There was no sun in Galmasca's morning.
Not because clouds covered the sky—the heavens were clear, a pale blue that was almost beautiful—but because towering iron walls devoured the light before it could ever reach the ground.
Gunther stood among hundreds of other bodies on the recruitment field.
There was no orderly line. No shouted cadence. Only a mass of people bound together by chains at their wrists and throats. The metal was cold, rough, and long uncleaned. Whenever someone moved too quickly, it clashed—metal against metal—like a warning that never needed to be spoken.
At the far end of the field, a watchtower loomed.
A Mana Cannon was mounted at its peak, its barrel angled downward toward them. It hadn't fired this morning. It didn't have to. Everyone knew what it meant if that weapon ever lit.
Gunther lowered his head slightly—just enough to avoid the overseers' eyes, but not so low it could be read as defiance. He'd learned the balance.
Three years as a slave had taught him more than ten years of freedom ever could.
To his left, an old man coughed. The sound was wet and deep, as if fluid sat where it didn't belong. Each cough made his chains tremble, and each tremor was answered by a spear butt striking the ground.
"Quiet."
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. The word alone was enough to stop the coughing—though the old man's chest still rose and fell unevenly.
Gunther didn't look over.
He stared at the ground.
The soil of the field was hard and cracked. Imprints from iron boots scarred it everywhere, mixed with dark stains that never fully vanished no matter how many times water had been poured over them. The air still carried the smell of iron—the same smell that clung to his skin after forced labor.
A boy stood two rows ahead.
Too young.
His hair had been shaved carelessly, leaving uneven lines across his scalp. Narrow shoulders. Hands trembling though the morning wasn't cold. When the chain at his throat tugged from the shifting bodies in front of him, the boy jolted and nearly fell.
No one helped.
If he fell, he would be dragged.
If he was dragged too long, he would be left behind.
The rule was never written down, but everyone knew it.
The scrape of iron boots approached from the front.
Overseers walked along the crowd, black cloaks fluttering lightly—clean, stark against the filthy bodies before them. The crest of Galmasca was etched into their chests, precise and spotless, without a single scratch.
One stopped directly in front of Gunther.
Gunther felt shadow swallow his face.
"Lift your head."
He did.
The overseer's eyes were gray. Flat. Uninterested. The gaze of someone inspecting equipment before sending it to the battlefield.
The man extended a hand.
A small crystal device was pressed to Gunther's chest.
Cold.
For an instant, it felt like needles pushing from the inside—not pain, more like pressure driven the wrong way. Gunther held his breath without realizing. His jaw tightened.
The crystal glowed faintly.
The overseer frowned.
"Low mana."
He wrote something on a thin metal slate.
"Move."
A light shove to the shoulder was enough to make Gunther step forward. The chain at his wrists tightened, forcing the person behind him to move as well.
In another section, someone screamed.
The sound was short. Cut off.
Gunther didn't look toward it.
He already knew what had happened.
The crystal had flared too bright.
Or it hadn't lit at all.
Both were bad.
Morning wind slid across the field, carrying the snap of military flags above the walls. The heavy fabric moved with steady certainty, as if war were inevitable—and not something to be questioned.
Gunther swallowed.
Beyond Galmasca's iron walls, war was waiting.
And today, they were choosing who would die first.
The mass began to move.
Not at a shouted command, but under slow pressure from behind. Bodies pushed, chains pulled, footsteps forced into a crude uniformity by the most basic need of all: stay standing.
The recruitment field ended at a second iron gate.
There, they were separated.
Overseers stood beside the gate with metal slates and the same small crystals. Each person was stopped, examined again, then directed toward one of the stone corridors opening beyond the wall.
Left corridor.
Right corridor.
No signs. No explanation.
Gunther watched an overseer's boots.
Iron-toed, the fronts scuffed with fine scratches—not from training grounds, but from repeated impacts against something hard that didn't move. Bone, perhaps. Or prison floors.
When his turn came, the crystal was pressed to his chest again.
This time, the overseer didn't frown.
"Expendable," he said evenly.
A single word.
Gunther was herded into the right corridor.
It was narrower. Darker. The air inside was damp and stank of old iron. Crystal lights along the walls burned unstably, flickering as if unsure whether to keep living.
Behind him, footsteps halted one by one as the iron gate swung shut.
The clang was heavy.
Final.
Inside the corridor, they stopped again.
An officer stood waiting.
Not an overseer.
His uniform was different—thicker, more functional. No fluttering cloak. No grand crest on his chest. Only thin stripes on his shoulders to mark rank.
His face was full of old scars. None of them new.
He looked them over one by one—not with hatred, but with calculation.
"Listen," he said.
His voice was rough, like someone who rarely spoke because he'd never needed to.
"You weren't recruited."
A pause.
"You were used."
A few shifted uneasily. Chains clicked softly.
"Your unit has no name. No banner. You won't be recorded."
He paced along them, boots striking stone in a slow rhythm.
"You'll be sent to the front line."
He stopped in front of a broad-shouldered man.
"If you retreat," he continued, "you'll be shot from behind."
He stepped on.
"If you advance," he said, "you might die."
Silence.
No one asked questions.
Something tightened in Gunther's chest.
Not fear.
Not anger, either.
More like recognition.
This is where he belongs now.
The officer stopped in front of him.
Their eyes met.
For a moment—only a moment—Gunther saw fatigue in the man's gaze. Not the fatigue of a young soldier, but of someone who had watched the outcome of the same orders too many times.
The officer looked away first.
"Take them to the lower barracks," he told the guards at the end of the corridor.
Chains were pulled.
The mass moved again.
As they walked deeper into Galmasca's belly, Gunther didn't look back.
There was nothing left behind.
Ahead lay only darkness—
and a distant sound: low, rhythmic thunder.
Cannons.
The war had already begun.
The lower barracks sat far beneath the surface.
The air grew colder with every step down. The iron smell gave way to damp stone, old sweat, and something sour—like blood that had soaked in long ago and never truly left.
The staircase was narrow.
Deliberately so.
If someone stumbled, they would fall forward, dragging others with them. There was no room to stop. No room to hesitate.
When they finally arrived, an iron door was yanked open with a rough pull.
The barracks stretched long.
The ceiling was low, supported by metal beams crudely bolted into stone. Crystal lights hung in a line, some dim, some dead, leaving corridors of shadow between rows of iron beds.
There were no mattresses.
Only thin metal boards and gray blankets whose original smell could no longer be identified.
"Remove the chains."
The order came from a guard, not the officer.
The locks were undone one by one. Each click sounded louder than it should have in the cramped space. Some rubbed their wrists the moment the metal fell away—skin raw, reddened, peeling.
Gunther didn't.
He only flexed his fingers slowly, making sure they still moved.
One man dropped to the ground the instant his chains were removed.
His body wasn't ready to hold itself up without the constant pull.
No one laughed.
No one helped.
They learned quickly.
The guard pointed at the beds.
"Pick one. Don't fight."
A brief pause.
"The loud ones get sent outside."
No one asked what outside meant.
Gunther walked to the farthest bed.
Near the wall.
One side protected.
He sat, back against cold stone. The sensation tightened his shoulders for a heartbeat before his body accepted it.
Across the barracks, the boy from the field stood uncertainly, staring at the beds as if every option was wrong.
Another man—young, his face carved with fresh scars—grabbed the boy and tugged him toward an empty bed without saying a word.
The boy didn't resist.
He didn't say thank you, either.
The crystal lights flickered.
Then steadied.
Minutes passed in silence.
Nothing but breathing.
Gunther closed his eyes.
His body felt heavy, but not exhausted in the way forced labor left him. This was different. The tension hadn't been released. His muscles stayed braced, as if waiting for something inevitable.
In his chest, there was a dull sensation.
Not pain.
More like an echo.
A residual pressure from the mana crystal.
Gunther inhaled slowly.
He tried to feel it.
No warmth flowing through him. No surge of strength like the Galmascan mages he'd seen.
Only emptiness.
And somewhere deep within it—
something else.
Thin.
Almost nothing.
Like a pulse in the wrong place.
He opened his eyes.
The barracks ceiling stared back, fine cracks spreading like a map no one had ever finished drawing.
From far away, the cannons sounded again.
Closer this time.
The vibration crawled through stone, through iron, through bone.
A few flinched.
Someone whispered a prayer.
Gunther didn't.
He stared ahead, toward the dark corridor they would someday be marched through.
If he died there, no one would remember his name.
If he lived—
Gunther clenched his fist.
That thin pulse inside him answered.
Painful.
Real.
For the first time in a long time, Gunther knew one thing for certain.
He wasn't finished.