novelraw Chapter 99 : Centre Agreement (4)
Chapter 99 : Centre Agreement (4)
Chapter 99: Centre Agreement (4)
The Imperial Special Task Force’s Confidential Archives.
Among them, the Top-Secret Archive was a place so rarely mentioned, even within MAGA, that it bordered on myth.
‘I didn’t expect to come in here so soon.’
A hidden place one might not enter even once in ten loops of the same route.
Had I come alone, I could’ve absorbed countless pieces of information about Beasts and the Empire.
Unfortunately, I came with the Special Task Force Commander this time, so I couldn’t act recklessly.
‘Well, I’ll get another chance eventually.’
All the materials inside were classified by year.
We moved to the third bookshelf on the right, which contained documents from 1469–70.
Lieutenant General Alvin’s eyes, scanning the tightly packed reports, stopped around January of ’70.
Beside a thick report was a row of wooden boxes.
Handing the report to me with both hands, Alvin spoke.
“That winter was unusually cold. I was still just a greenhorn back then, so I had to cover every operation site there was.”
Well, maybe it was thanks to all that scrambling that he climbed to his current position.
“Especially the Elbrak region, the core battleground of Ibrick at the time—it was freezing solid under the worst cold wave in 140 years of Imperial history.”
With that, he pulled a wand from his coat and gave it a light swing, dragging a table and a set of chairs right before us from who-knows-where.
“Sit down. This’ll be a long story.”
“…Yes, sir.”
When I quietly took a seat, Alvin turned the cover of the report.
“Four hundred eighty-eight A-rank Beasts, twenty-one S-rank, and six SS-rank. There have only been three instances in Imperial history where that many high-ranking Beasts appeared in a single region.”
It was that fierce—and that horrifying—a battle.
“But not many speak of what happened there seven years ago. Why do you think that is?”
“…Because it was too horrific a battle.”
MAGA’s playable timeline was generally fixed between 1475 and 1476.
That meant most of my veteran knowledge was concentrated after 1475.
Events before that, I only knew through in-game references—I’d never actually played through them myself.
Even so, I found it strange.
‘A battle of that magnitude… I should’ve remembered at least something about it.’
Perhaps it was because I’d been living as Eugene Carter for so long now.
Maybe the trauma carved into this body was blocking out even the intact memories.
That thought crossed my mind for a moment.
Alvin nodded at my answer and flipped through several dozen more pages.
A section appeared that seemed to have been added later—a detailed report of casualties.
“Out of over a hundred thousand deployed over the course of a year, only around four thousand survived. The survival rate didn’t even reach five percent.”
“……”
“The fates of those survivors were just as tragic. There were no few who ended up broken like you. Hundreds took their own lives after suffering from PTSD.”
The more I listened, the more it made sense—why there had been no information about this war, why no one ever spoke of it.
I rubbed my forehead and sighed.
“…They wanted it buried. The higher-ups.”
“Not just them. Anyone who lived through that battlefield likely felt the same.”
Alvin flipped further ahead until he reached a section full of photographs.
They were grainy black-and-white, yet vivid enough to convey the horror.
Wounded soldiers writhing in agony as curse magic devoured their bodies.
Officers turning away from limbs already beginning to rot.
Soldiers pulling comrades from piles of Beast corpses, weeping in despair.
Others fleeing in panic from the looming wave of Beasts.
When I stayed silent, Alvin briskly flipped past the section without pictures.
“It’s not like they were a ragtag bunch. In the beginning, their might was overwhelming enough to earn the Emperor’s highest praise.”
But that glory didn’t last long.
Within three months, the defense line began to crumble. By the sixth, there were voices suggesting they abandon the entire Ibrick region.
“That’s when the Special Task Force made a decisive move.”
“…A guerrilla operation.”
“Exactly.”
A plan to infiltrate the Beast-occupied territory and assassinate the enemy’s command units.
“They decided to do to the Beasts exactly what the Beasts had been doing to us.”
The guerrilla unit, composed of the Empire’s most elite soldiers, proved devastatingly effective.
Deployed into a battlefield so dreadful that even retrieving bodies was nearly impossible, the elites managed to slow the enemy’s advance and eliminate nearly half of their core forces.
“Among them, you stood out the most.”
The Empire, which had barely been holding on defensively, soon rallied even the militias for an all-out counteroffensive.
By January of ’70, they succeeded in liberating all of Ibrick except Elbrak.
“The Beasts must’ve been furious, losing a war they’d almost won to a handful of guerrillas. So they resorted to desperation.”
Their final act of madness—a surprise attack on the command post.
The beasts tore through the soldiers who had grown complacent, drunk on the relief of victory being within reach, and surged all the way to the front of the headquarters.
“The one who stopped that was you, Eugene Carter.”
Before I knew it, the report had reached its latter half.
Alvin began reading part of it aloud.
“January 16th, Year 70. The enemy’s special unit neutralized six outposts and advanced to within three kilometers of the headquarters. At that time, Colonel Eugene Carter and seven officers who were on patrol engaged the unit in battle and successfully drove them back.”
“……”
“Later, an unknown beast’s den was discovered near Outpost 23, allowing us to trace the enemy’s movement path.”
After reading up to that point, the Special Task Force Commander slid the report toward me.
“Read the next page yourself.”
With trembling hands, I slowly turned the paper.
And there it was—
The truth of that day, the one I had longed to know.
Although Colonel Eugene Carter, who had perfectly responded to the ambush and exterminated the beasts, achieved the greatest merit, he lost consciousness the following dawn after complaining of mysterious pain.
The pursuit unit succeeded in completely annihilating the remnants of the beasts, including the Greater Beast Incurable Sabnac.
According to Helena Dunver, “the Seer of the Enemy” dispatched from Duel–Praet for medical purposes, the Incurable Sabnac leaves behind a “seed,” a part of itself, in the form of a curse.
Thus, to completely purify the curse, a purification spell powerful enough to kill Sabnac’s main body would be required. However, no human could withstand such a spell, and therefore she concluded that treatment was impossible.
The original objective of the beast’s special unit was the annihilation of the headquarters. However, judging the probability of failure to be high, they seemingly changed their goal out of desperation—to leave an indelible scar upon the enemy, upon us.
As I read through the contents, multiple voices began to echo in my head.
Familiar yet distant voices.
“What? It can’t be cured? You’re the Seer dispatched from Duel Headquarters! How can someone of your skill fail to lift a single curse?”
“……”
“What, is it money? Or do you have some grudge against the Empire? Did Duel tell you not to treat Eugene Carter or something?”
“…I’m truly sorry, Colonel Carter.”
“Bullshit, I don’t believe it. Do something. Try something, anything!”
“Stop it, Carter! If you get too worked up, your consciousness will—”
“Let go of me, damn it!”
“Colonel Carter….”
“Ugh… urgh… this can’t be real… Because of one damn beast, I….”
“…Carter.”
“Is returning to duty completely impossible?”
“There should be no issue with daily life… but as a soldier, recovery seems impossible.”
Finally, everything became clear. I closed my eyes and lowered my head.
“…So that’s how it was.”
It wasn’t a curse—it was a piece of itself that had been left behind.
No matter how small, no mere human could endure the magic required to kill an S-rank beast.
There was no way Eugene Carter hadn’t realized that simple truth.
In the end, he had chosen denial.
Because otherwise, he would never have been able to endure it.
As I continued to rub my forehead, Alvin began to speak words of comfort.
“Well, I don’t think the current you is bad at all.”
“…Is that so?”
“Your physical ability is certainly not what it used to be. That’s a fact. But you’ve gained wisdom and mental strength that far surpass it.”
“……”
“And it’s not as though you can’t reproduce that era entirely. Just look at the spar you had with Ironblood Frederick last time.”
“Well… I won’t deny that.”
I lifted my head again.
Avoidance never makes pain disappear.
The only way forward is to face it head-on and overcome it.
For now, the only thing that mattered was that I had learned what Eugene Carter’s greatest weakness was.
Without that knowledge, I couldn’t even begin to try.
Just as I was steeling my resolve once more—
―Indeed, just as you say, my dear.
‘…Clina?’
It was her—appearing at the most unexpected moment.
―Even I, one of the eleven highest-ranking evil spirits, knew nothing of that one’s method. I merely made use of the curse’s mechanism to clear a blocked path from time to time.
‘Well, even that was a great help.’
―Now that you’ve learned the full truth, I can finally give you advice that holds meaning. Listen well.
Clina continued with a satisfied smile.
―The Incurable Curse is both his seed and his fragment. Based on that, it is indeed possible to resurrect him.
‘…Wait. If he’s resurrected inside my body, what happens then?’
―Coexistence was possible in the form of a curse, but it would be impossible once he returns to being a beast. He’ll have no choice but to force his way out.
‘Wouldn’t my Mana Heart be damaged in that process?’
―You’ll take some damage, yes. But by then, you’ll already be freed from the Incurable Curse.
‘I see… So I resurrect him, extract him, and make sure to annihilate him completely—leaving not even a seed behind?’
―Precisely. You must prepare thoroughly. Even with a catalyst, the means to resurrect an S-rank beast aren’t exactly common.
‘…Right. Definitely not common.’
But I already had a place in mind.
The non-mainstream research group of the Platinum Dawn—the one that had presented an entirely new theory regarding the Incurable Curse.
“The Incurable Curse, strictly speaking, is not a curse.”
“If anything, it’s a tumor—a doppelgänger, a symbiont that must coexist eternally.”
“Approaching it not as a curse… that may be the first step toward liberation, Eugene Carter.”
Whether they had known the truth and spoken vaguely, or merely inferred from insufficient data, I couldn’t tell.
Either way, if they were high-code holders of Ain Kabbalah, they would surely know—
The secret method to resurrect the fragmented remains of Incurable Sabnac.
A confident smile spread across my lips.
The tangled mess in my head, once impossible to unravel, was finally coming together.