Hope

Enrique was blasted away by the shockwave once again.

Perhaps a long time had passed, or perhaps only a moment. He felt as though he had fallen into a bottomless swamp, his body unbearably heavy, unable to crawl back up no matter what he did.

He forced open his heavy eyelids, trying to regain control of his body, only to discover half of a bloody severed hand sticking out of the dirt before him. The red-and-white splinters of bone made him faintly want to vomit.

He immediately struggled to rise, but even after exhausting all his strength, he could only barely roll over.

Gazing at the smoke-filled sky, where streaks of fire occasionally flashed past, Enrique thought, Might as well die like this. Then everyone can be together again.

An enemy flag rose over the edge of the trench. The Englishmen had already reached their position.

A figure suddenly sprang from the trench—a werewolf, not as massive as the Horned Head, even somewhat gaunt. Enrique no longer knew who he had once been.

Screams, tearing flesh, endless gunfire.

Until Enrique saw countless bayonets thrust into the werewolf's body. Then an officer carrying a saber chopped off his head. The wolf's head rolled a long way across the ground before returning to a human face.

It was Stephen!

The scrawny-looking cook who always said that once the war was over, he would return to New Naples, renovate his restaurant, and keep working as a chef.

A powerful urge suddenly surged through Enrique's heart: I have to do something. It even overwhelmed his fear of death.

Not far beside him, he saw a battered flagpole buried in the mud. Its yellow five-pointed star stood alone, just like him.

That solitary five-pointed star filled his entire vision. The battlefield, the smoke, death—everything seemed