WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 271: The Land of Steel and the Faceless Humans - 12

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The princess, who entered after us, let out a small gasp at the sight inside. The tiny golems struggling with equipment made to fit their size appealed to her fondness for cute things.

That only lasted a moment. Once she realized the golems were handling countless documents, the princess's expression changed. As someone leading the Resistance, she understood what those papers represented.

"Is this what headquarters really is? Countless golems are the true form of headquarters...?"

"Of course not. Someone must be controlling the golems."

Siati did not have the sensibility to be charmed by a fairy-tale sight. All she had was hostility sharpened to a razor's edge.

"And that person... is the real one behind it all. The one who made me, who made this military state what it is."

Her voice trembled. She shivered at the thought of finding the treasure, or prey, she had spent so long searching for.

The princess sensed the danger in Siati, who looked ready to charge at any moment, and cautiously tried to stop her.

"Siati, we didn't come here to start a bloodbath. We came to support Hui's negotiations first..."

"Don't be ridiculous. Do you know what kind of opportunity this is? Are you really going to leave without digging any deeper?"

Siati grabbed one of the motionless golems with her bare hand. She squeezed as if she wanted to tear it apart immediately, but with her fingers broken, she could not even break one of a steel golem's fingers.

Siati was not disappointed. She still had her thumb.

The finger of black magic, capable of breaking anyone.

"Headquarters needs to know pain too. You people who decided everything in the military state as if you were gods need to know the pain of those abandoned to die!"

"Siati..."

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

Ignoring the princess's attempts to restrain her, Siati shouted loudly enough for the entire headquarters to hear.

"You called us, so come out! You said you wanted to talk, didn't you?! Don't tell me you summoned us here to talk through golems!"

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

A door opened. The second door. A woman stepped out of the doorway with noticeably fewer papers piled before it, as though someone came and went through it often.

Siati's eyes widened.

"You finally showed yourself. Are you the military state's commander?"

『Negative. This officer is no such person.』

She had appeared in an ordinary, everyday way, simply by opening a door and walking out. Yet her reply was as businesslike as a clerk with no passion for her work. She answered in a flat voice, as though processing an assigned task.

Siati frowned.

"Not the commander. Then what should I call you? Führer? Grand General? Or commander-in-chief?"

『Negative. The military state has no such positions, nor does this officer hold such a rank.』

"Then what are you...?"

Siati trailed off.

The military state had a rank system. Every soldier received a position according to their assigned duty. Those of higher rank made their position known to all and gained the authority to command those beneath them.

The person before us was also part of the military state's system. She wore a uniform with a captain's insignia. It was not the costly uniform worn by generals, though... just an ordinary uniform.

After confirming her rank, Siati asked in disbelief.

"A captain?"

It was not a low rank. A captain could strut through any city with her head held high.

Yet that was all. Captain was far too low a rank for someone who belonged to the headquarters that controlled this country.

There were likely enough captains across the nation to fill an entire village. If all of them were members of the headquarters that ran the country, the military state would have been pulled apart in every direction.

"You're only a captain?"

Siati meant to ask whether someone who was merely a captain could truly be part of headquarters. The captain before us took her words literally.

『Affirmative. This officer is Captain IB, a military state communications officer. This officer has appeared before you in person to convey a message.』

Then my eyes met the captain's. I checked her face and read her thoughts, scratching my chin at the strange feeling that followed.

How odd.

People normally thought about what they wanted to say before saying it. The mouth was only a means of delivery. Their intent was already formed in their thoughts.

But the woman before me was different.

'It's been a while. I hope you've been well during the days we were apart. As a communications officer, I heard all about it. It seems you've been as busy as I have.'

What had happened to Captain AB?

This was different from lying to hide one's true feelings. Those who intended to lie strongly recalled the truth, so truth and falsehood were like two sides of the same coin.

The woman before me was different. What she wanted to say and what came out of her mouth were completely separate. As though someone had seized her body and forced it to move.

She was closer to a golem than a person.

"No. It doesn't matter who you are or what you're called. There was only one thing I wanted to ask from the beginning."

While I was briefly confused, Siati steadied herself and looked around. Scattered documents. Golems gathered in little clusters among them. The contents of the documents, and the fact that communications officers delivered orders. Information steadily came together in Siati's mind.

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

"Every order issued by headquarters in the military state is conveyed through communications officers. Isn't that right?"

Captain AB nodded at Siati.

『Affirmative.』

"This communications headquarters handles information containing classified details from all over the military state."

『Affirmative. The information processed at this headquarters has different security levels depending on its content.』

"Then it must have information about taboos too."

『Affirmative.』

"Right. I thought so."

Siati muttered calmly and raised her prosthetic arm ominously. Click. As she forcefully turned the mechanism built into it, Siati glared at Captain AB.

"Do you remember what happened in Hamelin?"

This was not a normal interrogation. It was the final step before branding her target. This was the moment to deny it, but Captain AB answered with foolish honesty.

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

"Then you know. You people gave Nicholas permission to use a taboo, didn't you?"

『Negative.』

Siati's hand, which had been preparing something, stopped for a moment. Only for a moment.

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

"Ha!"

Her hesitation had now fully turned into hostility. Siati sneered and glared at the captain again.

"Right. Of course. Nicholas wouldn't have found out himself. Someone gave him that information, gave him the authority to decide for himself and use it, then controlled the information and erased every record when something unexpected happened."

The captain did not answer. Siati did not demand one. She only twisted her lips into a smile.

"Right. Communications officers. It was you. The headquarters that understands everything from where it sits and issues orders to countless soldiers at once. That was really the communications officers, wasn't it?"

『...That is...』

"Don't answer. It doesn't matter if it isn't. Either way, you're clearly at the heart of the military state!"

"Siati!"

Before the princess had a chance to stop her, Siati hid her left hand inside her prosthetic arm and charged. If Captain AB resisted, Siati intended to break her own finger to incapacitate the captain, then drive a blade into the captain's exposed chest.

Captain AB stood silently before her. Wrapped all over in morning-glory vines and unable to move, she was about to receive Siati's hatred head-on.

"Stop!"

Of course, I didn't leave it at that. I swept Siati's legs out from under her with a spectacular tackle.

Siati fell in an undignified heap. Fortunately, the piles of documents made her slide across the floor rather than get hurt. She glared at me with furious eyes instead.

"Hui!"

"I said stop."

"Are you going to start spouting sophistry again?! How much longer am I supposed to endure this?!"

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

"There's already enough! Communications officers are targets of my revenge too! If you mean to stop me..."

Siati suddenly kicked off the floor and swung a fist at me. She must have trained consistently, because it was a fairly sharp attack. Sharp enough for someone who called herself Resistance.

But mind reading let me deal with sudden attacks like this.

Alchemy Conversion. Diamond 2. Multipurpose Hook.

The conversion was already complete while Siati was talking. I flicked the card from my fingertips. As the hook dug into the papers, I caught it with my toe and swept it sideways. The papers impaled on the hook dragged across the floor, making Siati's foot slip as she charged.

As Siati lost her balance, I slipped around the outside of her prosthetic arm and knocked her down. I firmly gripped the back of her head against the floor, pinning her as she struggled, then spoke to her back.

"You need to have your target in sight to use black magic, right? You can't use it if you can't see them. So forgive me for holding down the back of your head."

"You, ugh...!"

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

"Your companion said it too! That this place should be the first thing we destroy! If the people here are communications officers, then we need to destroy the communications officers!"

Ah, the regressor had said this was one of the military state's core facilities. Even amidst all that chaos, Siati had remembered it.

"That's right. But destroying it the way you have in mind won't accomplish anything."

I explained calmly as I looked at the captain. She watched the fight between Siati and me without expression.

'You don't need to save me. In any case, I am a being who has been half abandoned... I will be used like this and disappear.'

Wrapped tightly in morning-glory vines.

Innate arcane was an embodiment of one's inner self. Depending on the type, some could be seen by others while some could not. The captain's innate arcane did not produce a physical phenomenon, so it was the invisible kind.

Morning-glory vines wrapped around the captain's body. They looked like ropes binding her body, or tendons moving it. In any case, the vines had grown from beneath her feet, wrapped around her in a great circle, and bloomed into beautiful flower buds.

There were twenty-five buds in all... and every single one pointed toward a door. The opened petals were receiving information and intent from someone inside.

So this was how it worked. I snorted to myself and crumpled a sheet of paper in my free hand, rolling it into a ball.

"Siati. You wanted revenge against 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. Rather than feeling anger when you saw the captain, you searched for reasons to be angry, then became angry. Can your wish be fulfilled that way? Is what you want to pile up reasons why you should be angry, then execute someone?"

"That should be enough! What more is there to do?!"

"This is the answer."

I wrapped the crumpled paper tightly with string, making a simple ball. Spinning it over my head, I shouted.

"Azzy!"

"Woof?"

"Fetch!"

"Woof!"

I hurled the paper ball, and Azzy raced over the papers. Shredded documents scattered like a snowstorm as Azzy charged forward and caught the ball in her mouth.

By ramming the door with her body.

The military state was efficient. There was no need to make the doors of a communications headquarters that no one could enter without Eimeder out of high-grade alchemic steel. The door ripped off with a crash, Azzy's figure vanished inside, and a dark hallway appeared beyond it.

A small room. From a cramped space that could barely fit one person, with a simple bed and a water station, someone's voice leaked out.

"Ugh...!"

Siati sensed another presence and frowned.

"...An officer?"

"This is a communications headquarters. Did you think there would only be one communications officer?"

They were all communications officers.

The other twenty-five communications officers, who possessed the innate arcane of Synchronization and were controlling Captain AB.

Footnotes:

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