30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue - Chapter 75

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 75: 12. Academy Festival Common Sense (5)

──────

* * *

The Royal Guard was one of the most elite branches Krasilov possessed. There had apparently been eras when it was little more than an honorary posting, but not during the war.

During the demonfolk war, the King of Krasilov had almost always needed to take the field personally. To restore royal authority, which had been damaged by repeated defeats, field command and real military strength were essential.

Of course, the late King was the sort of person who would have gone to the front even without such reasons.

In any case, the Royal Guard was a unit that had always been forced into the front line, and if they were to protect the King's person, they had to be the very best in loyalty, patriotism, and skill.

As a result, they were treated as the branch that gathered the nation's finest and ground them down in the most horrific way possible. For roughly five years, from the time the King began taking the field until the Hero killed the Demon King.

"Senior...."

Ivan murmured as he stared at the note in stunned silence.

The scrawl, rows of seemingly meaningless numbers scribbled across the page, represented old tactical symbols no longer used today.

More specifically, it was the Royal Guard's random-number cipher system for command and control.

The contents of the message were as follows.

-Novagorod Withdrawal Operation.

-No. 00 KIA. Total friendly losses: 23.

-Nos. 01 and 11 returned alive.

-Surviving personnel assembly point: Pritchenkaya, university, before the statue of No. 00.

The Novagorod Withdrawal Operation referred to the campaign where the late King had refused to withdraw and chosen to defend the stronghold.

At the time, Krasilov had failed to predict the demonfolk army's concentration because of an intelligence failure. Tumor the Scorched, one of the Seven Dragon Generals who should have been tied down on the eastern front, personally led the army and entered the campaign.

The Allied Kingdoms' operational doctrine at the time was simple. If a Seven Dragon General appeared, abandon that front. Wage a delaying action, aim for small victories on other fronts, and induce the enemy to withdraw.

The Seven Dragon Generals were disasters humans could not oppose. There was no helping it.

The problem was that Krasilov had failed to detect the Seven Dragon General's movement in advance, so it had not prepared to withdraw from that theater.

There were countless civilians, and conscripts who were not ready for a retreat. If the state was to survive, they had to be saved, all the more so in an age when every single soldier was becoming precious.

The King had a grown son, and grandchildren born with the qualities of rulers. In other words, he was replaceable manpower. But if the soldiers were wiped out, that was another matter. If the northern front collapsed, Pritchenkaya would be next.

It was the sort of situation where Krasilov's name might have followed the five kingdoms that had already fallen.

So the late King chose, smiling as he made the most rational choice.

He made it known that he was there, provoked the Seven Dragon General, and offered himself up as the sort of target a demonfolk commander would consider the most appetizing tactical prize.

The King's delaying action saved tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers that day.

The Royal Guard had perished alongside the King. Aside from Ivan and a small handful of troops, there had been no survivors that day.

There should not have been.

-Rustle.

Turning the note over in his hand, Ivan thought. In the Royal Guard's random-number cipher, No. 00 had been the late King's codename. No. 01 was....

'The captain of the Royal Guard.'

The Dragonslayer, Pavel Sergeyevich Olov.

"Um... Mister?"

Isabelle, pale as a sheet, tapped his arm. When Ivan's gaze landed on her, she flinched and forced a smile.

"That... that kid's going to die."

"Ah."

Only then did he finally look at the student wheezing in his grasp. The student had known nothing, had merely passed along the note, and had been enjoying the festival until a moment ago.

Ivan quietly loosened his grip, set the student down, and bowed his head briefly.

"My apologies. I went too far."

"N-no, it's fine! Yes, yes, well, I'll be going now!"

"Mm."

The student ran off, trembling all over. Isabelle, who had been watching Ivan with worried eyes, cautiously stepped closer and asked,

"Is it something really urgent?"

"My apologies."

Strictly speaking, this was a dereliction of duty. The only operation assigned to him was the protection of the Hero Party's children.

Getting worked up over a suspicious note left by a survivor from those days, someone believed dead, could be described, bluntly, as falling for an enemy trick.

But... but.

Ivan remembered Pavel the Dragonslayer. The captain of the Royal Guard, the royal knight who had been the most loyal of them all. A man who, without prejudice about status or age and astonishingly for a person of that era, had taught and guided him.

He had never longed for the war years. The enemy had been too horrific for that.

But the heroes who had run beside him in those days, the men who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him and shed the same blood....

Do not mourn, they had said....

So he had not mourned them. It had been too precarious a time, the sort of age when he might depart to join them at any moment. He could look forward to meeting them again in the land of the dead, but he did not mourn the dead while standing in the land of the living.

Yet that had remained lodged in one corner of his heart. Like a small thorn, pricking at him again and again.

Ivan bit down hard on his lip and forced his thoughts back into order.

"Mister, if it's urgent, then go."

"But...."

Ivan turned his gaze to the others watching him. Aesidis looked anxious, and Elphihara was watching him with a complicated expression.

Protecting them was his duty.

And going to find a comrade he had thought dead was... desire.

He had never once hesitated between duty and desire.

"What's with that look? You're acting like I'm about to chain you down."

"Elphihara."

"Yes, yes, I'm Elphihara. I'm an elf, a mage, and a powerful one too. Honestly. You didn't really believe all that talk about protecting us and escorting us, did you?"

Elphihara let out a deep sigh. Ah, after being pushed back all morning, this afternoon was finally supposed to be her turn.

"Go. If you keep hanging around with a face like that, it'll just stab your conscience. Did you really think a human could protect an elf? There are elves all over the place here, and you're worrying about that. Honestly."

"That's right, Uncle. I'll be fine! Ah, everyone, thank you for this! It's delicious!"

"It doesn't look like you took even one bite...."

"Hey now. We agreed not to nitpick about things like that, remember?"

Ivan sent the chattering Aesidis a grateful look, then rose from his seat.

"Go settle it. If possible, come back and explain it to us too."

"Mm."

Since he was abandoning his protection mission, it was only natural that he should explain himself to the people he had been assigned to protect. Ivan gave Isabelle a short nod and stood.

Assembly point. Pritchenkaya, university, before the statue of No. 00.

At Saint Yansk University, the late King's statue stood in the middle of the plaza just inside the main gate. Right where the crowd was thickest.

Naturally. To hide a tree, put it in a forest. To hide a person, use a place like that. Most government agents did not make contact in secluded spots.

Ivan set off toward the plaza with heavy steps.

* * *

"Teach me how to make this."

"Um, Miss Isabelle? Did you... like it that much?"

"No. Honestly, it's garbage, but Mister cried after eating it. So if I make it properly for him, he'll like it."

"...This was made properly...."

"How could something like that possibly be food...?"

If you boiled kimchi in water, it became kimchi stew. (It did not.)

After hearing that simple recipe, Isabelle lowered her opinion of the three people running the booth by a small degree.

* * *

When Ivan arrived in front of the statue, he was able to pick Pavel out at a glance.

A suspicious man in a thick robe stood there, looking up at the stone statue. To begin with, the plaza was packed wall to wall with Counterintelligence Command agents, so there was no way someone in clothing that suspicious should have been able to enter.

Besides, Ivan already knew that build and frame. As a trained agent, he was skilled at inferring a person's identity from things like physique and bearing.

It was a back he could never forget.

"Senior."

"Ah, you've come."

The man's body turned in a smooth circle. Only then did Ivan finally see his face.

Thick brown hair, and green eyes shining vividly through it.

An old, deep scar covering one eye and running down to the cheek.

And the black burn mark stretching from the lower jaw to the nape of the neck, the one he had gotten while hunting a dragon.

"I heard you died in battle."

"Did you confirm the body?"

"No. At the time, nobody... but...."

"I'm joking. You're still stiff. If anything, you seem worse."

Pavel smiled gently as he stepped forward and held out a hand. It felt like the hand of a dead man being offered to him, so Ivan stared at the gesture for a long while before finally recognizing it as a handshake.

The hand gripping his was firm. As though Pavel were still in the prime of his life.

"I wasn't the only one believed dead. Doesn't our usefulness shine brightest when we carry the status of fallen soldiers?"

"Was it the King's order?"

"Who knows."

Watching Pavel smile, Ivan frowned. Had the Princess deceived him? He had definitely been told that he was the only survivor of the Royal Guard.

There had been no reason to lie about this. Even if Pavel had been used as an undercover agent, given the relationship between the Princess and Ivan, she could at least have told him this much.

Even though she had watched, from the side, how much he had suffered after that day.

Perhaps his complicated feelings had shown on his face, because Pavel patted his shoulder and said,

"It suits you. Did you start growing it after His Majesty?"

"Embarrassingly... yes."

"Magnificent. You've grown it almost the same."

"Yes, Senior."

So this was how normal people thought. Ivan was deeply moved to finally be speaking with a normal person from this era.

"I'll escort you somewhere more comfortable. Please, come."

"Ah, my apologies. I'm in the middle of an operation."

"Yes...? Ah, you're active right now?"

"I've been that way ever since that day, all the way until now. Aren't you the same?"

Ivan hesitated for a moment.

A trained agent could infer many things at once from a short conversation. Reading double meanings and subtle implications was the most basic skill of all.

He could not move because he was in the middle of an operation?

And yet he had sent Ivan a cipher message and summoned him here?

Then those words could also be read to mean that calling him here in the first place had been part of the operation.

"Senior."

"Ah, I see. Have I been thinking of you as too young? My mistake."

Pavel smiled faintly. A trained agent could read implications from a short exchange.

Pavel, too, had noticed the change in Ivan's tone. Smiling, he shook his head.

"Over a long stretch of time, the little boy has grown into a man. I apologize."

"Senior."

"Do not move. There are a lot of people here, aren't there?"

It was a threat made with a crowd in mind.

He probably did not mean he would personally slaughter the people himself. Ivan, standing right in front of him, had more than enough ability to stop that.

So this meant... there was a weapon capable of mass slaughter. And it was in the hands of an accomplice nearby.

Ivan let out a short sigh.

He reflected.

Choosing desire over duty was always this foolish.

And doubting the common sense of an academy story was equally pathetic.

A combat event breaking out during a festival was simply common sense. Food from home, which it was not, and the reappearance of an old comrade had made him careless.

There would not be a second time. Ivan was a rational man, so he did not repeat the same mistake twice.

"Where does your loyalty lie?"

"Haha, Little Ivan. To ask that in a situation like this. Are you still devoting your life to meaningless royal authority?"

"Still?"

Ivan looked into Pavel's eyes and moved a hand behind his waist.

He had no axe. Only a small dagger and a pistol.

But a lack of weapons was no reason to avoid battle.

"Forever. That is what you should have said. Did we not all swear on the same day?"

"Ivan. Stop this meaningless behavior."

"Get down."

Ivan opened the eyes he had briefly closed and growled at Pavel, who was still standing before the late King's statue.

"That is no place for the likes of you."