The armies of the Empire and the Church each withdrew to the rear. Ryan had never expected his first task upon reaching the front to be setting up camp. "The military camps have already been trampled flat. Only a handful remain intact, but we still have so many ordinary soldiers who need tents." In truth, that was only one reason. The deeper reason was that they could not serve food right away.
Ryan had brought grain, but turning it into bread still required processing. The soldiers were already starving, so the unsettled camp and the difficulty of lighting cooking fires had to serve as excuses.
The soldiers had to be kept busy. Ryan had only just arrived at the front and had not fought, so he was the only uninjured person with time to spare for this. Borgeld followed beside him, looking thoroughly displeased. She had been itching to fight, never imagining that their arrival would bring the war to a halt.
"Don't worry. The fighting will resume soon."
Since Ryan already knew what the Empire intended, he naturally knew what would happen next.
At that moment, he was observing the Empire's soldiers.
These soldiers, who had survived mountains of corpses, seas of blood, and the domains of supernatural powers, were no longer the men they had been in the allied army. Every gaze held a chilling edge, as though it could strip a layer of flesh from another person.
"Floyd must really hate the thought of these soldiers dying on the next battlefield."
Ryan sighed with feeling. Even he coveted these soldiers. The emperor had refrained from having the mages exhaust their life potential, precisely so the Empire's future military strength could reach new heights.
The emperor would never hand an army forged at the cost of so many