WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 270: The Land of Steel and the Faceless Humans - 11

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Headquarters was bustling in preparation for battle. Alongside its usual war preparations, it also had to respond to the hostile entity that had advanced as far as the Alchemy Steel Foundry. Even in the middle of the night, the entire base buzzed like a beehive stirred up by a bear.

What gave them the greatest headache, in particular, was the escaped laborers.

The laborers I had released caused plenty of chaos. Unidentified laborers openly wandering through the operational zone made the communications officers and staff officers scream internally. It would have been easier if they had simply killed them all, but there were too many, and some were foundry laborers who would be difficult to replace.

In the middle of all that, a military automatic carriage arrived at the entrance. The soldiers asked for the password, and a pale pink-haired girl in a female officer's uniform answered before stepping out of the carriage.

The princess, clad in a stiff uniform, moved as stiffly as the clothes she wore. The epaulets denoting her rank and the medals pinned to her chest both looked terribly unnatural on her. With her round, gentle features and soft pale pink hair, she gave off an indescribably strange impression in that uniform.

The princess saluted with rigid tension.

"Sa, salute. Lieutenant Natalia of the Public Safety Bureau! I'm carrying out a top-secret mission!"

She stuttered, and her salute was clumsy. She looked like a child desperately trying to imitate an adult, awkward enough that even a guard could have detained her with only a slight pang of guilt.

Still, the officer couldn't bring themself to do so. After checking her epaulets and confirming her identity, the officer narrowed their eyes.

"The Public Safety Bureau... You have an alchemical seal, I assume?"

"Y-yes, right here."

"Check, Li... Hmm. Verification complete, Lieutenant. This is simply my duty, so don't take offense..."

First, the fact that she belonged to the Public Safety Bureau, an organization said to be capable of bringing down even stars from the sky, weakened the officer's resolve.

"We're not trying to uncover classified information... These procedures are unavoidable in a near-war situation... Where are you headed, Lieutenant, and who are those riding behind you?"

"They're laborers who came into contact with the hostile entity. Director Zikhrund ordered that they be transferred to the Public Safety Bureau for more detailed interrogation!"

"The Director ordered it...?"

The second factor was that she was a descendant of the Grandiomor royal family.

Even looking at her face, the officer couldn't find her particularly suspicious or dangerous. Suspicion begins with hostility toward the unfamiliar. The royal family's authority erased even such trivial doubts.

The authority of a lord that had begun in ancient times, not the strongest but the one that had survived the longest, showed itself even in small matters like this.

"Sorry to take up your time. You may pass. Next... Hey! Stop! State your affiliation before entering!"

That was how we passed through safely. The princess was about to bow deeply, then hurriedly changed it into a salute and scrambled back into the automatic carriage.

The soldiers stepped aside, and the military automatic carriage slowly headed deeper into the base. The princess sat down, pressing a hand to her chest.

I welcomed her warmly from behind the wheel.

"Excellent work! That was perfect!"

Sweating profusely, the princess took off her hat and let out a deep sigh.

"Phew... I thought my heart was going to burst...."

"You fooled that notoriously strict military state officer so easily. Not bad at all. I'll be counting on you again!"

"No... I can't do that. It only worked because he didn't suspect me much...."

"Of course he didn't. We had the Public Safety Bureau's alchemical seal Hilde left behind. And we had Your Highness's ability."

And the password I learned by reading thoughts. By procedure alone, there was no reason for us to be caught.

Of course, that wasn't all.

"But that can't have been the whole reason. Headquarters must have intended for us to pass safely."

"Headquarters intended it? You mean they deliberately overlooked us?"

"Yes. If a communications officer announced that a hostile entity was headed for headquarters and warned every officer about our descriptions, we would've been caught somehow."

If Tyr and the regressor had been with us, the response wouldn't have been this lukewarm. The two were too famous, and the military state would have prepared warnings and countermeasures in advance because it feared their power.

We were different. Historia was powerful, of course, but her strength was within the bounds of an individual. Until just a few days ago, she had also been a loyal soldier of the military state. If headquarters knew what had happened in Hamelin, it would know that Historia wasn't driven by hatred for the military state. She was simply following Siati and me.

I couldn't know exactly how they would respond, but I knew the military state's ideology well.

The military state was rational.

This wasn't a war between nations. The country was being thrown into turmoil by the attack of a handful of dissident individuals. With Historia having joined our side and Hilde now removed from its forces, the military state was weaker than ever.

If they had no reason to meet us, we could give them one. As expected, even if I wanted to settle this with words, I had to begin with strength.

As I headed down roads with as few people as possible, I warned everyone to watch what they said.

"All right. We're heading in the right direction, but stay alert. This is military state headquarters. Generals you'd rarely see outside are everywhere here. One of the Six Generals might pop out from anywhere, so be caref..."

『Observation control complete. Manifestation rate: 97.4%.』

"Speak of the tiger, and it comes. It thinks it's a tiger."

In the darkness, a cluster of light gathered into a single point. Holy radiance brighter than headquarters' dim headlights took on a human shape. It looked like a shadow made of light.

A helmet pulled low, a body whose size was difficult to judge because it shone so brightly, and a thin, long sword of light.

Heavenly Link Eimeder, the military state's guardian angel.

And perhaps... a being that was the very incarnation of headquarters itself.

"Everyone, get back!"

Historia sensed its presence before anyone else. She turned to face it, ready in case Eimeder attacked us.

Eimeder didn't point its sword of light at us. Instead, it simply stared.

A black mouth opened on its dazzling face.

『I will guide you. Follow me.』

Then, without another word, it began gliding over the ground as though we would naturally follow.

The angel apparently didn't understand the human heart. We had been taught since childhood not to follow strangers, so we refused Eimeder's instruction.

Historia asked sharply, "Guide us? Where?"

Eimeder's body creaked to a stop. It seemed not to have expected our reaction. The pure white angel turned back toward us and conveyed its intent again.

『Did you not come here to negotiate?』

"Negotiation isn't quite the word. A conversation?"

『I will accept. However, this body lacks sufficient means of communication. Therefore.』

Its concise manner of speaking, meant only to convey information, and a body that could be replaced at any time. The more I thought about it, the more it resembled a communications officer.

And if it resembled one, there had to be a reason. My speculation was steadily solidifying into certainty.

"So, you're guiding us to the meeting place. I like how straightforward that is. Let's go."

『Since you have accepted, I will guide you again. Follow me.』

Eimeder turned and headed elsewhere.

Until now, Eimeder had been closer to a monster that swung its sword without discussion. It had no trace of life, no mercy in its hands, and strength enough to contend with Tyr, if only briefly. It felt deeply strange to see such a monstrous angel calmly appear and lead us somewhere. The princess, Siati, and Historia exchanged helpless glances.

Only one beast was an exception.

"Meow...."

Nabi, her eyes shining as she stalked behind Eimeder.

What was that lunatic doing? She was going to ruin the talks before they even began. Stop her right... No, it would be dangerous if I grabbed her.

"Azzy, grab her! Hold her tight so she can't move!"

"Woof!"

"Myaahah!"

It wasn't time yet, not yet. We brought her along in case they attacked us, but still!

With Nabi struggling in the back seat, we drove the automatic carriage after the angel.

The angel gliding over the ground was remarkably fast and nimble. Perhaps because it was made of light, it seemed to have no concept of inertia, changing direction while maintaining its speed. If we took our eyes off it for even a moment, it felt as though it would disappear from sight.

We hurried after it, passing an arsenal piled high with shells, turning right at containers full of food supplies, and making a wide circuit around the outer area where engineering corps equipment was stacked everywhere. The sight of an angel, symbol of holiness, striding through a land full of steel and concrete was like two mismatched pictures forced together.

"...Something is strange."

As we continued on, the princess suddenly looked around and murmured.

"Why... is there nobody in the headquarters base?"

It felt as though half a day had passed, but we had only followed Eimeder for a little over ten minutes.

Yet this was headquarters. It was the military capital where most of the military state's forces were stationed, a place said to have more officers than pebbles underfoot.

That also meant it was managed so thoroughly that even a loose pebble would be hard to find. No matter how well we were disguised, we couldn't have moved through this place so easily...

Unless someone had planned it.

I glanced around.

"It seems they don't want to be seen meeting with us. They're clearing people away. Listen. Even just over there, you can hear soldiers busily working, can't you?"

"Why? We're only a small group. Wouldn't it be better for them to gather a large force and pressure us?"

"Not necessarily. Right now, the military state is about to negotiate with terrorists. From the country's perspective, showing an ordinary soldier the humiliating negotiation process could lower morale."

The military state was rational, but it didn't believe every person was. That was why it restricted information and controlled actions, whether the person was an officer or a general.

The princess accepted that, then thought of another question.

"How could they clear people away so precisely along the route we're taking?"

"They must be using the communications officers."

Historia answered.

"Soldiers absolutely obey headquarters' orders, and communications officers relay headquarters' orders. They're probably giving instructions one by one to every soldier approaching this route, telling them not to come this way."

"Ah, right. There were communications officers.... Then are the communications officers headquarters?"

"Just because priests deliver the words of a god doesn't mean the god is merely a priest."

"But headquarters isn't a god, is it? Someone could seize control of the communications officers, or the communications officers could distort headquarters' intentions out of greed. Why does nobody suspect that?"

It was a question that struck exactly at the blind spot. Historia had an answer.

"Communications officers don't do that. No, they can't. They don't exist."

"What? Of course communications officers exist."

"Nobody has ever seen them. There are people who claim to have guided communications officers when they were dispatched on occasion, but no one knows where they are or what they do. What greed could people who never even appear before others possibly have?"

There were too many cases of priests being corrupted to count. Priests interacted with believers every day, extracting faith and offerings from them. If they wanted to indulge their greed, there were endless ways for them to do harm.

Communications officers, on the other hand, made contact with no one. In a world wholly isolated from the human realm, they communicated only in limited ways through golems.

At this point, they weren't priests at all. They were simply the god's heralds. Tools whose sole purpose was to deliver its voice.

"No one knows what communications officers do? Not even you, Gunslinger, one of the Six Generals?"

At the princess's question, Historia hesitated briefly before replying.

"...Yes. Not even I, one of the Six Generals."

Perhaps suddenly feeling ill at ease, Historia sharply turned her head and fell silent.

'Yes. I know nothing. I served the military state to help a friend, but I understand neither my friend nor the military state. Am I... just a useful tool, exploited without knowing anything?'

Historia, who had once belonged to headquarters, quietly watched the passing scenery with doubt in her heart.

The automatic carriage rolled onward through an uncomfortable silence.

『We have arrived.』

At last, Eimeder stopped beneath a huge wall.

It was a smooth wall without seams. There were no windows, no doors, not even a small ventilation shaft. It looked more like a box than a building.

I had seen something similar before. When Tantalus overturned the ground, a dented little steel box had burst out from underground. This looked much the same, except it was several times larger.

Eimeder raised its white sword and thrust it into the wall without hesitation.

Historia silently watched Eimeder.

'There was a gap. A very slight one. It put its blade into it without even a hair's breadth of error.'

My impression that there were no seams had been wrong. A pure white sword slipped into a tiny crack too narrow to see. To me, it looked as though the sword had pierced straight through the wall, but Historia's sharp eyes had noticed the gap.

Thanks to reading her thoughts, I learned the truth as well. Whew. That would have been embarrassing if I'd pretended to know.

"It's, it's cutting through the wall! A steel wall, as easily as cutting tofu!"

Ahem. Here was someone else who couldn't see very well. Tsk, tsk. Let me open your ignorant eyes.

"There's a tiny gap in the wall. It inserted the sword of light through that gap."

"What? A gap? Ah, I think I can see it...?"

There was only one reason to insert a sword into the gap of a box. To force open the door.

Historia had only noticed the gap, but I had broken into enough safes to roughly predict this building's structure.

"A gap so narrow that only something like light can slip into it. There's probably a latch there. It'll use that sword of light to release the latch inside and open the door."

Just as I said, Eimeder raised the sword it had thrust into the gap. Something came loose with a click.

Immediately afterward, light poured out through the tiny gap in the wall.

Krrrrrk.

The tightly sealed wall split apart. The sound of interlocking gears turning echoed through it, and a square door slid inward.

Having served its role as a key, Eimeder stood still. Without even the slightest movement that a living thing must have, it looked like an inanimate object that had guarded that spot for centuries.

Right. Eimeder was the key. A windowless room that could never be entered without breaking it. I had wondered how the communications officers got in and locked the place....

"And there can't be another being besides Eimeder that uses a sword made of light. A door that only Eimeder, the military state's angel, can open. What do you think that means?"

"It means the people inside are the ones who summon or control Eimeder...?"

Correct. I told you the princess was worth asking questions.

Eimeder spoke in its resonant voice.

『Enter.』

"Can all of us go in?"

『It does not matter.』

Then, as though it were the door itself, it turned its body sideways to leave us room to pass. I sent Nabi, who was still reaching for Eimeder, in first along with Azzy, who had Nabi tightly wrapped in both arms. Then I gestured to the princess and Siati.

After sending in the two beasts who might cause trouble at any moment, I strode inside as well. One of the military state's greatest secrets was willingly showing me its interior.

Having passed through the narrow opening, I found myself facing a bizarre space.

A huge round table was covered in paper. Countless sheets lay scattered across it, and every wall looked as though books had been torn apart and used as wallpaper. Tiny writing filled the room, and every document contained classified military state information.

Piles of documents. Countless pieces of information within them. By themselves, they were a disorderly string of words, but in the eyes of someone with the relevant knowledge, they held tremendous value.

And the beings that created that value were...

『Call A. Request adjustment to supply quantities due to the destruction of the Alchemy Steel Foundry.』

『Inventory: 89,400 units. Estimated duration: 38 days. Inventory will be fully depleted afterward.』

『Required production increase: 3,200. Probability of achieving it under current conditions: 0.72%.』

『A value judgment is required. Add it to the meeting agenda.』

Dozens of communications golems.

It felt like I had entered a toy country. Was it to make the most efficient use of space? Every magic golem here was small or miniature. Some were the size of a palm, and even the largest didn't reach my waist.

Small magic golems of all kinds bustled about in every direction, reading and transcribing writing. Some skillfully moved their fingers to write, some pecked away one key at a time on golem-sized typewriters, and others pressed their heads to loudspeakers and shouted something into them. None of the golems resembled humans, which only made them feel more like charming storybook toys.

Nabi spotted the toys and tried to pounce, but Azzy desperately held her back. Right. We needed two Beast Kings. Nabi to stir up trouble, and Azzy to restrain Nabi when she got excited.

While the two beasts rolled around on the floor, I found doors in the wall on the far side.

Steel doors stood at equal intervals. The spacing was narrow. If I stretched out both arms, I could touch one door and the next. There was one, two... twenty-six.

They clearly didn't use the doors often. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so much paper piled in front of them.

I read the words written on the small plaque above the row of doors.

『Communications Headquarters directly under Inner Circle Headquarters. Module I.』

Footnotes:

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