Josh coughed in the dusty ruins, only swallowing more dust for his troubles. His vision failing, consciousness slipping. All around him lie the bodies of the dead, his comrade, superiors, and more, now no more than food for the scavengers. In his hands lie what remains of a broken spear, and by his side a mostly empty waterskin.

The end is near. Josh thought to himself as he gazed at the columns of smoke lazily rising up to the sky while the thundering of enemy cannons continued unabated. A dramatic thought perhaps, but it’s hard to think otherwise. Here he was, laying in a dugout, surrounded by the dead of the rest of the 39th штрафбат/Isekai Regiment, as well as those of many others. Too many to list, and now too few to matter.

The day had started out so simple: to hold the hill at all costs. To stand firm in the face of overwhelming odds.

However, simple does not mean easy, or as it turned out, even possible.

They had done everything that man could: dug in, shore up, brace themselves. Somehow the Lord Marshal seemed fit to assign a pair of cannons and large stores of gunpowder, of which the latter was put in a hastily built dugout.

The same dugout where he now lies, the awning of it ripped to shreds hours ago, and a miracle that a stray shot hasn't blown up the whole place. The dead all around him, men who have given their all and fought to the last, their sacrifice as fruitless and insignificant as all those before, and all those after.

Yet that does not make it meaningless, for meaning derives from the self, and for the moment his self is still there.

He attempted to shift an inch, and was rewarded with a series of sharp pain for his troubles. There’s unbearable pain everywhere, far beyond where screaming was possible. The pain where it transcends into silence, the silence from beyond the void of suffering. At least a couple of broken bones somewhere, he can’t feel his limbs, though whether due to numbness or them being severed he could not tell, nor does it matter all that much.

He wasn’t going to get up regardless. There was a lot of blood lost, and a lot more to be lost soon. He could feel the trickle of blood running down his face and over one of his eyelids, closing said eye shut in the process as it dried. His nose filled with the smell of iron from dried and drying blood, as was his mouth and throat.

Perversely, those senses brought a measure of comfort. He was not that far gone yet. A handful of moments awaits him in this world still.

The thundering of the cannons off in the distance has disappeared, as the hours of enemy bombardment had finally come to a stop. They had expected a brutal frontal assault by the enemy, and had prepared accordingly. So had the enemy, which was why they did no such thing, instead sitting back, blasting at them with a seemingly endless supply of artillery fire.

For hours the barrage had continued, as massive cannonballs smashed into their hastily dug fortifications, killing many directly through the effect of impact, and many more through various side effects, especially shrapnel. The ringing of the screams of the dead and dying still echoed in his head, even as those all have already left the mortal coil. Hopefully to better places.

As he looked up through the shattered awning, at the skies marred by the billowing smoke of gunpowder, he saw the faint shapes of wings. The wings of crows, flying high above the noisy violence below, the pallbearers of nature waiting on the foolishness of man.

It was too soon, He thought to himself. He has just found his inner peace, his sense of purpose, a meaning in this cruel but beautiful world. But then, it would have been always too soon, for it was precisely those circumstances that led to those revelations in the first place. If he hadn't been thrown out, or sent to this world by Truck-kun, he would have still been there, wasting away in front of a screen while being based, reveling in his patheticness.

Perhaps that is the meaning of it all: that making a difference, even to something as insignificant as oneself, requires sacrifices. Sacrifices of time, comfort, pleasure, everything…

… everything of the most significance, yet becoming the most insignificant at these final moments. All roads lead to dying in the end, and all deaths are the same after the final breath. Despite the great pain, his mind was far more serene. In the end, nothing truly mattered, and that meant all the silly little things that he had foolishly cherished before, all those things, that in hindsight, were burdens. Foolishness. Trivialities.

Still, it kinda sucks to be dying like this. Alone, bleeding, the physical pain. He could hear the sounds of drums in the distance, signaling the incoming enemy infantry. They have finally made their move, they who did not have the guts to storm the place by force of bodies, now march confidently unopposed through the hard work done by the cannons.

Another step closer to the end.

His hands moved around, looking for something. Each movement brought about another spasm of pain. Pain that flowed together, just another smattering of notes in the symphony of suffering.

After a few agonizing minutes, he found them: a piece of flint and steel, from a fire starting kit from one of the crews of the cannons. An unbelievably expensive set of items, at least from the perspective of him and the rest of the rabble. Yet now as he holds the pieces, it meant so little. There’s no one to trade with, no time to hoard for a future that never was, and never will be.

So little, but enough. Enough for what’s to come, his last act. In two lifetimes of meaningless mediocrity, he was ready to make something of it all. Not an act of desperation or pettiness, though to outsiders it would appear to be such, if there were any to observe him at all.

Rather it was… it was a final act of duty. The exact reason he could not tell. Certainly not to the country that he has no loyalty to, nor the officers who only know the language of savagery.

No, he owes it to his fellow soldiers, the comrades whose bodies now strewn about all around. They had fought to the last, giving their lives in the name of duty. A duty to themselves and each other. A duty that transcends the worlds themselves.

The drumbeats grew closer, every beat another stab of pain through his temples before receding into the general numbness. Two lifetimes, a combined total of over twenty years. A span of time that made little sense, so much of it wasted, and so much happenings packed in a handful of moments. Perhaps time is relative, in the sense of what counts in the end.

The imminent end. He could hear the crunching sound of boots, of shouts and cracks as the enemy moved in, scouring the scene for loot and bodies.

The bloodloss, now slowing down to mere trickles and drops, continued. His vision was failing, as was the rest of his senses. Summoning the last of his willpower, he looked up, and saw the shadowy figures approaching. Dusk was approaching, for the day and for his life.

It was all senseless, meaningless. A war that none of them knew why, or who, or what’s even going on. He wondered if those before him were the same: simply being told to fight, that their side is just, without any justice being displayed nor shown. Yet the joke is on them, for those who were shielded for the misery would have also been blinded to virtues. He smiled internally, imagining any of those sadistic officers having any kind of such revelations. Impossible, so impossible that they wouldn’t even have an awareness of what they have missed.

Another cough, another bolt of pain. The shadowy figures turned towards him. He smiled.

“Farewell, wonderful world.” He muttered as he hit the flint and metal together.

A few sparks flew, little lights danced in the dark and dusty pit… dusty from the powder and soot. In the blink of an eye the dust ignited, and within another blink the rest of the stored powder nearby followed. A massive explosion rocked the hill, taking the top of it off. Bodies, parts, debris, and other riffraffs flew in all directions. The sound of the boom was such that the crows circling above were knocked out, the shockwave felt for miles.

He never knew what happened after that last act, nor did it matter. For in the end he was the only relevant judge of his own lives, as the noise of the material worlds stopped at the edge of the great void.

------

Thus ended another battle, though it was said that the official conclusion had come before the final unexpected explosion. Once again the scum of the worlds, the men of the штрафбат/isekai regiments, stood and fought to the last. And once again, their sacrifices were meaningless in the eyes of the country that summoned them, just another forgettable page in the annals of that sad world.

Josh’s story was not unique, nor particularly special. Not even his self discovery. Over thousands of deaths across dozens of battles a handful of others reached the same discovery. All gone from this world, but not too soon, for the gift of self discovery and inner peace is never too late to be reached.