Chapter 36
Chapter 36
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: The Play (1)
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“Just when exactly...”
Astier trailed off, pausing as if dredging up her memories.
Then she let out a low sigh, as if she'd pieced it together.
“It started from the question about where the child was.”
Right after hearing Astier's confession, I'd spotted the contradiction in her logic and worldview.
From the very beginning, I'd doubted the existence of the “child” she kept talking about.
Once you vaguely sense something's fabricated, you naturally start questioning the rest of it too.
But that was just suspicion—not certainty.
How could I be sure it was all an act when she'd deliberately taken wounds that looked fatal?
It was acting so divine it could fool even herself.
Astier let out a hearty laugh.
Self-reproach for her slip-up, a strange sense of relief for no clear reason, and a sadness hidden beneath it all.
I could vaguely sense those were the emotions she felt.
“...I thought I'd prepared pretty thoroughly.”
Astier, who had gone quiet for a moment, opened her mouth again.
Not in the stiff, duty-bound tone crushed by her position and responsibilities, but in a casual, open way of speaking.
As if she were finally pulling out her true voice.
The self she'd kept hidden behind the curtain was now raising its head.
“I built the character as a typical everyman—mixed with just the right amount of ignorance and convictions. Stupid and incompetent, but with beliefs. That kind of person.”
Every play has its finale.
The actors step onto the stage once the curtain falls.
Astier's one-woman show was no different.
“The logic was solid, the structure intricate... but I got tripped up in the last place I expected.”
Astier turned her gaze to the dark wall of our hideout.
No wind or light reached that wall.
Only silence gave weight to her voice.
“Did I mention it at the start? That I'm in surveillance for the Imperial Intelligence Agency's Fourth Division.”
Astier chose her words carefully.
As if determined not to repeat the mistake from her confession.
As if pondering exactly how to make sure every nuance reached me.
At last, having decided what to say, Astier gave a faint smile.
It wasn't mockery or self-deprecation.
It wasn't sad, or happy either.
“The real job of an accompanying intelligence officer is to observe the humanity of asymmetric forces.”
The Imperial Intelligence Agency handles countless pieces of information, but among them is its most anomalous division.
Surveillance.
It's the department tasked with observing the humanity of individuals whose power transcends nations.
“It's not some complicated concept. Just like I told you—reporting your actions and decisions to my superiors. Ultimately, to determine if you're beneficial to the Empire.”
So Astier had been testing my humanity while wearing the mask of a criminal.
I understood why she'd chosen that particular mask.
It tied directly to my own personal beliefs and values.
By playing someone who'd gained convictions from some incident, she'd aimed to win my sympathy while mimicking a worldview and background as close to mine as possible.
So it had been the Empress's scheme from start to finish.
The Empress had wanted to wield me as a sword—that much was true.
But at the same time, she'd wanted to test if it was a sharp one.
I let out a hollow chuckle and asked Astier,
“So, how'd I do? Did I pass your evaluation?”
Astier rubbed her wrist without answering.
A bloodstain she hadn't fully wiped away lingered inside her sleeve.
She quickly erased it.
But through the faded mark, a deep scar peeked out.
As if it'd been concealed, the flesh-toned makeup smeared faintly around it.
“Who knows. I'm not the one issuing the 'unfit' verdict.”
I stared at her wrist.
Dozens of stab-like scars crisscrossed it.
Like tree rings.
Not jabbed multiple times in one go.
Like the habit of carving dates into a wall—one slice at a time, waiting for the wound to heal before the next.
Did she notice my gaze? Astier casually hid her wrist behind her back.
How far did Astier's acting go, and where was the real her?
Humans only know what they've seen, heard, and felt.
We empathize with others' emotions, but in the end, we're only empathizing with the feelings we ourselves understand.
Acting might share that same nature.
Her performance had projected some of her true emotions.
I'd interpreted that as guilt.
“What happens if they deem me unfit from above?”
“You get induced.”
A flat, definitive statement. No exceptions.
I started to ask what “induced” really meant this time.
But she just stared at me, as if she already knew the question coming.
That gaze held me like a shackle.
I looked at her face, then back at the wound she'd covered.
Peeling away her act, there was something I'd wanted to say.
Until moments ago, I'd been relentlessly cornering her.
I'd even wanted to ask if it had been fun—playing the criminal, pretending to sympathize.
But even after her mask came off, I realized she was still the same Astier.
In her acting, and out of it.
She still wasn't the type to take pleasure in others' suffering.
Maybe that's why I hadn't seen through her performance so easily—because it contained a piece of her true self.
In the end, I let it go.
“Yeah. That's enough.”
I sat back down and started sorting the documents.
I'd sent word ahead, so a reply should come soon.
Did they think I'd pull something crazy?
Astier asked, looking flustered.
“Hey. You're not going to do anything to me?”
“...?”
I pondered the meaning of her question.
What was I supposed to do to Astier, exactly?
“You want me to do something?”
“Ah, no. Of course not. I mean—are you really not mad? I deceived you.”
“Not perfectly. So I can't say you deceived me.”
“...Anyway. Not mad? I was even prepared to die quietly once you caught on. That's why I spilled everything.”
I realized then that she hadn't been acting to truly bring me down.
That she wasn't the kind of person who laughed at others' pain.
I couldn't claim there was zero sense of betrayal, but I wasn't angry.
“If it's bothering you that much... someday, let's grab a seat.”
“...A seat?”
“Meaning, talk openly. No masks.”
I turned my head slightly and met Astier's pale blue-gray eyes.
Pupils drifting without focus.
Even without the mask, she had the same lost look.
“We were both putting on one-man shows, after all.”
Maybe even now, thinking the mask was off...
Still.
Astier stared at me, dumbfounded.
She mumbled as if to say something, then plopped down on the bed.
She lay back in a rigid pose, like she was in a coffin.
“You know something? The you I saw was so principled it was hard to believe. There's probably no one else like you in this world.”
Astier pulled the blanket over her face to hide her emotions.
Her voice rumbled low from beneath it.
“...I hope you're right.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ I met with the Empress to hand over the materials from the Luos family.
The Empress's reception room was lavishly decorated.
Every furnishing in the room was made of precious metals.
I slowly set the heavy leather bag down on the table.
Inside were all the documents, evidence, and contracts related to the Red Star.
Secret letters from the Red Star side, monster experiment logs, records of fund transfers with the Southern Kingdom Alliance, and more.
Decisively, even Carmel's personal dossier on the Red Star's members.
More than enough evidence for the Empress to execute them.
Today, as always, I couldn't see the Empress's face behind the veil.
Golden eyes swayed gracefully through the translucent fabric.
“Is that the evidence? I believed you could pull it off.”
The Empress opened the bag and began pulling out the documents, spreading them one by one.
The quiet room filled with the rustle of paper turning.
The Empress let out a hum with each page.
It looked like shock at unknown facts—or like an act.
Too blatant, almost like she was signaling to me that it was all performance.
At last, her hand stopped on the final document, and she spoke slowly.
“Don't you find it amusing?”
“...?”
“Despite fighting selflessly to protect the people, the ones reaping profits and honors are the fat pigs who sat back and watched.”
The duke's house was on the list too.
She was calling every noble and official on it a pig.
Were they pigs because they were traitors? Or had they always been pigs?
The Empress seemed utterly accustomed to reducing fellow humans to livestock.
Before I could recover from her radical words, she continued.
“Three days from now, the Red Star holds an emergency meeting. Location: the northern Hast Mountains, midway up. A site steeped in ancient traditions.”
The Empress handed me a document stamped with the imperial jade seal.
“That day, in that place—slaughter the pigs plotting to overthrow the Empire in my stead.”