WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 308: History Is Made in Secret

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Military State Inner Circle Headquarters, Joint Command Headquarters.

The building rising at the heart of headquarters was surprisingly plain for a place with such a grand name. Its one distinguishing feature was the alchemical steel plating around the exterior, which was why it had remained intact even as wooden snakes rampaged outside.

Even before I entered, a fierce argument was raging within.

"This is unprecedented! Holding talks with the enemy that ravaged headquarters until moments ago? Doesn't it look like we've tucked our tails and run before even trying to fight?"

An elderly full general shouted, pointing a finger. His weighty voice, charged with aura, was powerful enough to shake the steel-clad building, but the person hearing it simply brushed it off.

"It's unprecedented for me too. When I heard there'd be talks, I thought you'd set another trap and were waiting for us. Instead, you've sat me down here just to yell at me."

"You little... You've barely dried the blood on your head, yet there's nothing you won't say! If it weren't for orders, I'd correct that attitude of yours right away!"

"Why don't you try? That'd be easier for me too."

Sparks flew from several generals' eyes. The regressor was causing conflict again today. Was she flint? Why did she create sparks every time she ran into something?

With a sigh, I opened the door and spoke.

"Now, now, Generals. Don't glare so fiercely at one little kid. It looks like a bunch of old men throwing their weight around and hazing a newcomer."

"And who are you?!"

Their fierce gazes turned toward me. My chest felt tight. Hmm, the presence of generals, especially full generals, was bad for my health. Frail as I was, I quietly hid behind Historia to escape the unspoken pressure.

"...Or so Historia said."

"Historia! Traitor to the military state!"

"What could possibly have been lacking for you to abandon the military state?!"

Their hostility immediately shifted toward Historia.

They normally would not fall for such a childish trick, but perhaps Historia was the exception. The generals glared at her as though she were their mortal enemy. Or perhaps like fathers looking resentfully at the daughter who had run away from home after being deceived by some good-for-nothing.

Historia shot me a glare and muttered.

"...The more I think about it, the more certain I am that I'm being ostracized."

After giving the generals a perfunctory salute, Historia headed toward the regressor with me following behind her.

The regressor, who had been sitting there alone, recognized us when she saw Historia and me.

"Why are you so late? I've been clashing with these old men by myself. Tch. It would've been easier if we'd just fought. Talking is annoying and exhausting."

"Try thinking about solving things with words instead of strength. If you talk things out properly, most matters can be settled smoothly."

As I pulled over a chair and sat beside her, the regressor glanced at me and moved her lips.

'Heavenly Sword Technique, Voice Transmission.'

Her voice whispered directly into my ear.

[...Like that monstrous life-form who calls themselves the Shadow Casket?]

"Don't call her a monstrous life-form. She's another human. She's been giving us her full cooperation to resolve this conflict."

[Hmph. You gave Tyrkanzyaka back her heart, and you gave that monstrous life-form back himself? What exactly are you? A delivery boy who finds lost property?]

"Something like that. I've told you before, but I'm a magician. I'm exceptionally good at reading people and shaking them up."

[You talk a good game. If you're so confident, why don't you show us what you can do this time?]

Okay. Message received.

"All right. Before that, Mr. Shei, could you stop whispering in my ear like this? It's a little embarrassing between men. I understand the importance of whispering, but it sounds like you've pressed your lips right against my ear. It's making me ticklish."

"W-What?"

"It's not like I normally think about things like this between men either, but I've been left with such a strange impression of you, Mr. Shei, that my face turns red on its own."

"No! I'm not interested either! Don't spout such dogshit with that calm face!"

Azzy, who had been standing by outside the door, poked her head in.

"Woof?"

"I wasn't calling you!"

Azzy tilted her head, then disappeared from sight again. I gave the fuming regressor a slight bow.

"What do you think? I can stir up this much agitation with only a few words."

Only then did she realize she had been toyed with. Her face reddened as she huffed.

"Don't do it to me! Do it to them!"

"They're elderly soldiers. There's nothing to tease them about."

"Are you saying there is something about me?!"

Just as the regressor reached for my collar, someone entered through the door. He had such an ordinary face that he would have been hard to remember, with no distinctive traits. Zikhrund, dressed in a pitch-black uniform without a single medal, even the buttons blackened with ink, spoke expressionlessly.

"It's noisy. If you wish to exchange such intimate whispers, do it outside.... Ah, I see."

What was with that person? I'd wondered why Hilde had suddenly taken a detour on the way here. When had Hilde finished changing disguises? Hilde, now wearing Zikhrund's appearance, looked at the regressor and muttered.

"If it's between men, you can't do it outside."

"Hey!"

"Ah, let me correct myself. It is a sin that should not be done indoors or outdoors."

"I'm telling you, it's not like that!"

Unlike the regressor, who flared up, the generals were happy to see him.

"General Zikhrund. We've been waiting for you!"

"I kept you waiting. It took some time to gather information and hear General Headquarters' opinion. I have brought something you will all find sufficiently convincing, so leave these talks to me."

Zikhrund said that and headed for the seat of honor. The regressor, still thoroughly riled up, pointed at Zikhrund and shouted.

"You're one to talk! Why are you dressed like that?! Until just a moment ago, you looked like a short woman!"

It was the regressor's decisive counterattack, but Zikhrund calmly deflected it while sorting through the documents.

"No matter how much you enjoy homosexuality, don't project your ideal type onto me. Or was it not an ideal type, but an identity?"

"No, you were definitely disguised as..."

Yet no one paid attention to the regressor. Having briefly forgotten their anger, the generals whispered among themselves as they pointed at her.

"The Shadow Casket is a girl?"

"What kind of nonsense is that?"

"Is it an aura technique that causes mental side effects? No wonder. That level of achievement would be difficult at that age."

The more she spoke the truth, the more people treated her as though she had lost her mind. Feeling wronged by this unfair treatment, the regressor looked at me with a trace of hope.

'Show them what you can do! This is your chance to shine!'

I faithfully met her expectations.

"Mr. Shei. When you're slandering someone, entertainment is more important than truth. Even if something like that were true, it's too sudden and not entertaining enough for them to accept. You should try doing it like me."

"You know what you're doing to me is slander!"

Historia, seated beside me, muttered with a bitter expression.

"...Now, even when I see the cutie, it doesn't feel like someone else's problem."

"I told you not to call me that! You don't know anything!"

"I know his true nature too. I understand your situation, so there's no need to explain."

"Uh, y-yeah...?"

'Then... are we comrades...?'

Don't be that moved. How low was the threshold for setting her heart alight?

At the center of the argument, Zikhrund neatly arranged the documents and spoke.

"From the beginning, General Headquarters had no desire to create more conflict with them than necessary. Fighting would incur tremendous losses, and there would be little to gain even if we accepted those losses. We attempted to drive them out through threats or settle matters through minimal intelligence operations. All of it failed."

The general gritted his teeth. "Why did they commit such atrocities in the first place?"

"They said it was to stop the war."

Bang. A general slammed his fist down on the table. The round table, large enough to be three meters across, tilted and was about to overturn when the regressor casually placed Jizan against its edge. The trembling table shuddered beneath Jizan's weight, then instantly settled.

Having lost the contest of wills, the general shouted with wounded pride.

"Don't be ridiculous! Are you still trying to throw up a smokescreen after coming all this way? You can't possibly be telling us to cancel a national undertaking as though it were children's play. Tell us your real objective!"

"Hmph. Fine. You won't believe it. I expected as much..."

"Whether you can believe it is not important. Distrust is a general's duty, and the military state always judges by its own standards. This judgment, too, comes from the military state's standards."

There was a strange resonance in Zikhrund's voice that made me feel as though I had to listen. After cutting off both the general and the regressor, Zikhrund continued.

"First, I will explain the damage caused by this attack. Casualties among ordinary soldiers are not especially great, but the chimera beans stockpiled as military provisions have been completely lost. Since they turned into wooden snakes, they cannot even be repurposed. Our capacity to wage war has suffered a serious setback."

"Wasn't all of that done by those intruders?!"

"No. It is the authority of the druid who guards the Tree of Corruption."

Zikhrund cut off the general's protest.

"Jujiyukrim, the holding company responsible for food improvement. Under orders, they risked their lives to approach the Tree of Corruption and returned after discovering a great harvest called chimera beans. Thanks to that, the military state overcame its food shortage. Yet as you all know, the Tree of Corruption has a guardian of the burned World Tree."

At the center of the lush forest stretching across the military state's south stood a single towering tree. That was the Tree of Corruption, which had taken root in the ashes after the World Tree burned and fell during some incident, then grown from there.

Rumor claimed that every fruit in the world grew from that one tree, so the military state dispatched an expedition. There, they discovered, or perhaps invented, the chimera beans, one of the military state's seven great inventions.

Of course, Nevida had tacitly allowed it, but they would not know that.

"Druid Nevida...?"

"But Nevida said there was no concern with what was planted outside the Forest of Corruption! Why would Nevida come now over chimera beans?"

"I do not know that much. I do not know everything. Perhaps they summoned Nevida. Still, we must give this threat proper consideration, and there is reason to observe the situation for a while. That is the decisive reason these talks came to pass."

The generals disliked the situation itself, where outside threats had shaken the military state. Still, as soldiers, they understood that while a two-front war against enemy nations might be possible, a two-front war against food shortages was not.

Zikhrund turned his back on them and declared to the regressor.

"Therefore, General Headquarters has decided on a temporary ceasefire."

It was effectively a declaration of surrender. The generals coughed in dissatisfaction. At the same time, the regressor's shocked question burst out.

"What? Really? The military state? You're calling a ceasefire?"

"Was that not what you had persistently demanded? Is there a problem? Could there be another hidden objective?"

When Zikhrund asked sharply, the regressor, who had half risen from her chair, sat back down and feigned calm.

"No. I was just wondering if you'd finally come to your senses."

'What? They're actually doing it? Until now, they wouldn't stop even if I beat them to death, I mean, even if I destroyed them in every possible way!'

Perhaps they had been unable to stop because you kept trying to beat them to death, regressor? Stopping a war by destroying a country. If they were dead, they could not fight, so how was killing them to stop the fighting any different?

"There is one condition."

"Of course there is. That's just like you. What is it?"

'Don't believe them just like that. It's the military state. They may try something strange again! Will they demand something impossible? Are they trying to send us away to resolve the immediate crisis?'

Surprisingly, it was none of those things. As if mocking the wary regressor, Zikhrund offered a reasonable condition.

"These talks were held at your side's request. Go directly to the Lesser States and secure the peace you seek yourselves. If you truly desire peace, you will not refuse this proposal."

In a sense, they were giving us the authority to do whatever we wished. The generals listening to this were inwardly impressed.

'There was such a method!'

'The Lesser States are just as unreasonable as these people. They will not readily accept this agreement. But if we send them, we can make them bear all the friction that arises in the negotiations!'

They really were generals. They had quite a bit of political insight. Now, what about the regressor...?

'The Lesser States... Talks... If we go, we'll clash with those lunatics... They're a pain. Ah. Is that what they're aiming for?'

Oh, she had not realized it through political insight, but simply through personal experience. Extreme repetition became insight.

"...I see. You're trying to make us handle troublesome work? And have us carry out a little armed provocation while we're at it?"

"I'm glad you're not as stupid as you appear."

"What are you talking about? For someone who tucked their tail out of fear, you're awfully full of yourself."

'Well, there's something to gain from the Lesser States too. It doesn't matter. They won't reject a ceasefire agreement. In previous cycles, they suffered such a crushing defeat that their territory was ravaged in only seven days. Still... Even if we reach an agreement, the problem is whether the military state will accept it...'

The regressor asked, her suspicion obvious.

"Fine, I don't mind doing it. But what if you throw a fit and say the negotiations didn't go the way you wanted?"

Zikhrund nodded.

"Naturally. This is a matter between nations. You are not military state officials, but more like terrorists, so you could not possibly know the practical work involved. I understand your concern."

"I'm not worried that I won't be able to do the work! I'm worried that things will get troublesome again if you ignore the result!"

"You are worrying in the wrong order. Shouldn't you worry about your own incompetence first?"

"You're the only one who has the order wrong!"

Sorry, I had been worried you couldn't do the work too. Add me to that.

"I will assign an important figure from our country to accompany you. They will be an excellent practical worker and, at the same time, a hostage."

"There's someone important in the military state? That's new to me. You don't even consider generals important."

"There is. Since you do not know about them, military state information control seems to be working well."

Zikhrund abruptly turned away. The regressor had roughly obtained what she wanted, but her face twisted with a strange sense of defeat.

'That bastard never loses a word fight...! Tch, if I had destroyed the military state in this cycle, I could've punched him!'

Hey, don't try to destroy a country for that reason.

Having finished what he had to say, Zikhrund addressed the remaining generals.

"Do any of you have further questions?"

"Are the talks over already?"

"There is a little left. But from this point on, you must leave."

"Why is that?"

"Because we will discuss the hostage who will guarantee this agreement. If you also know of the hostage's existence, their value will diminish."

"Hmm... Understood."

The convinced generals nodded and left headquarters. As they threw open the door, every one of them cast sharp looks at Historia and me.

'That good-for-nothing bastard...!'

'Damn it. This is why young punks cannot be entrusted with important duties! They ruin everything in their youthful recklessness!'

It seemed I had made many enemies. It might be difficult to live in the military state from now on.

Once the outsiders were gone, only those involved remained in the Joint Command Headquarters conference room. Silence passed for a moment.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted!"

Hilde, having returned to normal at some point, let out a deep sigh and sprawled across the round table.

Footnotes:

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