As soon as Roman got the news that the Fifth Defense Line was attacked by the enemies, he concluded it wouldn’t last long.
‘The Southern Front is a place where the sense of defense is lacking in almost everyone, but even among them, the Fifth Defense Line is the worst because it is managed by Baron Bruce, who is entirely rotten. And even if they struggle, they won’t last any more than 2 hours. We must get there in an hour, at most.’
Lucas had given him information, and it mentioned the same thing the book McBurney had given him said. There was no time. After notifying the officers in the reserve unit that he would go, Roman moved with his soldiers.
They were informed it would take about two hours to reach there as a reserve unit.
It was obviously difficult to cut it down by an entire hour, yet, Roman’s soldiers followed him. It was the moment when the training they had done in the past began to show its results. For soldiers who had climbed a mountain with heavy armor on them on a daily basis, running on flat ground wasn’t enough to even make them gasp. And before long, they reached the vicinity of the Fifth Defense Line. And just then, when he saw a man running away hurriedly from afar, Roman signaled his men to stop.
“Ooh! The reserve unit!”
The man looked quite happy. That man was Baron Bruce. To him, the reserve unit was like an oasis in the desert. He wiped the sweat off with his sleeve and said to Roman, “Are you the leader of the soldiers? Give me your official name and guide me to the rear camp. Right now, rather than assisting the Defense Lines, the Royal Family needs to be made aware of the dangers on the Southern Front.”
He continued to gasp for air.
Roman only stared at the Baron, seeing him acting like his decision was obviously correct.
‘The commander of the Fifth Defense Line.’
It was a face he had seen in the book McBurney gave him. Nevertheless, the problem was that now that a war was going on, he wasn’t supposed to be here. There were only two possibilities now—Either the Fifth Defense Line was breached, or this man had fled away.
“Baron Bruce. Why are you here by yourself with no troops?”
“Baron Bruce?! What a cheeky bastard! As you belong to the reserve unit, you must be the son of a noble at most, so how dare you speak to me without putting a title first?”1
“I think you misunderstand something…”
Grip!
“Kuak?!”
Roman grabbed the collar of Baron Bruce. This movement was nothing much for him. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the case for Baron Bruce. He tried to shake off his hand, but his grip was so strong that it didn’t move even a single inch.
Roman Dmitry looked down at him. As soon as Baron Bruce saw his gaze, he felt as if his heart was simmered into an ice bath. He couldn’t handle himself as he witnessed such vicious human eyes for the first time in his entire existence.
Then, Roman said, “Your presence here means one thing—The fact that you, who is called a ‘Commander’, has abandoned his soldiers and ran away. According to military law, a deserter can be summarily executed regardless of their status. Do you know what that means?”
“No—”
“It isn’t ‘No’.”
Slash!
The wind blew.
Baron Bruce didn’t even see Roman pulling out his sword, but before he knew it, the blade of the sword reflected his neck being cut.
Baron Bruce’s head fell to the ground. He was unable to accept his death, so even as his head was falling, he had a pale face.
Shhhk.
Roman just wiped the blood off of his sword.
It would’ve been a truly shocking event for others. Nevertheless, even though it was a huge thing to kill a noble, Roman’s eyes were only dull as he gazed at the corpse that now lay on the ground.
“If he had ordered for retreat, he wouldn’t have died by my hands.”
This wasn’t a huge issue, anyway. A war was going on. The only witnesses who saw Roman behead Baron Bruce were Roman and his men, and they would never say anything against Roman, nor were they too surprised by this. In the process of destroying Barco, Roman had shown them his cold side far too many times. And when they saw Baron Bruce acting like that, they, as well, wanted to end his life in the same way.
“Let’s go.”
Roman took the first step. The soldiers hastily turned away from the corpse in order to avoid falling behind their leader.
About 1 hour had passed since the enemy had attacked. It was still time when the defending side could take advantage of their defenses, but as soon as the gates of the Fifth Defense Line were breached, the fight between the two sides had turned into more of a one-sided massacre.
Puak!
“Kuak!”
“Ahhhh!”
There was a cacophony of screams coming from every direction. The soldiers of the Hector Kingdom were mercilessly slaughtering Cairo’s soldiers, and the enemies were constantly rushing through the gates. There was no way they could stop this. The magic weapons didn’t work because of being filled with dust, and arrows wouldn’t work because the enemies had breached the wall too.
Still, the soldiers were fighting desperately till the end as Baron Bruce had ordered them to fight, and Steven, the only knight at the Fifth Defense Line, was constantly swinging his sword.
“Die!”
Puak!
His face was now drenched with the blood of the enemies. At least Steven, who was called the ‘real soldier’ of the Fifth Defense Line, was cutting down enemies one after another. There were already 12 soldiers who had died at his hands. Nevertheless, he couldn’t see the end of them. And seeing the constant influx of enemy soldiers, even his mouth went dry.
‘Damn it! Damn it!!!’
He realized that it was already over. This was a battle they had already lost. If the gates were in good condition, they could at least have endured somehow, but there was no way to stop the enemies from rushing forward as the gates were breached.
‘I knew this day would come.’
Carelessness was contagious. Everyone knew that poorly maintained equipment was wrong. But didn’t everyone act complacently from time to time? Soon, all soldiers accepted it as something normal. The commander of the Southern Front was someone who didn’t like change that bothered him. And as a single knight, he couldn’t change many things by himself. Thus, he accepted the reality that was in front of him, and now, that had led to the current situation.
Rumble!
When he saw the wall collapse and the enemies rushing through the now-collapsed wall, his eyes began to lose hope. Even with the advantage they had of having defense equipment, the Fifth Defense Line was only able to hold out for just an hour, and it was now collapsing.
‘We cannot go down like this. Even if we have to retreat, we need to take back all the soldiers we can and make a plan for the future.’
He hurriedly tried to look for the commander in his office. He was going to persuade him to call for a retreat, but no matter how much he searched, Baron Bruce was nowhere to be seen.
‘He couldn’t have…’
Just then, he remembered seeing Baron Bruce running somewhere by himself. At that time, he didn’t think he was just running away. Who would even think that someone who was the commander of a Defense Line would escape by himself without even seeing how the fight turned out?
Steven’s blood went cold. He had an intuition that this would be where he would die.
“That fucking pig!”
He could run away just like him, but… he didn’t want to. He thought it would be an honor to die fighting while doing his best than abandoning everyone and surviving all alone.
“Kuaaaa!”
He then gripped his sword even more tightly and ran forward again to cut down the enemies in his vision. He was going to lose his life anyway. Baron Bruce wouldn’t leave the survivors alone because he would not want the truth of him deserting the battlefield being told to anyone else, and there was no reason for Steven to run away from here only to go and suffer there.
He felt at ease once he accepted his death. Even though the wounds on his body began to increase, he was only drenched in madness, and he continued to kill his enemies.
Slash!
He cut down even more enemies. It felt like he had taken countless lives by now with his sword, but in return, he was stabbed with a spear as well.
Puak!
“Kuack!”
An intense pain ran through his head. Finally, he realized he was near death now. As soon as he cut off the head of the soldier who had stabbed him, he gazed at the sword that was coming down toward his head.
‘So this is as far as I go.’
He accepted his end. But the moment he accepted his death,
Puak!
A man with dark hair appeared, and he splattered crimson red blood all around him.
When Roman arrived at the Fifth Defense Line, the gates had already been pierced.
He had no time to think. Running ahead first, he gave orders to his soldiers.
“I will take the lead. Take down the enemies one by one and follow me.”
In his previous life as Baek Joong-hyuk, he was always at the forefront and fought the enemies before anyone else. That was how he was able to achieve the nigh-impossible achievement of taking over the entire Murim.
And he decided it would be no different in this world. If he killed even one more person, the damage to his side would be that much less. He tried to minimize it as much as he could.
Roman jumped and ran ahead. Then, he swung his sword at the enemies who found him.
Puak!
It was the beginning of a literal massacre on the battlefield. The two soldiers who tried to attack him instantly had their throats slashed. He was literally too powerful. Like a wolf that had found a flock of sheep, he was moving ahead while slashing everyone in his vision. Still, he wasn’t in too much of a hurry. He was taking reasonable intervals when he needed to. It was to maintain the distance from his soldiers. Thus, most of the blades that should have been aimed at the normal soldiers were now aimed at Roman.
“T-That monstrous bastard!”
“Kill him first!”
The soldiers of the Hector Kingdom also realized that Roman wasn’t an ordinary person. Even though they all attacked Roman at the same time, all the corpses in their vicinity belonged to the soldiers of the Hector Kingdom, no matter how many times they attacked him.
In just 5 minutes, Roman had killed dozens of the enemy soldiers. The blood of all of them was dripping down his sword, and even Roman himself was now drenched in blood.
Just then, Roman saw someone in his vision who was fighting the enemies ferociously.
‘Steven?’
He was a person who was mentioned in the book. According to the information Lucas had given him, on the Fifth Defense Line, Steven was someone who was worth using. Then, Roman made a quick decision when he saw Steven had accepted his death after slaughtering the enemies he could. He took down the soldier who was swinging his sword at Steven.
Puak!
Tuk!
Roll.
The soldier’s head rolled on the ground. There was no time for Steven to even say a word. It was because another large number of enemies had entered through the wall, and Roman had gone forward to cut them all down.
“…What is this?”
Steven was stunned seeing the current situation. Even more shocking than his own survival was the slaughter Roman was carrying out.
Was there such a person on the Southern Front?
When he thought hard, he remembered there was one person.
“Roman Dmitry. He was recently assigned to the Fifth Defense Line.”
That was what he had heard from Baron Bruce this morning. And when he heard that a Ranker was assigned on the Southern Front, Steven was actually unable to accept that fact. It was because Rankers were incredibly strong. In the end, he thought that it would have been better if he was placed on the Western Front rather than the Southern One, which was known to be peaceful, and that if Roman truly cared for the safety of the nation, he would’ve himself asked to go to the Western Front. However, he now realized that was a huge mistake on his end. When he saw that Roman had arrived so quickly, Steven realized that he had come running here as fast as he could.
Puak!
“Kuak!”
Eventually, even the last soldier in the vicinity died at Roman’s hands.
After he killed the last enemy nearby, Roman wiped the blood off his sword and walked up to Steven. Then, he asked, “Are you Steven?”
“Yes.”
“Baron Burce is dead. From now on, you are in charge of this place and as you have served on the Fifth Defense Line for many years, tell me what methods are needed to protect this place based on your judgment. If you don’t see a chance here with your judgment, then I, Roman Dmitry, will be calling for a retreat as the head of the reserve unit.”
It was a flustering situation. His mind wasn’t ready for this. Still, as Roman asked him about his experience, Steven thought a bit and then said, “…Honestly, this battle is already too much in their favor by now. It would make a lot of sense to retreat now, but doing that will give the enemy a huge advantage instead. A river flowers behind the Southern Front. They need to clear a way on it to supply troops to move in case the war continues, but they have no chance of winning a long-lasting war unless they completely capture the Fifth Defense Line.”
He spoke his thoughts. At first, he thought of giving up, but the more he talked, the more he told him why they couldn’t leave this place.
Then, it was necessary to change the situation.
“There is only one way. The enemies no longer have to push through the gates. The wall that collapsed left a narrow path, but the gate was different. Even if it’s a last-ditch effort, if we can buy ourselves ten minutes to set up the spare iron fences, we can prevent the enemies from entering.”
That was the only way. If all the enemies pierced through the Fifth Defense Line, they wouldn’t be able to win even if they sacrificed all their troops. Still, even though Steven knew that it was a difficult choice, he had to do his best. Nevertheless, the plan he came up with was still impossible. When hundreds of enemies were rushing through the gates each passing second, how on Earth could they secure it?
But just then, Roman said, “I will secure the space that is required for the installation of the iron fences. Now, you must mobilize your forces and prepare the iron fences as soon as you can.”
Steven couldn’t help but be shocked as soon as he heard those words.
Editor’s Thoughts: This chapter was so amazing! Glad that Baron Bruce died in the beginning. Also, just how much cooler can Roman be?!
