Chapter 27
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 27
I must have completely lost my mind.
Right now, I was helping Ilay smuggle Lillian Ramones out. If Upper Command ever found out, I was a dead man.
"Ilay, you've always had a screw loose, so whatever. But Lillian—what the hell is wrong with you?"
I took the lead as I spoke. Both Ilay and I were running hot; our prosthetic bodies had overheated badly from the high-speed combat. We had to move slowly while they cooled down.
"Have you always spoken so rudely?"
"This is just how I am. Did you expect elegant speech from a lower-class citizen? More importantly, I'm the one who slaughtered your entire family. I'm surprised you can talk to me so calmly."
I was genuinely curious about what was going on inside Lillian's head. The image of her smiling even after witnessing the massacre of her family still lingered in my mind.
"...We weren't exactly a close family."
I snorted at that. No matter how bad their relationship was, could someone really smile like that at the death of their own flesh and blood? It was absurd.
But I didn't press further. To be precise, I didn't have the luxury—or the time—to pry. There was something far more important to worry about.
If the other suppression forces spot us, we're finished.
We were escorting Lillian Ramones. If the Imperial Army caught us like this, there'd be no room for excuses.
"A teleportation device, of all things..."
I grumbled. Our plan was simple.
Activate the teleportation device on the lower basement level and smuggle Lillian out. And if possible, Ilay too...
I glanced at Ilay.
He walked with an exhausted expression, looking mentally pushed to the brink. His hair hung limp, and he hadn't even wiped the blood off his face.
"Ilay, hold on. Let me clean your face before the blood dries."
Noticing my gaze, Lillian pulled out a handkerchief and began wiping Ilay's face.
"If luck's on your side and you make it out of here alive, why don't you two just settle down together?"
I said it sarcastically. Ilay gave a weak smile, his face now clean of blood.
"If Lillian is willing, that is."
Lillian flinched at Ilay's self-deprecating remark. She felt a sense of debt toward him. And she damn well should.
"Ilay, I never imagined you would go this far for me. I truly never dreamed you would."
"You were the teacher who showed me the outside world."
I listened to their conversation in silence. This might very well be their last one. They shared a connection, a bond I knew nothing about.
"Just for that reason?"
"It's not 'just' to me. It changed the way I see the world. Thanks to you, I finally understood the source of my discontent and confusion. If not for you, I would have gone mad long ago. I realized I wasn't strange—just different."
I frowned. Even without the exact details, I could piece together the general picture from their words.
Lillian is the woman who planted Ilay's subversive ideas.
And considering my own current situation, a sigh escaped me.
Subversive thoughts were like a plague. Once unleashed, they spread from person to person, slowly eating away at the Empire from the inside out.
Lillian, Ilay, and me.
Step by step, the subversive ideas had spread. If more people like us appeared, the Empire would weaken and eventually collapse. No—even before that, it would be destroyed by an attack from the Bellato Federation or the Kora Holy Nation.
Right now, I am moving for Ilay's sake.
But I didn't want the Empire to fall. If Ilay hadn't been my friend, I would have killed him long ago.
I am not a subversive person.
I repeated those words, engraving them deep into my heart.
My priorities are just misplaced.
I had chosen friendship with Ilay over loyalty to the Empire. Which, of course, was itself a deeply subversive act.
"If we manage to escape from here... I'm going to Border City. If we get separated, let's meet there. Luka—if you ever think of leaving the Empire, you should head to Border City too."
"I have no business there."
I cut her off flatly.
I didn't know much about Border City. Only that it was a city in the Bellato Federation.
"Border City..."
Ilay fell into thought for a moment, as if he knew something about it.
Fortunately, we encountered neither the Rebels nor the Imperial Army. No Imperial soldiers had gone ahead of us, and the Rebels didn't seem to have thought of descending this deep underground.
Only the Ramones family—and likely only the direct line—knew about the teleportation device.
Those unaware of its existence would have tried to escape to the surface through other passages.
As we descended deeper, we finally found a moment to catch our breath. While talking to Ilay, Lillian also spoke about her father.
"My father, Hugo Ramones, was an ambitious man. He even spent his personal fortune to secure permission from the Imperial Family for Arcane research. But everything was in the palm of the Emperor's hand. Before my father could gather enough power, the Emperor made a decisive preemptive strike. My father believed he could deceive and use the Imperial Family, but in the end, he was the one who got used."
Lillian's demeanor was calm. From her tone, she might as well have been talking about a complete stranger rather than her own father.
In any case, I'm exhausted.
It had been a long day. I'd pushed my mind and body to their absolute limits, over and over. My once-sharp judgment was beginning to dull. Maybe my decision to help Ilay was nothing more than a misjudgment born of a frayed mind.
But I couldn't afford to let my mind rest. I had to keep my senses sharp, stay alert to our surroundings. I also needed to figure out how to write my report once this was over.
The saving grace is that the Imperial Guard Captain thinks highly of me. And I'm the one who can spy on Kinuan.
I was confident that even if I raised a bit of suspicion, I wouldn't be disposed of.
When you think about it, Ilay and Lillian are just a mere cadet and a noblewoman. They aren't anyone of great importance. They won't dig too deep.
They weren't the ringleaders of the rebellion. This was nothing more than an individual aberration.
Having organized my thoughts, I stared at the passage ahead. At the end of the corridor was a door. There was no other path. This was the end of the line.
"Ilay, brace yourself. If there's no teleportation device here... it's over."
I said it as a warning. Ilay merely nodded, saying nothing.
Clack.
The old door swung open without resistance. And it was from that moment that something felt off.
My nerves, frayed by fatigue, snapped taut in an instant, and my five senses flung wide open, drinking in every anomaly around us.
Luka, you have to figure out the source of this unease right now. If you don't understand it, you'll die. It was a conviction bordering on premonition.
Creak—
The door opened a crack. The interior was brightly lit. Nothing strange about that; all the lighting fixtures had activated along with the fortress's startup.
But the air felt foreign. I boldly closed my eyes and quickly analyzed the scents.
The first thing I caught was the sharp tang of fresh blood, followed by the heavy stench of oil and iron. There was no trace of organic body odor.
I bit my lower lip and opened my eyes. No matter how I turned it over, there was only one conclusion.
"Ilay, it's the Imperial Guard."
I whispered it softly. I didn't know how, but the Imperial Guard had descended before us and seized the teleportation device.
Ilay had to be shaken too. But right now, I didn't have the luxury of checking his reaction. The door swung fully open, revealing the room inside.
Whirrrr!
The first thing to catch my eye was a circular capsule in the center of the room. It was large enough to fit three or four people. If the teleportation device was here, that capsule had to be it.
Standing around the capsule were four Imperial Guardsmen in dark red uniforms. Their cloaks, which covered half their bodies, hung heavily.
The sharp gazes of the Imperial Guardsmen locked onto us.
To put it bluntly, our plan was completely ruined. There was no way to save Lillian now. If it had been a single Imperial Guardsman without a Full-Armor Prosthetic, Ilay and I might have managed something by wringing out every last drop of our strength.
But there were four of them in front of us. No point wasting brainpower on it. Escaping was impossible.
I had already written off Lillian's survival.
Now—how do I keep Ilay alive?
The Imperial Guard capturing Lillian alive instead of killing her would be the worst possible outcome. She wouldn't withstand torture and interrogation; she'd spill everything. No matter how strong-willed she might be, she was still just an ordinary person. She hadn't been trained to ignore pain the way we had.
The moment Lillian was captured alive, our treason would be laid bare before Upper Command.
Thinking coldly, we had only one option left.
We kill Lillian ourselves, right now, without hesitation.
That way, even if we roused some suspicion, we could manufacture an excuse to satisfy Upper Command.
But this was Lillian—the very person Ilay had gone to such lengths to save. Could Ilay hold onto his sanity after watching her die right before his eyes? If he lost control and attacked the Imperial Guard, it would all be over.
"...Luka and Ilay. You're as exceptional as I've heard, to have made it all the way down here already."
One of the Imperial Guardsmen said, recognizing us. There was no more time. Any hesitation would only breed suspicion. This was our last chance.
There's no other way.
I moved to draw my blade and slit Lillian's throat. But as I turned, my eyes went wide.
Ilay?
A gunshot rang out before I could even move.
Bang!
Ilay had already leveled his gun right between Lillian's eyes and pulled the trigger. A summary execution.
Lillian slumped backward, a hole punched clean between her eyes. The sight felt somewhat surreal, even to me. Perhaps I, too, had been briefly swept up in the sweet illusion that we might actually save her.
Thud!
Lillian collapsed, sprawling onto her back. Pink fluid began welling up from the hole between her eyes.
Get a grip, Luka. Time to snap back to reality. From the very start, Lillian's chances of survival had been abysmally low.
I quickly checked on Ilay. He couldn't lift his head. Even without seeing his face, I could feel his agitation. He barely managed to squeeze out the words.
"My position was more natural, Luka."
Ilay was right. Anyone watching would have found it bizarre if I—the one opening the door—had suddenly spun around to kill Lillian. It made far more sense for Ilay, standing right next to her, to carry out the execution.
But that was only the logic of it. I couldn't help being shocked all the same. I'd never imagined Ilay would kill Lillian with his own hands. I'd been bracing for the worst-case scenario—him losing control.
"What was that gunshot just now?"
One of the Imperial Guardsmen asked, walking toward us. I couldn't let them notice Ilay's agitation.
I grabbed the dead Lillian by her hair and dragged her in front of the Guardsman.
"I've executed a prisoner who was no longer of any use."
I pulled a cube-shaped Arcane artifact from Lillian's clothes. The Guardsmen's eyes instantly locked onto the artifact.
Stepping back, they whispered among themselves. Soon, one of them stepped forward to stand before me.
Snap!
The Guardsman held himself with rigid discipline, looking down at me, and jerked his chin.
"Report on the situation so far, Luka."
I clasped my hands behind my back and began my report.