn’t even determine its race.

It was a giant whose entire body was covered in wounds from which blood flowed. It was a giant deity who had been castrated and whose two arms were bound behind its back like a criminal. It had bulging eyes shedding tears of blood, but its mouth was sewn shut… it was the form of a human.

That entity looked down at Sophie and Brother Robert, who were like dots compared to it.

The arms that had been tightly bound behind its back like a criminal’s seemed to thrash a couple of times, and then the iron chains that had firmly secured its wrists shattered and poured into the lake of blood. Waves crashed.

The entity brought its hand to its sewn mouth and tore out the wire that had tightly sewn its mouth shut. It was a being molded from earth. A being molded from earth stained with the blood, gunpowder, and ashes of the Great War.

And yet it was bleeding. Having finally found its voice, the entity responded to Brother Robert’s sincere words. It was a voice so dry it was suffocating. A voice that had preserved its will despite being parched.

“We do not forgive. We do not condemn. We do not save. We do not judge. We are merely the tragedy that remembers itself. Tragedy must be remembered. No one should forget. It should not be repeated. But…”

The entity looked toward the horizon. For a long time, it stared at the horizon, shedding blood and earth as tears, as if it were something tragic. Then it gritted its teeth so hard they might have been ground down.

It was angry. It was feeling will. It felt the hatred dissolved in the air as the second World War approached, just as it had tried to crush and kill Sophie, who was burning with hatred, when she had no consciousness.

“You desire blood. If blood is what you want, then yes. I will give you blood. I will pour out more than you can obtain from this war!”

With the King of War Spirits’ cry, magic began to flow through the ground and sky. The red sky that had originally belonged only to the Verdun plain began to spread.

At that moment, a German tank crewman of the 19th Armored Corps, who was already crossing the river to invade France and engaging in battle with Belgian forces, could feel something strange. The lever of the tank he was gripping felt sticky.

The tank commander must have felt something similar, as he removed his face from the observation window. The observation window handle he had been holding left a red stain on his hand. A round bloodstain remained on his face as well. It was as if the tank was melting.

By the time he thought that idea was absurd, he lost his balance. One of his legs had sunk downward. Downward? Only then did he look at where his legs were standing.

There was only a pool of blood there. The tank was melting. Not into molten metal, but into a pool of blood. At that moment, the tank’s turret fell on them as a huge mass of blood with a splash.

Something incomprehensible was happening. No matter how much the tank had melted, the puddle shouldn’t have been that deep. But he was being pulled down endlessly as if he had fallen into the sea.

The moment he opened his mouth, thinking he was seeing a hallucination, blood water rushed into his stomach like a tide. This was reality. He didn’t know how this could be reality.

Looking around quickly in the blood water, the tank commander could barely see that other tank crewmen, German and Belgian soldiers alike, were all drowning in it.

The King of War Spirits was drowning everyone who held weapons in blood water full of its own power. The 41st Armored Corps crossing the Rhine River disappeared completely and was never seen again. The Rhine River turned blood-red.

The reconnaissance aircraft launched by the French Air Force also disappeared in the same way. Blood rained around it, and the pilot was found crashed with even his parachute having melted into blood water. It wasn’t a crash death. The cause of death was drowning.

The King of War Spirits drowned both the twisted patriotism for invasion and the patriotism to protect one’s country without distinction. War is not allowed. It submerged all emotions trying to start a war in that blood water.

The course of the war changed completely. Germany had to deal with the King of War Spirits first to barely advance, and the same was true for the invaded countries.

The King of War Spirits did not permit even taking up arms to defend one’s country. Both invasion divisions and homeland defense divisions were consumed by the blood water, and occasionally even armed individuals were swallowed by it.

War must never happen again. War must be stopped—this was the only thing that the souls of the fallen soldiers, mixed and haphazardly altered until even their humanity was blurred, held onto until the very end.

Therefore, the King of War Spirits, born from resentment, held onto its last remaining will and stopped the war. The war to end all wars was not yet over.

That fact would soon be known to all, but not many people knew that the change in the direction of the battlefield and the change in history was due to a single word of apology that someone had offered.