“You’re saying... our king won’t be able to hold out?”

At Karhin’s words, Jeong Sua’s eyes widened as if she had realized something, and she shouted,

“...Please bring Medical Officer Luca!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

At Jeong Sua’s order, her face gone pale, the guard members threw themselves into motion and headed off somewhere.

{What is going on?}

A moment later,

Luca, looking exhausted, staggered toward me.

There were hundreds of thousands of people, with the severely wounded outnumbering /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ the lightly wounded.

We had asked far too much of it, telling it to treat all their injuries.

It had already been several days since the escape began.

It had probably been using its strength nonstop near the center of the procession the whole time, so it would’ve been stranger if it wasn’t tired.

It staggered over to me, and then—

{...What!?}

the instant it saw what I looked like,

even that exhausted expression vanished in shock.

At Luca’s reaction, I looked down at my own body.

‘Hm.’

Before the world fell, I’d been in the fairly average range.

But after struggling like hell to survive in this world,

my body had naturally developed into something not half bad.

But.

‘Yeah, this is a bit much.’

Not right now.

{Commander, what happened to you!?}

Sweat dripped steadily from my dried-out body.

I was wasting away badly enough that my bones were starting to show, like someone who had gone hungry for a very long time.

“Karhin.”

At Luca’s reaction,

I calmly turned my head and looked at Karhin as I spoke.

“There was something you didn’t tell me.”

“......”

At my words,

Karhin’s body flinched.

“Well, I’m not saying it to blame you. I get it too.”

I lifted my head

and looked up above me.

“You said this faith is your essence. The essence that didn’t disappear even after you became a vampire.”

The enormous sun.

And mine was only an imitation, yet it was only that much.

It was definitely an incredible power, but—

“So you probably wanted to avoid talking about the bad parts whenever possible.”

That guy had even talked about the evil customs of his homeland.

He’d said that, to stop the vampires’ full-scale invasion, they had deliberately sent people to villages near the border to serve as prey.

But that was, in the end, something humans had done.

What he had wanted to hide was—

‘the faith he carries.’

The problem with the faith itself.

Just like Wei had said last time.

“There was no way creating a sun this big came with no price.”

At that,

Karhin bowed his head deeply and said,

—I’m sorry.

“Well... it’s not something you need to feel that sorry for.”

At his reaction,

I let out a faint laugh and said it.

The truth was—

“I knew from the start.”

—...What do you mean?

He stared at me in shock.

Ignoring that look,

I turned my head and looked deeper into the procession.

Countless people.

And among them, one person with an especially massive build stood out at a glance.

“Huff... huff...”

A man wearing massive armor,

his body wrapped with bandages in several places.

‘They called him General Kaio, right?’

He didn’t look to be in very good shape.

He was breathing heavily as he followed the procession.

“The wound I gave that man only shaved away a little muscle.”

It was true that, at the time, it had been bad enough to leave him unable to walk.

But I had already been thinking of joining up with these people in the first place.

...Which meant I hadn’t injured him so badly that he’d be difficult to treat.

“Ordinarily, it should’ve been nothing more than a wound a healing-type awakened could fix in no time.”

But

the two Vice Chairmen had said that treatment would take several weeks.

Come to think of it, that itself had been strange from the start.

A wound that minor,

and it would take that long to heal?

“There was some other reason, wasn’t there?”

And

I knew that reason too.

Because when I first met that general—

“a reason related to the condition my body is in now.”

[Trait: Sun Paladin]

[Burns its own life to call forth the power of faith.]

[Greatly enhances physical abilities and, depending on the nature of that faith, can deal heavy damage to targets that are weak against it.]

Those words

had been written there in plain sight on his status window.

‘The reason that general was able to perform so well against the vampires.’

And at the same time...

the reason I had needed to subdue him quickly.

—...When I saw you reenacting the miracle, I considered telling you from the beginning. But I simply could not bring myself to say it.

At that,

Karhin lowered his head and said,

—To speak the truth... I was afraid you would withdraw the sun. I feared you might... abandon those people.

“Come on. What kind of person do you take me for?”

—I-I did not take you for that kind of person. I only... imagined it on my own, and feared it.

With his head lowered,

he looked at the bright light at his feet and said,

—The light of the sun is the power of a great god. For a human to recreate that grace, a price is required.

“And that price is?”

—...A vast amount of life force.

On the face hidden inside the curtain of darkness,

a deep shadow fell.

—...The reason my homeland, the Empire, sent sacrifices to the border out of fear of the vampires’ invasion was simple. If they did not come out of their territory, then all we had to do was keep suns aloft over a few border fortresses.

“......”

—If a full-scale invasion began and many territories had to be defended, then more suns had to be raised. Suns lit by those who had accumulated a lifetime of faith, burning away their own lives... countless suns.

There had been something I found strange from the start.

When he said Grand Duke Isabella had destroyed the Empire,

I hadn’t understood how the vampires could destroy an empire that wielded the sun, their own weakness.

Now I did.

‘It’s a power with an obvious weakness.’

It already demanded deep faith.

And to maintain it, you had to burn away your life.

Considering the amount of life force consumed, an ordinary human probably couldn’t raise a large sun in the first place.

To raise a gigantic sun like that, it would literally require sacrifice on the level of ‘grinding people up.’

There was no way they could keep suns like that raised all across the land.

So the vampires must have invaded by targeting the gaps somewhere.

‘...And the reason this guy was able to maintain that sun for so long isn’t anything else either.’

His own faith had undoubtedly played a major part.

But there was also a reason he said that after becoming a vampire, he had become better at handling the sun.

‘A vampire’s life force.’

Life force beyond anything a human could compare to.

Ironically,

it was only after becoming a vampire, a creature so terribly vulnerable to that sun, that he was able to sustain it larger and longer with that overwhelming life force.

{You need to stop immediately, Commander.}

Luca said that as it grabbed my shoulder.

{This is my failure. I was so focused on treating the many wounded that I failed to check on the Commander’s condition.}

Honestly,

it was probably thanks to this thing scattering healing power across the entire procession that I’d even managed to hold out this well.

But—

{No matter how exceptional the Commander’s life force may be, you are already at your limit.}

“......”

{Did I not tell you this the last time I treated you?}

Thanks to this thing,

my body had been restored to nearly perfect condition.

But there was still one thing—

{The Commander’s “vital energy” is still in an exhausted state.}

one part that had not been healed.

{If this continues, even the little vital energy you have left will disappear. If you do not maintain it for long, then perhaps it will still be all right. But if this state continues for too long...}

The medical skill Luca had honed was incredible.

In this field, it was close to the very top, so ordinarily I should listen to its advice.

However.

“I told you already.”

Unfortunately,

not every patient does what the doctor tells them to.

“I already knew.”

I had already roughly guessed the price of this power.

And the reason I chose to use it anyway was simple.

‘Because I wanted to go with as many people as possible.’

Because

that was where my heart was leading me.

“We’ve come this far. I can’t stop now.”

{Commander...}

I could feel many eyes on my back.

Countless gazes filled with confusion because my steps had stopped.

These were the people who had come into this dangerous land looking only at me.

I could feel their anxiety and fear clearly on my taste buds.

“Don’t make such a fuss. You’ll make people anxious.”

If Luca had gone so far as to say this much,

then I wouldn’t last if we took the long way around.

In the end, there was only one option left.

“Let’s go in.”

Without hesitation, I lifted my foot

and stepped onto that shadowed ground.

***

“W-we’re really going in?”

“The sun won’t even reach inside there...”

Fear filled the faces of those following behind.

Those who had been protected under the sun now had to enter the shadows again.

Anyone would be tense.

And yet, even so—

“...Still, we have to follow.”

They did not hesitate.

They matched their steps and pushed their bodies into the shadows.

The fear and terror they felt were certainly enormous.

But—

“If it’s him, then he’ll work another miracle for us.”

Because of the miracles they had seen until now.

Because the faith born from those miracles was strong enough to crush even their fear.

That was why they could follow after him without hesitation.

{...Commander.}

As I started walking through the shadows,

Luca, who had been watching me with worried eyes, spoke.

{If this is your choice, then I will respect it.}

“......”

{Instead, promise me just one thing.}

There was

a trace of resolve in its eyes.

{If, after this is over, the aftereffects become so severe that your life may be in danger... then promise me that, when that time comes, you will take the medicine I gave you.}

“...Medicine?”

{Did I not give it to you last time, back in Seoul?}

Ah, right.

Now that I thought about it, that had happened.

‘It can’t heal my vital energy directly...’

But by a somewhat unusual method,

it had said there might still be a way to solve that problem.

That had also been the last treatment it gave me.

And I ran a hand over my chest.

I could feel it through my uniform.

‘The serum.’

I still

had not used that final treatment.

{That serum was something I made before I was treated by you, Commander.}

The reason was simple.

Luca had never recommended that I take this serum.

{The process of making it was one thing, but even its effect is not something I find acceptable in my current state. That is why I did not recommend it to you either, Commander.}

“So the medicine’s effect is bad?”

{No. I made it myself. How could the effect be bad?}

“......”

{On the contrary, it is medicine that the version of me from before you treated me created while sparing absolutely no means or methods.}

If the effect was good, then what was the problem?

But apparently—

{If the effect is... too good, that is also a problem.}

it seemed that was exactly what might be the issue.

{If it were up to me, it is medicine I would like to destroy as it is. But I did not discard it, in case something happened. So if a crisis comes where you may lose your life because of the loss of vital energy, you must use it.}

“You’re saying all that, and in the end you still want me to use it?”

{Because that would still be better than losing you, Commander.}

...I had no idea what kind of effect that medicine had for it to be talking like that.

“All right.”

But after it said this much,

I had no choice but to nod.

“But, well, don’t worry too much.”

{.......}

From the moment I decided to use this power,

I had already been prepared for the possibility that some kind of crisis might happen.

But that resolve

wasn’t a resolve to die.

‘So I just can’t keep it going for too long, right?’

In that case,

the answer was simple.

‘Then I just break through as fast as possible, don’t I?’

The moment I stepped into the shadows,

I could feel countless presences from far away.

—Grrrrk...

—Kahak!

Against those countless presences,

[Elemental Cooking]

I

raised my knife overhead.