Sacrificing the Greater for the Lesser
Alik, commander of the Imperial Enforcement Squad, pushed slowly through the underbrush as he advanced. Everyone who had appeared nearby until now had already been driven off or killed. Quietly he walked on, praying that the ones his detection artifact had just caught were Leos.
“Halt.”
At Alik’s order, Tyro and the rest of the enforcement squad froze as one and watched the scene ahead. What they saw were two boys roasting chunks of monster meat out in the open.
“Hyung… no matter how I look at it, this feels dangerous. There are monsters everywhere around here… wouldn’t it be better to cook it inside the cave?”
“Theon, are you crazy? You already forgot how we almost died trying to light a fire in the cave last time?”
“…Then maybe we should just eat it raw…”
“You already forgot how you got food poisoning and nearly died? Just trust your big brother. We only need to cook it a little, put the fire out fast, and run. I checked the area carefully. No monsters.”
The younger brother, Theon, glanced around restlessly.
“Even if there are no monsters… what about people? There could still be people.”
“Well… yeah, that’s true.”
Tedre looked at his little brother Theon as he spoke.
“Instead of wasting time talking, let’s just finish cooking and go.”
While the crackle of the fire rose again and again, older brother Tedre and younger brother Theon kept constant watch on their surroundings. From a distance, Imperial Enforcement Commander Alik signaled to his men.
“Stand by. There’s a floating aerial artifact nearby.”
Tyro and the enforcement members flinched and scanned the area. No matter how carefully they searched, they could not find any floating aerial artifact.
“Where is it supposed to be? I can’t sense anything…”
“It’s hidden in the underbrush at eleven o’clock. The enemy has already spotted our position. LEO… in other words, if my guess is right, the one we believe is Leos recently took a commemorative photo of the plunderers from the air. It makes no sense for multiple people to be using a floating aerial artifact in a place like this. It’s reasonable to conclude Leos is nearby.”
Alik dropped low and broke into a run.
“Follow me. First we take hostages.”
Most floating aerial artifacts came equipped with mana bomb functions. Once the enemy knew their location, total annihilation was only a matter of time.
Alik sprinted straight toward the two boys roasting monster carcasses right in front of him.
“S-stay back! If you come any closer I’ll attack!”
Panicked, Tedre stepped forward with his sword raised, shielding his younger brother Theon. But facing a trained enforcement commander like Alik was beyond him.
Clang!
The sound of steel meeting steel rang out, and Tedre’s sword went flying straight into the sky. Alik did not miss the opening; he slashed the boy’s ankle with his blade.
Shhk.
At that sound the younger brother Theon burst into tears and charged.
“Hyung… hyuuung!”
“Don’t come… run… Theon… I’m already done for, so hurry…!”
Tedre stretched out a desperate hand, but Theon did not flee. He clenched his small fists tight and swung wildly, trying to bring down the enemy who had casually ruined his brother’s ankle. Yet the fists of a boy who had never received proper combat training could never close the enormous gap in skill between him and Alik.
Without even drawing his sword, Alik simply dodged Theon’s punches and kicked him flying.
“Guhhh…!”
Theon coughed up blood in agony. Alik paid it no mind; he tossed Theon over toward Tedre, then gathered every enforcement member into one tight formation.
With Theon and Tedre in the center and the commander and his men surrounding them, Alik smiled and shouted toward the sky.
“Leos! I know you’re watching. If you’re still human, you won’t blow us up along with these kids.”
As he spoke, Alik pressed his blade to Tedre’s throat.
“If you want to save these innocent boys, recall the floating aerial artifact. Don’t even think about playing dumb. The only way to obtain a floating aerial artifact inside a Red Gate is through the Interrunner shop. If we assume you and LEO are the same person, then it makes perfect sense that you know so much about the Gate and that someone here is carrying a floating aerial artifact.”
The floating aerial artifact—Spirel—rose into the air and drifted until it hovered directly above Alik.
The enforcement members muttered in shock.
“Wait… it was actually there? I thought the commander was imagining things.”
“How did it get this close without us noticing?”
Alik looked at the other enforcement members with open contempt. At the same time, his evaluation of Leos was changing in real time.
A floating aerial artifact. Notorious for its vicious difficulty of control. The fact that the opponent could operate it as freely as his own body already displayed an enormous level of skill.
If I hadn’t noticed it early, we would’ve been in serious trouble.
Alik had sensed Spirel approaching at high speed from the beginning, but he had deliberately acted as though he had not. He had been afraid that the moment the enemy realized he was aware, an attack would come.
Yet time passed and Spirel never attacked. Alik formed a single hypothesis.
If the enemy had discovered them and still refused to attack, there had to be a reason.
He immediately began searching the surroundings. Not far away he found the two boys cooking a monster carcass. The instant he saw them, he understood.
The reason Spirel had only observed and never attacked was because it feared these boys would be caught in the blast.
It could simply have been out on reconnaissance.
But if it had been a pure reconnaissance Spirel, there would have been no reason to keep following only the enforcement squad. Tracking solely the Imperial Enforcement Squad even when other people were nearby was a clear expression of hostility.
On the battlefield—or anywhere else—if a gun is pressed to your skull and the trigger is never pulled, it means something has gone wrong.
Long experience told Alik immediately what that problem was: Leos’s humanity.
He simply couldn’t bring himself to kill innocent boys.
Assuming LEO was Leos, and assuming Spirel only pursued without attacking, might both have been leaps of logic. But Alik trusted his exceptional instincts. The very fact that he alone had discovered Spirel was thanks to the sensory talent he had been born with.
Sure enough, Spirel had been about to drop a mana bomb, then veered off and moved elsewhere.
“Fuck…”
Alik let out a breath of relief.
“We stopped Spirel’s attack, but he must still be nearby. Stay alert. He could drop a mana bomb on us at any moment. Deploy the defensive equipment we prepared in advance—quickly.”
The moment Alik finished speaking, anti-mana-bomb devices were set down one after another around them. Watching the work with satisfaction, Alik muttered,
“For the sake of the goal, one must not be choosy about the means. The instant he refused to attack because he wanted to save a couple of brats, our victory was already decided.”
As the Imperial Enforcement Squad bustled about, Theon screamed as if tearing his throat.
“Please… please let us go! My brother’s badly hurt… if you leave him like this he might die!”
Only now did it become clear that although Alik had only cut Tedre’s ankle, the boy had fallen and smashed his head against a large rock root; blood was pouring steadily from the wound. Alik clicked his tongue and casually sliced Theon’s ankle as well.
“Ghk… gyaaaaaaah!”
While Theon writhed in pain, Alik spoke with empty eyes.
“Your brother is critical, so I’ll use you as the hostage instead. Stay quiet and don’t resist. Then at least you’ll live.”
“My brother… if you leave him like that he’ll really die… die…”
“It can’t be helped. Think of it as the sacrifice of the few for the greater good. We came here to carry out the Empire’s mission. We must survive by any means necessary and complete that mission. If you also care for the Empire, then accept your fate willingly.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?!”
Theon screamed at the top of his lungs, then clutched his ankle and began crawling toward Tedre.
“Hyung… hyung… open your eyes… hyung…”
Tedre’s breathing grew shallower and shallower.
Theon looked around through his tears.
All they had wanted was a single meal. Their remaining food had run out, so they had tried to light a fire in the cave to cook a monster carcass and nearly suffocated. They had tried eating raw monster flesh and nearly died of food poisoning.
After that, watching Theon starve for days had finally driven Tedre to risk cooking the carcass. All they had wanted was to eat a dead body that was already lying there. The price was horrific.
“Please… save us… I’m begging you… just use me as the hostage… at least treat my brother… please treat my brother…”
Alik kicked Theon away in irritation and shouted,
“Shut your mouth. Do you not understand the situation? What treatment do you expect in the middle of this? One more word and I’ll kill your brother right now.”
Just as Alik raised his sword—
Lacart, commander of the Imperial Execution Squad, walked out with a grim expression.
“Hah… look at these insane bastards.”
“Lacart?”
Alik called out in confusion. Behind him Paron emerged at a measured pace. And last of all, walking behind the two men, came Leos.
The moment he saw that sight, Alik ground his teeth and muttered,
“So LEO really was you, Leos. More importantly… you fucking traitors… how dare you betray the Empire?”
Alik glared at Execution Squad Commander Lacart with murderous eyes. Lacart simply shook his head and gestured.
“We already pulled Spirel back like you demanded. Let those innocent kids go.”
“And if I refuse? Withdraw all the forces you have in the area. Then I’ll consider it.”
Hearing Alik’s words, Leos answered in a voice empty of emotion.
“Forces in the area? There’s no one here but us.”
“…Don’t talk nonsense. You came to fight us with that few people?”
Instead of answering, Leos simply gestured. Spirel began circling the perimeter and blasted the nearby forest with mana bombs.
BOOM!
BOOM!
KRA-BOOM!
With tremendous explosions the surrounding underbrush was completely obliterated. A radius of roughly five hundred meters became an empty clearing. Leos glanced around and said,
“I told you there’s nobody. Why won’t you believe me?”
Confirming the sight, Alik let out a short laugh and shouted,
“It’s really just you? This is basically suicide. Until now you must have been using Spirel for surprise attacks to kill our men. Right now you can’t even use Spirel. What the hell are you relying on to act so cocky?”
Leos did not answer the question; he asked one of his own.
“I know the Empire sent you. Why are you tracking us?”
“Because the Empire needs your ability. More precisely, it needs your ability to seal Red Gates.”
“Handle it yourselves. I left the Empire’s hands a long time ago. They were the ones who drove me out in the first place.”
“No. As long as you live inside the Empire, you are a member of the Empire. When the Empire calls, you come and devote yourself to it whenever necessary. I’ve heard about your circumstances, but ignoring the Empire’s crisis over something like that is foolish. Think of the sacrifice of the few for the greater good.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then by any means necessary we will either take you or kill you.”
As Leos began walking slowly forward, Lacart stepped in front of him as if offering to handle it. But Leos waved him aside and continued walking at a steady pace.
“This pisses me off. Disgusting bastards who can’t do a single thing with their own power, talking as if they understand other people’s situations—it really pisses me off.”
Alik smiled, hauled the fallen Theon up, and pressed his blade to the boy’s throat.
“One more step and he dies. Drop your sword.”
Leos paused briefly, looked at Alik, and asked,
“Taking those innocent boys as hostages—is that also the sacrifice of the few for the greater good?”
“You could say that.”
“Ah… I see. Now I get it. How completely fucking stupid that phrase is. It was never anything more than a way for people like you to justify yourselves.”
With those words Leos immediately hurled his chain sword.
Whoosh!
The chain sword streaked forward at tremendous speed and knocked the sword clean out of Alik’s hand. For an instant the violent recoil flung Alik’s arm backward. Leos did not miss the moment; he charged straight in.
He shoved Theon aside, then whispered to Alik as the man retreated.
“I intend to change the Empire for the sake of a few people. Unlike you, I want the sacrifice of the greater for the small.”
“You crazy bastard… how dare you…”
“If you want to uphold your convictions, try and stop me.”
“…?”
Leos wrapped the chain sword around his body, spun hard, and drove it straight into Alik’s shoulder.
“Ghk… guhhhhh…!”
Alik staggered, clutching his pierced shoulder with a face twisted in pain. Leos watched him with an expression empty of feeling and whispered,
“What? You killed countless people for the most ridiculous reasons, and now that it’s your turn you’re scared?”
Leos began whirling the chain sword through the air and added,
“Why do you keep backing away? You’re supposed to stop me, right? You’re supposed to offer your lives for the Empire, right? That’s the reason you live, right? That’s supposed to be an honor, right? So stop running and come here. I’ll grant your wish myself.”