Free Web NovelChapter 12: Giving Bread
Morning arrived without the sun, though in the Carrion Front, the transition from night to day was measured only by the changing color of the suffocating smog.
The bruised, sickly purple of the night sky slowly bled into a heavy, oppressive, and dirty ash-gray.
The stench inside the dugout was still absolutely horrific.
The freezing drafts of the trench had done nothing to clear the cloying metallic scent of the mercenary who had been reduced to a pile of charred, smoking ash just hours prior.
No one had slept.
The surviving men sat with their knees pulled to their chests, their bloodshot eyes darting nervously between the heavy leather curtain and the blond woman lying silently on the far cot.
Suddenly, the heavy leather curtain was violently kicked aside.
Sergeant Vance stepped into the dimly lit dugout.
The towering veteran’s heavy iron boots splashed against the damp dirt floor, intentionally stepping right over the pile of mercenary ash without granting it a single ounce of acknowledgment or respect.
Behind Vance, four heavily armored soldiers carried in three massive, reinforced wooden crates. They dropped them onto the dirt floor with a heavy, resounding thud.
"Up," Vance grunted, his voice lacking its usual commanding roar. It sounded hollow, resigned to the inevitable. "Gear up."
The Sergeant reached down and forcefully kicked the lid off the first crate.
The dull, flickering light of the dying oil lantern reflected off the contents. It wasn’t standard-issue, rusted infantry gear.
It was brand new, freshly forged steel shortswords, heavy, interlocking iron chainmail, and pristine leather gauntlets.
Vance kicked open the second and third crates.
The suffocating smell of cooked human flesh was instantly overpowered by a completely different scent.
Hot, thick-cut salted meat. Freshly baked, steaming loaves of bread. Several large, clean canteens filled with purified, magically treated water, and even a few small flasks of highly expensive imperial rum.
The starving, exhausted mercenaries slowly stood up from their corners, their eyes wide in disbelief.
"Eat," Vance ordered, gesturing to the crates. "Strap on the new iron. Drink the water. You have exactly twenty minutes."
The squad didn’t cheer... They didn’t rush forward to celebrate the sudden generosity of the empire...
They realized exactly what this was.
High Command did not waste pristine steel and hot meals on penal troops and disgraced fodder unless they were absolutely certain those troops weren’t coming back.
This wasn’t a reward for surviving the vanguard skirmish...
This was their last meal.
A heavy, profound dread settled over the dugout as the men slowly shuffled forward, grabbing the bread and the meat with trembling hands.
Beneath their feet, the dirt floor was already beginning to hum.
It wasn’t a sudden earthquake. It was a distant continuous vibration that rattled the loose stones in the trench walls and made the water in the canteens ripple ominously.
The Gore-Tide was marching...
In the far corner of the dugout, Aurelia Solis remained curled on her side on the crude wooden cot.
She hadn’t moved a single inch since she lay down the night before. Her heavy, magically reinforced iron chains rested uncomfortably behind her back.
Her stomach let out a soft, quiet growl.
She was starving.
She hadn’t eaten since the imperial guards had dragged her out of the capital in chains a while ago, sustaining her frail, mana-suppressed body purely on scraps and spite but she didn’t get up.
She watched the desperate mercenaries tearing into the fresh bread and hot meat like starved animals.
She knew that if she stood up and approached the crates, the men would violently panic.
The sheer terror she had inflicted on them was still completely raw.
Aurelia simply closed her glowing crimson eyes, looking entirely apathetic.
She didn’t care enough about living to fight a room full of doomed men for a piece of bread. Let the beasts tear her apart on an empty stomach... It made no difference...
From his own dark corner, Caius watched her.
He had already stood up and retrieved his share of the supplies. He strapped the new, heavy iron chainmail over his chest.
Unlike the rusted plate from yesterday, this armor fit securely, and thanks to his Void-enhanced physical stats, the heavy iron barely felt like an extra layer of clothing.
He held a steaming loaf of bread in one hand and a canteen of clean water in the other.
His crimson eyes flicked from the food, to the terrified men giving Aurelia a massive berth and finally to the Villainess herself.
’She’s going to starve herself...’ Caius thought.
Caius wasn’t a hero. He didn’t feel a sudden, righteous urge to save the damsel in distress.
His thought process was driven by cold logic.
Aurelia Solis was a walking, highly unstable weapon of mass destruction. Her mind was already completely fractured by trauma, temporary exile, and her cursed flames.
If her blood sugar dropped completely to zero and she went into a state of starved, feral panic when the beasts breached the walls, she wouldn’t just burn the monsters.
She would crash out and completely incinerate the entire dugout, and everyone in it, in a blind frenzy...
’I have to keep the walking nuke fed,’ Caius decided, treating the situation like he was defusing a highly volatile explosive. ’Basic survival mechanics.’
Ignoring the terrified, wide-eyed stares of the remaining mercenaries, Caius calmly stepped out of the shadows.
His boots made soft sounds against the dirt as he crossed the dugout, completely breaking the invisible fear-imposed quarantine zone the squad had established around her.
He stopped directly in front of her crude wooden cot and Aurelia’s glowing crimson eyes snapped open.
Her gaze was completely dead, devoid of any warmth or humanity. She looked up at the crimson-haired young man.
She didn’t sense anything massive or hidden about him.
Her core was suppressed by the chains, and Ereba’s Void camouflage was completely flawless.
To Aurelia, Caius was just a weird weakling who was standing entirely too close to a roaring fire.
"If you touch me," Aurelia warned. "you will burn into nothing."
Caius didn’t flinch.
His face remained completely deadpan, entirely unaffected by the threat.
He casually raised his hand and tossed the warm loaf of bread and the heavy water canteen directly onto her lap.
"I didn’t touch you," Caius replied smoothly. "Eat."
Aurelia was entirely taken aback.
She blinked her glowing red eyes, staring down at the steaming food resting on her thighs, and then back up at Caius.
She had expected him to beg for her protection... She had expected him to threaten her... She had expected him to try and use her...
She hadn’t expected him to just throw a loaf of bread at her.
"Why?" Aurelia asked, looking highly suspicious as her muscles tensed beneath her mud-caked clothes.
Caius simply shrugged, adjusting the heavy chainmail on his shoulder.
"Because starving to death before the monsters even get here is a stupid way to die," Caius stated bluntly, lacking any flowery noble pretense. "We’re both outcasts dumped here to rot. Might as well face the mud on a full stomach."
He didn’t wait for a thank you. He didn’t linger to try and charm her.
He simply turned his back on the one of the most dangerous woman on the continent and walked back to his dark corner, sitting down on his wooden crate to eat his own rations.
Aurelia stared at his back for a long, quiet moment.
He didn’t pity her, and he wasn’t trying to save her soul... He just didn’t want to die hungry.
Finding a bizarre comfort in the absolute solidarity of the damned, Aurelia slowly pulled her bound hands from behind her back.
Her heavy iron chains clinked softly as she reached down, picked up the bread, and took a small, hesitant bite.
The moment she swallowed the food, the temperature inside Caius’s mind violently changed.
The deep, absolute zero of the Void that had been completely silent for the past eight hours suddenly surged forward.
Ereba had awakened.
Caius immediately tensed, pausing with a piece of salted meat halfway to his mouth.
He braced himself for the apocalyptic fury of a higher-dimensional entity realizing her entire existence was a programmed joke.
He expected her to scream... He expected her to demand the total annihilation of the world’s scripted narrative...
Instead, her smooth melodic voice echoed against his skull.
’Hey bro. Where is the second season of Demon King’s Buxom Succubus Maidens?’
Caius completely froze in the middle of the dugout.
The piece of salted meat slipped from his fingers, dropping onto the dirt floor. His right eye began to aggressively, uncontrollably twitch.
He sat in stunned silence for three full seconds, desperately trying to process the auditory hallucination he had just experienced.
’...What?’ Caius asked internally, his mental voice cracking.
’You heard me, Champion,’ Ereba huffed, sounding entirely annoyed. ’I have sifted through your incredibly dense archives of digital entertainment. I watched the first twelve episodes of this supposed "anime" and it ended on a completely unresolved cliffhanger regarding the demonic headmaid. Where are the rest of the visual files?’ freewēbnoveℓ.com
Caius’s jaw slowly dropped.
A massive vein bulged on his forehead as pure disbelief flooded his system.
’Are you using my memories... to watch hentai?!’ Caius shrieked internally.
The ancient, reality-devouring Goddess of the Void, the ultimate antithesis to the Pantheon of Ur, let out a completely shameless dismissive scoff.
’So what? It’s highly interesting,’ Ereba replied smoothly, completely devoid of any divine dignity. ’The socio-political dynamics of a demon lord navigating a harem of subservient, hyper-fertile magical creatures is a fascinating study in mortal degeneracy.’
’You are an ancient deity!’ Caius roared in his mind, pinching the bridge of his nose so hard it hurt. ’You literally consume the authority of the gods! We are about to face a massive, apocalyptic monster wave in ten minutes, and you’re complaining about an unresolved anime plotline?!’
’And whose fault is that?’ Ereba shot back immediately, her tone lacing with a haughty, teasing edge. ’I am a being of pure Nothingness, Caius. I was a blank slate before I entered your mind. If I am currently fixating on degenerate, two-dimensional erotica, I should blame you for watching anime porn and infecting my divine sensibilities instead, Reincarnator~’
Caius let out a long completely exhausted exhale.
He felt a massive headache blooming behind his eyes, entirely separate from the trauma of sharing his memories.
He had expected to awaken a world-ending partner. Instead, he had apparently corrupted a supreme being with internet culture, turning the terrifying Chained Goddess into a shameless otaku.
’Just... search deeper for the actual survival mechanics of the game, you absolute degenerate,’ Caius ordered her mentally, too exhausted to even properly argue. ’Please. Just look at the boss attack patterns.’ ƒгeewёbnovel.com
’Hmph. Fine. You are incredibly boring when you are stressed, Caius...’ Ereba pouted internally with the abyssal weight of her presence shifting slightly as she redirected her focus toward his tactical gaming memories.
Before Ereba could offer another piece of unsolicited commentary on his search history, the dugout violently, aggressively shook.
It wasn’t a low rumble anymore.
A massive, concussive shockwave slammed into the trench walls, sending a thick cascade of dirt and loose stones raining down from the wooden ceiling supports.
The flickering oil lantern violently swung back and forth, casting wild shadows across the terrified faces of the squad.
WAAAAAAAOOOOUUUU! WAAAAAAAOOOOUUUU!
The warning sirens didn’t just blare; they shrieked with an agonizing intensity that vibrated directly against the marrow of Caius’s bones.
The sound was deafening, entirely drowning out the panicked screams of the mercenaries.
"Positions!" Sergeant Vance’s voice roared from outside, carrying the raw, desperate panic of a man staring death in the face. "Get to the barricades! It’s here!"
The Gore-Tide had arrived.
The mercenaries dropped their half-eaten bread, violently scrambling for their new steel swords and halberds.
They rushed out of the dugout with their faces pale, driven entirely by adrenaline and terror.
Caius stood up.
He drew his pristine steel shortsword, the heavy chainmail clinking softly against his chest.
He didn’t rush out immediately.
He looked toward the far cot.
Aurelia Solis was already standing. She had finished her bread, and the heavy iron chains binding her wrists scraped against her thighs.
Her glowing crimson eyes met his.
Caius gave her a single, tight nod, stepping out into the freezing, smog-choked trench to face the apocalypse.
