「Dead!」

A muffled voice shouts amidst the screams and noises of battle, and clatter of metal.

「This one's dead too!」

Another voice shouts nearby. William coughs up a mouthful of blood all over his chin, wheezing and gurgling as he tries to catch his breath half-sunken in the mud. The sky is starting to slowly turn blue again, while he's staring at the gray clouds above.

《This is it, huh? What a rotten fucking luck.》

William lifts his hand to the fragment of the spear stuck in his chest that tore apart through his chain mail.

《Those fucking assholes had to pick my levy cycle to start fucking shit on… Fuck's sake. I've had a good time drinking and biding my time, then some prick earning 50 times my drinking money just had to get in the way.》

He thinks, probing his chest for injuries. He winces when he feels his rib painfully loose and easy to move. A black shape appears towering over him, looking straight at him, though his attempts to focus his eyes on it fail.

《Mercia?… No, she doesn't take people like me. Ritteria?…》

He blinks, staring at the shape. His vision blurs and doubles.

「Hey! This one's alive!」

The muffled voice towering above him shouts. The black shape grasps onto his arms, right under his armpits.

Splat splat splat splat!

Feet hastily splash through the mud, and William feels an uncomfortably cold splatter on his face. Another black shape grabs onto his feet.

「Heave…」

「…Ho!」

The two men exclaim, and lift William out of the mud.

「Argh! Fuck, fuck, fuck!…」

He grunts and winces, his rib moves again while he is being carried somewhere unknown, too distracted by the pain in his chest to pay attention.

「One. Two.」

One of the men counts as they swing William left and right, disregarding his grimacing and grunting.

「Three!」

They both exclaim, and throw him into the air.

Thud!

「Aggh! Fuck! Fuck!…」

William clenches his teeth as he writhes on the pile. When he takes a few breaths, he looks aside and realizes he's laying on a pile of bodies. Bodies of men in a state similar to his, or worse. Some of the men are missing their limbs, some are profusely bleeding from their ghastly injuries.

「Hurry up!」

One of the men shouts at the other, and they hastily mount the cart.

Crack! Crack!

A whipcrack of reins. Then again. William moves, aggravating the pain in his chest further. Most of the men groan in pain as well. Some of them appear uninjured, only coated in head to toe in mud, but are staring at others in the pile, the sky, and at William with blank and confused eyes.

Thud.

「Agh, fuck!」

William grunts as the cart he's riding on with the pile of men abruptly stops and jerks downward.

「Fuck's sake, not again!」

「Hurry up, before they notice!」

The men shout as they jump out of the cart. They start straining and grunting at its rear, and the cart moves a little. The horse digs its hooves in the soft earth more and more.

Clunk.

Eventually, through the gargantuan effort of the horse and the men shoving the cart at the rear, it manages to unbog itself from the mud. The men quickly rush to the front to jump back on, and the driver ungratefully whips the horse with the reins again.

The cart violently starts moving once more, much to dismay of the flesh pile. It continues uninterrupted for a few minutes, hopping up and down, side to side on the uneven terrain. It abruptly stops again, and the flesh pile grunts in pain.

The men jump out and run to the back in hurry. They climb on, and grab William.

「Heave… Ho!」

They pull him out, and unceremoniously throw him onto the ground.

Thud!

「Ugh! Gah!… Fuck!」

William grunts on impact, and rolls a short distance.

「…Ho!」

Thud!

「Aggghh!」

A man groans in pain as he lands on the muddy ground.

「What the fuck?…」

William weakly mutters out, looking at the men rapidly emptying the cart with no regard for the cargo's welfare.

Thud!

Another man gets thrown out, with barely any reaction aside from light movement of his limbs on impact.

「Shouldn't we like… Be gentler with them?」

One of the men hesitates throwing the next wounded casualty.

「You heard what he said! Hurry instead of coddling them! Heave…」

The other man shakes his head, then swings his arms to the side while holding the injured levyman.

「…Ho.」

Thud!

His companion says, with rapidly deflating enthusiasm. They throw the levyman, and he yelps in pain on impact.

「What the fuck? What is the point of this? Just make us suffer worse?」

William squints, wondering why his own comrades would be so cruel to each other. A white figure walks up to him in the corner of his vision, and kneels down next to him.

「…Huh?」

William mumbles out, turning his eyes to the white figure. The woman mumbles something to him, inaudible and muffled. A bright, green light floods his eyes, yet it strangely doesn't irritate them.

「What is this?…」

He asks, feeling strangely calm and relieved as the piercing pain in his chest recedes. The woman grabs onto the broken lance shaft sticking out of his chest, and yanks it out in a splash of blood.

「Argh! Fuck! Why!?」

He shouts and writhes in pain on the muddy ground, clutching at his wound. The woman closes her hand in on his chest.

「Calm down, you'll be alright now.」

The woman nods her head and says in a quiet voice.

「What is going on? There was cavalry, and they charged us, I saw a horse running straight at me, then I kind of woke up in the mud-」

William asks, surprisingly now possessing enough strength to move his arms around as he explains.

「You're in the rear line. We're the healer section. Stay calm and let me heal you.」

The woman explains, and continues pointing her palm at William's chest. The strange sensation continues, but the pain subsides. William waits patiently, breathing heavily, now finally able to catch his breath.

「There. Get up.」

The woman abruptly stops and stands up, ordering William up.

「Already? But-」

William sits up, furrowing his brows at her.

「I said get up. Do you want me to pat your head and tell you how brave you were? On your feet.」

She impatiently gestures her hand for William to stand. He sighs, and gets up with a grunt.

「Now get your weapon from over there, and whatever else you're missing, and get back in there.」

The healer points her finger at a cart parked nearby, and turns towards another wounded man on the ground.

「Wait! What do you mean get back in there!? Get back where!?」

William shouts at her back. She clicks her tongue and looks over her shoulder.

「The battle, idiot! What did you think!? Go!」

She shouts, grimacing in frustration at him.

「What!? I'm supposed to go back and fight in a state like this? I've almost died!」

William pats his chest, where his injury was.

「It's just a broken rib, you wimp! I fixed most of it, too! If you don't get hit again in the ribs, it'll heal on its own! Now go! There are people getting killed out there while you cry and moan about your healed wounds!」

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The healer angrily shakes her head, and kneels down next to another casualty, uttering out an incantation quietly. William blinks in disbelief. He looks at the cart, then at the woman again. He slowly waddles to the cart, still confused and in shock, and takes a standard issue spear in hand, like the one he lost in battle after being hit by a horse.

「Am I going to get a ride?-」

He walks back up to the healer while she's busy healing another man.

「Go!」

The healer shouts insistently and points her finger at the edge of the hill, towards the battlefield. William blinks, shrugs, then hesitantly starts jogging back towards the battle…

…

Straf sighs, looking over the pitched battle from the hill alongside nervous messengers and officers.

「This ain't looking to good, huh…」

He comments with a slanted mouth.

「…No, commander. Maybe we should retreat?」

One of the officers suggests.

「Nope. Too early. If we retreat now, the battle is as good as lost.」

Straf shrugs, and sighs again.

「…Then what should we do, sir?」

Another officer asks, leaning to peek past the others.

「We keep stalling for time and hoping for the best. And cross our fingers we have enough respawns.」

Straf says, as he turns his head towards a weak trickle of men running down the hill to rejoin the depleting levymen formations out in the field.

「…Still, I wouldn't say the situation is hopeless. We have inflicted rather disproportionate casualties. No small thanks to your genius tactics, commander.」

Another one of the officers praises Straf, and he simply shrugs in response.

「Yeah, they're basically fighting blind and stupid. If I had better units, would have won already.」

Straf shrugs his shoulders, pointing his hand at the levymen desperately battling the cavalry after surrounding it.

「Sir… I believe the men deserve more praise than that. They are doing their best, in fact, their effort is outstanding for untrained-」

One of the serious mustached men protests in restrained outrage.

「Yeah, but I am saying their best isn't good enough.」

Straf glances at the man with a disapproving slanted mouth, before turning his eyes back to the battlefield.

「Man, if someone would kill the mages, this would be so easy… Can't someone else do it?」

Straf looks at the watchful enemy mage from across the battlefield, and sighs…

…

「Aaah!! Die! Die! Please die already!」

Julius shouts, wildly poking, jabbing and stabbing his spear at the panicking mercenary horsemen caught in a full encirclement.

「Julius! What's the situation!?」

William asks as he runs up.

「William!? I thought you were dead!」

Julius looks at William over his shoulder with both surprised shock, and combat shock on his face.

「Yeah, I thought so too! What's going on!? Are we winning!? I've got knocked out and I don't even know how long ago!」

William shouts, looking for an enemy to stab, but the remaining mercenaries have already been thrown off their horses, and are in process of being beaten or stabbed to death by other levymen. With the death of the last one, the large mass of levymen let out a guttural cheer and raise their bloodied weapon.

The individual formations attempt to regain their cohesion and reform, as the respective officers scream and bark orders at the men, mixed in with high praises.

「We are winning! I think! Just after you were sent flying, everyone else came out of nowhere, and we cut all their escape routes off!」

Julius quickly explains as their formation maneuvers back into a line. Its relative thinness is also telling that many men are missing from its ranks.

「Right! Good job!」

William nods his head, staying close to Julius.

「I killed people, William! I killed at least one guy! My spear bounced off his chestplate right into his neck, and-! And-! I'm a killer! I killed someone!」

Julius clutches onto William's muddied clothes with an odd expression, narrow pupils and massively open eyes.

Tap tap tap.

「Damn fucking right, Julius! You're a killer! If you survive this, you're a veteran! That's at least fucking mercenary out of the fight! He can't kill guys like you and me anymore! You saved some fucking lives, Julius!」

William tightly grabs onto the young man's shoulder and pats mud onto his cheek as he lightly slaps him with the other hand.

「I- I- Yeah, I guess…」

Julius freezes up, then nods rapidly as he processes William's praise.

「Hey! Look! Isn't that behind their lines!?」

Somebody shouts, pointing at a pillar of smoke and flames rising from behind the enemy's hill…

…

「Heh. Right on time.」

Straf grins, looking at the rising tar-black smoke, and the fat barons screaming down their officers' throats, pointing at it.

「It looks like they've done it, commander. What do we do now?」

The officer comments, nodding his head in approval at the black smoke in the distance.

「Now?…」

Straf glances at the officer, chuckling quietly.

「All of you! Go tell everyone to fucking bolt it to the rally point!」

Straf turns to his horseback messengers, and points his head down the hill towards the battlefield barking an order.

「Yes sir!」 「Yes commander!」 「Yes sir!」

The men nod their heads and reply with confidence, then take off down the hill as ordered. Straf quickly jogs towards the rear line, raising his broken hand to his face to funnel the sound.

「Hey! Retreat! Everyone fucking run! Get to the fall back point!」

Straf shouts, grinning as he runs past the healers. He begins laughing like a madman as he runs off into the distance…

…

Meanwhile, at the rebel barons' hill…

「What do you mean a handful of men!? You mean to say you let, you allowed a handful of men burn down all of our supplies!? All of our food!? You are worthless! You are worse than worthless! What did we pay you for!? The loyalist officers we put in the dungeons would be better leaders than you!」

The fat baron screams at the mercenary officer. His fat chin jiggles, and spit flies in his face as he attempts to maintain a stone face while being berated and insulted every second word.

「Sir-」

He attempts to say something, but is immediately cut off by more screaming from another rebel baron.

「Do not back-talk us! What do you have to say for yourselves!? Huh!? Huh!?」

The second baron screams in the officer's face, his fat belly forces the mercenary back as it shoves into him.

「Sir… We may be able to, despite everything, procure more supplies from nearby villages… It will cost us, but-」

The officer wipes the spit from his face, and calmly explains. One of the fat rebels interrupts him again.

「You want to make us pay more because of your fuck up!? Is that it!? Huh!?」

More spit flies into the officer's face, and he wipes it again, visibly grimacing from disgust.

「…We will cover the cost with our pay, sir. Look, the enemy is retreating. We took heavy losses, but they know they can't win this-」

「Well you better take responsibility, you little weasels! You maggots! You incompetent idiots!」

A third rebel joins in, spitting his share of spit in the officer's face as he screams at him, red-faced. The three of them promptly stomp away to their tents, joining the rest of the barons.

The mercenary officers convene to discuss the situation, all visibly angry, indignant, and on verge of despair.

「…This isn't even worth it at this point.」

One of them comments, and sighs.

「Well quit if you want to, but we have a reputation to maintain. We're staying.」

Another mercenary replies, shrugging his shoulders.

「The way I see it, we have no choice but to visit the nearby villages…」

Yet another officer sighs, and spreads his arms while shaking his head. His mustache twists left and right as he grimaces.

「…And if they don't have enough?」

「They won't have enough. Despite the losses, we still have a lot of people to feed. The whole point of this is to make sure our men have at least something to put in their stomach. If we don't have food, we might as well give up. Only Mercia knows how many we've lost right now. I know for a fact our cavalry got wiped out. Look at them, there they lie.」

The officer looks at the horses mixed with armored men in the mud with a grim expression on his face. Other mercenaries click their tongues, sigh, or some mix of the two.

「The silver lining is… At least we don't have to feed their horses…」

A brief silence begins.

「…Shut the fuck up.」

One of the officers replies, and walks away…