I was Drafted Into a War as the Only Human

The fog had vanished completely, leaving only silence as Lucy and the Ogre descended the ancient stone road.

Llarm drifted behind Lucy, his limp body cradled by a gentle current of wind magic, arms swaying slightly with each step. The others hung from the Ogre’s massiveness—Eri draped over her shoulder, Fenric nestled in the crook of her arm, Gindu was slung across her broad back like a worn satchel.

They moved without words, the hush broken only by the rhythm of their footsteps and the faint rustle of silver-white leaves overhead.

Every few hundred feet along the road’s edge stood statues of Seraphine.

Each was carved from pale, veined stone, eroded with age but unmistakably divine. In every sculpture, Seraphine was posed differently—sometimes with arms outstretched in welcome, other times kneeling as if in sorrow. Her long hair was chiseled to flow like water, and her expression always carried the weight of someone who had seen and mourned the end.

A plaque was embedded into the pedestal at the base of each statue.

Lucy slowed as they passed one, his gaze catching on the darkened stone plate beneath the statue’s feet. Most of the inscription was completely hidden beneath a thick blanket of moss and creeping vines. He squinted and brushed at it half-heartedly with a bloodstained sleeve, revealing only the first few words:

"To the wandering—"

The rest was unreadable.

He stared at it for a moment, frowning.

"Looks old," he muttered. "Real old."

The Ogre glanced at Lucy, her voice quiet but sure. "They’ve been here longer than the road—longer than the Hollow."

Lucy looked up at the statue’s face, cracked, half-worn by time, but still watching the road with a kind of solemn patience.

It unsettled him.

He turned away and kept walking.

He’d come back later.

Something about how that statue watched the path, like it was waiting for someone, dug into the back of his mind and refused to leave.

Then his eyes drifted back to his friends.

They looked worse.

Paler. Still. Like life had been drained from them, one shallow breath at a time. Llarm was the worst—his skin like paper, lips tinged with blue. The wind spell kept him gently afloat behind Lucy, but he seemed weightless in a different way. Hollow.

Lucy tried—really tried—not to panic.

The Ogre had told him more than once that they wouldn’t die. That they just needed medicine and rest. But still, his stomach twisted tighter with every step. Guilt gnawed at the back of his throat.

This was his idea.He brought them to Seraph’s Hollow.

And now they were poisoned, unconscious, and barely clinging to life.

"How much longer until we reach your hideout?" he asked for what had to be the seventh time, voice flat from fatigue and nerves.

Walking up a hill ahead of him, Bruma let out a dramatic sigh. She didn’t turn around, but Lucy could practically hear the eye-roll in her voice. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"Humans," she said, with the exasperated fondness of a teacher dealing with a noisy class. "Every book says you’re a horrifically impatient species. I used to think that was just exaggerated wartime propaganda. Now I’m not so sure."

She crested the hill with heavy, steady footfalls and came to a stop. "We’re here."

Lucy climbed the last few feet, legs burning, and then paused beside her.

Below them, half-swallowed by vines and moon-pale grass, sat the remains of a village.

It was ancient and broken, crumbling beneath time’s slow violence. Roofs sagged inward. Doors hung off hinges. Windows gaped like empty eyes. The cobbled road was cracked and uneven, overtaken in parts by stubborn roots and soft soil.

There were no lights.

No signs of life.

Only ghosts of what once was.

"Charming," Lucy muttered. "Real fixer-upper you’ve got here."

Bruma beamed as if he’d just complimented her cooking. "Isn’t it? A true relic of the Seraphine Age. This was once a thriving border village—until the Hollow swallowed it. A tragedy of historical proportions. Most people don’t even know it existed."

He blinked at her. "You do realize that sounds ominous as hell, right?"

"Yes," she said proudly. "Isn’t it wonderful?"

Lucy shook his head. "Okay, great. Final question before I pass out—I’ve been mentally referring to you as ’The Ogre.’ What’s your actual name?"

She turned, her tusked smile wide and genuine. "Bruma! And you?"

"Lucy," he said, gesturing to himself with a tired wave. "Lucy the Human."

Bruma let out a hearty laugh. "A bit on the nose, but it works. Come on, Lucy the Human. Let’s get your friends inside before they start decomposing on my historical stones."

...

Lucy now found himself inside Bruma’s hideout—a lone house on the very edge of the ruined village. It was the only building still intact, the stone and wood remarkably well-preserved, almost stubbornly untouched by time.

Simple, but warm. A fire crackled low in the hearth, casting flickering shadows along the walls.

Llarm, Gindu, Eri, and Fenric lay unconscious on the wooden floor of the living room, each wrapped in thick quilts that smelled faintly of herbs and smoke. Their breathing had steadied, but none of them stirred. Bruma had applied the medicine—a thick, slimy, purple goop that looked like it had crawled out of a swamp. She’d assured him it would act as "a poison to the poison."

He hadn’t asked for more details.

Bruma sat nearby, wedged into a chair clearly designed for someone half her size. Her knees were practically at her chest, and the wood creaked in quiet protest beneath her massive frame.

The sight tugged a slight grin onto Lucy’s lips.

He resisted the urge to laugh. He’d made that mistake once—laughed about a woman’s size during a date back on Earth. The slap had left a memory.

He touched his cheek reflexively."Worst date of my life," he muttered under his breath.

Then Bruma spoke.

"So, Lucy the Human," she began, her deep voice curling with curiosity. "Why are you here? You said Erot sent you?"

Lucy snapped out of his thoughts, coughing into his hand. "Yeah. Erot sent us." He scowled. "Though the idiot could’ve maybe mentioned the whole death-fog-and-living-nightmares situation beforehand. But that’s beside the point."

He crossed his arms. "We’re here because we want you to join our team for the War Games."

Bruma blinked.

Then roared with laughter as she nearly shot out of her too-small chair. "The War Games? The War Games?! As in, the oldest divine tradition in the Realms?! That War Game?"

Lucy rolled his eyes. "Yes. That War Game. The one where everyone risks their lives so they can die dramatically or get famous—depending on how lucky they are."

He thought of Adgrun and his squad with a groan."Super famous," he muttered. "Yeah, that’s the dream."

Bruma caught herself, cleared her throat, and tried to play it cool. "Ah. Yes. I’ve... heard stories." She stroked her chin with mock gravitas, then broke into a grin. "Alright, Lucy. I’ll join your little divine circus... under one condition."

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "And that would be?"

Her grin widened into something fierce and eager. "Help me defeat the Hollow."