Chapter 71
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: The General's Burden
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Bel and Ad headed straight south. Menes was gone, but with enemy forces drawn to Bin and the spirit, they were able to break through without any further combat.
The moment they were out of the enemy line, Bel immediately threw off his mask. The air in the no-man's-land wasn't as toxic as the enemy territory teeming with mutants, so it was safe to breathe without it.
The baptism of lightning that had embroidered the spectacular, dark sky had long since ceased.
He had no idea when Bin and the spirit had returned. The situation had been so frantic that there hadn't been a moment to look at the sky.
The sounds of explosions occasionally cut through the dreadful silence. Corpses were a common sight as they crossed the no-man's-land.
*Boom!*
A deafening roar shattered the silence. The air grew hot as the ground shook all around them. A landmine had exploded not far away.
Had one of the Allied soldiers stepped on it, or was it a mutant?
He didn't know. It might have even been a malfunction.
Bel and Ad had no reason, nor any duty, to check.
On the battlefield, a landmine existed only to explode, and whoever stepped on it, only to die.
“When we get back to the unit, I'll take you to the Saintess. Get treated as soon as possible.”
Bel said, rubbing his arm through his robe. To him, today was just another day where he had carried out a mission slightly more dangerous than usual; it held no greater meaning.
“...Why didn't you do anything?”
Ad asked, his voice sharp with an irritation he couldn't suppress.
“The enemy must not find out there's a mage here. You should know that I don't engage in combat under any circumstances. We went over this in the briefing.”
“...But the situation changed. We were discovered and forced into battle. Was that part of the plan, too? Did you tell us about *that* in the briefing?”
Ad found Bel's calm voice incredibly grating. It felt as if he were treating the day's dead as if they were nothing.
“Those men could have been saved. You're the famous Bel Artois, aren't you? With a single flick of your finger, you could have turned those mutants to ash.”
“Under no circumstances could the enemy learn that a mage had infiltrated their ranks. Furthermore, if they realized the infiltrating mage was a general, the Overlords would have mobilized themselves. In that situation, doing nothing was the best course of action.”
Bel calmly and coolly recounted the situation.
His judgment had been correct.
For the sake of the mission, and for the survival of his soldiers.
Every word he said was right, and Ad couldn't find a single thing to rebut.
Which only made the frustration and anger simmering inside him worse.
“...You abandoned your men, General.”
An accusation driven by emotion, like a child's, devoid of logic or reason.
But such a meaningless accusation did nothing to quell his feelings.
“Yes, I abandoned them.”
Bel replied softly to the accusation.
Ad was speechless.
He felt sick.
Nothing he could say would make him feel any better.
Bel was too rational.
Frighteningly so.
Even as his subordinates died before his eyes, as men melted away, he showed not a flicker of agitation.
“...Have you always been like this?”
“Hard to say.”
Bel took a pipe from within his robe and placed it in his mouth.
He didn't light it. They weren't in a safe place yet; rising smoke could draw artillery fire.
He chewed on the end of the pipe for a moment before speaking carefully.
“I probably wasn't like this at the start.”
“...”
For a moment, a chill ran down Ad's spine at Bel's nonchalant reply.
He felt as though he had just seen the true face of the hero he aspired to be.
The thought that he was striving to become such a pitiful man made everything he had built up until now feel meaningless.
It was as if a deep cliff, previously unseen, had opened up before him. The thought that he no longer had the strength or the reason to walk forward struck him hard.
At the same time, the image of the boy who had adorned the sky flashed before his eyes.
The boy who rode the thunder-calling spirit, delivering divine punishment to the Mazoku against a backdrop of lightning.
*Right, not all generals are like this.*
*Aren't there those who grace the battlefield with such beauty and splendor, like that boy?*
*The one I want to be like is General Bin...*
“...Do you still believe you can become a hero?”
Bel, who had been walking far ahead, turned back to ask.
“...”
A cold silence hung between the two.
Beneath a cool shadow, only the sound of Bel's ragged breathing could be heard.
His shoulder throbbed, and his fingertips trembled.
Ad couldn't answer Bel's question.
***
Operation Name: Fish Trap
Status: Success
Survivors: General Bel, Private Ad
Missing: Corporal Citadel Kraya
KIA: Second Lieutenant Menes, Sergeant Kerner P., Sergeant Mills, Sergeant Alex G., Corporal James K. Silva, Corporal Hutchison, Private Brandon.
Special Notes: None.
***
As soon as he finished writing the report, Bel packed his pipe full of newly supplied tobacco leaves.
A bitter and sweet taste touched the tip of his tongue before moving straight to his lungs.
An indescribable freshness and a slight bitterness filled his lungs. The deep, heavy flavor was impressive, incomparable to the cheap tobacco supplied to the military.
He sat before a campfire lit behind the barracks, staring blankly at the burning flames. Officers and soldiers bustled around him, but he saw none of them.
After staring blankly at the fire for a while, he quietly rolled up the mud-stained sleeve of his left arm.
On the arm hidden beneath the sleeve were several cuts, as if made by a knife.
Wordlessly, Bel took a thin dagger from inside his robe. A mage had no real reason to carry a dagger... but in Bel's case, it had a specific use.
He held the blade to the roaring campfire. The flames touched the back of his right hand. He received a light burn, but Bel's expression remained unchanged.
He was like a machine. His breathing never faltered in pain, and he rarely lost his composure in the face of fear.
He sat there, smoking for two full hours.
The tobacco had started to taste burnt thirty minutes after he'd lit it. But Bel paid it no mind, continuing to burn the dry ash over and over.
He wasn't hungry, and his legs didn't tremble.
His heart was endlessly calm, and his mind was busy contemplating what must be done to win this war.
It was an inhuman level of composure.
Bel didn't know how he had become this kind of person. He didn't think he'd been such a dreadful human being before becoming a general.
...No, perhaps he had been like this from the very beginning.
Everyone who remembered his childhood was dead, so no one could recall when he had become this way.
He carefully brought the blade of the dagger, long heated in the flames, to his left arm.
Hot.
It was hot, but not enough to make him groan.
He then sliced his arm with the red-hot blade.
The blood that flowed out sizzled as it met the searing metal.
There was no smell of blood. It might have been masked by the stench of corpses all around, or perhaps Bel's blood had no scent to begin with.
No one knew the truth.
Bel stared blankly at the new wound on his arm, letting time pass.
It didn't hurt.
Any normal person would have felt excruciating pain from a bleeding wound, but strangely, he felt nothing.
“...What are you doing?”
As Bel stared vacantly at the wound, a cold voice spoke from behind him.
Bel didn't bother to turn around. He knew who it was.
“Watching the fire. Smoking.”
Bel flicked the blood from the blade and tucked it back inside his robe.
Then he pulled his sleeve back down. The wounded arm was hidden by the wine-colored robe.
Grisha quietly sat down next to Bel and held out her hand. It seemed she knew what Bel had just been doing.
“It's fine.”
Bel gently pushed Grisha's arm away, answering her silent gesture. He didn't want to trouble her over such a small wound when she was already working over twenty hours a day.
“If you get an infection, I'll have to do your job, too. Managing the wounded is hard enough, so give me your arm.”
“I sterilized it with fire.”
“It'll leave a scar.”
“So what?”
Bel asked, relighting his pipe.
What was the big deal about a scar on his arm? Bel couldn't understand Grisha's concern.
“...Then at least eat something. You haven't eaten in at least thirty hours.”
Grisha shifted slightly, brought out a wooden bowl of soup, and offered it to him. Seeing the two bowls in her hands, it was clear she had intended to bring Bel a meal from the start.
Bel looked at the soup Grisha offered with a curious expression.
The soup smelled appetizing.
It even had meat in it.
Strange.
He'd heard that the kid named Bin had arrived with wagons full of all sorts of goods; it seemed fresh vegetables and meat were among them.
“I'm not really hungry.”
Despite the appetizing smell, Bel didn't feel very hungry.
...No, more than not being hungry, his stomach felt slightly unsettled.
“Shut up and eat.”
“You have a foul mouth for a Saintess.”
“I've been rolling around battlefields for ten years. At this point, I think I've earned the title.”
“The Goddess would weep if she heard you.”
“Well, she's still better off than us, who are bleeding right now.”
“...”
Resigned, Bel accepted the soup from Grisha.
It was warm. It smelled good.
But he had no appetite.
“Uh... are you eating?”
While Bel was staring blankly at the soup with its chunks of meat, the white-haired boy appeared from beyond the campfire.
He was holding an acoustic guitar, which looked too heavy for his slender arms.
He usually seemed to avoid any kind of physical exertion, but for some reason, he showed no reluctance in carrying the heavy guitar.
“An officer told me it'd be better for the generals to eat separately... This is the right place, isn't it?”
“Yes. Have a seat.”
Grisha pointed to a clean log on the opposite side of the fire from her.
The boy thought to himself, *This is where the generals eat, and there isn't a single chair?*
Bel... was still just staring blankly at his cooling soup.
The flickering flames danced before Bel's eyes.
He still felt no pain in his left arm.
He didn't feel like eating.
Bel even began to doubt if he was human.
“...Why is the mood so heavy? Did something happen?”
The boy seemed to have finally noticed the heavy atmosphere around the campfire.
“Just the usual.”
“It's war.”
Bel and Grisha replied nonchalantly.
“Well, okay then.”
The boy didn't show much interest in what the two had been through that day.
He wasn't the type to be interested in others to begin with, and he was already overwhelmed with solving his own problems.
“Is it okay if I play my guitar?”
The boy asked belatedly, having already placed the guitar on his lap and rolled up his sleeves. Perhaps the reason the boy had come here wasn't for the soup, but for the warm campfire.
It went without saying that playing a guitar in front of a campfire was far more enjoyable than playing in an empty barrack.
“...I don't mind.”
Bel glanced between the white-haired boy and the guitar before answering indifferently. Honestly, he wasn't in the mood to enjoy something like a song... but it was obvious at a glance that the boy wanted to play, so he agreed.
The boy's mood was more important than his own.
Considering what that boy would have to do for the people of the continent in the future... it was only natural.
*Twang—*
The sound of a thin guitar string vibrating reached Bel's ears.
Soon, the thickest string at the top of the guitar hummed, and a low note rode the campfire's warmth, blanketing the area.
Single notes gathered to form a measure, and the measures soon flowed into a melody.
The melody became a song, trickling into Bel's ears and tickling a place deep within his chest.
Before long, the boy couldn't contain the rhythm and began to sing softly.
Listening to the boy's voice brought to mind a woman dancing to jazz. His voice was relaxed, clear, and at the same time, sorrowful.
The lyrics were about apologizing to someone.
At first, it sounded like an apology to a former lover, but the following lyrics seemed like an apology to a benefactor, like a parent.
...It even sounded, perhaps, like an apology to the subordinates he'd had no choice but to leave behind today.
With every strum of the guitar strings, the tactics in Bel's mind faded away, one by one. With every vibration of the thin strings, Bel's hardened pupils trembled.
Bel stared blankly at the singing boy.
The slow, low melody continued for about three minutes.
“My voice is giving out already. Should've brought some honey water.”
The boy, having finished the song in his quiet voice, muttered with a slightly hoarse throat. He wanted to sing two or three more songs, but his delicate throat struggled to even get through one properly.
“Uh, what is it?”
After the song ended, the boy sensed an awkward atmosphere and, noticing Bel staring blankly at him, asked with a puzzled look.
“...No, it's... it's nothing.”
Bel belatedly realized he had been staring at the boy with a stupid expression on his face.
He quickly averted his gaze, and at that moment, a sudden, sharp pain shot through his left arm.
He instinctively placed a hand over his left arm.
The arm throbbed. He could clearly feel blood pouring from the wounded vessel through his robe. And that blood... was so hot.