The Extra Who Stole the Hero's System
Chapter 34: Herald - 3

Chapter 34: Herald - 3

Snow fell in sheets, thick enough to muffle the sound of marching boots. The eastern front had gone quiet, not peaceful, just quiet, the kind of silence that settled before the next calamity. For weeks, the allied forces had been pushing deeper into contested territory, inching closer to the Tumedian strongholds. Every village they took came with its own scars, and every gain bled them further.

Herald hadn’t spoken much since Myrin’s death. He still wore the red ribbon tied around his wrist, though now it was stained dark and frayed beyond recognition. He kept it hidden under his sleeve, like a wound that hadn’t stopped bleeding.

Lio had changed too. He laughed less, cursed more, and took to patrolling at night even when off duty. Sometimes Herald would find him sitting at the edge of camp, staring at the sky like he expected the stars to fall.

They were stationed near Thamros, an old fortress town now reduced to rubble after months of skirmishes. Winter had turned the land into ice and ash. Supplies were thin. Morale was thinner. The men lit fires with furniture stripped from abandoned homes. There were no civilians left, just corpses and memories.

One night, Sylas gathered the remnants of their company.

"New orders," he said. "We push through the pass tomorrow. Enemy’s holding a ridge that blocks supply lines. High Command wants it cleared before the freeze deepens."

A low murmur moved through the ranks. Everyone knew the pass. It was Narrow, deeply exposed and will definitely be a killing ground.

"Reinforcements?" someone asked.

"We are the reinforcements."

Herald didn’t flinch. He simply tightened the straps on his gauntlets.

Later that night, as he sat writing in his journal beneath a collapsed stable roof, Lio dropped beside him with a groan.

"You know, this is the part where we’re supposed to desert and start a new life in the mountains," Lio said.

"Then why haven’t you?"

"Because I’m too stupid or too loyal. Haven’t decided yet." He looked over. "You?"

"Because I have nowhere else to go."

They didn’t speak after that. The fire crackled between them. Snow crept in through the broken beams. Herald didn’t sleep.

The march began at dawn. White breath hung in the air as they trudged through the pass. The wind blew through the peak. Herald’s fingers were numb before the first hour passed, but he refused to lower his sword.

As the company near the ridge, rocks began to tumble, as arrows filled the sky. Tumedians descended like wraiths, dressed in white to blend with the snow. The first wave hit hard—too hard. Several allies from Liberal fell before they could even raise their shields.

Herald fought like a machine. His sword arm moved on instinct now. The fear was still there, buried deep, but it no longer ruled him. He blocked, struck, pivoted, ducked. Blood sprayed across the snow as his swing meet the head of various Tumedian men.

He lost sight of Lio and Sylas in the chaos. A Tumedian soldier lunged at him with a curved blade.

CLANG!

Herald parried and swept the man’s legs out from under him before burying his sword in the man’s chest. He pulled it free with a grunt.

The ridge was too steep. Too open. Every push forward met a volley of arrows or worse—flaming tar rolled down the incline, setting snow and flesh alike ablaze.it was a horrific scene, many men—both foe and ally were caught in horror. Screams followed, as the men gravited to the impact of the burns.

Herald finally spotted Lio, battered but alive, using his shield to protect two wounded Eudenians. He was dragging them to cover when a flash of movement caught Herald’s eye.

A Tumedian soldier, fast and silent, was moving for Lio’s exposed side.

"LIO!"

Herald ran. He didn’t think. He collided with the soldier mid-lunge, the two of them tumbling down the slope. They landed hard. Herald rolled and rose first, swinging his sword in a wide arc. The soldier dodged, blades flashing. It was a brutal fight, close and desperate.

Herald took a cut across the thigh, he quickly ignored it and returned a strike that caught the soldiers’s arm, then another hit to the chest sent the man stumbling. One more blow ended it.

Panting, Herald collapsed beside the body. Blood pooled beneath him. Not all of it was that of the soldier.

By dusk, the pass was theirs—but at great cost. Dozens dead. Dozens more wounded. Herald limped through the aftermath. He found Sylas kneeling beside a fallen soldier, muttering a quiet prayer.

"They’re calling it a victory," Sylas said without looking up. "We held the ridge. We cut off the Tumedian advance."

"At what cost?" Herald asked.

Sylas finally turned to face him. "That’s war."

Back at camp, Lio came to Herald with a wineskin and a bruised smile.

"You saved my ass," he said.

"You’d have done the same."

"Damn right I would. Still... thanks."

They drank in silence. The wine was bitter and watered down, but it warmed Herald’s chest.

Later, alone, Herald wrote in his notebook:

Thamros Pass. We won by mere inches. Myrin would have hated this place, it was too cold. Too quiet. Filled with too much death.

He then wrote the names of all the allied men that fell during the fight at Thamros pass. He prayed for thier soul, he prayed for their memories to live on

A week had passed since the fight at Thamros Pass. Herald sat alone, his gaze fixed on a blood-drenched sword. His mind raced, thinking about how fragile human life truly is, how a single swing of metal can erase years of memories and effort from the world.

"Herald of Eudenia?" A man asked, holding a sealed envelope.

Herald stepped forward slowly, brow furrowed. The camp had gone quiet around them—soldiers pausing mid-task, eyes drifting toward the exchange. The envelope was crisp, untouched, which made it feel all the more out of place.

"I am," Herald replied, voice low.

The courier gave a quick nod and placed the letter in his hand. No explanation. No words. Just the weight of wax and parchment—heavier than it should have been. Herald stared at it for a moment, then turned it over. The seal was unmistakable: the golden griffin of Eudenia, pressed deep into red wax.

He didn’t open it right away. Just stood there, the noise of the camp slowly resuming behind him, like life trying to forget it had paused. When he did finally break the seal, the letter inside was short. No more than a few lines.

Inside was a commendation. A medal. A letter from a general praising his valor in battle. He was to be formally recognized at a ceremony in the capital after the campaign.

He crumpled the letter and tossed it into the fire.

What was honor to a man who kept losing everything?

That night, he dreamed of Myrin again. She stood in the snow, bow in hand, eyes full of sadness.

"You’re changing," she whispered.

"I know," Herald said.

"Don’t forget who you were."

"I won’t."

But he wasn’t sure that was true.

The winter dragged on. More skirmishes. More deaths. The allied armies pushed farther east, reclaiming land inch by inch. But it didn’t feel like victory. It felt like bleeding out slowly over frozen soil.

One morning, Herald stood beside a cart full of bodies waiting for burial. He recognized two of the faces. Boys he’d trained with. Boys who had once joked about surviving the war and opening a bakery.

He couldn’t remember their names.

That terrified him more than anything else.

Sylas noticed the changes in Herald behaviour. After daily training, he pulled Herald aside one evening.

"You’re doing good work," he said. "The men respect you."

"I didn’t ask for their respect."

"No. But you earned it anyway."

Herald looked away. "I don’t want to be a hero."

"You don’t decide that. A hero isn’t made by calling himself one, rather by the acknowledgement of others."

The late night creeped in and Herald couldn’t sleep that night. Instead, he sat by the fire, writing names in the back of his notebook. As many as he could remember. Myrin. Jarek. Thom. Elsie. Names carved from the brutality of war.

He whispered each one like a prayer.

The next day, they received word of a mage sighting near the front. A lone figure who’d decimated an entire Tumedian detachment using magic unlike anything recorded. The scouts called him a myth. A ghost. But Sylas believed otherwise.

"Something dark is moving through these lands," he warned. "And I fear we’re walking straight into it."

Herald didn’t know what to believe anymore. Only that the snow wasn’t letting up. The wind was colder. And the smoke of burned villages never seemed to fade.

He kept marching.

Because there was nothing else to do.