WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 145: The Road Flows with the Traveler - 1

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The military state was a country obsessed with control.

A country that kept meticulous watch over its roads and trains, with conductors checking every passenger's ticket one by one.

When a military vehicle that ought to be crossing the wilderness entered a road, the guard on duty began the inspection with an especially suspicious look.

If I'd been alone, I would've abandoned the vehicle somewhere secluded, slipped onto a train, railcar, or scheduled service, and taken a long route around.

It wasn't that I couldn't.

But why should I put up with the inconvenience?

To eat good bread, would I personally tend the fields, put up scarecrows, water the crops and raise them with care, then harvest the golden grain with tears in my eyes, brutally pound it, then mill it into flour, knead the dough with devotion, bake it in an oven, and finally enjoy it?

I'd rather just pay for bread. That was the efficient use of the economic system and social structure humanity had built.

In other words.

"So you're a captain! Loyalty. You may pass!"

With a single living travel pass, there was no need to take the hard way around when I could simply be waved through.

Having a captain in the driver's seat was enough. The guard didn't even touch the passenger seat. There was no point, considering who she was.

"Ah, this is comfortable!"

I leaned back in my seat and shouted.

Captain AB, the military state's communications officer, stared ahead with a deep frown and muttered, "Don't get too comfortable. Be aware of your position."

"A petty criminal who's served out his sentence and is returning to the capital with a military state captain."

"...That is precisely why this officer has not detained you."

The captain kept her eyes fixed on the road as she spoke.

"Do not forget. Though your place of employment has disappeared, you are still suspected of involvement in the Falling Star. The only reason you have not been detained is because you are heading to Amitenggrad with this officer. Should you display suspicious behavior or attempt to leave on your own, this officer will arrest you immediately."

Captain AB, who had once lived as a golem, spoke stiffly even with a body of soft flesh.

I stretched out with my legs propped against the dashboard and yawned.

"Then you should've handed me over to that guard earlier. I would've been arrested anyway."

As I said that, I casually read her thoughts.

The answer that appeared in her mind was as follows.

'Outside the [Windowless Room], communications officers must not reveal their duties or positions. That is the iron rule for communications officers, who handle all manner of classified information. To transfer custody of a criminal, the circumstances must be explained. To do so, this officer's position must be revealed. A contradiction...'

"...It is classified."

She neatly organized the information in her head, then called it classified out loud. Was that a communications officer's trait?

Either way, it was convenient to read, which made asking questions enjoyable. I asked again.

"And why are you going all the way to Amitenggrad? You could go to a nearby unit. Or contact someone. Why isn't a communications officer communicating?"

'If a [Windowless Room] is damaged or its officer must leave it for unavoidable reasons, all communications directed at that officer are cut off due to the danger of classified information being leaked. The same applies to this officer. Contacting other communications officers is prohibited.'

The Windowless Room was basically a huge pair of twin gemstones, similar to the ones Callis and Lieutenant General Ebon had used.

If a communications officer's room was damaged and its interior exposed, the military state received a signal. At that point, notice was sent to every communications officer.

Then, to prevent any more information from leaking, communications with that officer were completely severed. The officer might have been captured by the Resistance or an enemy nation.

To reverse it, the officer had to return to the Amitenggrad headquarters within two weeks.

Captain AB recalled all of that only in her mind, then answered a beat late.

"...It is classified."

She was awfully good at organizing information for something she called classified. I read it all without meaning to.

"It's fine to say it's classified, but why do you keep pausing for half a beat?"

'To prevent even a possible leak of information, it is better to maintain a consistent delay before every answer rather than answering immediately. In an extreme situation, even a brief delay in reaction can become information.'

"...It is classified."

What exemplary conduct. From a mind reader's perspective, there was no better target. It felt like finding an instruction manual that offered explanations whenever I spoke.

I read Captain AB with the fascination of someone observing a strange creature.

She was a very peculiar book.

A kind of encyclopedia. It was packed with unrelated information, things that existed solely to be passed through. Since there was no personal "life" to speak of, the book branched out in every direction without a single through line.

The only things that stood out were trivial details, like the communications officers' rules or ninety-nine ways to cook canned food.

Beyond that, there were only a few memories of conversations with other communications officers or things she'd glimpsed through a golem's perspective. The experiences that made her who she was were starkly bare.

The military state really was something else. It used people like machine parts.

'Actually, the moment this man discovered the Windowless Room, this officer should have swallowed poison and taken her own life. Yet this man revived this officer. Why did he save this officer? It is a mystery.'

Why? Obviously, it was for revenge.

I was going to take revenge on those who had imprisoned me. That was all I could think about now.

Naturally, the military state was included among them. I was such a narrow-minded commoner that I wouldn't forgive even a country.

This woman in particular was a communications officer handling all kinds of military state secrets. If I kept her close and extracted information, something useful was bound to come out.

Maybe I could even sweet-talk her into joining my side.

'...This man knows that this officer is a communications officer. A bitter mistake. What... should this officer do?'

Stray thoughts appeared in the captain's head.

Those thoughts immediately had consequences. The auto-carriage, which should have followed the straight road, began swerving wildly from side to side.

My legs, which had been propped up in front of me, slammed left and right with loud bangs. Ah, so that was why they told people to sit properly in cars!

No, she could just drive properly!

I gripped the handle tightly and screamed.

"Aaaah! Drive properly!"

"......!"

"The fact that this is what happens when you stay silent and concentrate is even scarier! Move over. I'll drive instead!"

"Neg... ative...! This officer... is escorting you...! This officer will... hold the wheel...!"

"No, please! I'll go wherever you tell me to! Let me drive! Stop first!"

At my shout, the captain turned her head toward me.

"Did this officer hear wrong...? Did you say to press the right pedal to stop?"

"That's the accelerator! Fine, I'm sorry! I won't distract you, so look ahead!"

Only after the auto-carriage shuddered and creaked for a while did the steering finally settle down. I sat upright with a sigh of relief.

"Be honest. This is your first time driving an auto-carriage, isn't it?"

"Negative. This officer is familiar with operating vehicles. Golems need to move as well, so this officer learned how to operate various kinds of transportation..."

I read her thoughts. She wasn't lying.

Why was that true?

"What? Really? Then that was a psychological issue..."

"...In a golem's body."

"I'm suddenly worried again."

In short, it was all secondhand experience, wasn't it? Did that mean she couldn't do it properly in a real body?

Well, she was a sync type. If she moved like a golem, she probably knew the sensations well enough...

"An accident would not be a problem. A golem can simply be recovered and repaired."

"These are our actual bodies! Both of us are in warm, living bodies with blood in them! If we crash, we really die, so slow down!"

Captain AB suddenly raised her head and cried out.

"True... body? Ah, affirmative! This officer is presently in her true body! This officer is feeling dizzy from the shaking!"

"Putting aside the fact that you sound surprised to realize it just now, could you stop grounding yourself in reality by shaking the car?!"

Thankfully, this wasn't a difficult road, and once it ended, I wouldn't have to witness the captain's terrible driving again.

One of the military state's seven great inventions, the pinnacle of civil engineering and a miracle of earthcraft, the military state's greatest achievement.

The Meta Conveyor Belt would be waiting for us.

Captain AB and I drove with our lives at risk until the road finally ended.

Ground that flowed like a river.

The Meta Conveyor Belt.

It was a mystery that would astonish anyone setting foot in the military state for the first time, a convergence of civil engineering, earthcraft, and arcane engineering. The main artery of the military state.

Its construction had literally cost the blood and sweat of hundreds of thousands.

The description sounded grand, but the reality was simple.

It was a massive conveyor belt that carried most of the military state's logistics, circling half the country.

The ground itself moved at a steady speed.

It moved faster than anyone might think. It could travel from one end to the other in just three days.

It crossed the military state to the coast, made a great turn north, then came back. It carried every sort of freight, cargo, and person on its back. It unloaded them where needed and took on more, flowing on with the same stately pace.

It was a great bloodstream circulating through half the military state.

The flowing earth that had bestowed upon Jiseon the epithet Earth-Rolling Arrival. This endless, enormous current quietly and firmly carried people and goods in one direction.

The Meta Conveyor Belt's northeastern terminal.

It was the point where a fast-moving tributary split into ten streams, slowing to exactly one-tenth of its original speed.

A massive container followed one such tributary toward one of the terminals.

A cargo searchlight detected its movement and illuminated the container. A huge crane with thick chains hanging from it turned its head. It was an apparatus so massive that even its movements produced creaking sounds audible from far away, making it seem hardly different from the landscape itself.

Rrrrrrrumble.

A chain hook caught onto the container riding the Meta Conveyor Belt. The chains all pulled at once, and the enormous container that had been flowing along with the ground gradually came to a stop. Screeech, the sound of friction against the earth. At the same time, the crane stretched itself and lifted the heavy container.

The steel-bodied crane shook. The container was that unimaginably heavy.

Yet thunderwheels just as enormous turned backward with a harsh metallic sound, and the chains and wires wrapped around them shrieked as they tightened. The chains grinding against one another sounded like thunder.

The cargo that had been packed into the container elsewhere and transported across the land reached the terminal and left the conveyor belt. The crane that had seized the container twisted toward the other side. Even in the darkness, the sight of a building-sized container dangling from chains had a palpable solidity.

It was an overwhelming sight just to watch.

Of course.

"Move it! Faster!"

At the supervisor's order, the laborers who had fastened chains to the container ran backward along the belt in exhaustion.

After clinging to the moving container and attaching the chains, they now had to dismantle it, take out the goods inside, and haul them away.

Delivery workers with auto-carriages or ordinary horse-drawn wagons stood packed together as they waited. Once the laborers set down the cargo, they would take it and deliver it throughout the region.

To factories and all kinds of facilities.

The same thing was happening throughout the terminal. Running such massive logistics required countless laborers. All of them must have been dragged there from somewhere, moving busily with fragile blood and flesh between machines of steel and the flowing ground.

If the military state was steel, they were the lubricant.

They were laborers in a cruel country, caught between its gears to prevent damage and keep the body turning.

Whether cargo or people, anyone who wanted to board the Meta Conveyor Belt had to state their destination precisely. Otherwise, they would keep circling the military state and obstruct traffic.

Captain AB, whose very identity was classified, presented classified documents instead of explaining herself. The person in charge panicked and went to report to their superiors.

A short while later, the captain and I were called to the terminal administration office.

"I am Colonel Calparus, director of the northeastern terminal."

A middle-aged man with an impressive beard summoned us.

As befitted the military state's foremost facility, even the person in charge of its administration was no ordinary figure. He was a career colonel who had reached the rank through his own ability, not as some general's aide.

This was only the northeastern terminal, practically the frontier, so it had a colonel. At the terminals in major cities, generals stood guard. The Meta Conveyor Belt was the military state's main artery, after all. It was that important.

"Captain. You said this was a classified operation? You have orders, I assume."

"Here."

Captain AB gave a salute, took the order from her uniform, and handed it over. Colonel Calparus read it with a stern expression.

"Two-week time limit from unsealing. Four days have elapsed. Level Four classified. Cooperation requested from relevant personnel. Hm. Only a general would be able to learn the details. It's inconvenient not having stars on one's collar."

The colonel grumbled and handed the order back. Captain AB received it respectfully with both hands, tucked it under her arm, and waited for him to speak.

"Fine, I understand. I will authorize you to use the passenger lane. It is late today, so receive the equipment you need tomorrow before you leave."

"Thank you, Colonel. But this officer's mission requires every moment. May we not depart today?"

"The terminal is dangerous at night, even with searchlights. Two weeks is hardly a deadline that calls for panic. Give yourself a day."

The colonel glanced at the wound on Captain AB's head and added, "You do not seem to be in good condition either."

The captain could hardly refuse such consideration. Besides, he wasn't wrong.

All kinds of accidents happened at a terminal where ten tributaries merged into one. As a container not meant to stop there followed a tributary into the merging flow, someone might get caught in between and be turned into minced meat. Or a chain hook might catch someone by the nape.

Daytime was safer. Since I couldn't read the thoughts of objects, I agreed wholeheartedly.

"...Thank you for your concern."

Captain AB accepted his decision.

The colonel's gaze then turned to me.

Unlike the captain, who had kept her uniform neat all the way here, I looked like an unemployed vagrant wearing nothing but a rumpled shirt.

The colonel narrowed his thick brows.

"...Then who is this man, and why is he accompanying you on a classified operation? Is he your lover?"

Captain AB glared in response to the sudden question.

'Negative! This man is a suspect. This officer is only escorting him to Amitenggrad!'

Yet she couldn't explain that.

The duties communications officers handled and their positions were classified. That was why they had been given the nominal rank of captain.

The fact that she was a communications officer could only be disclosed through communications. If she explained the situation to the colonel here, it would become a leak of classified information.

Besides, my own charge was vague.

'...Though it is not yet a proven charge.'

They claimed I had caused the Falling Star, but if I had the ability or will to kill a general, would I obediently head to the capital with a captain?

Once the suspicion was cleared, I was just an ordinary laborer. One who could no longer work because my workplace had been "upended."

...Whew. It was fortunate Captain AB hadn't seen anything else through a golem's eyes. I should thank the regressor who had destroyed the golems ahead of time.

'I can list the suspicions, but that is beyond this officer's authority. Furthermore, it is information this officer cannot mention...!'

Captain AB was still struggling because she couldn't bring herself to speak.

When no response came, the colonel's eyes narrowed. His suspicion was turning toward me.

And she claimed she was protecting classified information. Tsk.

It couldn't be helped. I tapped the captain's shoulder and whispered, just barely loud enough for the colonel to hear.

"What are you doing? Say it already! That I'm your older brother!"

While I was at it, I might as well establish a false identity.

Captain AB's eyes grew wide as she glared at me. All kinds of thoughts spilled out through her blue eyes.

'Negative! Negative! What false report is this laborer making?! Yet denying it would also reveal classified information...! A dilemma!'

Ignoring the thoughts I heard, I pretended to be frantic and patted her shoulder.

"What are you hesitating for, Bbi? Tell him quickly! He's looking at me suspiciously...!"

'Bbi?! Who? Could it be this officer?'

Captain AB was flustered and at a loss.

"Hey!"

The colonel sternly rebuked me instead. When I startled and looked at him, he frowned and clicked his tongue.

"Tsk. The personal information of someone performing a classified operation is classified as well. Even if there is little point in hiding a family relationship, should an older sibling be so loose-lipped?"

"Uh, yes, sorry."

"What is your citizen level?"

"L-Level 1..."

'Negative! This petty criminal is actually Level 0! Even Level 1 is an impersonation!'

But Colonel Calparus couldn't read the captain's thoughts. He looked down at me, clicked his tongue loudly, and shouted, "Tsk. You are far worse than your younger sibling. You couldn't even have boarded the Meta Conveyor Belt without her! Though that explains why you cling to her so closely!"

"Y-Yes."

"Enough. Do not hold your sibling back! I am letting this pass because it is me. Anywhere else, you would have been arrested immediately!"

After sternly scolding me, the colonel waved us away. We only bowed our heads, then hurried out of the director's office.

Captain AB didn't say a word until we were shown to our assigned lodging.

The instant she opened the door and entered, she grabbed me by the collar.

Footnotes:

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