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Chapter 29
The “me” in the memory of the Mythic Age lived a life where hardly a day went by without stepping onto the battlefield.
Endless invasions from other races.
Among them, the orcs especially… it was as if they bore some deep grudge against humanity. They waged war with a persistence that made my teeth grind.
Even amidst such endless conflict, we somehow fought and survived—but sometimes the tides were so overwhelming it felt utterly impossible to win.
Today was one of those days.
“General!”
A soldier came running toward me in panic.
At some point, I was no longer a mere soldier, but a general.
“We can’t hold out any longer! This is just a pointless death!”
His outburst was because of what was happening just ahead.
Boom! Boom!
Bolts of lightning struck the ground in succession, turning countless soldiers into ashes.
Lightning striking from a clear sky.
And worse—it targeted only our soldiers, falling upon them with pinpoint precision.
It was a phenomenon that could only be described as a “miracle of the gods.”
“Lord Thor watches over us! Do not falter—advance!”
“Krraaaah!”
An orc warlord, wielding a two-handed hammer engraved with strange patterns, roared from the enemy’s ranks.
The orc army surged forward with renewed vigor.
That bastard must be the one blessed by the gods.
The source of the lightning was none other than that warlord with the two-handed hammer.
He was borrowing the power of Thor, god of thunder, to slaughter our forces.
The moment I realized this, I yanked on the reins and spurred my horse forward.
“G-General! What are you doing?”
“Wait here. I’ll bring you his head. Hyah!”
“Generaaaal!”
Ignoring my adjutant’s desperate cries, I charged straight toward the orc warlord with only a sword in hand.
Boom! Boom!
Piercing through the storm of lightning, I crossed the battlefield alone.
“Krraak!”
Dozens of orc grunts rushed me, but none could stop my advance.
Everything that blocked my path fell like autumn leaves before the swings of my sword from horseback.
I had no divine power.
But I did have the martial prowess I had honed as a human.
Crackle.
The hair on my head stood on end—an instinctive warning.
I leapt off my galloping horse.
Boom!
Lightning struck my mount directly.
The poor beast convulsed and collapsed dead, but I didn’t stop—I sprinted straight ahead.
My target: the warlord blessed by Thor.
Shiiing! Claaang!
“Tch!”
My sword never reached him.
An invisible magical barrier blocked it.
“How dare you try to cut down the one blessed by the Thunder God himself!”
The warlord swung his hammer down at me.
At a glance, the motion looked heavy and sluggish.
Fast!
Despite its size, the warlord swung the hammer at incredible speed.
Even I, with only a short sword, barely managed to keep up.
Kwaaang!
“Urgh!”
I blocked with my blade, but a hammer isn’t meant to cut—it’s meant to crush.
The shock traveled through my sword and armor, rattling my entire body.
“Ghah!”
I tumbled across the ground several times before barely regaining my footing, blood spilling from my mouth.
One strike alone had left me this wounded.
An orc warlord wielding the borrowed power of a god… so it’s not just about calling down lightning.
The difference in power was overwhelming.
A gap that seemed impossible to bridge.
But I couldn’t simply yield.
Boom!
Lightning crashed down where I stood.
I rolled aside just in time, then surged back toward him.
Haaaah!
Clenching my teeth, I swung my sword.
The martial mastery I had cultivated all my life condensed into a sharp, radiant force along my blade.
“Uwooooooh!”
The sword gleamed with a blue light.
Kwaa-chang!
The magical barrier shattered, and I pressed in with a follow-up strike.
“W-what?!”
The warlord staggered back in shock, narrowly avoiding my slash.
My blade was too short to reach him—
Shhhk!
But the sharp aura flowing from the edge sliced into his torso anyway.
“Krrah!”
From his left shoulder down to his right hip, a deep wound gushed blood.
The warlord collapsed backward, writhing in agony.
“Krraaaa! How dare a human—!”
Clang!
Even then, he raged to the end, unleashing another blast of lightning from his hammer.
At such close range, there was no way to dodge.
Bzzzzzt!
“Gghhhaah!”
Lightning tore through me, wracking my organs with unbearable pain.
But I refused to retreat.
Instead, I stepped closer, gripped my sword in both hands, and swung at his neck.
“Grh…!”
“S-stay away…!”
Slash!
My clean strike cut deep into his thick neck.
A moment later, his head rolled across the ground.
Only then did Thor’s lightning, which had ravaged the battlefield, finally cease.
“Haaah… haaah…”
My legs trembled.
I could barely stand, leaning on my sword like a cane.
“Grrghh…”
The orc soldiers surrounding me looked at me with mixed expressions.
Maybe they thought they could finish me off in my exhausted state.
“No matter how… broken I look… you trash could never touch me…”
I raised my sword again into a fighting stance.
Though drained, my killing intent remained razor-sharp.
Because my will to slay orcs hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
“R-run away!”
Perhaps it was fear of me.
Or maybe the death of their commander broke their morale.
The orc army, which had been advancing ferociously, suddenly turned and retreated.
“Generaaaal!”
Only when I heard my adjutant’s voice as he rode up behind me did I finally release the last threads of willpower keeping me upright.
I was carried to the infirmary for treatment.
Fortunately, nothing too serious had been damaged.
And with the orcs in retreat, the battle was counted as our victory.
“If it weren’t for you, General, we never could’ve won. You were incredible.”
“If we gave up, that would’ve been the end. We had no choice but to endure.”
After my wife’s death, I’d grown obsessive about protecting people.
Above all, I had to endure for the sake of protecting my last remaining family—my son.
I couldn’t allow myself to lose him, too.
Murmur, murmur.
“Hm?”
While I was talking with my adjutant, the infirmary suddenly grew restless.
People bustled about, packing and preparing things.
“Is something happening outside?”
When I tried to get up, my adjutant stopped me.
“Please stay here, General. I’ll go check—”
Clack.
But there was no need.
The source of the commotion entered my room directly.
“High Priest!”
The High Priest of the kingdom’s deity.
An old man draped in ornate robes, followed by dozens of attendants.
“…Hmph, so it’s you.”
I glanced at him once, then turned my head away.
It was hardly the behavior befitting a general in front of the High Priest, but I didn’t care.
“What insolence!”
“Show proper respect to the High Priest!”
“…”
I stayed silent, lying there.
“You scoundrel!”
One of his attendants barked.
But the High Priest stopped him.
“It’s fine. He is a patient. Leave him be.”
“But—”
“Ahem.”
“…Yes, understood.”
With a forced air of dignity, he cleared his throat.
The attendants fell quiet again.
“Why have you come here?”
I wanted nothing more than to rest, so I asked bluntly, hoping to get this over with.
“Why, I came to see the face of the hero who defended the kingdom from those filthy creatures.”
“Then you’ve seen it. Your business is done. Now leave.”
“You insolent—!”
“Ahem.”
At his cough, the attendants bit back their anger, though their faces twisted with fury.
“I came to ask you a favor. I want you to recount today’s deeds to uplift the people’s spirits.”
“…What?”
Why would a request like that come from the High Priest?
“It’s simple. We’ll prepare the speech for you. All you have to do is read it aloud.”
And then I understood.
So he wants me to give testimony.
To embellish the story of the battle with lies about “the gods,” and spread it among the people.
To inspire faith.
But my answer was obvious.
“I refuse.”
“…Why?”
“Why should I mix your lies into my story?”
“That’s a misunderstanding. We pursue only the truth—”
“Truth? You call babbling about some ‘Absolute God Ahura Mazda’ the truth?”
The moment I said the name, the air in the room turned frigid.
Not only the attendants, but even the High Priest—who’d worn a benevolent smile—froze.
“You…!”
“What blasphemy—!”
This time, even the High Priest didn’t stop their outrage. He himself added:
“To utter such impiety… the god will not let you go unpunished.”
“But as you can see, nothing’s happening.”
I shrugged, mocking him.
His next words, however, enraged me.
“General, the only reason you can fight so well is thanks to the blessing bestowed upon you by the gods. To maintain such an irreverent attitude is foolish—”
“…What?”
Crash!
“Uagh!”
I kicked over the table beside my bed.
“God’s blessing? Don’t make me laugh.”
Blessings. Divine power. Protection.
Those were the last things I wanted to hear.
Because whenever those appeared on the battlefield, it was always us who were slaughtered.
“Do you know what the orcs have that we don’t? Gods. Not once has a single blessing been given to us.”
“‘Ahura Mazda, the Absolute God’ is nothing more than a delusion.
We always had to fight with only our own strength.
While the enemy wrought miracles with divine protection, we had nothing but our blood, sweat, and steel to resist it.
Meanwhile, you priests—incapable of even casting a simple healing spell—sat back and leeched off the people’s ignorance, stealing their money and living in luxury.”
“Yet you dare speak of ‘god’s blessing’?”
“Th-this is…”
“Get the hell out if all you can spew is that crap!”
Crash!
I hurled anything I could grab.
“Uwaaah! Let’s leave!”
In the end, the frightened High Priest and his followers fled from my room.
“…General…”
If there really were such a god, we wouldn’t be treated like prey.
We wouldn’t suffer endless invasions.
My wife would still be alive.
Thoughts like that filled me with a rage I couldn’t shake.
“…Haaah.”
A few hours later, the Grand General came to see me.
“I heard you cursed out the High Priest and threw things at him?”
“…Yes. I apologize.”
“Tsk. You should’ve held back.”
Officially, he had come to announce my punishment.
But since he trusted me completely, the punishment was light.
“I’ve ordered you confined to your home for a month.”
In other words, rest.
They couldn’t afford to truly punish one of the army’s strongest assets.
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t be so stiff. At your position, you need to know when to swallow your pride and let things go.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
“…Well, truthfully, hearing what you said did feel refreshing to me, too.”
He wasn’t ignorant of the battlefield either. He also despised the priests’ nonsense.
“In any case, keep your head down for now, understood? General Ahriman.”
“Yes, sir.”
That was as far as the memory of the Mythic Age went.
The most important piece of information I gained from it was the name I heard at the end.
Ahriman.
That was another name for the evil god Angra Mainyu.
My guardian spirit, Azidahaka, was the incarnation—the Avatar—of that very being.
And the memories I had been watching were none other than the god’s own.
