Alonso… couldn’t bring himself to raise his head.
He couldn’t even dare to properly describe the impossible spectacle he had just witnessed with his own two eyes.
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he could hear the horrified, groaning whimpers of the Spanish soldiers, completely paralyzed by the sheer terror of even looking at Him.
Conversely, he could hear the ecstatic, euphoric gasps of the Floridian soldiers, their eyes wide with profound awe as they completely forgot the agonizing pain of their wounds.
Amidst that violently contrasting symphony of absolute despair and overwhelming hope, crushing frustration and pure rapture… Alonso forced his eyes open.
And standing right in the center of it all was a completely naked man.
He was as flawlessly pure as a newborn child. He was completely unblemished, looking as though he had never once been touched by the filthy dust of this mortal world.
Standing barefoot atop the charred mountain of ash, the man slowly raised his hands and stared down at them.
His eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated wonder, exactly like a child seeing the world for the very first time.
Every single one of his subtle movements was a breathtaking, impossible miracle unfolding right before their eyes. Utterly overwhelmed, Alonso instinctively dropped to his knees. It felt as though the entire weight of the heavens was physically pressing down upon his shoulders.
How could anyone dare to remain standing on their own two feet in His holy presence?
How could anyone dare to commit such a profound, unforgivable blasphemy?
The impossibly dense, divine pressure radiating from the heavens violently crushed his body, forcing him to his knees.
Kneeling alongside absolutely everyone else on the battlefield, Alonso fearfully looked up at ‘Him.’ Slowly, casually looking around at his surroundings as if mildly amused, He began to step down.
His flawless body gleamed radiantly in the pale moonlight, shining exactly like pure, unblemished silver buried in the mud. It created a breathtaking, stark contrast against the horrific, charred ruins surrounding him. His completely naked form didn’t inspire a single ounce of shame or embarrassment; rather, it felt as though he was intimately demonstrating exactly what Adam had looked like in the pristine Garden of Eden.
He truly looked like…
A divine entity who fundamentally did not belong to this earthly realm.
And as He finally stepped off the mountain of ash, his bare feet touched the scorched earth and the dead, blackened grass.
“Is it… over?”
As that single, softly spoken question miraculously echoed in the minds of every single person present in their own native tongues, a violent, electrifying shiver shot down Alonso’s spine.
However, the profound awe Alonso felt was absolutely nothing compared to the reaction of the enemy.
Several Spanish soldiers instantly collapsed, violently foaming at the mouth as the divine voice physically echoed inside their skulls. Others shuddered uncontrollably for a few seconds before scrambling to their feet and frantically fleeing into the pitch-black darkness of the night.
Yet, completely ignoring the chaotic, terrified commotion erupting around him—as if such trivial, insignificant mortal affairs had absolutely nothing to do with a divine being like himself—He simply tilted his head back and gazed up at the night sky with impossibly clear, pure eyes.
His voice echoed across the battlefield once more.
“Is the battle… over?”
His heavy, completely emotionless voice shot out like a devastating spear thrust toward everyone gathered there. Every time that divine voice brushed against them, the Spanish soldiers violently trembled in absolute terror, feeling as though cold steel had just pierced their very souls.
Upon hearing that single sentence, someone began to weep and wail uncontrollably, violently slamming their forehead against the dirt. Someone else completely lost their mind, frantically babbling absolute nonsense. Someone else turned and fled for their life, while someone else…
“U-Urgh…”
Merely curled up on the ground in sheer, paralyzing terror.
He slowly walked toward the Spanish soldier cowering on the ground.
The One who had miraculously risen from the ashes, the Nameless One, the true, undeniable Messenger of the Lord slowly walked forward.
Gently reaching down, He firmly grabbed the terrified Spanish soldier’s chin and forced him to look up…
“Let all the nations shout their war cries; they will be shattered to pieces.” (Isaiah 8:9)
He spoke the words as a soft whisper, yet they echoed with absolute, terrifying clarity.
Loud enough for absolutely everyone to hear.
It was true.
It was a direct quote from the Book of Isaiah.
A fragment of the terrifying prophecy the Lord had personally delivered to Isaiah.
It was the chilling voice of absolute warning directed at the Assyrians who had dared to invade the holy land of Judah.
Those who do not fear the Lord, those who do not revere the Lord, shall inevitably and completely be destroyed if they dare to strike the land protected by the Lord.
Forced to make direct eye contact with the Messenger of the Lord, the paralyzed soldier trembled so violently his teeth chattered, completely unable to do a single thing. Looking down at the terrified man… the Nameless One smiled and whispered softly.
With an incredibly, shockingly radiant smile.
“It is not… too late yet.”
And in that exact moment, every single Spanish soldier remaining on the battlefield dropped their weapons.
Alonso stared at Him.
He slowly turned his head and looked directly at Alonso.
And He smiled.
Seeing that warm smile, a profound, overwhelming wave of sheer relief violently washed over Alonso, completely draining the tension from his body as he slumped onto the ground.
It was over.
He was the absolute end of this war.
***
The ultimate fate of the Spanish soldiers who had suffered that catastrophic defeat at San Agustín was divided into a few distinct paths.
“U-Uwaaagh…! M-Monster… Demon…!”
First, there were those who had completely lost their minds to absolute terror and blindly fled in every direction.
They were inevitably quickly spotted and captured by the liberated freemen living in the surrounding areas, or they eventually crawled back to San Agustín on their own two feet to beg for surrender. The few who somehow managed to avoid capture were reduced to living as pathetic bandits in the wilderness.
“Commander! The ships! If we can just get on the ships, we can s-survive…!”
“Everyone, hold your formations! W-We absolutely cannot let those ships fall into enemy hands!”
Second, there were those who had barely managed to retain a sliver of their sanity and orchestrated an organized retreat.
They remained proud soldiers of the Spanish Empire to the bitter end. Carrying their horrifically wounded or unconscious officers on their backs, they somehow managed to fight their way back to the beaches, boarded their anchored warships, and desperately fled out to sea.
Tragically, because the Florida forces had also suffered catastrophic casualties during the siege, it was physically impossible to pursue and wipe out the retreating fleet. The absolute most they could manage was capturing a few of the abandoned warships the Spanish had left behind in their frantic haste.
However, for the Virginia community—which was already critically short on both expensive artillery and proper naval warships—those captured vessels were an incredibly massive, invaluable boon. When Vicente finally returned after reorganizing his fleet, he was absolutely overjoyed by the spoils.
And finally, the third group.
“I-I still have absolutely no idea what it was that I witnessed that day…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“However, there is one thing I am absolutely, undeniably certain of. And that is exactly why I surrendered.
The Lord… was not on our side that day.”
Those who had immediately surrendered right there on the battlefield.
Having personally witnessed the impossible ‘miracle’ performed by Kim Lee-sang, they completely lost every single ounce of their will to fight and immediately chose to surrender. Roughly one to two thousand Spanish soldiers officially became prisoners of war in Florida that night.
While their individual fates varied wildly afterward—some eventually died, some were eventually repatriated back to their homeland, and some remained permanently tied to Florida—they all shared one exact, identical destiny.
From the exact moment they witnessed that miracle, their lives were permanently, irrevocably changed forever.
Of course, the ‘miracle’ itself wasn’t the only factor.
What if Kim Lee-sang had simply marched out before the battle even started and performed a cheap ‘magic trick,’ like chopping off his own arm and reattaching it? Would the Spanish have instantly thrown down their weapons and given up the fight?
Absolutely not. In fact, they likely would have become infinitely more enraged, screaming that the Beast of Revelation and the Antichrist were actively fighting for the enemy, and charged forward with even greater fanaticism.
Conversely, what if Kim Lee-sang hadn’t performed any miracles at all, and had simply ruthlessly slaughtered them with his armored excavator? Would they have broken and surrendered?
Again, absolutely not. They were far too elite, far too incredibly disciplined and battle-hardened to completely shatter and surrender simply because the enemy deployed a bizarre, highly effective mechanical weapon.
However, Kim Lee-sang had aggressively driven the terrifying excavator straight into their ranks, inflicting absolute, primal terror.
Then, Kim Lee-sang had utilized that terror to violently blow their ultimate trump card—the colossal siege cannons—straight to hell.
And finally, after completely breaking their morale and destroying their only means of victory, Kim Lee-sang had miraculously, impossibly resurrected from the ashes right before their very eyes. That was why they broke.
They simply had absolutely no choice but to accept their defeat.
The roughly one thousand Spanish soldiers who had miraculously managed to retain their identities as soldiers desperately fled across the Atlantic Ocean in absolute, suffocating terror.
***
Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, not every single Spanish straggler had successfully fled back to their homeland or formally surrendered to the Florida forces.
If you strictly tallied the numbers, there were well over a thousand men who fell into neither of those two categories. And those thousand-plus men had completely scattered into the wind, desperately fleeing and hiding from the eyes of the Florida army.
Naturally, the ultimate fate of deserters who blindly flee from the battlefield is universally identical, regardless of the era or region.
They are forced to move exclusively in absolute secrecy to avoid detection by the enemy military. Stranded in an unfamiliar, hostile land, they naturally band together with the only people they can trust, and furthermore, they are fully armed with military weaponry.
“Hey, you! Drop absolutely everything you’re carrying and get the hell out of here if you want to live!”
“D-D-Dammit! Bandits…! It’s a group of bandits!”
They possessed the absolute perfect combination of traits required to become highly successful bandits.
The Spanish deserters didn’t even have the luxury of simply blending into the local civilian population and hiding in plain sight.
No matter how unimaginably vast the territory of Florida was, it was not an empty land; it was a land originally inhabited entirely by Native American tribes.
Furthermore, the vast tracts of land the Spanish government had previously seized from the natives were now entirely occupied by the newly liberated Africans. The only Europeans currently residing in Florida were either the allied forces dispatched from Virginia, or the tiny handful of European collaborators who had aided the rebellion in San Agustín.
Because their physical appearance made them stick out like a sore thumb instantly, their only viable option for survival was to establish hidden encampments in isolated swamps or rugged mountains where people rarely ventured, and relentlessly pillage the surrounding areas to sustain themselves.
“How was today’s haul?”
“…Three potatoes. What about you?”
“Five ears of corn. Mierda (Shit), even if we chuck all of this into a pot and boil a stew, it’s barely enough to feed a dozen grown men.”
However, surviving as a bandit was far easier said than done.
There was absolutely no way the African farmers who had literally just been liberated from slavery were hiding any massive fortunes. Even if they successfully raided a farm, the absolute most they could plunder were pathetic handfuls of cheap vegetables or meager scraps of grain.
Raiding the wealthy cattle ranchers in the northern regions had initially been incredibly lucrative, but even that strategy was rapidly approaching its bitter end, as the Florida government had recently begun aggressively supplying the shepherds with muskets and heavy weaponry to defend themselves.
Ultimately, they were forced to exclusively target the impoverished, defenseless farmers.
Yet, because the locals’ paranoia and hostility toward Europeans had violently skyrocketed in the wake of the rebellion, the deserters had absolutely no choice but to resort to petty thievery or outright armed robbery just to barely scrape by.
“M-Maybe we should just surrender now… If we turn ourselves in…”
“Are you out of your damn mind? If we get caught now, we aren’t honorable prisoners of war; we’re just common bandits! If you don’t want to get your limbs chopped off or hang from a noose, shut your mouth. Besides, after witnessing ‘that spectacle’ with your own two eyes, you actually want to surrender to them?!”
“…”
“…”
“…”
That spectacle.
The horrifying spectacle of a human being physically rising from a mountain of charred ashes. That impossible miracle. That terrifying mystery.
“If you surrender after witnessing the vile, unholy sorcery of the Devil, you are guaranteed a one-way ticket straight to Hell! Do you understand me?!”
They had collectively decided to simply rationalize the impossible spectacle by labeling the Native American who had resurrected from the ashes as an agent of the Devil. Deep down, they all knew perfectly well that might not be the truth…
But if they actually admitted the truth, what else could it possibly mean? It would mean they had traveled all the way across the ocean to a foreign land for the explicit purpose of committing atrocities that directly defied the holy will of the Lord.
Even though they had degenerated into pathetic bandits, they absolutely refused to acknowledge that terrifying possibility. If they did, they might actually lose their minds completely.
“This is the only way we’re going to survive for the rest of our lives, so stop spouting useless nonsense.”
Sergio, a man who had somehow seamlessly transitioned from a proud Spanish soldier to the ruthless leader of a pathetic bandit gang, aggressively spat on the ground as he half-threatened his comrades.
He honestly didn’t want to keep living like this either.
However, he was terrified.
If they surrendered now, he had absolutely no idea what would happen to the others, but as the leader who had orchestrated numerous robberies, he was absolutely guaranteed to face the hangman’s noose. He had absolutely zero desire to die at such a young age.
‘Someday… we just need to steal a ship and sail back across the Atlantic. No, even if we just manage to flee to Hispaniola or Cuba…!’
Those wildly unrealistic, delusional hopes were the only driving force keeping him sane in this completely hopeless situation. In truth, the vast majority of his comrades were likely clinging to similar delusions.
Today, just like every other day, Sergio and his comrades drew their swords and readied their muskets (which were entirely out of gunpowder and functioned solely for intimidation) as they hid in the thick brush overlooking the narrow path leading to some nameless village.
“H-Hey! I hear footsteps!”
“Everyone, stay hidden and hold your positions! The moment they get close enough, we ambush them!”
Now, as long as someone—anyone—walked past… they were going to rob them blind…
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE.
“…”
“…”
“…”
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE.
“…”
“…”
“…”
It was the Knights.
Talk about spectacularly rotten luck. Why the hell did they have to be the ones passing by right now?
They held their breath, staying as completely still and silent as dead mice in the brush. Desperately praying for the impossibly heavy, terrifyingly lethal war tractor to just drive past them…
RUMBLE-RUMBLE… SCREECH!
“…Huh?”
What the hell. Why are they stopping?
“Sir Skinner! Why have you suddenly stopped the vehicle?!”
“He’s right! We still have a very long way to go before we reach our destination!”
When the Knight suddenly released the control levers, the young English squire and the Native American wearing the official insignia of a Knight Order Technician both shouted in confusion. In response, the Knight suddenly tilted his head up and sniffed the air.
“…Shh. For some reason, I smell something foul.”
“What kind of smell are you talking about, Sir? Perhaps…”
“He’s just about to spout some more delusional nonsense, so just keep your mouth shut,” the technician muttered to the squire.
“It is not nonsense!”
The man called Sir Skinner suddenly glared fiercely into the thick brush located terrifyingly close to where Sergio was currently hiding, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“I smell the vile stench of those who possess absolutely no honor… The pathetic rats always hide in cowardly places like this.”
What the hell. How did he know?!
“Stop spouting nonsense and just get off the damn—”
Thud!
Leaping down from the tractor’s cabin despite wearing incredibly heavy combat gear, Sir Skinner immediately marched directly toward Sergio’s hiding spot, drew his sword, and…
Swish.
He violently swung his blade, cleanly severing the thick brush located mere inches away from where Sergio was currently cowering. Feeling his pants rapidly becoming soaked with warm liquid, Sergio desperately clamped both hands over his own mouth to stifle a scream.
“…Is no one there?”
“Of course no one is there. Can we please just get going now?”
“Why are you always so incredibly cynical and pessimistic?!”
“Maybe it’s because the last time you proudly declared that ‘a true Knight has no need for words,’ you decided it would be a brilliant idea to physically tie a live horse to the front of the moving tractor!”
“What does that have to do with anything?!”
“It has to do with the fact that the horse was instantly pulverized into minced meat, and my assistant and I had to spend six agonizing hours scrubbing the blood and guts off the grill!”
“…”
“Anyway, let’s just go. It’s blatantly obvious there’s nothing here.”
“Yes, well. I suppose my honorable senses were merely playing tricks on me.”
Grumbling irritably at the technician’s scolding, Sir Skinner climbed back into the tractor’s cabin. With a loud roar, the war tractor finally resumed its journey down the path.
“…Is exactly what you thought I would say, isn’t it?!”
“AAAAAAARGH!”
…Just when Sergio finally breathed a sigh of relief, the massive tractor violently swerved, completely flattening the dense thicket Sergio was hiding in within a fraction of a second.
As Sergio screamed in sheer terror and frantically scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his comrades completely panicked, bursting out of the surrounding brush and desperately fleeing in every direction.
“Look at this! A pathetic band of cowardly thieves who know nothing of honor and fled from the sacred battlefield! You are nothing but absolute trash!”
“U-Ugh… Uwaaaah…! P-P-Please, just s-spare my l-life…!”
“Hand over every single thing you possess immediately! The muskets, the steel cuirasses, everything!”
Considering he had just spent the last few minutes endlessly preaching about honor and mocking them for being cowardly thieves, his immediate demand seemed incredibly contradictory.
“You aren’t seriously daring to equate the righteous, honorable spoils of war claimed by a Knight in combat with the vile, stolen goods of a cowardly thief, are you?”
“…”
“Grrrrr…! To dare equate an honorable Knight with a pathetic bandit…!”
…
…
…
Anyway, that was exactly how things played out.
***
“…And that is the entire story, my lord!”
“…”
“Following that, as an honorable Knight, I humbly requested and received formal permission from Knight Commander Oitotan to physically bind the bandit leader Sergio and his wicked comrades together! We proudly paraded them through the surrounding villages to publicly humiliate them for their crimes! Finally, I personally ensured they were securely locked away in the deepest dungeons of San Agustín, and so…”
“…You did a good job.”
“Hahaha! Please, there is no need for such praise! I merely did what any ‘Knight’ is naturally obligated to do!”
“And that steel cuirass you’re wearing?”
“I formally confiscated it from the bandits as the righteous price for their rehabilitation! It was a completely fair and just spoil of war, acquired through honorable combat as a ‘Knight’!”
What the hell is this.
What is actually happening right now.
When I slowly turned my head to glare at Oitotan, he very conspicuously avoided my gaze. Giving Sir Skinner a polite, entirely superficial nod of dismissal, I turned to the next person in line.
“I, too, have successfully captured a band of wicked thieves and have come to humbly present their plundered goods as a holy offering to the Nameless One!”
“I recently hunted down a monstrous, wildly aggressive bull that had been relentlessly tormenting the local farmers! I have come to officially record my glorious deeds…”
Why…?
How on earth did the entire Agricultural Knight Order collectively devolve into a massive organization of delusional Don Quixote cosplayers? Hasn’t the golden age of chivalry been dead and buried for hundreds of years by now?!
“I honestly have absolutely no idea, my lord. It seems the subordinates have simply been corrupted by incredibly strange, bizarre influences.”
Oitotan, you son of a bitch. Look at how quickly you deploy evasive maneuvers the moment you have to take responsibility for something.
When I narrowed my eyes and glared daggers at him, Oitotan began sweating profusely and desperately avoided my gaze. When I physically stepped into his line of sight to glare at him again… he literally just squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
And so, I spoke.
“It seems you are deliberately hiding something from me, Sir Oitotan.”
“…H-How could you possibly think such a thing, my lord? I am a man who works tirelessly, day and night, exclusively pursuing absolute truth and justice for the eternal prosperity of Lord Nemo and the community…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I was deliberately hiding it, but I suppose I might have accidentally omitted one tiny, utterly insignificant detail from my reports.”
***
“Uwaaaaaah! Sir Henry of Chesapeake has successfully unhorsed Sir Comas!”
“Uwaaaaaaaaaah!”
“…”
“…”
Spread out before my eyes was a massive, clearly defined track.
A heavy wooden barrier ran directly down the center, separating the two lanes.
And two massive war tractors were currently violently charging directly at each other from opposite ends of the barrier…
KABOOOOOM!
“Uwaaaaaah! Sir Henry is on an absolute, unstoppable winning streak!”
“This is absolutely incredible! Sir Henry’s technician, Enrique, is displaying truly godlike maneuvering skills today!”
They violently thrust massive, blunt jousting lances directly into each other’s tractor armor.
Shockingly, the sport was actually relatively safe. Because the track was strictly separated by a sturdy wooden barrier, there was absolutely zero risk of the two massive vehicles accidentally colliding head-on. Furthermore, because both drivers were securely sealed inside heavily armored cabins reinforced with thick steel and Lexan glass, the risk of serious injury was minimal.
The actual problem was…
“Why… exactly are they doing this?”
Why are they violently jousting with massive, steam-powered war tractors?!
Furthermore, when the hell did they even build a massive jousting arena like this in Florida?! Why am I only just now finding out about this?!
“Ahem, well, you see, through these rigorous, highly competitive matches, the Knights and their assigned technicians are deeply motivated to continually hone their piloting and combat skills…”
“…”
“…Plus, isn’t it incredibly entertaining to watch?”
“…”
“Please, my lord, I beg you to be completely honest with me.
…Is it truly not entertaining? Watching those colossal, roaring mountains of steel maintaining the absolute minimum distance required to avoid a catastrophic collision while violently thrusting massive lances at each other at top speed?”
“…”
“If you swear before the Lord that you genuinely find this unentertaining, I shall immediately issue a strict command to the Knights abolishing the sport entirely, and…”
“…It’s entertaining.”
“I never doubted for a single second that you would possess such refined tastes, my lord.”
“…”
A highly organized jousting tournament utilizing steam-powered tanks? Anyone who genuinely claims this isn’t entertaining has something fundamentally wrong with their brain.
But even if it is entertaining, what actual, practical purpose does this possibly serve—
“I-I want to become a Knight too! Please, I beg you, accept me as a squire!”
“Me too! If you just accept me into the Order, I will do absolutely anything you ask! Please, send me to Virginia! Long live the Virginia Community! Long live the Nameless One!”
“…”
It serves a massive purpose.
After the match concluded, I quietly counted the sheer volume of official Knight Order application forms Oitotan had received from the ecstatic crowd.
It seemed the Knight Order wouldn’t be suffering from a manpower shortage anytime soon.
…What the hell is this.
Seriously, what the actual hell is this.