WeTried Translations x Flame Comics

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 130: 20. Tilles’s Autumn (1)

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“You want me to take over your classes? Well, hell... It’s a request from my disciple, so I can manage a few special lectures. How many weeks?”

“The rest of the semester.”

“This bastard is completely insane.”

After reflexively spitting out a string of curses, Enrika took a moment to collect her thoughts.

He was not irresponsible enough to drop all his classes just because he suddenly did not feel like teaching, was he?

No, if anything, he was the sort who ought to be called responsibility incarnate...

Did something happen?

Once that thought occurred to her, she remembered something. Whenever something happened to him, it was usually official business.

“Did the Command assign you another operation? You are too senior to be running around in the field anymore. Unless a civil war broke out among the dwarves, anyway.”

“It is not certain yet.”

“If it is not certain, why is the commander going into the field?”

“Because it is not certain.”

If the operation’s outline and command direction were clear, there would be no need for him to deploy personally. Assigning an appropriate force would be enough.

As he had reflected before, he could not involve himself in every incident in this world.

Yet in a situation like this, one clearly tied to the “main story,” where friend and foe had not yet been distinguished, he could not leave things to field agents.

Expending agents for a tactical objective that even the commander could not be certain of was not the Annihilation Unit’s way.

There was another advantage to the commander entering the field himself.

“Krasilov is weak at foreign intelligence.”

“Wow, you cruel bastard...”

Understanding what he meant, Enrika’s mouth fell open in admiration.

What would happen at the local branch if the intelligence commander personally appeared on the front lines and said, “Foreign intelligence is weak, so I came to handle it myself”?

Enrika shook her head, offering silent condolences to some unknown field headquarters.

“Well, if it is for something like that, I can take over teaching the kids. It is not exactly difficult.”

“You have my thanks.”

“Which days?”

“Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.”

Enrika tilted her head at Ivan’s answer. Why three days...?

“Five credits each. I’ll leave them in your care. I’ll send over the class materials by this afternoon.”

“W-Wait. Three? Three classes? Five credits each?”

“Yes. And Isabelle, Oscar, Elphihara, Aesidis, and Yevgeny will be applying to replace this semester with off-campus study. Please handle that process as well.”

“Hey, wait! What? What?!”

“You have my thanks. I’ll compensate you.”

Fifteen hours a week. Including the Knight Department class Enrika already taught, that made eighteen hours. It nearly fulfilled the minimum credit requirement for an entire semester.

Enrika screamed at Ivan as he walked out the door.

“Has this bastard seriously lost his mind?!”

The professor’s office door shut coldly behind him.

20. Tilles’s Autumn

-Rattle, rattle.

After passing through the long tunnel at Krasilov’s border, it felt as though they had returned to summer, a sharp contrast to snowbound Niigata, Japan.

Green grasslands stretched endlessly beyond the train windows beneath a clear midday sky.

“This is autumn. This is weather. Good grief.”

Isabelle had been grumbling like that ever since they left the outskirts of Krasilov. Most foreigners who experienced a Krasilov winter for the first time said much the same thing.

Ivan turned his gaze toward the window without much thought, noting the good visibility.

When the protagonist’s party moved to a new location for the next scenario, it was common sense for bandits or magic bandits to appear.

Ivan was a sensible man, so he kept the arm casually resting by the window ready to seize his axe at any moment.

The same scenery continued endlessly outside. Tilles was a country of vast plains and gentle hills. The view would remain much the same until they reached the city.

Perhaps she had lost her initial excitement. Isabelle stared vacantly out the window with a slightly bored expression before suddenly speaking.

“Mister, you were close with my dad, right?”

“To some extent.”

Maximilian had basically been kind to everyone, and Ivan treated everyone much the same, so it was difficult to say for certain whether they had truly been close.

Still, Ivan had spent no small amount of time with Maximilian, so he gave a small nod.

“If you were close, you were close. What does ‘to some extent’ even mean?”

After grumbling once, Isabelle looked back out the window, as if measuring some moment from the past.

“Coming back to my homeland makes me think of Dad. Do you know I resented him a lot at first? Honestly, his only daughter was going abroad to study, and he shut himself away in the mountains without even coming out... I had so many bad thoughts. I said so many terrible things...”

Isabelle lowered her head with a gloomy expression.

She recalled the conversation she had had when Einar visited, about the curse placed upon those who killed the Seven Dragon Generals and the contamination of the soul.

Maximilian had personally slaughtered two of the Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King. Even so, until the end of the war, he had never shown madness even once.

How remarkable was that? Isabelle could not even begin to imagine it. She could not fathom how dreadful the dying cry of an evil god would be when poured upon the one who killed it.

So she simply thought of it as childish resentment. She had lived without lacking anything as the Hero’s daughter, growing up loved far beyond anything she had earned herself.

The daughter of the man who saved the world should not resent him. The world he had sought to save must have included hers as well.

It was pure sacrifice, giving oneself completely.

It was a path she would one day have to follow. Not as the Hero’s daughter, but as a new Hero. Steeling herself, Isabelle raised her head.

“Now I remember the old stories Dad used to tell me. I do not know when I will see him again, so I try to remember them even if I have to force myself. It would be embarrassing if, as his daughter, I only remembered his face from statues.”

Isabelle smiled brightly, her expression resolute.

“It would be awkward if things felt strange when we meet again someday. I have this feeling we will definitely see each other again. I feel like that will happen if I keep traveling with you, Mister.”

“...Mm.”

Ivan nodded expressionlessly and looked away.

Meeting Maximilian again.

It was not a situation he particularly wanted. He did not know what state Maximilian would be in. If his condition was worse than expected, if Ivan had to stop him, then things would become complicated.

‘In the side quest Eugene checked, Gilles Ver was listed as “Survival,” while Maximilian was “Encounter.”’

Taken simply, it could mean Gilles Ver’s life was in danger while Maximilian’s was not.

Who could possibly threaten Maximilian’s life? In that sense, it might have been only natural.

But if that was not the reason... if Maximilian himself had already become an enemy who needed to be defeated.

‘No. If that were the case, the quest would have ordered Maximilian’s elimination.’

Ivan narrowed his eyes. Eugene’s quest had once assigned him the task of eliminating Ivan. In terms of difficulty, Ivan and Maximilian would not be greatly different for Eugene. The moment either became hostile, Eugene would die.

Therefore, the quest gave orders when necessary without considering difficulty. If that was the case, it was still too early to conclude that Maximilian had definitely become an enemy.

And above all else, Ivan did not want to see that man without his smile.

If the symbol of hope surrendered to despair, it would seem to imply that humanity could never advance any further.

Four of the Seven Dragon Generals still remained in this world, and behind the shell of peace, monarchs and ambitious men were preparing for the next war. It would be the final war to engulf the Allied Kingdoms, unlike the previous war, which had only been fought against the demonfolk.

Even at its end, humanity would still be able to live while holding onto hope. That was the symbolism carried by the name Hero, the hope Maximilian had possessed and passed on to Isabelle.

Ivan quietly watched the chattering Isabelle and thought.

The late king had passed away before the Hero arrived.

It had been a battlefield where the righteous fell first. Those who carried the weak on their backs and volunteered to become breakwaters against death’s assault always fell before anyone else.

No more.

Peace built upon the corpses of good people had been enough once.

The Hero of this generation would have to arrive faster than despair. It had to happen, and Ivan had to make it happen.

Fortunately, Ivan was well versed in “common sense.” With his guidance, Isabelle could finish preparing even faster.

Koreans were experts at optimizing leveling for maximum efficiency, after all.

Ivan watched Isabelle chatter for a while, then turned to look out the window.

Three days later, Ivan arrived in Saint Matilene, the capital of Tilles.

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The train Ivan had boarded stopped at Matil-Etoile Station, the largest railway station in Saint Matilene.

Matil-Etoile Station was on one of the main trade routes running from a southeastern port city in Tilles through Saint Matilene and all the way to Krasilov.

The station was enormously crowded during the daytime on a weekday. The vast terminal was packed from end to end.

Isabelle began showing off to Aesidis, who stood there with her mouth hanging open. Unfortunately, neither Elphihara, who had seen Kallion’s sky port, nor Eugene, who came from Earth, showed much reaction.

“What do you think? Mister is a total country bumpkin, right? It is amazing, is it not? Right? Pritchenkaya Station is nothing compared to this!”

“Mm.”

It was basically Seoul Station.

It was an odd comparison, but considering the era, the scale was impressive. Ivan honestly nodded. He had seen countless logistics trains on battlefields, yet the sight of a railway station this prosperous still moved him somewhat.

He had known countless men who fought in the hope that a sight like this could become ordinary.

“...”

Far in the distance, he spotted one of those men standing crookedly, looking up at the sky while smoking a cigarette.

“One moment.”

Ivan gestured to the cheerfully babbling Isabelle and stepped forward. The man, who had been smoking in a corner of the station and letting out deep sighs, weakly raised a hand.

“You’re here.”

“Pavel.”

Pavel looked at Ivan with tired eyes, crushed his cigarette beneath his foot, and slumped his shoulders.

“Why the hell am I suffering through this...?”

“Why are you here?”

“It was an order from Her Highness. She told me to go as a diplomatic envoy.”

Pavel pulled a notebook from inside his coat and handed it over. It contained a brief personal profile and an official document stamped with the royal seal.

-Ivan Petrovich Yermof.

-Third-Class Political Affairs Diplomatic Attaché.

Pavel dusted off his hands and shrugged.

“I’m here to keep an eye on you. Her Highness was biting her nails over what the hell you might get up to if she even gave you diplomatic envoy credentials.”

“Ha.”

Ivan briefly pictured that scene, then smiled.

Pavel let out a long sigh at the sight and held out his hand.

“Well, it is official business, so I suppose I can call it a promotion. It is a pleasure to work with you, Aide Ivan.”

“Yes, likewise.”

Since ancient times, diplomatic envoys had been the quintessential spies of allied nations.

Almost every member of the Counterintelligence Command’s Foreign Intelligence Bureau had been dispatched among diplomatic envoys.

In other words, this meant Ivan would be able to operate as a royally approved, perfectly legal spy in an allied nation.

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Footnotes:

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