Chapter 5
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 5
The Force user had left me with many changes.
Caught in the explosion, my back was a mangled mess without a single intact spot. My pelvis and hip joints, damaged from high-speed maneuvering, were turning black with necrosis.
For a poor lower-class citizen, this would have been a devastating injury. Artificial skin made of synthetic fibers, medical alloys to replace bone—none of it came cheap. Had I not been an Imperial Guard Cadet, I doubted I could have paid it off even working my entire life. With injuries this severe, a lower-class family would have simply given up and requested euthanasia.
Fortunately, as an orphan, I had the solid backing of the Imperial Guard instead of a lower-class family. By the time I had drifted in and out of anesthesia-induced sleep three or four times, the surgery was already over.
"Hmm."
I looked into the mirror with my back turned. The artificial skin had been seamlessly grafted onto my back. Only the seams were faintly visible, like the lines of a jagged map.
The doctor said the seams would disappear once the graft fully took.
There was no real need to make it look this clean, yet it was obvious they'd taken great care during the surgery.
Click.
I reached toward the side of the table and pulled up my body map on the hologram. The joints and bones replaced with metal glowed blue. They looked sturdy enough to last a hundred years without a hitch.
It's a body I'm going to discard eventually anyway...
In a few years, I'd have a complete full-body prosthetic. A natural biological body was like baby teeth—you used it for a while, then threw it away. If it had been spent as worthily as it had been this time, nothing could be better.
At any rate, I survived.
I let out a soft sigh and sat on the edge of the bed. The Force user's final moments replayed in my head on a loop.
The Force user held back his attack at the very end. He didn't kill me.
No matter how many times I turned it over, the conclusion stayed the same. The Force user had spared my life. He had looked closely at my face, smiled bitterly, and pulled back his hand.
I, too, had tried to spare that Korain boy. But that was only because he was a non-combatant, without the ability to kill me.
It was hard to forget the Force user's final words. He had called me young.
I am already a warrior and a soldier. If you spared me just because I'm young... then you're a fool.
Irritation flared within me. If there were a way, I wanted to bring him back to life just to fight him again.
I survived thanks to the pathetic mercy of a Korain.
I hated to admit it. But like it or not, that was the truth. An unalterable, immutable truth.
I didn't believe in an afterlife, but if one existed, I only hoped he was watching me now.
I will kill many more Korains in the future. Watch your compatriots die by my hand and regret your choice, even in the afterlife.
That was my revenge against him. I would not make the same mistake he had.
* * *
I spent a full month running and walking in a water tank filled with healing fluid coursing with microcurrents for my rehabilitation. Even though I felt completely healed, the doctor refused to sign my return-to-duty clearance.
Another month passed just like that. The healing fluid in the tank was blue—a depressingly pale, sickly blue, at that.
On top of everything, its texture was unpleasantly sticky. Walking and running in it for hours every single day felt like it would drive me insane.
At that point, I would rather have been stabbed or shot. For the past two months, I had been no different from a rat on a wheel.
"I need a psychiatric consultation."
I said this, looking at the Imperial Guard Captain through the hologram screen. He wore a puzzled expression.
—Do you have trauma from your injuries? I wouldn't have pegged you as the type...
"No. It's not the battle."
I shook my head quickly. A mere cadet like me had no business contacting the Imperial Guard Captain over something like this. But that was how desperate I'd become.
"If I stay here even one more day, I think I'm going to grab the doctor by the hair and shove his head into the tank. I'm not joking."
The moment he heard my words, the Imperial Guard Captain burst into a hearty laugh. He laughed for a good while before speaking again.
—No need for a psychiatric consultation, then. You're perfectly sane.
The next day, an Imperial Guardsman came to pick me up. The physician overseeing my rehabilitation looked far from pleased, but he signed the discharge papers the Guardsman handed him anyway.
One look at the Guardsman's uniform, and anyone could tell from a distance that he belonged to the Imperial Guard. His coat—black on the outside, red-lined within—swayed heavily as though dragging along the floor. On his chest was a golden embroidery of a sword.
Halt.
Stepping out of the hospital, the Guardsman came to a stop. He looked down at me quietly. I saw his shoulders and arms shift.
Here it comes.
Thud!
The Guardsman's heavy fist slammed into my abdomen. I doubled over, groaning. It felt as though my intestines were twisting inside out.
"You know why you're being hit, right?"
The rims of the Guardsman's pupils glowed red.
"I overstepped my bounds."
I managed to squeeze the words out. The impact left me gasping for air.
"Good that you know it. If you didn't, I'd have beaten you to a pulp and sent you right back to that hospital bed."
A mere cadet had made a personal request to the Imperial Guard Captain. I offered no excuses. In truth, there was nothing to excuse. Even I thought I deserved it.
"...Thank you."
I clasped my hands behind my back and stood up straight, leaving myself completely defenseless. If there was more coming, I was prepared to take it.
Seeing my attitude, the corner of the Guardsman's mouth twitched into a smirk.
"Make sure you become an Imperial Guardsman, Luka. You look like you'll be fun to train."
The Guardsman said this, placing a hand on my shoulder.
* * *
Two days had passed since my return to the training center. Moving my body around again made me feel alive.
"How does it feel, coming back from the brink of death?"
Ilay asked, lifting a hundred-kilogram dumbbell with one hand. During free time, many cadets gathered in the gym.
"Look who's talking. You nearly died too."
I replied while doing handstand push-ups. Ilay had also been caught in the Force explosion and sustained severe injuries.
Maintaining a precarious balance, I hopped up on my hands. Flipping once in the air, I landed lightly on my feet. Fortunately, even after a two-month break, my motor skills hadn't rusted. I was in good enough shape to return to training immediately.
Even for cybernetic prosthetics with fixed outputs, training was crucial. It wasn't about muscle development so much as the development and coordination of the nervous system.
If an untrained civilian tried to use a combat-grade full-body prosthetic, they wouldn't even be able to control their own body, let alone draw out its full performance. They wouldn't even be able to beat me bare-handed. A body the mind can't handle will only run wild.
In particular, we had undergone special chemical treatments on our nervous systems in preparation for eventually piloting the Legion full-armor prosthetic, and we repeated high-intensity training every single day without fail.
"...The Captain must have known the Force user was there. He tested us without giving us any warning," Ilay said.
Still holding the dumbbell, he threw a punch. His arm gradually picked up speed, cutting through the air with the hundred-kilogram weight attached. A sharp whirring sound erupted from the motor of his cybernetic prosthetic arm.
"No one died, so it's fine. Get up here, Ilay," I said nonchalantly, stepping onto the sparring ring.
"Luka, my arm got completely trashed last time, so I replaced it with a better model. Think you can handle it?"
"You talk too much. You sure they didn't replace your tongue instead of your arm?"
I gestured with my index finger, baiting him. Ilay tossed the dumbbell aside and stepped lightly onto the sparring ring.
"Luka, don't you think it's a bit strange that there were no casualties?" Ilay asked, settling into a fighting stance in front of me.
"Sounds like you wished someone had died," I retorted, throwing a light punch. Ilay tilted his head back, easily dodging it.
Whoosh!
We traded a flurry of punches and kicks. It was just a warm-up, slow enough for both of us to dodge with ease. Of course, "slow" was a relative term. The power and speed behind them were more than enough to shatter bone if a hit landed cleanly.
"That's not what I mean. That Force user could have killed me outright. He deliberately kept his distance when he triggered the Force explosion. That's the only reason I survived. Same goes for the other cadets caught in the blast."
Hearing Ilay's words, I couldn't suppress a surge of irritation. Just how soft-hearted was that Force user? He'd tried to subdue us instead of killing us outright.
And that's exactly why he died by my hand!
Channeling my anger, I sped up my punches. Ilay reacted quickly, parrying my fist aside.
"Hey, are you trying to smash my face in?" Ilay grumbled at the sudden acceleration.
"I've wanted to smash that smug face of yours for a while now."
"Sounds like I raised a tiger cub." There was an easy confidence in Ilay's faint smile.
"Please. Who raised whom? I'm going all out now, Ilay."
I paused and steadied my breathing, visualizing the bandwidth of my nervous system expanding. Electrical signals and chemical compounds surged along the widened neural pathways. My brain and body exchanged signals at a furious pace.
My eyes could make out the individual pores on Ilay's skin. His heartbeat echoed in my ears. My sense of smell sharpened until I felt I could guess what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning.
Ilay had finished activating his own body as well. His eyes, glowing with a faint light, seemed to pierce straight through to my gut.
The clanking of metal throughout the gym fell silent. The other cadets gathered to watch our match.
Hands and feet clashed in a blur. I sharpened my senses, dodging and parrying Ilay's attacks. Ilay did the same. Offense and defense shifted so rapidly it was impossible to tell who held the upper hand.
Whine—
A sound only I could hear echoed from my limbs. As the high-speed exchange dragged on, my prosthetic body was quickly approaching its limits. My movements were subtly slowing. I had to either stop here or end the match now.
I guess Ilay really did upgrade to a better arm.
Ilay's arm was still holding its speed. I opened my extended fist, reaching to grab it.
Click!
My fingertips caught Ilay's arm. I pulled it toward me, throwing him off balance.
Success. Ilay faltered. The opening was fleeting, but more than enough for me.
Tap!
I swept Ilay's leg and slipped to the side.
Thud!
Ilay looked up at me from the floor. I waved my hand, which had begun to emit faint wisps of smoke.
Low gasps and murmurs of admiration rippled through the watching cadets. Everyone could tell I'd turned a disadvantageous situation around through quick thinking.
"I thought I'd win this time..." Ilay laughed, catching his breath. I had always held the upper hand in close combat.
"If getting stronger were as easy as installing better parts, why would any of us bother with all this training?" I said, extending a hand to the fallen Ilay.
Taking my hand, Ilay stood up and stared at me. His usual, unwavering smile faltered slightly.
Ilay spoke, choosing his words carefully.
"Luka, back then, you..."
Sensing the gazes of the other cadets around us, he trailed off. Even without hearing the rest, I knew exactly what he meant to ask. In fact, I'd been wondering why he'd waited this long to bring it up.
You must be wondering... why I tried to let that Korain boy go without killing him.
Thanks to Ilay, I'd been able to cover up my mistake. Instead of my blade, it had been Ilay's bullet that pierced the Korain boy's head. I still remembered that moment vividly.
"It was a mistake. It won't happen again," I replied quickly.
Hearing my answer, Ilay narrowed his eyes and put on a fake smile. Having grown close to him over time, I could read his emotions to some extent.
...It seemed Ilay hadn't been looking for such a textbook answer. He was still as hard to read as ever.