WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 288

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The Blessed Nation, the Cursed Human - 11

"Why, Captain AB?"

I felt a faint resistance from Captain AB. Strange. No matter what I had done so far, she had never shown me anything like that before.

"You. If things proceed as you intend, what will happen to the other communications officers?"

"They'll find freedom, like you did, Captain AB."

I said it casually, but Captain AB took it as anything but casual. She spoke earnestly.

"This officer has heard that your plan looks as if... you are abandoning the communications officers."

"Abandoning? Who's abandoning who? Communications officers have better specs than I do. You've had officer training, you can use innate arcane, and you're even the real power controlling the military state from behind."

"That is exactly why. The strategic value of communications officers is extremely high. They know a great deal of military-state secrets, and they have access rights to many military-state facilities. If you expose what communications officers really are and cause chaos, communications officers will be the first placed in danger."

She was right. If they were enemies of the military state, they'd target the communications officers first. They'd need intelligence, and they'd need to cripple the military state's communications network.

What if they were on the military state's side? Loyalists? Would they protect the communications officers? Probably not.

Once they learned that mere communications officers had been giving them orders this whole time, could they keep accepting that? Not easily, whether logically or emotionally. They might even try to eliminate the communications officers.

I nodded.

"You have a point, Captain AB."

"Then..."

"But I still don't see any reason I should care."

Captain AB stopped breathing for a second. I kept Yuel bound and continued.

"Communications officers are the military state's absolution. Their whole lives are stripped away and they're used like tools, so no one can hold them responsible. No, people don't even know in the first place. Because of that, the military state is clearly a nation made by humans, but it's turning into something beyond humans. A nation that rules over the human species."

Until now, kingdoms had been ruled by kings. There had been plenty of historical debate about how power should be divided between king and state, but a king was still human. Humans had always been ruled by humans.

But the military state was ruled by no one.

"And the communications officers' situation stands out the most. You have access rights to all kinds of military-state facilities, yet you rot away in rooms where not even a drop of hot water comes out. Because communications officers live like that, all humans are ruled by a military state that doesn't even truly exist! If they're going to be used up in dark rooms and die, isn't it better to walk the ground on their own feet and die that way instead?"

"...Affirmative. This officer also believes that is better. This officer knows what joy is, and how precious it is."

Right. Even with her life at risk, Captain AB had tried to savor being alive. It had been genuinely rewarding. If she'd realized what it meant to be able to do things, then surely...

"However, this officer believes there is a better way."

"What? A better way?"

Why were we disagreeing? After seeing ordinary people's hard-fought lives up close, she should have come to a conclusion close to mine.

"This officer had you. Because this officer was with you, this officer accepted everything new with joy. But the other communications officers do not have you. As this officer experienced, in a harsh world, the new will approach as a threat more than as joy. And the other communications officers are highly likely to fail to overcome that. This officer thinks that is..."

Captain AB trailed off and searched for her words.

She had no ready reason. For a communications officer who had always made objective judgments through the military state's eyes, a claim not bound by rules or cost-benefit logic was too unfamiliar. She barely found words that matched her own heart.

"This officer dislikes it. Even if it is irrational."

If she disliked it, that was enough. That alone could be a reason. The world might run by rules set by gods, but what moved humans was the heart.

I nodded.

"I understand. But just because you dislike it doesn't mean I'll change my mind. Just like you, I still have at least a sense of duty left to defeat humanity's enemy."

"The target you seek to overthrow. You attack because it is not human. Is this officer's inference correct?"

"Yes. Humanity's enemy is humanity, but no matter how vicious a murderer is, they can't become humanity's enemy. They're still human, right? If my stomach hurts, my stomach doesn't become my enemy. If I move my right hand and accidentally smack my own head, I can't go to war with it."

I shrugged as I answered, and Captain AB spoke with a slight stammer.

"...This officer is your ally. Is that not so?"

I read where her thoughts were going. In Captain AB's mind, which had been a blank white page just moments ago, a single image took shape.

The wish of the first communications officer to raise a banner against the military state.

"The military state is a nation that moves by following 'orders from Headquarters' delivered through communications officers. Everyone believes there is a Headquarters somewhere."

"Isn't that the same thing in practice? Those 'orders from Headquarters' are information fabricated by communications officers anyway."

"It is different."

"Hm?"

I asked as if I didn't notice, even though I already knew where this was going. With firm resolve, Captain AB declared a lie a communications officer should never speak.

A lie that would become truth from this point on.

"This officer is AB. The first among communications officers."

Captain AB put a hand on her chest and continued.

"There is no rank hierarchy among communications officers, but identification names are assigned by communications-officer ability order. This officer is the communications officer who received the name AB, which had long stood vacant. Excluding A, known as the original source of communications officers, this officer can be said to possess the strongest ability among them... however, A was not a communications officer."

Of course not. That was the saintess.

A divine power on a completely different track from innate arcane. The tale of how the First Saintess answered believers' calls even from an immeasurable distance.

Yuel had used that to speak with communications officers seeking communication. The only difference was that it wasn't synchronization, just simple conversation. Saintess Yuel and the communications officers were too different to synchronize.

That was why the military state had become a nation without a king.

But Captain AB denied Yuel's role itself.

"Therefore, this officer is the strongest communications officer. This officer possesses unrivaled strength even among other communications officers, and can also dominate them. Therefore, within the collective will of communications officers, this officer's will exerts the greatest influence."

A precarious statement that narrowly avoided a direct lie. Truth or lie, it was hard to tell. All communications officers carried out organic communication, and even if one was at the very bottom, the will she transmitted spread through the whole, mixed, and blurred.

Just like human nerves.

By one standard, it could be false; by another, true. But Captain AB, the person involved, spoke with unwavering will.

"The will delivered as the military state's Headquarters will all originated from this officer and spread outward. This officer is Headquarters."

"...So in short, Captain AB, you were the king of the military state?"

"Affirmative."

Captain AB lowered her head deeply with disciplined precision. She was trying to sound dignified in her own way, but with that gentle face, it didn't suit her at all.

"Bit weird to say that when you looked controlled yourself until just now."

"I-it was possible because this officer accepted it!"

"Well, fine, let's say that. The world isn't short on puppets."

Now, this late in the game, she was going to say the military state was actually just another type of kingdom under human rule?

Right. Captain AB might become someone's enemy. But she could never become humanity's enemy. Captain AB was human too.

"Wordplay."

"But it is true."

"Sure, someone like you could do it, Captain AB. If you have life and desire, you can shoulder that responsibility and that sin..."

Murmuring to myself, I released the hand pulling the wire. The wire went slack, and Saintess Yuel regained her freedom.

Even with bruises from the wire pressing into her, Yuel immediately clasped both hands and looked at me suspiciously. If the saintess used her power, if she called even one angel here, I was as good as dead.

I never would have done this normally, but I had no other move. I shrugged and said,

"Yuel. Kill Captain AB."

"...What?!"

Everyone in the room gasped. Yuel, especially, recoiled as if struck by something unexpected.

What was so shocking? It was what she'd been trying to do all along.

"Why act surprised now? It's your job, isn't it? Handling a communications officer who went astray. If a communications officer suffers mental contamination, if she loses purity and becomes an ordinary human... wasn't this exactly what you were worried would happen?"

"...If I kill someone, I'd kill you before that child."

"Ah, then do it. You can't touch the military state anyway before Captain AB dies."

I wound the wire around my fingers. I braided one strand like cat's cradle, then pulled both ends hard. A broad knot gathered into one point and instantly returned to a card. I mixed the transformed card back into the deck and let out a sigh.

"Humans can't become humanity's enemy. Captain AB claimed Headquarters, and she'll probably make that real. The other communications officers can't stop Captain AB once she has her own desire. Only one person can: you, the one maintaining this system."

"...So you didn't mean 'kill her for me.' You meant the opposite."

"You can interpret it however you want."

Captain AB was human. Not humanity's enemy. But by declaring that with her own will, and because she truly had the ability to do it, she gained the qualification.

So if Captain AB existed, the military state wouldn't be my enemy. From my side, it was an ambiguous ending.

I couldn't stop someone trying to become king in my place. At best, I could test them.

Yuel's eyes trembled as she realized something.

"You appointed a king? In this military state...?"

Captain AB walked up to Yuel. Kneeling on one knee and meeting Yuel's eyes, Captain AB spoke clearly with a steady gaze.

"Yuel. Please cooperate with this officer."

Yuel was clearly stronger, yet she was the one avoiding eye contact.

"No... I can't."

"Please think rationally. In any case, it is better than the communications officers' secret being exposed. Is that not also your evaluation result?"

"Different! Communications officers must not have desire. If that happens, communications officers, no, you, will move this country by desire. You'll become king. His dream... his wish to make a nation that can stand without a king will be stained."

Captain AB glanced at the corpse.

"He is deceased."

"Even if he's dead, dreams don't disappear!"

As if forcing herself to deny it, Yuel grabbed the corpse tightly again. Covering the cold body with her own, Yuel shouted through sobs.

"The military state is the masterpiece born from his ideals. It's the child he and I made together! And now, now you tell me to give up? No! I'd rather we all die here! Buried with every secret! Then...!"

"Then everything he created disappears. The military state will probably disappear as well. Is that still acceptable to you?"

Yuel inhaled sharply.

The reason Yuel kept saying she would ask, ask, and still couldn't bring herself to act. The reason we had been given enough time. It was because traces of him remained here, including the People's Hero's corpse.

Someone clinging to one man's corpse for nearly twenty years, regret dripping from her, was never going to make a clean, decisive choice. Yuel's conflict deepened.

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