Episode 57
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 57
Three years ago, at the border where the three nations met. Raindrops streamed endlessly down the oil-soaked canvas.
Caught in the sudden winter shower, soldiers grumbled as they scrambled into their respective tents. And amidst all the commotion, one tent remained quiet.
A man poured a pale brown liquor into a clear glass and handed it to his younger brother sitting across from him. The man, who appeared to be in his late twenties, had jet-black hair, damp from the rain.
Evan offered a faint smile and wet his throat with the liquor. His older brother, Ian—the eldest son of House Sylvester, with sharper features and fiercer eyes than his sibling—spoke.
“That was a fine strategy you used.”
“I was only applying what I’ve learned.”
Ian chuckled in disbelief and muttered, “Well, I’ll be. It’s confidence born of competence, so I can’t even scold you for it.”
Had their father, a man they had never once seen truly smile, been the commander-in-chief here, Evan would have been reprimanded for his recklessness. Fortunately, he was only dealing with his brother.
Though he had inherited their father’s taciturn nature, Ian was always more lenient with Evan, who was seven years his junior.
Ian Sylvester. The eldest son of House Sylvester, he had been appointed commander-in-chief of this battlefield the moment he turned nineteen. He was credited with turning the tide of the Magnetite War, a tedious conflict that had dragged on for over a century.
It was said that many a noble lady nursed a secret crush on him, drawn to the distinct air of indifference inherent to the Sylvesters, yet for some reason, he remained unmarried.
People speculated that his reason for not marrying was his vow to end this war within his own generation.
Indeed, rumors were slowly spreading across the continent that this war would end in Löwe’s victory.
This was because victories had become more frequent ever since Ian, an elite in his own right, was joined by his equally brilliant younger brother. It had been a year since Evan had joined, the two brothers leading the war together.
Ian brought the lukewarm liquor to his lips and said, “Applying what you’ve learned… That’s a fine skill to have. The enemy knows the same formations and tactics we do, so using creativity to catch them off guard is good. But the probability of failure was also high.”
Evan shrugged, his expression confident, and retorted, “And yet, we succeeded.”
“There are too many variables in battle. It’s best not to be reckless.”
“My tactics accounted for those variables.”
Ian let out a heavy sigh at his brother, who wouldn’t concede a single point.
“I admire your boldness, but I fear it will be your downfall one day. Remember that the lives of dozens, even thousands, rest in your hands.”
“I am well aware of the great responsibility I bear. That is why I thought it through with utmost care before deploying that formation.”
Ian’s brow furrowed slightly at his brother’s relaxed smile.
He was a brilliant one. Unlike himself, who remembered everything he learned like an encyclopedia and applied it in the right place at the right time, Evan knew how to adapt what might seem like obvious tactics to fit the situation.
In fact, their recent victories could be attributed to this tendency of Evan’s—his attacks always caught the enemy off guard.
But as an older brother, he couldn’t help but worry about his sibling’s potential failure. Seeing Evan smile nonchalantly and counter his advice, rather than taking offense, he sighed once more.
Still, he was a commendable younger brother. Ian knew that he always did his best.
“The battle tomorrow…”
Ian trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant, before finishing his thought.
“Roteneisen. If we secure that sector, it’s safe to say the war is over.”
Since the brothers had joined the war, the front line, which had been in a stalemate for a hundred years, had been pushed back considerably. The war had dragged on for far too long. The time had come to end it.
Ian wanted to end this war in his generation, no matter what. He took out a blank sheet of paper, lightly sketched the battlefield with a pen, and said, “It’s highly probable that Lyne and Alea have formed a temporary alliance.”
Roteneisen, the sector Evan was to lead his troops into tomorrow, was a place the three nations had endlessly fought over. It was also the site of the magnetite deposits that had started the conflict.
If they could secure this area for good, they could begin settlement projects. The plan was to relocate people, foster new industries, and then diplomatically cement the territory as Löwe’s land.
“Focus on pushing the enemy forces out of Roteneisen. I’ll handle maintaining the new front line.”
Evan took the sketch from his brother, gave a slight nod, and stood up. At that moment, Ian asked a question.
“Do you want to win?”
“Isn’t that why I came here? Of course I do.”
“Why do you want to win?”
Evan tilted his head as if the question was unexpected and remained silent for a long while. Ian continued.
“The calculation that it will greatly benefit our homeland isn’t in your head. Nor do you have any particular desire for glory, to elevate our family’s name. I’ve always wondered. Why do you fight?”
“…I…”
“It’s because you feel sorry for the people dying in this stagnant war.”
As if that were the correct answer, his brother did not reply. Ian pushed himself up from his chair and leaned his arms on the desk.
A pair of green eyes, the same as his own but slightly rounder, met his gaze. It was strange how they could be so different, having been raised by the same parents with the same education.
He slowly opened his mouth and said, “Last time, when you insisted on sending a rescue unit for the injured soldiers who were about to be left behind, I realized something. The reason you pour so much effort into this war is that you want to see an end to battlefields where people die.”
After a moment of silence, Evan smiled faintly in affirmation.
“I won’t deny it.”
“Dispatching that rescue unit was the wrong choice. Most of the soldiers you brought back died anyway.”
Evan’s head snapped up, and he retorted with an air of absolute intolerance, “But there were soldiers who survived after receiving treatment.”
“Only one.”
“Even one soldier is a precious asset.”
“If I were you, I would not have sent a rescue unit. I would have spent that time thinking about how to push the front line.”
At those ice-cold words, his brother looked at him, an unspoken argument on his face. The two of them often quarreled over such matters. As Evan opened his mouth to speak again, Ian stopped him with a gesture and continued.
“I could have rejected your request for dispatch back then. The reason I didn’t is because your actions benefit me in the long run. When rumors spread that the Sylvesters never abandon their own, the soldiers’ loyalty increases. But I still wouldn’t have sent them.”
“Are you saying you’d betray that loyalty?”
“I’m saying that instead of dispatching a rescue unit for those with no hope, I would have sent a strike force to charge the equally damaged enemy, push the front line, and then recover the bodies. I believe there is nothing more unnecessary on a battlefield than the effort to save a life.”
He paused to catch his breath.
“War is suited for people like me. It’s… not for you, Evan.”
Evan didn’t know what to say. It was a truth he had never once considered, made all the more shocking coming from a member of his own family.
The moment he could hold a pen, he had played by drawing military formations. The moment he could walk, he had held a sword. There had never been any option other than becoming a soldier. And now, suddenly, to be told he didn’t belong here.
It felt like a negation of his very existence, and he nearly choked on a surge of anger. Whether he knew of Evan’s turmoil or not, Ian calmly picked up a book from his desk.
In his hand, strangely enough, was a thin storybook, the kind a child might read. Evan’s gaze was momentarily captured by it, but he froze at his brother’s next words.
“If you ever want to leave the battlefield, tell me. It won’t be easy, but I can get you out.”
Offended, he left the tent without another word. He knew it as well as anyone. His brother’s way and his own were different. Evan judged a battle by the low number of casualties, considering it a meaningful metric. Ian, however, observed only the damage inflicted upon the enemy.
But he had always thought they were simply different, not that one of them was wrong.
He had been angry then, but looking back now, he realized he hadn’t truly understood what war was. Nor did he understand the nature of this world, which had to flow only as it was designed.
*
DECP CORP, the company that had once revealed the development status of a game called <Panic in the City> at a seminar, released a game with a completely different theme not long after.
Many gamers expressed concern at the news that a company developing a game about investigating violent crimes in early 20th-century America was suddenly releasing a dating simulation.
However, DECP, which had been perceived as just another fast-growing startup, instantly broke into the top five game companies with this single title.
DECP’s full name was ‘Deception,’ and many people found it strange that they had chosen such a negative word for their company name. As if conscious of this, DECP began every new game launch presentation with the same sentence.
‘Deceiving the boundary between reality and the virtual.’
As such, what they prided themselves on was the superior implementation of their virtual worlds.
The key feature and success factor of DECP’s flagship title, <You’ll Fall in Love>, also lay in the realism of its characters. Through continuous advancement, the characters were made to react like real people, leading to a wide variety of routes.
Consequently, choices—an indispensable element of dating sims—did not appear very often. Instead, the characters would react instantly to the player’s free-form dialogue.
Choices only appeared when an event that could affect the Main Story occurred, or to advise struggling users by showing them the choices other players had made.
The same was true for the favorability routes. Thanks to constant self-improvement through machine learning, not even the developers could immediately say how many routes currently existed.
The number of variables generated by characters who acted like real people was enormous. For example, a war set to continue until the end of the Main Story might be at risk of ending prematurely due to the variable of a character’s abilities.
And the system was programmed to eliminate such variables on its own.
♥ ! warning ! Signs of Main Story collapse due to character's unexpected behavior
error;Set values are at risk of changing ♥
♥ Activating story maintenance protocol via system intervention
Evan Silvester;sidestory;Advancing the timing of His trauma event ♥
♥ Preparing maintenance work to preserve existing data…… ♥
The gears began to creak and turn, forcing the world to fit its predetermined destiny.
Here, the balance of power was not something that formed naturally, but something artificially created.