I got lost in Fort Kespare.

  Yeah, that was pretty much inevitable. The guard, slash guide, had been called away the moment the Imperials started firing their siege weapons. Apparently, everyone was needed on the walls immediately.

  He had at least pointed me in a direction before leaving. It would have been nice if he would also mention that the fort was basically a maze. A maze I had absolutely no chance of navigating.

  “I’m completely lost,” I muttered as the walls shook, dust trickling down from the ceiling. “Where the hell am I even supposed to go?”

  Because we were under attack, the hallways were empty. There were no soldiers, no officers, and not even one random person I could grab and ask for directions.

  “It’d be nice if someone just walked up and said hi,” I said out loud since panicking made me talk to myself. It was a bad habit, or not.

  “Hi.”

  I jumped back several meters on instinct, snapping into a battle stance. Standing behind me was an old man with a long white beard and matching hair. The top of his head shone proudly, completely bald.

  “Having trouble finding your way?” Devon asked gently.

  I nodded. Ignoring him would have been rude. “Y-Yeah.”

  “Alright then. Where are you headed?”

  “To Lieutenant General Cedric’s office,” I answered immediately. Devon’s eyes widened just a little.

  “My, my.” He smiled. “That’s convenient. I was heading there myself. Why don’t you follow me?”

  “Thank you.” I nodded my head in thanks, relieved, and started to walk in step beside him.

  As we walked, the distant booms of siege echoed through the fort, shaking dust from the ceiling. Devon glanced at me.

  “You seem fairly used to this,” he said casually. “Most children your age would be screaming their lungs out by now.”

  “Um…” I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “I’m used to it. My village was attacked almost every day.”

  “Oh?” Devon’s smile softened. “What village would put a girl your age through something like that?”

  I was smiling outside, but my mind went completely blank as I panicked. ‘I didn’t think this through at all!’

  “It’s… a very remote village,” I managed to say after a moment, forcing my expression to look as somber as possible. “You probably wouldn’t know it.”

  Devon studied my face for a second longer, then nodded.

  “I see. I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It is all our fault that children like you have to live through things like that.”

  I nodded as well, and after that, neither of us spoke as we continued walking.

  Before long, we stopped in front of a sturdy wooden door, polished and well-maintained, with a neat metal plaque engraved with elegant letters. Cedric’s Office

  “You should go in first,” Devon said as he knocked on the door. “He’s been waiting for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I took a breath and pushed the door open just as a voice from inside said, “Enter.”

  Inside the room stood a man who looked to be in his late thirties, his posture straight, with neatly cut blue hair and an almost intimidating expression. More importantly, the presence coming off him was strong, stronger than most people I had sensed so far.

  But it wasn’t overwhelming. It wasn’t the kind of presence I expected from someone called the Moon Bringer. Confused, the words slipped out before I could stop myself.

  “Lieutenant General Cedric?”

  The temperature in the room seemed to drop instantly. The man’s expression darkened as he stared straight at me.

  “Are you perhaps addressing me?” he asked coldly.

  Behind me, I heard something that very clearly sounded like muffled laughter. I turned my head slightly and saw Devon covering his mouth with one hand, his shoulders shaking as if he were barely holding it in.

  “Huh…?” I muttered.

  The man in front of me clicked his tongue.

  “My name is Devon. Colonel Devon,” he said, a vein bulging slightly on his forehead. “Do you happen to have a problem with that, Warrant Officer Aria?”

  “…What?”

  That was when the Devon behind me completely lost control.

  “Hahahahaha!” Fake Devon laughed as he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. “That was hilarious!”

  That was the moment everything finally clicked into place. The man standing stiffly in front of me, wearing that dangerously irritated expression, was Devon.

  The real Devon.

  Which meant the man behind me, the one laughing far too freely, could only be…

  “It’s nice to meet you properly,” the fake Devon said, holding out his hand while still struggling to suppress his laughter. “My real name is Cedric Airviss. Commander of the 9th Corps, head of House Airviss… and, most importantly, the Moon Bringer.”

  My brain went completely blank. I tried to open my mouth, but nothing came out.

  “And of course,” Cedric continued, with an almost cruel smile curling across his face, “you really need to work on your backstory. Nobody is going to buy that act.”

  If someone had put a pot of water on my face, I could swear it would have boiled over on the spot. My head felt like it was on fire, heat rushing up to my ears as every thought collapsed into pure embarrassment.

  I had died honorably on the battlefield, that is, in shame.

  [(0)]

  After calming down a little, I found myself standing face to face with Lieutenant General Cedric and his aide, Colonel Devon. I hurriedly snapped into a salute, the rough, half-remembered version Instructor Demo had drilled into me.

  “You may ease,” Cedric said with a smile. “I doubt you need to greet me like that, especially since you said ‘hi’ to me before.”

  Devon stared at me coldly, and my face turned red once again. This time, however, I didn’t die of shame.

  “I apologize, sir, for the inconvenience,” I said, forcing my voice into something serious.

  “No, no. It was fun,” Cedric replied, grimacing as if recalling an unpleasant memory. “Especially after being stuck in the medic room for an entire week. Why, the medics practically ran away whenever I tried to make a joke.”

  That made sense. When the highest authority in the fort tried to joke around, one wrong response could easily be taken as disrespect. Even if Cedric wasn’t the type to execute someone over it, fear didn’t work on logic.

  “My lord, we need to be serious, and we need to be quick,” Devon cut in, his gaze sharp as it settled on me.

  “See? Like this, nobody makes fun with me,” Cedric complained. Then his expression shifted, the warmth draining away in an instant. “Alright. We’ll get straight to the point.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He looked directly at me. “You are a homunculus, a super weapon created by the research division. Correct?”

  “Yes,” I answered, realizing there was no point in playing dumb anymore. “I am a homunculus. I was called Number 9 before receiving the name Aria from Instructor Demo.”

  “Oh. So your name is Aria now…” Cedric murmured, resting a hand on his chin. “Interesting. It’s said you’re quite unique. The first homunculus to awaken emotions.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. I could have said I was special. I could have agreed. I could have denied it. Hundreds of thoughts were running through my head at once, but I understood one thing clearly: telling him I was a reincarnation wouldn’t help anything.

  Thankfully, Cedric simply shrugged.

  “There’s no need to tell me about that,” he said lightly. “As long as you can fight, that’s enough for us.”

  Then his gaze sharpened.

  “Now,” Cedric continued as he stared straight at me, “do you know the situation?”

  “No, sir,” I replied honestly. After all, Cedric had told me I would be briefed once I arrived at the 9th Corps. Besides, ‘I ain’t no militar’ genius,’ was something Instructor Demo liked to say right before beating me half to death.

  “Currently, the 9th Corps is holding the Northern Line with 5,000 troops,” Devon answered, his expression serious. “The 8th Corps is defending the western front, with their forces split between Fort Raven and Fort Avolire.”

  “And the rest of the corps are holding the Eastern Line,” Cedric finished, lighting a cigarette with a lighter-like object, probably an artifact. “They’re being pushed back by the Emavia Empire’s Eleventh and Twelfth Legions, each numbering around 250,000.”

  So… 500,000 enemies in total. That was… a lot. No, that was insane.

  “The enemy we’re currently facing,” Cedric continued calmly, “is a private army belonging to one of the Empire’s dukes, Duke Ember. One of the pillars of the Empire. He began the invasion with 80,000 troops.”

  80,000? Are you serious?

  I could understand the Empire itself. It was massive, after all. But a single Duke? How did he even gather that much manpower in such a short amount of time? And wasn’t the Empire worried about rebellion? Even if mana strengthened people physically, numbers like that still didn’t make sense to me.

  “Most of them are mercenaries, actually,” Cedric added, noticing my expression. “Gold and authority will make people crawl out of places you didn’t even know existed.”

  He took a slow drag from his cigarette.

  “And unfortunately for us,” he said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke, “Duke Ember has plenty of both.”

  “A lot of them fled after the recent battles,” Devon added. “They’re down to around 30,000 now. All of them are purely the Duke’s personal army.”

  “Um… I just want to ask,” I said carefully, “how did things even get this bad?”

  I knew that 35,000 against 80,000 was basically suicide. But we were on the defensive. I couldn’t understand how the situation had spiraled this far.

  “Well, to be honest,” Cedric said, pointing at the map hanging beside the wall, “we never thought they’d attack from the north by any means. If you look here, the only possible invasion route from the north is through Fort Estonal.”

  I stared at the map, completely speechless. The northern region was nothing but mountains, with snow piled high across them. The only way to reach Fort Estonal was through mountain passages. Even to me, an amateur, it was obviously terrible terrain for an army.

  “You can guess why none of us thought 80,000 troops would cross snowfields where there isn’t a single civilization,” Cedric sighed. “We positioned ourselves in the south in case of a landing and left Fort Estonal with 100 men. You can probably guess what happened next.”

  It was insane when I thought about it. It wasn’t quite like Napoleon crossing the Alps, but marching an army through that much snow was still madness.

  “And then those idiots in the capital decided it was a good idea to launch a direct attack to reclaim the fort,” Cedric continued with another tired sigh. “The saddest ones are the soldiers who actually have to fight the Imperials at Fort Estonal.”

  I finally understood the situation. People couldn’t really call Cedric incompetent. No one would have seriously believed the Imperials would choose Fort Estonal as their route. As I was thinking that, the walls shook again, stronger this time, and a book fell from one of the shelves.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Cedric said, barely sparing it a glance as Devon picked it up. “Even if they attacked faster than expected, I killed most of their mages last week. They won’t be firing siege spells anymore. That means we’re safe for now.”

  “The real issue,” Devon said as he rolled the map down further, revealing the Imperial positions, “is figuring out the plan for the attack we’ll launch tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I asked, unable to hide my disbelief.

  “Yes. Tonight,” Devon replied, scowling at me. “Our intelligence reports say that the commander of this army, Major General Ayas, ordered a large shipment of alcohol to his camp. Considering that he’s the third son of Duke Ember and has little military experience to speak of, he’s most likely planning to spend the night drinking. That gives us our best chance to strike.”

  “Which means we’re planning to have you test your strength on a real battlefield. Today,” Cedric said with a smile. “Of course, along with one hundred men. You’ll charge straight at them as a distraction, while I take several thousand and loop around to hit their rear.”

  I was smiling on the outside, but inside, I was screaming, ‘Why do I have to be the one charging straight at them?!’

  Still, considering that Cedric himself, the commander, was going to be on the battlefield, I couldn’t exactly say no. All I could do was listen as he calmly began listing his orders.

  [(0)]

  “Let us celebrate our victory!” Major General Ayas shouted, his face flushed as he raised a glass of wine. “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” his advisors echoed, clinking their glasses together and downing wine after wine.

  Instead of continuing to issue orders for the siege of Fort Kespare, Ayas had spent the entire day partying. Even though the battle with the 9th Corps was far from over, he treated the situation as they had already won. In his mind, there was no way the enemy could mount any meaningful resistance, not when the knights of the Ember Household had arrived.

  Most of those knights were drinking as well, loudly mocking the kingdom’s soldiers as nothing more than weaklings. No one expected an attack from an army that had only 5,000 troops left and had been pushed to the brink of collapse.

  The official Emavia Empire military staff, dispatched to oversee the operation, watched the scene with stone-cold expressions.

  ‘What the hell are you doing when the siege should have continued?’ was what they were thinking.

  In truth, they were the ones who had done most of the actual fighting, while Ayas and his advisors played at being commanders. But after their disastrous encounter with the Moon Bringer, an encounter that cost them most of their mages, Ayas had begun to take the reins.

  Ayas was the third son of Duke Ember, one of the most powerful houses in the Emavia Empire. He had got his position through money and didn’t have any battle experiences or achievements under his name. He just let his military officers do all the work and still their achievements.

  Even his advisors were useless as they were nobles who were supporting Duke Ember. They just aimed to gain political advantages using the battles and show good will to the Duke. None of them were useful in battle except to keep flattering their lord.

  “Lord Ayas, the battle is not over yet.” Major Liano said calmly. He was a military advisor dispatched directly by General Khile, commander of the Twelfth Legion.

  His true role was simple: to keep Ayas under watch in case things went wrong. Many of the real officers feared what would happen if Ayas were allowed to act freely, so Major Liano had been appointed to rein in the Northern force. “You should be preparing for tomorrow’s engagement.”

  “Are you telling me what to do?!” Ayas shouted, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on Major Liano’s face. “I’ll do whatever I want! Just look at those kingdom soldiers! They ran away because of my brilliant plan!”

  ‘We were the ones who almost fled the battlefield.’ Major Liano bit down on his lower lip. ‘The mercenaries already ran, and the only reason we’re winning is because we outnumber them.’

  It was already remarkable that the enemy had reduced them to 30,000 and were still dangerous, yet the advisors didn’t care at all.

  “Our lord speaks the truth!”

  “Those insolent soldiers are nothing compared to you, my lord!”

  “Your brilliance shouldn’t be wasted in a place like this, my lord!”

  Major General Ayas’ advisors drowned him in praise, and Ayas basked in it openly. Around them, the other officers burned with silent rage, teeth clenched as they swallowed the urge to shout at such arrogance.

  Just then, a soldier burst into the tent, out of breath. He dropped to one knee, gasping for air.

  “Lord Ayas!” he cried, desperation clear in his voice. “The enem—”

  “What is the meaning of this?!” Ayas snapped. “A filthy soldier dares enter my tent? I will have you executed for tainting this ground!”

  “B-but, my lord—” the soldier tried to continue, but Ayas’ hand was already resting on the hilt of his sword.

  Just as he was about to bring down the sword, an arrow suddenly pierced the ceiling of the tent and sailed through the air. It wasn’t long before the arrow found its mark and landed on one of Major General Ayas’ advisors.

  The advisor blinked as he stared at the arrow in his chest. The blood slowly dripped from his wounds as it dropped to the ground, starting to form a small puddle.

  “AGHHHHHH! M-m-medic!!!”

  The scream tore through the tent as blood burst from the wound. The advisor collapsed to his knees, clutching himself and screaming for medics.

  But it didn’t end there. The arrow was an artifact. Flames suddenly flared around the wound, and the advisor’s screams grew even more desperate as he writhed on the ground.

  “AHHH—HELP ME! PLEASE!”

  That cry broke the silence in the tent as it erupted into chaos. Ayas stumbled back and fell to the ground, his body shaking violently as a dark, wet stain spread between his legs.

  “W-what is happening?!” he shrieked. “Why is there an arrow inside my tent?!”

  His advisors rushed to calm him down, but their own hands were trembling just as badly.

  The military officers drew their weapons and rushed outside to see what was going on. At the same time, Major Liano grabbed the soldier who had come to deliver the report.

  “What’s the situation?” Major Liano shouted, shaking the soldier.

  “The enemy had sneak attacked us!” The soldier shouted, his voice ragged. “We don’t know the enemy number, but we expect it to be thousands of them!”

  “What do you mean by—”

  Before Major Liano could finish, an arrow struck his forehead.

  Just like before, flames spread from the wound, scorching his hair as he collapsed to the ground. Fire clung to his face as he writhed, his body hitting the floor with a dull thud.

  The other officers stared in horror for only a moment. Then they snapped back to reality, drew their weapons, and rushed outside to face the enemy.