WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 250

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An Enemy Turned Ally

If Amitenggrad was the capital for the military state's civilians, then Inner Circle Headquarters was the capital for its soldiers.

Amitenggrad, built on the old kingdom's capital, served as a residential city. Homes, jobs, farmland. It had everything a normal city needed to support a population.

Headquarters, on the other hand, had too many disqualifying traits to be called a city. Its population was heavily skewed, and it endlessly devoured resources without distributing them elsewhere. A city built for war and nothing else.

Because of that, the military state maintained an army far larger than its size should allow.

Headquarters was packed with every military facility needed to wage war: steel mills, munitions factories, officer academies. Under soldiers' supervision, laborers kept working, and the weapons and materials produced by that labor kept piling up.

So that one day, when the time came, all that stored-up power could be unleashed on foreign nations.

At an Inner Circle Headquarters outpost, always safe from invasion because it lay at the center of the military state, one officer trembled inwardly.

The military state had never given a clear explanation, but officers heard things.

The Abyss had collapsed, the worst beings in history had been set loose, and they were approaching Headquarters to hold their jailers accountable.

His mission was to stop them from storming Headquarters.

That was all he had been told.

In other words, he knew nothing.

"Are you afraid, Lieutenant?"

A deep voice came from behind him. He had heard it in person only a handful of times, but it was a voice he could never forget. A voice he must never forget.

The lieutenant, rigid with discipline, spun around and snapped a salute.

"Loyalty!"

A general in officer's uniform stood there with his hands behind his back.

In the military state, where power meant rank, generals came from a broad range of ages. Still, since energy arts were difficult to master, even this relatively young general was already in his mid-thirties.

He spoke to the freshly commissioned young officer in a reassuring tone.

"Your shoulders are too tight. Relax. An unfired gun is the most threatening, and an un-swung sword is the sharpest. If you burn all your strength now, you'll have none left when it matters."

"I'll correct myself!"

"I'll ask again, Lieutenant. Are you afraid?"

Only then did the lieutenant remember he still hadn't answered the first question. A punishable mistake. He replied in a rush.

"I'm only a little afraid!"

"Oh? A soldier of the military state feels fear?"

"I, I'll correct myself!"

"There's no need. I'm afraid too."

After patting the lieutenant's shoulder, the general clasped his hands behind his back again and walked forward. While the lieutenant stood there, flustered by the unexpected answer, the general stared into the darkness and muttered,

"You can't predict victory or defeat before a battle starts. But whether I'll live or die, I can roughly tell. The enemy is strong, and the outer defensive unit is undermanned. No matter how harsh their training, they're still only around a standard level-three unit. Anyone can see it... we're expendable pieces."

The lieutenant looked deeply shaken by that cold truth.

Even if true, there was a difference between comrades making bitter jokes among themselves and someone of that authority stating it outright. The lieutenant repeated in a trembling voice,

"Ex, expendable pieces...?"

"Yes. You're guarding this place without knowing that fact, but if battle starts, don't expect reinforcements. Fight prepared for annihilation."

If anyone wanted to know how a discarded piece felt, they only had to read the lieutenant's heart in that moment. He lowered his head in despair, and the general spoke over him.

"Still, I can promise you this. I am your commander, and the one responsible here. At this outpost, I will meet the same end as you. Whether we live or die."

What was easier to move than a spirit that had already hit bottom? The lieutenant looked up at the general, deeply moved. For the first time in a long while, he gave a salute from the heart.

The general, who had expected exactly that, looked outward so he wouldn't show a satisfied smile.

A general was a commander.

Compared to gears, he was the axle, the critical part. Under his command, countless gears threw themselves in and ground down their flesh. The axle had to withstand that force and weight and survive to the end, so the military state treated it specially.

Even so, the first to meet the enemy was still the lieutenant commanding at the front. The axle might be important, but if the gears broke, it would only spin uselessly.

That was why the general had come to the front himself, to raise morale.

'Lieutenant or general, we're all parts anyway. The only difference is the number.'

The general recited that to himself in dry self-mockery. Still, it was only a calm assessment of his position, not resentment.

By the time someone reached general rank, they knew many things. That they were only a game piece was one of them. Perhaps even that knowledge was a blessing. Most soldiers never learned what kind of part they were. They just did what they were told.

Only someone who climbed high could realize how insignificant he was. Only at general rank, as an axle connected to the center, could one grasp his own place.

'Even so, it's better than the kingdom, isn't it. Better than that horrible nation where everyone watched each other for weakness and went mad for duels the moment they found it.'

Then another thought struck him.

The lieutenant, newly graduated and commissioned, was young. He had lived in the kingdom only a few years after birth. One of that "fortunate generation" that barely remembered it.

But for those who didn't remember the kingdom...

What did the military state look like to them?

'I wouldn't know. Not unless I could read minds.'

Just as he muttered that and cast his gaze outward,

the searchlights swinging left and right caught something. Five beams reached into the dark and lit up the distance. They had clearly found a moving shape.

The general raised his hand.

"They're coming."

The waiting soldiers, all tightly wound with tension, aimed their weapons forward. Cannons and machine guns turned their muzzles toward the darkness. They were soldiers of the military state. None ran in the face of fear.

He heard someone swallow through a dry throat.

It came from his own body.

The general gave a hollow laugh.

'I've risen to general rank, and I'm still tense before an opponent above my class. Hah. Junior officer or general, no different.'

With a scoff, he slotted a weapon packet into his biometric terminal. Thin alchemic steel wrapped around his whole body at once. It was Iron Scale Armor, defensive general-grade gear made specifically for him, a man who mainly used daggers.

The shorter your weapon's reach, the more you needed armor that could save your life in a single moment. Feeling the security of that slightly stifling armor, he raised a fang-sharp dagger.

The rattling sound drew closer and closer. The target was still invisible, perhaps because it was cloaked in darkness. But from the area the searchlights were sweeping, it was clearly close.

'Wait. Darkness? I was told to be careful because searchlights couldn't see through...'

As he jerked his head up, recalling what the communications officer had relayed,

what arrived before them with that rattling sound was... a motor carriage that looked like it had rolled five times before getting here.

Its smashed frame was one thing, but compared to the inside, the exterior was almost intact. The interior looked as if someone had grabbed and twisted it with one hand, broken and warped everywhere.

But more important than anything else:

the inside of the motor carriage was empty.

After inspecting it, the general raised his hand and shouted,

"It's a decoy! The enemy already infiltrated under cover of night! Relay this to the communications officer!"

"Yes, sir!"

Watching the lieutenant sprint toward the communication golem, the general let out a quiet sigh.

He realized much later that it had been a sigh of relief.

At least once in life, you feel like tearing your country apart. People curse their rulers behind closed doors, but the military state had no king, so my grumbling had nowhere to go except the military state itself.

What, I should just never curse? Sometimes life gives you things too hard to endure unless you pour your resentment somewhere. That's part of becoming an adult.

I had been a model citizen, but even I used to soothe my gloom by cursing, "I hope this damned military state collapses," whenever things stopped going my way.

Of course it was a joke. A normal individual can't destroy a nation, and what can never be achieved naturally becomes a joke. For me, wishing for the military state's collapse had always stayed in that territory.

But now,

I was with someone who could truly destroy the military state.

At the motor carriage assembly plant near Headquarters,

"Military-state warfare is mobile warfare. Communications officers, motor carriages, command structure. Those three let execution speed catch up to order transmission speed. Motor carriages are essential to that."

With burning, collapsing production lines behind her, Historia stepped out and held out her hand. Blazing fire lit the tip of the mana herb cigarette between her fingers.

Her face half in shadow, cigarette at her lips, she explained in a flat voice.

"This assembly line isn't easy to restore. No matter how many parts they have, they're just chunks of metal until they go through assembly. Destroy the assembly process itself and the factory is paralyzed. Unless someone at Director Maximilien's level is around, it'll take five engineer battalions to restore this."

A nearly completed motor carriage caught her eye. She kicked it hard to the side. The door, stamped with her military boot print, snapped back, and the carriage screeched, slid sideways, slammed into a wall, and shattered.

"Without this place, Headquarters' troop operations will suffer."

After taking care of the last one, Historia walked on, her boots clicking.

Historia had stood at the highest position in the military state and knew it better than anyone. When she carried out destruction herself with that power and knowledge, fragile steel machinery couldn't withstand it. Before her systematic violence, soft alchemic steel bent, snapped, and was crushed. In the face of alchemy (physical), nothing kept its original shape.

Leaving the factory blazing like a giant torch behind them, Historia stepped out through the door.

The regressor, who had helped with the destruction beside her, replied with a sour expression.

"I'm telling you, this means nothing. It's just delay tactics. Motor carriages? The communications officers will scrape replacements from somewhere else no matter what. Unless we do something about the communications officers."

"We can't do anything about the communications officers. Even I, one of the Six Generals, don't know where they work. Honestly, maybe no one in the military state knows except those officers themselves."

Historia didn't sound particularly regretful about not knowing. The regressor asked, testing her.

"You seem oddly fixated on communications officers for someone who doesn't know. Don't tell me you know something."

"...I don't. That's why I care."

Historia exhaled smoke and muttered,

"They definitely exist, but I've never seen them with my own eyes. Most people don't understand how horrifying that is... captains aren't in any better position, either."

They existed, but no one saw them. That meant they were hidden somewhere, or living without revealing who they were.

She didn't know they stayed in windowless rooms and spoke only through golems, but Historia had inferred something close.

"Of course, like you said, hitting communications headquarters would disrupt them. If that headquarters falls, the amount of information they can transmit drops sharply."

"Exactly! That's what we should hit first!"

"We need this step first for that. You can't wage war after losing all your major facilities. The military state will definitely dispatch elite troops from Headquarters... and then we raid the emptied Headquarters."

At first glance, it sounded reasonable. But the regressor had seen enough in life to catch the intent hidden in Historia's proposal.

"You're using bait because you want to avoid combat, right?"

From changing course to hit the motor carriage plant, to obsessively targeting only facilities, Historia was openly avoiding direct battle.

"Hmph. What a great pacifist."

"Maybe I caught it from a brat trying to stop a war."

The regressor had no reply. She shot Historia a sharp look. Historia didn't look away.

They glared at each other for a moment, then both turned away in irritation. The regressor asked,

"Where's that guy?"

"If you mean Hui, he went to gather the laborers."

"Why?"

Spitting out the burned mana herb butt, Historia muttered, shaking her head.

"Probably planning another trick."

The military state had a joke: its factories had only gears.

Of course factories needed workers. No matter how precise a gear was, it had no flexibility. For tasks that required adapting to all kinds of situations, using people in some places was simply more rational.

Then why say there were only gears?

Because people worked as parts of those gears.

In narrow spaces where gears squealed and half-assembled motor carriages flowed along belts, people crawled between interlocking teeth where one wrong stretch could shear off their limbs. Human heartbeats all differed, but a factory's heartbeat was fixed for everyone. Tick, tick, in darkness where everything meshed to the same rhythm. Laborers had to lie down or crouch in assigned spots and fit each part passed along the gears at exactly the right time.

Miss once, and you got penalty points. Everyone worked to the same beat, so one person's small mistake delayed the whole line. With supervisors roaring at them and the next laborer watching with cold eyes, they had to correct it immediately.

Because it was this harsh, the military state sent only convicted criminals to Inner Circle labor camps.

Because it forced this level of labor, Inner Circle camps boasted the highest output.

While gathering survivors, I read thoughts from a corner and walked over. People were hiding in one section of the machinery. I approached with loud footsteps and stuck my head over them.

"Eek!"

"Come on, come on! Everyone out! I told you all to come out, so why are your mouths clamped shut?"

When I urged them, the laborers came out sniffling. After years of obeying military-state orders exactly as given, they didn't even have the seed of rebellion left.

I herded the crawling people into one corner. About two hundred from the night shift, still running this factory even now. I launched into a speech at the terrified, cowering crowd.

"...Looks like you still don't get it."

I flung both arms toward the hangar. About two hundred motor carriages, not yet shipped out, stood there waiting for owners.

"I'm giving every one of you one motor carriage for free, okay? No conditions! Wow, don't miss this chance to grab a motor carriage you'd normally only own after working until you die, then getting revived as a vampire and working another thirty years!"

A few laborers looked tempted. A few looked suspicious of my motives.

But most were too terrified, ears shut, waiting for me to leave.

"Just leave us alone...."

Most Inner Circle laborers were criminals.

I hope you don't see all criminals as evil. In the military state, ruled by strict law, "criminal" was a broad label for anyone who wasn't a model citizen.

People who stole goods, people who hit their neighbors, people who scammed money, people who killed through negligence, people who worked in smuggling, people who resented the military state and tried to join the Resistance only to be trapped.

Once, they had been bold enough to ignore the law itself. Now they were obedient laborers, huddled and passively waiting for judgment.

"So I'm offering you a chance to throw all of that away right now! Motor carriages are right in front of you, and the troops who oppressed and imprisoned you have all fled! Come on, what you've lost is chains, and what you've gained is the freedom to roam this world! Start a new life with a motor carriage!"

"...What if we get caught while running?"

Someone muttered the worst-case scenario. Once one person started, murmurs poured out like a broken dam.

"They'll drag us farther inside. We, we'll all die."

"We might get turned into raw materials... n, no. Not deeper in."

"This is unfair. You're the ones who attacked.... We missed quota because of you."

Now the blame turned toward us. Fear of the future polished the past.

We were doing fine, then you showed up out of nowhere. If not for you, tomorrow would've been the same as yesterday.

They committed crimes and were dragged here. They saw people who resisted end up in even worse conditions and were terrified. They threw away their pride and submitted to the military state.

The military state's most exemplary success in criminal re-education. The true success case of its rehabilitation project.

Living gears forged by crushing human dignity.

But we couldn't leave them here. Historia and the regressor had only smashed facilities, but these people were the factory's real core components. As long as they remained, restoration would go faster.

So if we wanted to break this place for good,

I gave a small fake cough, then started speaking with words to persuade them.

"Everyone, did you know this?"

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