WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 271

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The Land of Steel and the Faceless Humans - 12

The princess, who came in after us, let out a small gasp at the sight inside. Tiny golems wrestling with tools made to fit their size struck that delicate, dollhouse corner of her sensibilities.

But only for a moment. Then she realized the golems were handling endless stacks of documents, and the color drained from her face. As someone leading the Resistance, she understood exactly what those papers meant.

"Is this... what Headquarters really is? All these golems are Headquarters' true form...?"

"As if. Of course there's someone controlling the golems."

Siati had none of the softness needed to admire a fairy-tale scene. All she had was hostility honed to a razor edge.

"And that person... is the real mastermind. The one who made me, and this military state, into this."

Siati's voice trembled. She was shivering at the realization that she'd finally found the treasure, or prey, she'd been hunting for so long.

Sensing danger from Siati, who looked ready to pounce at any moment, the princess cautiously tried to stop her.

"Siati. We didn't come here to start a massacre, and we only came because we're following Lord Hui during negotiations...."

"Don't be ridiculous. Do you even understand what kind of chance this is? You're really going to let this pass without digging deeper?"

Siati grabbed one of the motionless golems with her bare hand. She put enough strength into it to rip it apart on the spot, but with her fingers broken, she couldn't even snap off one finger from a steel golem.

Still, Siati wasn't disappointed. She still had her thumb left.

The black-magic finger that could break anyone, at least once.

"Headquarters needs to learn pain too. You people who decided everything in the military state like gods, you need to feel the pain of those abandoned and left to die!"

"Siati...."

"I can't let this chance go. I have to make them feel the same pain I felt. That's why I came all the way here!"

Shrugging off the princess's restraint, Siati shouted loud enough for the entire headquarters to echo.

"If you called us, then come out! You said you wanted to talk, right?! You didn't call us here just to talk through golems, did you?!"

Astonishingly, the military state, which had never answered anyone's call in its entire existence, answered Siati's.

A door opened. The second door. From the one with noticeably fewer documents piled in front of it, as if someone passed through often, she stepped out.

Siati's eyes blazed as she asked,

"So you finally show yourself. You're the commander of the military state?"

『Negative. I am not such an entity.』

She appeared in an entirely ordinary, everyday way, opening a door and walking out, and her reply was as clerical as a bored office worker with no passion for her job. In a dry voice, like she was processing assigned tasks, she answered.

Siati frowned.

"Not the commander, then. What should I call you? Supreme leader? Grand general? Or ruler?"

『Negative. The military state has no such post, and I am not in such a position either.』

"Then what are you...?"

Siati trailed off.

The military state had a rank system. Every soldier was assigned a position according to duty. Those with higher rank declared it openly and gained the right to command those below them.

The figure before us also belonged to that system. She wore a uniform with captain's insignia. But it wasn't the high-cost uniform worn by generals. It was... standard issue.

After confirming her rank, Siati asked in disbelief,

"A captain?"

Not a low rank. At that level, in any city, you could hold your head high and swagger.

But only that much. Captain was far too low a rank to be part of Headquarters, the core that ran this country.

You could fill a village with all the captains in the nation. If all of them were part of the command core running the country, this military state would have been torn apart in every direction long ago.

"Just a captain?"

Siati meant, Are you really part of Headquarters if you're only a captain? But the captain in front of us took the words literally.

『Affirmative. I am Captain IB, communications officer of the military state. I stand before you in person to deliver words to you.』

Then my eyes met the captain's. After reading her face and thoughts, I scratched my chin, puzzled.

Interesting.

People usually think through what they're going to say before they speak. The mouth is only a delivery tool; intent is formed in thought.

But this person was split in two.

'It's been a while. I hope you've been well during the days we were apart. As a communications officer, I heard all the reports. Looks like you've been just as busy as I have.'

What in the world had happened to Captain AB?

This wasn't the same as lying to hide your true feelings. People who lie rehearse the truth intensely, so truth and lie become two sides of the same coin.

She was different. What she wanted to say and what came out of her mouth were completely different. Like someone else was gripping her body and forcing it to move.

This was... closer to a golem than a person.

"No. Who you are, or what you're called, doesn't matter at all. There has only ever been one thing I wanted to ask from the start."

While I was briefly thrown off, Siati steadied herself and looked around. Scattered documents. Golems huddled together. The contents of those papers. The fact that communications officers delivered orders. The pieces linked together inside her one by one.

Was it instinct, or sharpened aggression? In an instant, Siati reached the answer.

"In the military state, every order from Headquarters is delivered through communications officers. Right?"

Captain AB nodded at Siati.

『Affirmative.』

"And this communications headquarters handles information containing state secrets from all over the country."

『Affirmative. Information processed at this headquarters carries different security levels depending on content.』

"That includes information about taboos too, doesn't it?"

『Affirmative.』

"Yeah. Of course it does."

Murmuring flatly, Siati raised her prosthetic arm with a grim expression. Click. She forcefully turned a built-in device in the arm and glared at Captain AB.

"Do you remember the incident in Hameln?"

This wasn't normal questioning. It was the last gate before branding the target. She should have denied it, but Captain AB answered with almost foolish honesty.

『Affirmative. Communications officers remember, or record, major and minor information of the military state.』

"Then you know. The ones who allowed Nicholas to use the taboo were you, right?"

『Negative.』

Siati's hand, which had been preparing something, paused for a moment. But only for a moment.

『Whether a taboo is used falls under the authority of the person in charge. Communications officers only passed along the relevant information.』

"Ha!"

That brief hesitation was gone now. Siati laughed in open scorn and glared at the captain again.

"Right. Of course. Nicholas didn't uncover that himself. Someone gave him the information, gave him the authority to decide on his own whether to use it, and when things went off script, you controlled the information and erased every record."

The captain didn't answer. Siati didn't ask for one either. She only twisted her lips into a smile.

"Right. Communications officers. So it was you. The Headquarters that sits in place, sees everything, and issues orders to countless soldiers in an instant. That was really the communications officers all along. Wasn't it?"

『...That is.』

"Don't answer. I don't care if that's wrong. Either way, you're clearly the core of the military state!"

"Siati!"

Before the princess could stop her, Siati charged, her left hand hidden inside the prosthetic arm. If her target resisted, she planned to break a finger to neutralize it and drive a blade into an empty chest.

Facing her, Captain AB stood motionless and silent. Wrapped all over in morning glory vines, unable to move, she was about to take Siati's hatred head-on.

"Stop!"

Of course I wasn't going to let that happen. I threw in a clean tackle and swept Siati's legs.

Siati fell hard and ugly. Luckily, because the floor was covered in bundles of documents, she only slid and wasn't hurt. Instead, she glared up at me with furious eyes.

"Hui!"

"I told you to stop."

"You want to spew sophistry again?! How long am I supposed to endure this?!"

"Then don't endure it. I hate enduring things too. But before you use your last finger, make full use of this chance."

"It's already enough! Communications officers are targets of my revenge too! If you're going to stop me, then-!"

Siati kicked off the ground in a sudden burst and swung at me. She must have kept up her training, because it was a sharp attack. Enough to throw her weight around as Resistance material.

But mind reading lets you handle surprise attacks like that.

Alchemic Conversion. Diamond 2. Multipurpose Hook.

By the time Siati finished muttering, my conversion was already done. I flicked a card from my fingertips. The hook bit into the papers, and at the same time I caught her foot and pushed it aside. The papers skewered on the hook yanked backward in a rush, and Siati's charging step slipped out from under her.

The moment she lost her balance, I slipped to the outside of her prosthetic and threw her down. I pinned her by gripping the back of her head against the floor, then spoke to her while she thrashed under me.

"Black magic needs to be in your line of sight, right? If you can't see it, you can't use it. So forgive me for holding your head down."

"You, urgh...!"

"Sorry. But if I'm going to grant your real wish, I can't just leave you alone."

"Even your companion said it! This place has to be smashed first! If the ones here are communications officers, then we should smash the communications officers!"

Ah, right. The regressor had said that. This place was one of the military state's core facilities. Even in all that chaos, Siati had remembered.

"Right. But smashing it the way you're thinking is useless."

I explained calmly and looked at the captain. She watched my fight with Siati without expression.

'You don't need to save me. Right now, I'm half-discarded anyway... just something to be used and then disappear.'

Still tightly wrapped in morning glory vines.

Innate arcana was a manifestation of the mind. Depending on the type, some could be seen by others and some could not. The captain's innate arcana produced no physical phenomenon, so it belonged to the invisible kind.

Morning glory vines wrapped around the captain's body. They looked like ropes binding her, or tendons moving her. Either way, vines grown from her feet coiled around her in one broad loop and bloomed beautiful buds.

The buds hanging there were... twenty-five in total. And each bud pointed at a door. The fully opened petals were receiving information and intent from someone inside.

So this was how it worked. I let out a quiet, bitter chuckle and crumpled paper in my other hand into a ball.

"Siati. You wanted revenge on the military state, right? But you've been wandering because you don't know what the military state really is."

"I'm not wandering!"

"You are. Instead of feeling rage the moment you saw the captain, you searched for reasons to be enraged, then got angry. Is that really how your wish gets fulfilled? Is that what you wanted, to plaster reasons onto someone and execute them?"

"That should be enough, shouldn't it?! What else is there?!"

"This is the answer."

I wrapped thread tightly around the paper ball and knotted it hard, making a crude toy ball. Spinning it over my head, I shouted.

"Azzy!"

"Woof?"

"Fetch!"

"Woof!"

I hurled the paper ball, and Azzy sprinted across the papers. While shredded documents scattered like snowy mist, Azzy charged straight through and caught the ball in her mouth.

By slamming her body into a door.

The military state was efficient. In a communications headquarters no one could enter without Eimeder, there was no reason to install high-level alchemic steel doors. With a crashing bang, the door tore loose, Azzy vanished inside, and a dark corridor beyond came into view.

A small room. From a cramped room with a cot and a water stand, barely large enough for one person, someone's voice leaked out.

"Ugh...!"

Siati sensed another presence and frowned.

"...An officer?"

"This is communications headquarters. Did you think there was only one communications officer?"

They're all communications officers.

The other twenty-five communications officers, possessing the innate arcana of 'synchronization,' who were moving Captain AB.

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