WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 272

──────

The Land of Steel and the Faceless Humans - 13

Leaving Siati where she was, I stood and spoke to the communications officer on the far side.

"You should know Captain AB and I are acquainted, so why put her forward? A hostage? Or has it been so long since you met anyone in person that you need a stand-in just to hold a conversation?"

Even with Azzy smashing through the door and charging in, Communications Officer IA stayed calm. The agitation I drew out of her lasted only a moment. Once she had fully grasped the situation, she activated her innate arcane again.

Innate Arcane: Spiderweb.

Dozens of thin, delicate threads spread out from her. They touched the nearby communications officers and wove them together.

Memories, senses, and information flowed back along those slender lines. It did not have a range as long as Captain AB's Morning Glory Vines, but at close distance it was a type of innate arcane that formed tighter links than anything else.

Connected as one with every communications officer in this module, IA rose and stepped outside.

"That is different. This is a message from us."

Even though she was stepping out of a dark room for the first time in years, IA reacted with no more than a slight narrowing of her eyes. In a dry voice no different from Captain AB's, she said,

"At this time, this module has judged that the recovery cost of your terrorist activity now overwhelmingly exceeds the cost of maintaining military-state secrecy. Therefore, we have decided to reveal our identity in order to speak with you."

"That's disappointing. The military state I know would keep a secret even if you beat them to death."

"Of course, this was not a simple decision. There were conflicts of opinion during the calculation process. Normally, conflicts of opinion never occur between synchronized communications officers, however..."

One of Captain AB's flower buds touched a thread extending from IA. Like Nabi sipping nectar, IA drew information and emotion from it, then looked at me.

"Due to Communications Officer IB's strong insistence, this module unanimously approved guiding you here."

"Oh, looks like Captain AB pulled some strings for me. She must be high-ranking, right?"

"There is no rank between communications officers. All synchronize, and all are equal. However, differences in capability do exist between individuals."

IA tapped one of Captain AB's buds with her thread. Innate arcane should be invisible to others, but communications officers seemed to share a connection far closer than ordinary people. The bud faced IA and forced itself into bloom.

"AB. She is one of the communications officers closest to the first A. Her innate arcane is invasive wide-area synchronization. Close range, long range, area, number of synchronized subjects. In every metric, she exceeds the average."

"Oh. So she used that ability to persuade you to accept me?"

This was why you needed to leave at least one line open somewhere. A political win for me, after finding Captain AB first and getting on familiar terms with her...

"Incorrect. Communications officers are many as one, and one as many. No matter how exceptional one officer's ability may be, strength has no meaning in synchronization magic. Rather, by its nature, the stronger one is, the more one loses. And she attempted resistance she could not win."

Guess not. So it was useless?

"Did Captain AB end up like that because...?"

"When her opinion was rejected, she attempted to oppose all other communications officers. But it is impossible for a single communications officer to resist a module. If her ability is powerful, that becomes even more impossible. After persistent resistance, she was stripped of the AB position and assigned to a vacant seat in an Inner Circle module, where she now serves."

Assigned, huh. That was basically a puppet.

So that was why the Morning Glory Vines had been forcing Captain AB's body to move. She had been hit by synchronization magic's backlash and bound herself.

Captain AB was now no different from a golem. It was fortunate she wasn't disposed of immediately, but... I had no idea she'd ended up like that.

"Then that's strange. If Captain AB's attempt failed, why call me?"

"...That is precisely why. Pied Piper. I do not know what method you used to contaminate her mind, but if she has suffered mental contamination, strict secrecy toward you becomes meaningless."

"You're talking about people like they're some kind of disease."

Grumbling aside, I understood IA's point. Since I already knew what communications officers were, there was no point in keeping it classified from me anymore.

"You are eroding both the inside and outside of the military state. Therefore, we demand the immediate cessation of your hostile acts."

"Hmm. Fine, let's say that's true. If this is a negotiation, your side has something to offer too, right? What are you offering?"

"First, for smooth negotiations, we wish to clearly understand your demands."

"A mere captain is going to meet our demands? Forget it. Call someone higher."

Damn. The day had come when I called a captain "mere." I'd really grown. But still, if you're facing someone who might destroy the military state, putting only a captain at the front was a bit much, wasn't it?

"Specifically?"

"Let's see. At minimum, someone from the military state's highest command level. Bring a member of Headquarters, and then we can talk."

"Headquarters? Will that be sufficient?"

"There's no one above that."

Like an impossible customer, I stubbornly demanded the person in charge. Only they could satisfy my curiosity, and everyone else's here.

But IA's response was completely unexpected.

One strand of web extending from her body trembled. IA read information from that tiny vibration, and a faint flicker of shock crossed her face. It lasted only an instant. She immediately regained composure and read out the transmitted information.

"Then speak to this officer. The qualifications are sufficient."

IA spoke aloud the military state's most hidden and secret information.

"Because Headquarters are, in truth, 'us.'"

The impact of that mention of Headquarters was huge. Siati, the princess, even Historia. Everyone's eyes widened at the unexpected truth.

"To be exact, there is no individual or organization that commands all communications officers and issues orders. However, if Headquarters refers to an entity that combines information and makes value judgments beneficial to the military state, then there is nothing but communications officers."

So IA claimed that communications officers were Headquarters. Even Historia wore a disbelieving expression at the unexpected revelation.

"The Headquarters that have run the military state all this time... were communications officers?"

"They are not orders issued at an individual communications officer's discretion. Information delivered by dispatched communications officers passes through communications officers across the military state, undergoes authenticity judgment, then is sent to modules, where simulation finds the optimal future, and the corresponding commands are spread throughout the military state. In other words, what are called Headquarters orders are the collective will of 500 communications officers, and the reason communications officers exist."

Once, I had compared communications officers to the military state's nerves. Because they transmitted orders through golems to every corner of the military state.

That comparison had been accurate in a different sense. The military state's top command was a tangled collective of countless nerves, like a human brain.

"-Therefore, if you seek the military state's leadership, your target is inevitably us. Because communications officers oversee all information, control it, and determine what is classified."

Headquarters had never appeared. Likewise, communications officers had never been seen by anyone. The military state's Headquarters appeared only as orders, like a metaphysical existence, a ghost or a god.

Yet with the confession of the communications officer standing before us, that identity was finally revealed.

"The military state really was a utopia. A nation where everyone is ordered by someone else."

From everything I'd seen while living in the military state, only innocent people lived there.

Citizens suffered under endless harsh rules. They worked like ringed oxen, fattening the military state. The soldiers who seemed to exploit them were, in fact, only following Headquarters orders.

And in the middle of it all, the ones giving orders to everyone were communications officers.

"But the communications officers who give orders to all soldiers, even to the absolute military force called the Six Generals, are mere captains. Pitiful, miserable beings locked in tiny rooms, able to communicate only through golems for their entire lives. What should we do, Siati?"

"No need to care about their circumstances!"

Siati still had not fully understood what lay behind all this, and she snapped.

"What does that matter?! They killed my friends. I swore I'd never forget them! The military state has to repent. If not by their own will, then by force!"

Imagine someone commits murder by swinging a sword. The sword has no crime. The blame falls on the one who swung it.

But the military state treated every human like a tool.

Every human was a tool. They did not act; they functioned, following someone's orders. Therefore, every human in the military state was innocent.

Even this communications officer, who looked like she was the one giving orders...

"Siati."

"What!"

"Ask her age."

"If I know, what changes?!"

"Yeah, it changes. Just trust me and do it. This is really the last one."

Still glaring at me, Siati clicked her tongue and looked at the officer before her. In a stiff uniform, with emotionless eyes fixed on her, stood someone who seemed to embody everything Siati hated about the military state.

"Fine. At least your age can go on your tombstone before you die. How old are you?"

A common sort of question in daily life, asking and judging how long someone has lived. In a way, it even looked like one more contribution to the rotten old custom of seniority.

"I am twenty-one."

Yet even that alone created a huge difference.

Twenty-one. Communications officers were children born three years after the military state was founded.

It could only be that way. Because communications officers could only be produced by suppressing and educating children in a perfectly controlled environment.

Which meant, in other words.

"Younger...?"

Siati's blazing anger could have swallowed the whole military state. Even if she lacked power, her anger alone had been that strong.

But before a younger, pale face, it could only lose direction and wander.

At the time of the Hameln Incident, these people too were likely undergoing brutal training at Communications Headquarters.

"If you're twenty-one, then the Hameln Incident?! You said you remember it...?"

"I remember it as information left by the previous-generation communications officers."

"Then where are those previous-generation communications officers?!"

"This officer does not know. Their whereabouts are classified."

But there was no way not to know. If talent this precious, practically no different from Headquarters itself, reached a state where it could no longer be used, what would the military state do?

"They're dead, one way or another."

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried