novelraw Chapter 20 : Chapter 20
Chapter 20 : Chapter 20
༺ 𓆩 Chapter 20 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
“………….?”
Perplexity clouded every face, and a heavy silence swept across the parade ground.
Even Arditi Günther herself only stared blankly at Ain Krieg, who stood upon the platform.
A grand speech, perhaps. That wasn't what they had hoped for.
...No, actually, they had hoped for it.
And yet, the first words to leave his mouth had been nothing less than: We’re fucked.
“Dress it up in polite words and it would sound like deceit to your ears.”
But with those following words, even the ones who looked ready to drag him down from the dais found their lips silenced, if only for a fleeting moment.
“So I’ll admit it plainly. We’re fucked. Is there anyone here who doesn’t already know that?”
His face, as he muttered those words with bitter self-mockery, was cast into uneasy shadow by the flickering torchlight. His voice was calm, almost gentle. But precisely for that reason, there was a sincerity within it that had not been there before.
“We held back the Dual Numbers. Compared to the blood spilled by our brothers in the West five years ago, our casualties were almost negligible. That alone means you have all done your duty.”
Almost unconsciously, even Vermin and Johan Gerner found themselves nodding.
Who would have ever imagined it? That the ones who struck down not one but two of the dreaded Dual Numbers would be this pitiful battalion, already half-dissolved, banished to what was little more than a dumping ground.
But then came his next words.
"However, abandon any expectation that the Military State will offer some grand reward or gratitude." He did not speak of glory or of pride; instead he reminded them, with cold sobriety, of the reality of their standing. “They may caw and screech for a while about how remarkable we were, but in less than a month we’ll be thrown back into the rubbish heap.”
And truth be told, they would be fortunate if the unit wasn’t disbanded before then.
For any ordinary battalion, such devastating losses would have already meant dissolution or forced reorganization.
“Then why is it we are treated this way?”
The answer was simple.
“This place is exile. A penal battalion, some even call it.”
Because we had committed a crime.
Of course, not a crime in the legal sense.
“The Sentinel family decreed it so: we did not bend to kiss their arses, or else we resisted their corruption. If not that, then perhaps we merely acted a little too much like bastards. For such sins we are thrown into this damned fortress and left to rot.”
At those words, the soldiers’ expressions began to twist strangely. Naturally so. Most of the men who had been driven into this fortress bore scars from officers or sergeants fattened on the scraps tossed by the Sentinels.
For a heartbeat the thought rose, Can he really say such things aloud?, but the scathing, almost languid venom with which he cursed the Sentinel name rang pleasantly in their ears.
“…What in God’s name is this.”
Major Arditi Günther could only squeeze her eyes shut and groan in despair.
And then Ain Krieg spoke again.
“I will ask you this, gentlemen.”
Of course, to Ain Krieg, her reaction wasn't even the slightest reason to stop speaking. Instead, he swept his gaze over the soldiers standing in formation and posed a question in return.
“Do you resent me?”
Some of them might have thought that it was because the Krieg family had stubbornly refused to abandon the Vanargand Ironblood Fortress that they had all been dragged into this accursed place. Others might have despised him simply for crawling back after seven long years. Or perhaps, they simply hated the look of him.
His eyes found Captain Menharn, and slowly he stepped down from the platform.
Approaching the captain, who silently met his gaze, he asked again.
“Do you resent me?”
“…Yes. I do.”
Captain Menharn nodded quietly.
Once more Major Arditi Günther turned her head, ready to intervene, but Ain Krieg lifted a hand to forestall her; then he gave a slight nod, as if granting permission to continue.
Perhaps because of that, Menharn’s voice this time was stripped of emotion, his words quiet but steady.
“Why did you come so late?”
Having witnessed his strength upon the walls, Menharn’s words carried no anger, no hatred, only hollow resignation.
“Seven years. Perhaps, if you had come sooner…”
He knew full well it sounded like the whining of the powerless.
“…things might have been different.”
But Menharn had earned the right to say it.
He was not a Specialist Officer, no, but for seven years he had stood by Major Arditi Günther, helping her hold this fortress together. He had been one of those who, in his heart, had been waiting for Krieg.
Perhaps that was why even Arditi Günther herself held her tongue, quietly turning her eyes to Ain Krieg.
…And not only her.
Every soldier and officer of the Cerberus Brigade, every sergeant and lieutenant, even Sergeant Vermin and Captain Johan Gerner.
“..................”
All of them held their breath, waiting for Ain Krieg’s reply.
For in such moments, the expected answer was a speech to raise their spirits, or some tearful, stirring words to inspire them. But, as always, Ain Krieg defied their expectations.
“Why in hell are you whining about how fucked everything is?”
“…What?”
“I’ve always wondered. If anyone should be whining about how fucked things are, shouldn’t it be me?”
A faint smile touched his lips.
“I am a Krieg. My father was a Krieg before me.”
Yet no one there mistook those words for pride. They heard the bitter self-mockery in them.
Step by step, thud, thud, Ain Krieg turned his back on the stunned Captain Menharn and ascended once more to the platform; there, with unruffled ease, he set a mana cigarette between his lips.
“For generations, the Krieg line has come here to die.”
The fortress was soaked with his family’s blood; two hundred years of it.
“And yet, to be resented simply because I came a little late to die, how laughable is that?”
And then, looking out at the soldiers staring back at him with dazed eyes, he spoke.
“To speak plainly, you are trash.”
No, he corrected himself.
“The entire Military State is trash."
The sharp rebuke, that manic smile which bordered on madness, froze the air in an instant.
But Ain Krieg did not stop.
On the contrary, his voice carried an even firmer conviction as he murmured.
“Is this all the fault of the Sentinel family?”
Every man standing there would have nodded.
Especially one born a Krieg.
Yet Ain Krieg shook his head.
“No. Not so.”
It was not some single house like the Sentinels that rotted the Military State. No, such belief gave them far too much weight.
“It is defeatism.”
It was not confined to this wretched brigade.
Rather, it was a vast tumor, festering and rooted in the Military State for two hundred years.
“Three years. In three years the Siegfried Line will be completed, and we will be penned inside it like livestock. And there we will remain, fattened and content, locked away in a pigsty for all eternity.”
Only then did they all begin to realize what Ain Krieg meant to say.
A handful shivered with a strange exhilaration.
Some gaped in bewilderment.
But most looked upon him as though he were utterly mad.
“We must return to the Empire.”
And then, when that final phrase left his lips, a nameless soldier muttered under his breath before he could stop himself.
“…So he really is insane.”
One word flickered in every mind.
「The Reclamation of the Empire」
Once, it had been the creed that sustained the Krieg line.
Now it was dismissed as archaic, irrational, obsolete.
Silence shattered. Soldiers, officers, and sergeants alike turned to one another with hollow smiles and weary sighs. It was natural. No matter that he had just saved their lives, once he invoked the Reclamation of the Empire, the path that lay ahead was all too clear.
“I must look like a madman to you.”
But Ain Krieg, as if he had already foreseen every reaction, continued.
“This time, I will ask you.”
Two hundred years ago, when he had first opened his eyes in this Military State, the dissonance between his muddled memories of a past life and the reality of his current one had bewildered him.
But once he accepted the world as it stood, only a single question gnawed at him.
“Why is it you all believe that the beings of Ashes will remain still for all eternity?”
Two centuries before, the beings of Ashes that had devoured the continent had halted their advance only when they met the Vanargand Mountains. It was for that reason that Founding Emperor Seretio von Imperium had been able to raise a nation at all.
But that nation had been twisted at its very root.
“A country of fifty million souls. A standing army of one million, with a delusional plan on record to summon a force of ten million in times of war, counting every last reservist, a state that exists for war and war alone.”
Every rail line was laid with supply in mind.
Every citizen was trained so that, in an emergency, they could be turned into soldiers overnight.
And the reason was simple.
Even the Founding Emperor, Seretio von Imperium, had never truly believed that the beings of Ashes would remain still for two hundred years.
The inevitable result was the rise of the Sentinel family, the downfall of the Krieg line, and the hollowing of the imperial throne.
“But what if that fundamental premise is shaken?”
Ain Krieg’s words fell one after another, shock upon shock, until it was nearly unbearable.
The common soldiers, the junior officers, the sergeants, they could not even comprehend what he was saying.
But Captain Johan Gerner was different.
In the end, he could not restrain himself. He demanded an answer.
“What do you mean, the premise is shaken?”
He knew it in his mind.
But he could not accept it.
He needed to hear the words aloud, from Krieg’s own lips.
“.................”
Nor was Major Arditi Günther any different.
She too stared at Ain Krieg.
So did Rier Yung, Langier, Eugene Hailt, and, hidden somewhere, the eyes of the Intelligence Bureau, the Sentinels, and the spies of their enemies alike.
“Yes.”
At last, feeling every gaze fixed wholly upon him, Ain Krieg struck the spark that would set alight a frenzied bonfire.
“The beings of Ashes are moving.”
And, as expected, the bomb went off.
༒︎
Leaving the confusion behind him, Ain Krieg returned straight to the brigade commander’s office.
Arditi Günther had hurried after him, desperate for an explanation of his words, but he had turned her away with a simple “Come tomorrow.”
After all, he already had an appointment tonight.
"Have you finally gone mad?"
The woman sat on the sofa in the unlit brigade commander's office, watching him.
Another man might have been startled, but Krieg only switched on the light, took in the cut of her uniform, and replied evenly.
"A corporal. You have no conscience, Maria."
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
"You should think about your fellow soldiers who have to pretend to be fooled by your build. Really now."
It was not an unfair remark.
Maria’s build was such that she could have been mistaken for a younger sibling of Rier Yung himself, a veritable giantess. And yet, her face was disarmingly cute, a grotesque contrast that only deepened the strangeness.
She pouted at his words, but that did not erase the secret he had let slip.
“It’s classified as a level-one secret by the Bureau. The moment Chief Atomic or the Director finds out—”
“They won’t keep it hidden for long. Rumors were already spreading out west.”
“Our information control is perfect.”
“How long can that last?”
The truth was, within the Intelligence Bureau this was not such a grave secret.
For the past five years, faint signs had been recorded, evidence that the beings of Ashes were slowly tightening their grip on the Military State.
But to say it aloud was another matter entirely.
“I wasn’t the only one with ears. My guess? There’s a full-blown uproar by now.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Krieg settled into the seat across from her.
Naturally, he did not forget to pour a brandy, dropping a tea leaf in before sliding it across.
“Are you truly certain?”
Maria took the glass, downed it in one gulp, then set it aside with a newly sober expression.
“In other words, there’s something in the Imperial capital that can wipe those damned beings of Ashes out in one stroke?”
Maria knew him well.
Others dismissed him with a thousand petty words, but she knew better: Ain Krieg was the most cunning, most dangerous man she had ever met. Whatever he claimed, he would not have spoken recklessly without conviction.
And sure enough, he answered with calm ease, lighting a crystalline mana cigarette as he did so.
“Not until I see it with my own eyes. But…”
The words trailed into something very much his own.
“…there is no other alternative, is there?”
Maria gave a sharp little laugh; then, reaching into her uniform, she drew out a long wooden box and handed it to him.
“Mana cigarettes. Wasn’t easy to get my hands on them.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure. Two million dinars.”
“Put it on my tab.”
“Again? Senior, you’re unbelievable…”
She rose with a grumble, waving a hand at his back as though scolding him.
But in the end, her voice faltered, and she fell silent.
For despite the casual front he showed, his hands were trembling like aspen leaves.
END σϝ CHAPTER
Do not forget to read my other novels :-
⟿ How to Honor The Goddess
⟿ The Margrave's 10th-Class Ne'er-do-well