86—EIGHTY-SIX, Vol. 11: Dies Passionis

10.19

D-DAY PLUS EIGHTEEN

They had crossed four hundred kilometers of Legion-controlled territory, feeling like they’d achieved nothing and had to see many gruesome deaths. They must have been exhausted. Upon returning to the base, they finally allowed themselves to relax and returned to their rooms to sleep.

Frederica went around checking on them all. She stood outside their doors, listening in to hear if they were moaning from nightmares or otherwise weeping silent tears. To most of them, she was only an empress they protected without her ever telling them her true identity. This was the least she could do.

The Serpent of Shackles seemed to follow a few steps behind her all the time. Perhaps he was doing this because he was older than her, or maybe because Shin and the others asked him to take care of her. But suddenly, Vika parted his lips.

“Can I ask you something, Rosenfort?”

“What is it?” Frederica replied, not even turning her eyes to him.

Vika spoke to her turned back. Yes, it was possible this girl was some major noble’s illegitimate child. And though the Empire abhorred the mixing of bloodlines, she may have been given an education to match a sovereign’s bloodline. But despite that, even so…

A hint of doubt—of suspicion—appeared in his Imperial violet eyes.

“You’re just a Mascot in the end. Why would you feel responsible for the Eighty-Six, for mere soldiers?”

The chief of staff, Willem, spoke without even regarding the report projected on the holo-window. They were in his office in the western front military’s integrated headquarters.

“—We’ve accomplished the initial operation objective of assisting the relief expedition’s retreat with minimal losses. And when it comes to retrieving Vánagandrs, armored vehicles, and Úlfhéðnar exoskeletons, we’ve reached the necessary numbers.”

Even with the tides of the war crashing against them so much and his workload becoming much more packed, Willem didn’t seem any worse for wear. Grethe pondered to herself that this proof, this old comrade of hers was indeed one of the former great nobles who controlled the Empire, a true monster through and through.

He kept his emotions and expressions in check and perfectly guarded, so his heart would not notice these changes. All he ever showed others, and perhaps even to himself, was a facade of common sense and coldheartedness.

He had an almost mechanical inhumanity to him, the kind unique to the ruling class. To them, dehumanization didn’t just stop at seeing the commoners as livestock and the people of the combat territories as hunting dogs. They even saw their own family members, their own children as tools and pawns to be used in the game of politics and dominion.

The only trace of any humanity he had were his pitch-black eyes, which glinted sharper than she remembered them. Glinting with the desolate, gruesome brutality she once saw in him. With the heartlessness of the battlefield that took so many things, of his rage at his own powerlessness. The burning cinders of emotions he left behind as he overcame all that pain.

“As for the secondary objective, evacuating the Republic refugees, you were able to escort over thirty percent of their population. On top of that, you’ve confirmed the immortality of their commander units and
a change in their behavioral patterns. You could very well say you’ve achieved much in this operation, Colonel Wenzel. So stop making that face, Grethe.”

“You’re the last person I want to hear that from,
Chief of Staff
,
sir.
”

Keenly noticing the implication to her words, the chief of staff cocked an eyebrow. His young adjutant frowned. It felt like they were respectively holding in rage for someone who had been lost and concern for someone who was in grief.

Realizing what she meant, he closed his thin eyelids once, clearing them of that bladelike sharpness.

“…Major General Altner’s fate was regrettable. However, I think that does sound like something Richard would do.”

“Yes.”

She knew what she was going to say next wasn’t something she should keep to herself, and she wanted to say it. Not just for Richard’s sake, but for Willem’s sake, too.

“And also…I have a message from Richard.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Never go back to being the Killer Mantis again… He said seeing that bothered him, and he wants you to never do that again.”

The chief of staff widened his eyes for a moment, like he’d been taken aback, and then he heaved out a long, clearly irritated sigh.

“I wondered what his last words to me would be, and it’s this… Of course I won’t do it again. Didn’t he know how many years have passed or what role I fill now? The position I’m in now lets me slaughter more of those scrap monsters than I ever could on the front lines. Who would ever go back to being a mere armored infantryman now?”

He said it sounding utterly displeased, but then he squinted his eyes with a smile. This was probably the first smile he’d made since the second large-scale offensive started.

“And I knew it’d been troubling him. I knew, but he was ten years my elder. But at the time, he was already the head of a family and had plenty of life experience. He was Lord Altner, a commanding officer, so it only made sense for him to fuss over a green neophyte like me.”

Grethe cracked a soft, wistful smile. For what it was worth, she wasn’t aware of that at the time. But he was.

“You always were the worst, you know that?”

“You think you have the right to say that, Black Widow?”

The killer of Legion who fought in a self-sacrificial manner for her deceased husband, as if she was always clad in her mourning dress.

Grethe smiled. It wasn’t a substitute for what’d she lost, but she did gain many things since. Things she had to protect.

“That’s not me anymore.”

The Federacy prepared facilities to receive war orphans in the Republic citizens’ refugee sector. It was managed by the Federacy’s military police. Theo entrusted the fox captain’s son to the officer running the place, explained the child’s situation, and bowed in gratitude.

When the officer graciously agreed to accept custody of the child, Theo went to see the kid off. After that, Theo took a several-day train trip with a connection that took him from the front lines back to Sankt Jeder.

With the weather beginning to snow, the capital was a good bit chillier than it was when he left it. The cold prickled against his skin, but the tense atmosphere that hung over the place before he left had lifted somewhat by now.

Maybe it was because there wasn’t another bombardment by satellite missiles, and they did report that the next time it might happen, they would at least be able to predict where they would strike.

Plus, the capital was far from the front lines, so as always, the effects of the war didn’t feel quite as pronounced. The Vargus were still holding the fronts, so not much had changed.

Except…

…glancing around, a group of demonstrators was walking the opposite direction from him along a footpath set between the roadway. They held up placards criticizing Ernst and his regime, as well as the military’s
incompetence. The young men who formed the core of this group had seemingly put on coats to match the season in the ten days since he’d seen them, and their group had greatly increased in number, too.

They occupied the entire footpath, parading around and chanting their slogans and demands. He could see a few people coming this way from the opposite side of this footpath, too.

Looking at them gave Theo a bad feeling.

There was another voice that reminded Theo of the sound of broken glass, this one coming from a holo-screen projected onto the side of a building. It was a news program that reported on the state of the war. The Republic’s fall from a few days ago didn’t receive much coverage. But after that, they reported that the United Kingdom’s reserve formation at the Dragon Corpse mountain range’s foot had fallen, which was a shocking blow for the Federacy.

What’s more, the Federacy had to abandoned some of its sectors along the second southern front. In the few days Theo spent away from Sankt Jeder, the war had become all the news programs talked about. As if the realization that they were in wartime had finally sunk in.

Indeed, in this state of affairs, everyone knew the situation was getting worse. The young caster lady wasn’t smiling anymore, and her expression and tone were strained as she gave a news flash about some front line or another.

Looking up, Theo whispered, his sharp jade eyes marred by tension and a feeling of impending crisis.

“What’s going to happen next…? To the war…?”

To us
…?

As Willem’s adjutant let his shoulders relax and slump, Grethe released her held breath as well. Looking up at her—and likely glancing at his adjutant’s actions, too—the chief of staff resumed the topic he’d left off on.

“All the Federacy’s fronts, the western front included, have been able
to bring the fighting into a state of stalemate. Regardless of if we want to preserve this status quo or try to break through them, we’ll need to make an analysis. And to do that, we need information.”

Grethe gazed back at Willem, who shrugged. He wasn’t enthusiastic, but he didn’t show any signs of carelessness, either. This was all preparation to fulfill his duties as chief of staff.

“We will resume the Merciless Queen’s—Zelene Birkenbaum’s—interrogation… We will need to carefully investigate which of her intelligence is true and which is false.”