What Do You Wish For With Murky Eyes: Record of Highserk War - Chapter 1

The stench of decay spreads through Walm’s nostrils. The familiar odor is a mix of human waste and the smell of organs. Although the full-scale clash between the two armies is about to begin, the battle has already commenced.

Scouts engage in skirmishes, and attacks from a distance with arrows and magic spread the pitiful soldiers’ entrails into the air. Walm’s heart is already pounding to the point of rupture, and his legs continue to kick the ground relentlessly. The crude chestplate sways assertively, producing a loud metallic noise.

In order to efficiently circulate his breath, Walm has been enduring, but it’s now imminent. Both flanks, unable to endure, raise battle cries.

“Uooh, Ooohhh!!”

The words carry no meaning. If anything, they serve a primitive purpose to boost one’s own morale and intimidate the opponent. In Walm’s hands are spears measuring two and a half meters in length, and his torso and head are protected by concave armor.

Everyone around him is the same. Here, this is considered formal attire and a dress uniform. The stubborn reddish-brown stains serve as a stylish accent, but in reality, they bear witness to the tragedy of the previous owner. The deeply ingrained dirt eloquently tells Walm what happened.

Takakura Raizou, in this current life known as Walm, is in the midst of war. It’s not a modern war with abundant use of iron, gunpowder, and technology as seen in the First and Second World Wars. It’s a medieval melee where iron clashes with iron, iron with the body, and body with body. What makes it unique is the addition of “magic,” “skills,” mysterious creatures, and magical tools, all of which Walm is experiencing firsthand.

The man who was once Raizou Takakura was reborn in a world different from Earth, born as the third son of a peasant. Reincarnated with a new body and name, Walm enjoyed his youth in the fields and soil. What awaited him was conscription. His family received a conscription fee, and after a month of training, he was continuously deployed to the front lines.

If the nation had the luxury, well-trained standing soldiers would be sent to war after years of training. However, this was a story that had nothing to do with Walm, who belonged to the Empire and its people, constantly engaged in warfare throughout the year. For infantry requiring numbers, one month of training was deemed sufficient. The remaining education was on-the-job training, a field education that Walm had experienced in his previous life. Immediate deployment under the name of OJT was the best. If you fail, the only thing you lose is your own life.

Observing his fellow recruits dying one after another, Walm, after half a year in military service, barely survived his first battle, and this is already his eleventh combat. The familiar faces among his fellow recruits are long gone. Organs exposed, heads crushed, and bodies burned all over by “magic.” The variety of ways to die is vast and truly diverse.

Gratefully, whether through cremation or burial, the enemy administers both methods while the person is still alive. It’s as if he has come to an amusement park of death. He spits out the words that it’s not boring. Walm, who had enjoyed a peaceful world, never thought he would survive even the first battle, but ironically, only he continued to live. Especially after a few dozen seconds – although it wasn’t certain – he could only laugh.

The number of people Walm has killed easily exceeds dozens, not just a few. Even if his waist recoils, his hands shake, and his legs falter, the enemy soldiers don’t disappear. Even if he vomits at the first life he took, there is no one waiting for him. If there was room, sometimes comrades would bury enemy soldiers from the side, but Walm, who had experienced the battlefield many times, stopped expecting such things.

What saved him was not his homeland, the Highserk Empire, nor the signposts of the gods. Instead, it was a 2.5-meter spear temporarily lent to him by the empire and a 90-centimeter longsword he picked up on the battlefield. On the battlefield all are equal. Walm believes that from the bottom of his heart. In the battlefield where everyone throws themselves in, death visits everyone fairly, regardless of age or gender.

Thanks to his chaotic and useless contemplation, Walm manages to reach a distance where he can clearly see the opponent’s face. They are the Light Infantry of the Liberitoa Commercial Federation, whom Walm is already tired of seeing. Although enemies, they are likely militia recruits from the same conscription pool as Walm. He speculates that everyone’s pale complexion is probably due to inexperience and anxiety.

Having thought too much, Walm has approached the decisive distance, and both sides, without a signal, cross their spearheads. The enemy’s spear approaches Walm’s torso, but it hits the chest plate. While scraping against it, he deflects it with half of his body, and the spear veers off. He wanted to avoid a mutual defeat. Holding the spear with his hips, he thrusts it towards the enemy’s throat. The targeted enemy tries to deflect it with the withdrawn spearhead, but the aim is the unprotected lower body.

Feeling the resistance of the spear thrust into the thigh, Walm distorts his face. The wound that probably reached the bone inflicts intense pain on his opponents body, stealing a large amount of blood in an instant.

The enemy soldier, who barely held onto the spear, couldn’t resist Walm’s repeated spear thrusts and sank into the ground. There’s faint breath left, but falling in the front row means waiting for death by being trampled by military boots. Walm mutters a brief condolence and averts his gaze from the soldiers who are being trampled by both sides.

Another soldier takes the place in the vacant line. This one also has a pale complexion, but Walm feels it’s better than before. They engage in a spear battle, but the outcome is not decided. He thought this might be another disposable soldier in the front row, but unfortunately, it seemed he was not a combat virgin.

The spearheads clash violently. Blocking the spear from below, the Liberitoan soldier who stepped in, convinced of victory, smiles. However, Walm lowers his head to receive it. He wears a helmet called cervelliere on his head, protecting it with a circular bowl made of iron from the frontal bone to the crown bone, with a chain hanging from the neck and a flat extension from the bowl to the cheek. The spear hits Walm’s left temple, but slides and deviates upward.

He clenches his back teeth against the dull pain. The Liberitoan soldier’s face, which had stiffened, turns from a smile to tension as Walm thrusts the spear twice into his face. The first strike hits the cheek, and the second strike slides into the eye socket, causing fatal damage to the brain. By the time Walm readies the spear again, the enemy soldier, like a cut puppet, loses support and collapses from the legs.

“Damn it.”

Walm curses softly. Killing only two people won’t end the battle. Enemy soldiers, roaring, leap out from under Walm. They are like starving wolves craving blood and flesh. Refusing to engage, he thrusts the spear to intercept, but it is deflected by the armor.

A standing regular soldier, covered in armor from head to toe, blocks Walm’s way. Considering the equipment, it was a formidable enemy, perhaps a squad leader or platoon leader. The two-handed sword swung with momentum is approaching Walm’s throat.

Abandoning the spear, Walm intercepts the sword with the round shield on his back. Unlike the expendable items from earlier, each strike is incredibly heavy, and he senses the high skill level of the enemy. The round shield has a diagonal cut, and the remaining impact makes Walm’s palms tingle.

Anyway, taking a break and giving the initiative to the opponent is a bad move, Walm learned from experience. He draws the longsword and slashes from the lower side, aiming for the throat, but it’s deflected by the gauntlet. Against the two-handed sword swung from above, Walm tilts the round shield to the left to deflect. The shield is marked with scars as it intersects with the previous slash.

By the third strike, Walm felt inner anxiety as enduring it seemed nearly impossible. Due to the difference in armor, engaging in a straightforward swordfight would likely result in a disadvantage.

With determination, Walm braces his legs, folds his shoulders, and pushes with the round shield, putting his weight into it. It becomes a momentary pushing match, and there’s a moment after the big swing when the enemy soldier’s posture slightly falters. Taking advantage of the obscured vision blocked by the round shield, Walm thrusts the longsword from behind into the soldier’s lower body.

The blade, protected by the chainmail around the waist and thighs, only partially pierces, but the sharp longsword elicits a cry from the enemy soldier. As he swings down the two-handed sword while leaping backward, Walm seizes the opportunity. The slower speed compared to the previous sword strikes and the predictability of the movements allow Walm to act. Stepping one more than the retreating enemy to close the distance, he thrusts the longsword, scraping it against the armor, from below.

“Ugh, aaahh!”

The blade penetrates from the enemy soldier’s lower jaw, forces open the palate, and reaches the brain. The enemy soldier, whose strength instantly drained away, further impales himself on the sword due to his own weight. Walm didn’t need to confirm. To divert the weight on the sword, he discards it by tossing it aside, not paying attention to the opponent in front of him. Despite being engrossed in the immediate adversary, one of the enemy soldiers noticed Walm.

“Squad leader!?”

Walm senses the disturbance among the surrounding soldiers. In response, the hands of the offensive side accelerate just as a scream-like cry is heard.

“He’s a magic user!”

When magical energy swirled among the enemy, a fireball was unleashed from their hands. Walm instinctively raised his shield and bent down to the ground. The feared catastrophic destruction did not occur, as the impact landed several meters away.

The blast caused Walm’s hair to flutter, and he felt the heat on his skin. Somehow, he and his shielded companion managed to avoid a direct hit. The two who took the direct hit suffered terribly.

Accustomed to the battlefield, Walm’s eyes reflected the miserable state of his companions. One had their arm burned halfway, torn and mangled, while the other had their head completely obliterated. The helmet they wore had fresh pieces of flesh stuck to it, with burnt blood remaining.

Against the annoying magic user, some threw their spears, but the enemy mage, protected by surrounding soldiers, slipped into the ranks. Walm, disgusted by sorcerer, spat out, realizing that magic users, like first-borns, were cherished and enviable. In a world where about one in ten people had some aptitude for magic, wizards were considered more valuable than ordinary soldiers, as Walm had learned.

Generally, magic users supported infantry from the sides or rear, but Walm concluded that the Liberitoa Commercial Federation had deployed them due to sensing a disadvantage. Amidst the people’s clamor, muffled explosions and the whistling sound of wind-element magic could be heard. Observing an ice spear extending from the rear of his allies and piercing the enemy’s shoulder, Walm wasted no time and swung his longsword horizontally.

The longsword tore through the defense provided by the enemy’s arm, and when the blade made contact with the throat, it gruesomely tore it apart. Blood gushed out like a broken water pipe, and despite the enemy soldier desperately clutching their throat, merely extending their lifespan by a few dozen seconds —Walm’s expectations were fulfilled. After dispatching a third enemy, the voice he had been waiting for to determine the tide of battle resonated from a distance.

“Our allies have broken through the flank! Charge! The enemy is collapsing!”

When the squad leader’s voice, offering up the blood-soaked sword to the heavens, echoed, the soldiers responded with roars as loud as they could muster. Under a fierce onslaught from the front and the side, the disoriented enemy attempted to regroup, but with a broken formation, they began to rout. Walm experienced this kind of breakthrough and subsequent half-encirclement many times. It was a tactic that the Highserk Empire excelled at. The enemy’s left side, where the command structure malfunctioned, struggled to continue resisting, losing half of their forces and initiating a pursuit against the fleeing unit.

Weapons and shields were discarded as fleeing soldiers were ambushed by arrows and thrown spears. Infantry who caught up would drive a warhammer into the back of the head. Some elderly veterans managed to kill a few comrades but were overwhelmed, either beaten to death or pierced by a collective of five or six spears. In two hours of battle, the Liberitoa Commercial Federation lost sixty percent of their forces, and the contested borderlands heavily favored the Highserk Empire.