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

THE FIRST SECTOR

“Not that I’m one to talk, but…my word, this is pathetic.”

After the Republic’s ground forces were wiped out nine years ago, the Republic’s current soldiers inherited neither its traditions nor its dignity. In the end, those soldiers were just there to fill the ranks.

Karlstahl sneered at how unsightly they were for not even being able to stall the Republic’s fall by a few days as he lay on the ground, organs that were never meant to leave his body spilling from his torn stomach.

They lacked education as soldiers, shirked from training, and only reaped the benefits of military service without learning neither the pride nor duty that came with it. And in the end, it only left them helpless to resist the Legion’s invasion.

There was no one left to respond to radio transmissions, no one left on the Para-RAID. No more shouts or gunshots or adults crying and wailing like children. All that remained was the sound of the chalk townscape burning, of cinders and flames crackling, fanned by the wind as they surged and howled at the sky.

The Eighty-Six—who, despite having received no proper education or training, fought for the last nine years—would likely put up some sort of resistance. This was Karlstahl’s estimate; the Eighty-Sixth Sector did have a force that could retaliate, but it was only the eighty-five Sectors that had the production and power plants that could support it.

With the Gran Mur between them, the Eighty-Six would lose their line of supply. And at that point, regardless of if they were willing to fight, they would eventually grow too weak to do so and be consumed by the Legion.

But that didn’t happen—because Lena had broken open the gates of the Gran Mur, which stood between the eighty-five Sectors and the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

“I might not have the right to say it—but it’s pathetic. The state you’re in… You left your wife and daughter behind to do what? Reduce yourself into an enemy of humankind?”

As Karlstahl lay, by now completely incapable of moving, a single Dinosauria stood silently before him. With a combat weight of a hundred tonnes and a total height of four meters, it lorded over him imposingly, like a battleship on land. Its metal-colored armor shone red as it stood on the flames of the battlefield, unperturbed by the inferno. Its two heavy machine guns and tank turret weren’t fixed on Karlstahl.

It stood there, with the arrogance of a supreme tyrant, as if to say it didn’t need to do anything. After all, even if it didn’t crush him, this heavily injured, fragile human body would soon perish on its own.

Karlstahl looked up at him—his pallid lips, drained of blood, curling up into a smirk.

“Your daughter really takes after you, you know? She’s a dreamer who spouts idealistic nonsense all the time…and she doesn’t know when to give up. Just like you, she’d fight tooth and nail against this world. She’d fight to the death for it. I’m sure she’ll make for your greatest enemy, the way you are now.”

The way you are now—having turned against humankind even though your wife and daughter are still among the living. A pitiful Legion commander who’d watch by as his lackeys tear the family he loves so much to bits.

The Dinosauria stood silently before him, its optical sensor—its blue glow—like that of a will-o’-the-wisp—fixed directly on Karlstahl. Now that
he’d
become a steel monster, he no longer possessed the function to
converse with humans. No thoughts that could be expressed to a human being.

And despite that, Karlstahl could somehow tell that he was asking him something.

—Won’t you come over to this side?

Before your life as a human flickers out.

With his face pale from blood loss and his lips going from purple to pale blue, Karlstahl spat out his response. Maybe that question was
his
greatest show of camaraderie and lingering friendship, now that
he’d
become a Legion.

“Never.”

Karlstahl may have given up on his homeland a long time ago, but…but he hadn’t fallen so far that he’d willingly become a pathetic combat machine that’d lost the masters who commanded it and only wandered the world driven by an impulse for aimless slaughter.

He lifted the pistol in his hands up—which, despite weighting less than a single kilogram, still felt much heavier—and held it up to his temple. The first bullet was already loaded. It was the Republic ground forces’ standard-issue automatic pistol; it had no manual safety, and since it was a double-action model, one could fire it without having to cock the hammer.

A weapon optimized for suicide.

The Dinosauria looked down on Karlstahl silently.

—Is that right?

“That’s right. I’ll go ahead first and see how this plays out…and I won’t be wishing for your success, either. You better put up a good fight.”

Because you’ll be fighting your daughter, who’s so much like you but different in the most critical of ways.

A dreamer who spouts idealistic nonsense—and won’t ever give up, no matter how much people’s ideals are trampled over. Unlike you, who couldn’t even give yourself up for your own ideals and turned against humankind despite having a daughter you love, she will probably resist the Legion and human malice to the bitter end.

You’ll be fighting your daughter, who matured in ways you never knew.

You better bring your A game.

Because I won’t wish for your success. Because I’ve already left all my wishes with your daughter.

“Václav.”