The Heavenly Demon Can’t Live A Normal Life [EN]: Chapter 93

Edwin Hector walked away from the battlefield, a knot of anger in his stomach. He headed towards the command post in the barracks.

Inside the command center, the air was thick with worry. His main officers, following his orders, were already waiting.

Hector looked at Jackson, the commander of the Rangers. “Jackson,” he said, his voice sharp, “report.”

“Yes, Commander,” Jackson replied, stepping forward.

“Commander, as you ordered, right after we broke through the first line, I told the 3rd Battalion to handle the rest of the enemy. But, about an hour ago, we started losing contact with them, company by company. At first, we thought it was just a radio problem, but now three companies are gone. It looks like they were attacked.”

“How many casualties?”

“About 300 men.”

His expression hardened.

This war… It was going according to a perfect plan for victory.

But the fact that his warriors had died because of a single variable irritated Edwin Hector.

“Most of the troops on the southern front have locked the gates and are defending the castle. Our losses must be the work of Roman Dmitry, who supposedly killed Baron McCleary at the 5th defensive line. The concern has become a reality. Roman Dmitry didn’t escape over the mountains but chose to stay on the southern front and resist us.”

His voice lowered.

The name Roman Dmitry. He hadn’t liked it from the start.

The moment the plan went wrong for the first time, Edwin Hector etched the name into his mind.

“A variable has appeared in the plan. If we leave Roman Dmitry alone, he will surely create another problem.”

“Commander.”

One of the key members, a man with an angular face, spoke firmly.

“Commander, as you said, a variable different from the initial plan has occurred. Baron McCleary is dead, and Roman Dmitry will gather the remaining forces to interfere with our plan. But that is not a significant problem. The southern front consists of five forward defensive lines and one rear line. With the most important rear line and the 1st defensive line in our grasp, the southern front will naturally lose its strength once we capture the remaining defensive lines. See the forest. It is more important to destroy the defensive lines before us than to deal with Roman Dmitry, that little rat.”

They thought focusing on small things and missing the big picture was a mistake.

Roman Dmitry is a small variable.

If they were swayed by him and failed in the siege, they could not be sure of the plan’s success from then on.

Three days. It wasn’t time for Cairo.

Even if they had other ideas, he intended to completely destroy the defensive lines and tighten their grip within three days.

Therefore, they tried to dissuade Edwin Hector.

They knew Hector. They knew he often did unexpected things when he was upset.

However, Edwin Hector had already made up his mind.

“No. What’s important now is not to focus on the 2nd defensive line, which, as I expected, cannot mount any counterattack, but to eliminate the variable that is messing up the plan in an area I did not anticipate. Withdraw the troops immediately. From now on, we will completely annihilate the rats of the southern front.”

At those words, bewilderment appeared on the faces of the key members.

The 2nd defensive line. It wouldn’t last long.

With the high ground right in front of them, they couldn’t readily follow Edwin Hector’s decision to withdraw the troops.

A key member said.

“This is risky. They are just a few soldiers. We should take the defensive lines first, then deal with them. They can’t really stop us, can they?”

It was the right thing to say.

Edwin Hector knew that too, but he had been feeling an ominous premonition ever since he received the first report.

An instinctive sense.

People say that instinct and common sense are different.

But in the end, instinct also stems from common sense.

Having reviewed the plan countless times over the past year, his instinct classified Roman Dmitry as a risk factor.

Edwin Hector said.

“I understand your point. But as commander, I must be ready for the worst. I’m not as worried about taking all the lines in three days. My real worry is Roman Dmitry. He could cause chaos here and create problems we can’t predict. We don’t have time for that. If he does something unexpected, it will be worse than failing to take the lines.”

It was a simple problem.

Problems that could be resolved and those that couldn’t.

Edwin Hector put his weight on the latter.

The defensive lines could be destroyed somehow, but Roman Dmitry’s actions could not be fully grasped.

“I’m just choosing the lesser of two evils. If, after hearing my explanation, the majority still say that destroying the 2nd defensive line is the priority, I will also give up my stubbornness and follow their opinion.”

In fact, the key members knew that there must be a reason why Edwin Hector made such a decision.

The reason they asked a common-sense question was that he could make a human mistake even once.

Everyone nodded, meaning they understood.

Jackson spoke on behalf of them.

“We will follow your command, Commander.”

Would they know? With this decision, the Hector Kingdom would set foot in the southern mountains, where Roman Dmitry was waiting, earlier than expected.

The sun was setting.

At a time when farmers would be going home to have dinner with their families, bright flames rose from all directions, piercing through the darkness.

Hector’s soldiers lit torches.

“If you find the enemies, don’t attack rashly, blow the whistle immediately. The remnants of Cairo include aura swordsmen. If we slowly corner the enemies and attack all at once, we can eliminate them all without taking heavy casualties!”

“Understood!”

The company commander in charge of searching some areas raised his voice.

The southern mountains are vast. If they searched indiscriminately, they might miss the enemy, so they chose to slowly move up, spreading out the troops from the bottom.

If the enemies appeared, they would risk their lives, but from the moment the enemy’s location was revealed, it would be possible to completely surround them from all directions, focusing on that location.

It was Edwin Hector’s idea.

Rather than wasting time with ambiguous searches, they aimed to completely wipe out the remaining forces in one move.

The flames pushed back the darkness as the soldiers slowly climbed the mountain.

They were so careful in observing their surroundings that they were startled when they accidentally stepped on dry leaves.

The company commander stepped forward at the head, exhaling white breath, and illuminated the surroundings with a stiff face.

According to the survivors who followed Baron McCleary, Roman Dmitry was truly a ghost of the battlefield.

They might die if they were even a little careless.

No matter how much they prepared for the war and vowed to risk their lives for the country, neither the company commander nor anyone else wanted the misfortune of being the first to die.

One step at a time, as the flames illuminated the darkness, the areas not reached by the flames were dyed in darkness.

“What about the right side?”

“No abnormalities.”

A soldier following right next to him poked the ground with a skewer as he moved. The company commander judged that it was safe and turned his head.

At that moment…

Darkness covered the soldier.

He couldn’t blow the whistle, nor could he shout to the company commander for help.

In a fleeting moment, his neck was twisted in the opposite direction.

The soldier, who was killed without even putting up a proper resistance, made a dull sound and slammed his face into the ground.

Yet the company commander didn’t hear the sound.

Not only the company commander but also the other soldiers didn’t even look back, even though their comrade had died right next to them; they just kept moving forward.

“What about the left side?”

“No abnormalities.”

It was a signal of death.

After the company commander confirmed that there were no problems, the darkness that followed took the soldier’s life.

One by one, at first, they didn’t feel anything strange.

However, as the surrounding flames gradually died down, the company commander belatedly realized that something was going wrong.

“Wh, what is this?!”

His face turned pale.

The soldiers had disappeared.

Clearly, there were many people following him when they started, but when he looked around, the number of flames illuminating the darkness had noticeably decreased.

His heart sank.

The fact that this had happened even though they had been walking while maintaining good spacing made him blow the whistle in a hurry.

No, he tried to blow it.

The company commander’s neck was twisted.

With the whistle in his mouth, he collapsed like a doll with its strings cut.

That was the beginning.

In various parts of the mountain, Hector’s soldiers began to die one by one.

The secret didn’t last long.

The deaths of the soldiers were soon discovered, and the noisy whistle echoed in all directions, piercing through the silent darkness.

“The enemy has appeared!”

“Check the surrounding comrades! Block the retreat route and drive the enemy into one place!”

Everyone was in an uproar.

Soldiers checking their surroundings with fire in their eyes, among them were aura swordsmen who illuminated the darkness with magical artifacts, but no matter how much they looked, they couldn’t see the enemy.

“Where the heck are they!”

It didn’t make sense.

A comrade had died right next to them.

It was natural for them to be nearby, but they couldn’t understand how they had disappeared without making a sound.

Far away from them, a man stood in a space shrouded in darkness.

‘The Hector Kingdom’s decision is more daring than I thought. I was planning to gain as much as possible through guerrilla warfare while attacking other defensive lines, but the Hector Kingdom gave up the 2nd defensive line to cut off the variable called me. I wonder who their commander is? From the surprise attack to the decision to attack the warp gate. He’s definitely not an ordinary person.’

He smiled.

Seeing them react so extremely to a slight touch, Roman was not flustered but rather felt his competitive spirit boiling.

Lights rose in various parts of the mountain.

It seemed that they had not just led a half-hearted battalion to search, but had left only the minimum force to pressure the defensive lines and brought everyone to the mountain.

The southern mountains were rough and hard to travel. There weren’t many places to hide.

The commander of the Hector Kingdom was perfectly aware of this fact and accurately targeted the areas where the remnants of Cairo could hide, while boldly abandoning areas to be sacrificed.

The judgment was correct.

In fact, Roman’s forces were there, but the Hector Kingdom had failed to anticipate one variable.

Roman Dmitry.

They didn’t know what kind of being he was.

It wasn’t about the level of force.

The rugged mountain terrain and the darkness where they couldn’t see an inch ahead were factors that restricted both sides, but Roman could move freely even in the darkness.

‘It’s a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time.’

A way to fight using darkness.

People think that Chunma Baek Jung-hyuk always wants to confront head-on, but the truth is different.

When he was still lacking in strength, Baek Jung-hyuk had to adapt to living in the gloomy darkness to meet his father’s expectations.

At that time, people called Baek Jung-hyuk this.

‘Ghostly Shadow.’

The shadow of a ghost.

Roman had been waiting for Hector’s decision, for them to enter the mountain when darkness fell.

From now on, it was the stage for Chunma Baek Jung-hyuk, no, Ghostly Shadow Baek Jung-hyuk.