"Agghh… Damn it. Looks like I'm not getting out of here alive."
As the captain spoke, a faint, almost mocking smile lingered at the corner of his lips.
The lower half of his left leg no longer resembled a leg. Shrapnel had torn it apart just below the knee. His pants were soaked in blood, and the inside of his boot was filled with a warm, sticky fluid. He had also been shot in the right shoulder; every breath felt like a knife being driven into his chest.
Yet his eyes were still alive.
Slumped against the wall, he watched the street through the rubble of collapsed concrete. Some of the bodies lying before him were his soldiers, others were the enemy. It no longer mattered which was which.
At the beginning of the war, he remembered names.
Now, he only remembered uniforms.
A dull crackle came through his earpiece.
"Viking-Actual, respond. Viking-Actual, do you copy?"
The captain slowly raised his hand, tore the radio from his shoulder, and brought it to his mouth.
"I'm here."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end. Then a hurried, restrained voice spoke.
"Thank God. Command thought you were dead. Second company has retreated. The eastern sector of the city has fallen. Can you still move?"
The captain leaned his head back against the wall.
At the far end of the street, a tank was burning. The glow of the flames mixed with the rain, casting a red shimmer across the ground.
"No," he said calmly. "But I can still talk. That's enough for now."
Silence followed.
"We're trying to send a rescue team."
"Don't."
"Sir?"
"I said don't. This area is completely surrounded. Anyone you send to get me will die for nothing."
His tone was so calm it was as if he were commenting on the weather. Despite his young age, everyone at battalion HQ knew him for that. Even when artillery shells rained down, his voice never changed.
On the second day of the landing operation, he had stood among immobilized landing craft stuck along the shore, issuing orders and shouting over the radio to calm panicking lieutenants. That day, one of his superiors had said:
"This kid will either become a general… or die very young somewhere."
The captain had laughed at the time. Now, he didn't find it funny.
The radio crackled again.
"Then… do you have any final request?"
A few months ago, that question would have sounded absurd to him. He had always assumed every soldier had something to say. A wife. A lover. A child. A mother. But now, no one came to mind.
He thought for a long time. Then he closed his eyes.
"Open the map," he said.
"Sir?"
"Do you see the industrial zone to the northwest? There are three large warehouses next to the railway. The enemy moved their command there. I saw it on drone footage two hours ago. Redirect artillery fire to that position. If you hit it, their advance will be delayed by at least two days."
Silence.
Then someone cursed under their breath.
Another voice immediately shouted:
"Write down the coordinates! Hurry!"
With that same faint smile, the captain began reciting them.
His voice was weak, but precise.
He did not misstate a single number.
Minutes later, shouts of artillery officers echoed through the radio. Maps were being opened, coordinates relayed, batteries prepared.
The captain, meanwhile, was struggling to speak.
His vision darkened from blood loss; the world around him blurred.
For a moment, he remembered his childhood.
His father used to watch war documentaries on television. He would sit on the floor, staring at images of knights and maps. He was especially fascinated by the medieval era, a time before guns and cannons, when honour and valour were the only things that mattered on the battlefield.
He had always wanted to be born in that era, to become a king or, at the very least, a powerful noble. There was no greater dream than carving out glorious conquests, etching his name into history, and commanding power with his own sword.
Of course, as he grew older, that fantasy gave way to reality. One reason was that the medieval world was far less glorious than he had imagined. Yes, there were shining knights but there was no modern medicine, no technology.
A simple cut could kill you through infection. During long sieges, people sometimes boiled their belts just to stave off starvation.
Even the mightiest knight could be struck down by a volley of arrows, dying in the mud. And the battle that changed everything could just as easily end not in a heroic duel, but with a single stone thrown from afar.
Even so, he never lost that unsettling fascination with war. He had accepted that he could never be a king or noble. However, he could become the closest thing to a commander in this world.
Other children dreamed of becoming astronauts.
He had wanted to become a general.
"What a foolish dream..."
Another explosion echoed from the sky. This time, much closer. The captain instinctively lifted his head. On the far side of the city, an orange light tore through the night.
Then another.
And another.
The warehouses.
The artillery had hit their mark.
Even from a distance, the force of the explosions could be felt. After the second blast, a column of black smoke rose into the sky. Then, as if an ammunition depot had detonated, the entire city shook.
The smile on the captain's face widened slightly.
"Direct hit," he whispered.
A voice came through the radio.
"They hit it. My God… they hit all of them."
Then, more slowly, more heavily:
"Captain… because of this, we managed to withdraw. You saved thousands of our men. I will personally recommend you for the Medal of Honor."
The captain did not respond.
The radio was still in his hand, but his fingers were beginning to loosen.
After a while, the voice came again.
"Captain?"
Silence.
"Gerrald?"
The captain opened his eyes slightly. He looked up at the smoke-filled sky.
The rain was still falling. The drops on his face mixed with the blood on his forehead. A slow breath slipped from between his lips.
"I'm here," he said, barely audible.
"Hang on. We'll find a way. We'll get you out of there."
This time, the captain truly laughed.
It was weak, short, exhausted.
"No," he said. "You won't."
The man on the other end tried to speak, then stopped. Because they both knew it was true.
The street around him had fallen completely silent.
Where there had once been shouting, gunfire, and the roar of tracks, now there was only the sound of rain.
A thin mist drifted among the bodies. In one open hand, a crumpled photograph was still clutched. From another neck hung a dog tag.
The captain did not look at their faces. He no longer had the strength. The wall against his back was cold. Suddenly, he felt very tired.
As if he had been marching, giving orders, and studying maps without rest for months.
As if the entire war had collapsed onto his shoulders all at once.
He was twenty-seven.
Too young to die.
But in war, one learned there was no right age for death. An eighteen-year-old private could die. So could a forty-year-old colonel. Some etched their names into history. Others left behind nothing but a report tucked into the corner of a file:
(Missing in action.)
(Body not recovered.)
Perhaps that was what would be written for him.
Perhaps in a few weeks, this city would fall completely, and no one would even remember which street corner he had died on.
Strangely, that didn't hurt.
What hurt was something else.
Dying alone.
He had spent his entire life surrounded by people. Soldiers, aides, generals, maps, meetings, radio chatter… And now, in the final minutes of his life, he was completely alone.
His mother was not there.
Nor his father.
Nor anyone who had truly known him.
He had been so focused on his career and his fascination with war that he never thought to grow close to anyone, never considered building a familyor even a meaningful friendship. He had always believed such things were unnecessary.
Now, standing on the brink of death, it had become his greatest regret.
"A life wasted," he said in a raspy voice.
For a moment, he thought of sitting on the living room floor as a child, while his father watched old documentaries. An army would march through the mist on the screen, and the narrator's voice would rise slowly.
Back then, little Gerrald thought it was beautiful.
He thought war would give a person a grand, unforgettable ending.
But death was nothing like that.
Death was dirty.
Cold.
And worst of all… lonely.
The radio slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.
Its static echoed through the concrete.
"Captain? Captain Gerrald, respond!"
The world was now nothing but blurred shapes. The sound of rain faded, replaced by a heavy ringing in his ears. Each breath became harder than the last.
He leaned his head against the wall.
With trembling fingers, he reached for the radio on the ground. His fingertips brushed it, then he slowly pulled it closer.
His lips parted.
"I…" he said.
His voice was barely there.
He paused, swallowing the taste of blood in his throat.
"Was I… a good soldier…?"
No answer came at first. Only static.
Maybe they hadn't heard. Maybe his voice hadn't carried at all. A few seconds later, a voice came through, distant, muffled and trembling.
"You were the best… sleeping well, soldier... I'll make sure you're not forgotten."
Gerrald closed his eyes. A faint smile formed on his lips. His fingers loosened. The radio slipped from his hand and hit the concrete.
The rain continued to fall in silence.
His heart stopped beating. The last thing he saw was a series of incomprehensible words, and his final thought was of the meaninglessness of the life that had slipped through his fingers.
---------
[!!!]
[The Warlord System Has Finally Found a Worthy Candidate…]
[Preparing for System Initialization…]
[System Successfully Integrated with the Host…]
[The User's Soul Is Being Transferred to a Suitable Environment…]
[Warlord System Activated…]
---------