Chapter 255: The Country of Steel and the Faceless Men - 4
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 255: The Country of Steel and the Faceless Men - 4
The princess could no longer become a queen, and this country was no longer a kingdom. It was a Military State ruled by soldiers, a nation that enforced peace with guns and swords. In a place where everything was done under the command of the headquarters, it would be difficult for any single person to feel a sense of responsibility.
But the princess, the sole descendant of King and Queen Grandiomor, the very architects of this nation, felt that responsibility. Not just for the remnants of the kingdom who had become the resistance, but for every citizen of this country.
She could have taken my words as a joke, but she took them seriously and was quick to deny them.
“Please stop trying to test me. A place like that must be destroyed! Even if the people inside are criminals, a hell that inflicts eternal suffering should not exist in reality!”
“For someone who isn’t a queen, you seem quite concerned with the lives of the people.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking at all! I am simply following my principles! Besides, weren’t you also outraged when you saw what was inside, Huey?”
“Ah, that’s not what I was angry about.”
Barbarism is the act of doing everything one can without hesitation. Civilization, on the other hand, begins by defining what one cannot do.
Murder is a given, but so are theft, blackmail, fraud, sedition, heresy, and rebellion. Sometimes a few are omitted, and sometimes new, unheard-of taboos are added, but fundamentally, civilization is the act of castrating something from humanity.
In that sense, if you were to ask if I was barbaric or civilized, I’d have to say—though it doesn’t sound very good—that I’m clearly barbaric. After all, I’ve committed every crime I could.
But I am an individual, and there’s a limit to the influence a single person can have. Even if I had a negative impact, it would end with me being caught and punished.
The fact that I was actually punished makes me a perfect example.
But what about the Military State?
“There have always been bastards who acted recklessly, justifying their actions with all sorts of bizarre excuses for the greater good, for the sake of the nation. But in the end, those were just excuses they tacked on to defend their actions. This, on the other hand, is real. It was done in the name of the nation, for the sake of the nation. It even feels as though the nation itself ordered it.”
They build labor camps to exploit the people. It’s all for the nation.
They rule everyone with an iron fist and strict laws. All for the nation.
They invent all sorts of things and spread them far and wide, but everyone knows it’s not for the people.
The hook that pierces the Bio-receptor.
The straitjacket made from a Clothing Packet.
The Standard Magic cast at the cost of one’s own body.
The Compressed Canned Food that preserves only nutrients.
The Chimera Beans, created without any consideration for taste or happiness.
The Thundergear that forces humans to adapt to its self-turning rhythm.
The Meta Conveyor Belt, built with blood, sweat, and corpses, and run with humans as its lubricant.
While the Military State uses them with particular viciousness, all Seven Major Inventions lack any affection for humanity. After filtering everything else away, the only thing that remains is utility.
The princess agreed with me.
“You’re right. It’s true for other countries as well, but the Military State is especially severe. The only silver lining is that the punishments are so harsh that there’s no one skimming off the top…”
“Yes. That’s a key point. The Military State doesn’t tolerate anyone committing crimes except for the Military State itself. Because in the Military State, the only one allowed to sin is the Military State.”
“…What? Sin?”
“The Military State has a surplus. It definitely has excess resources to distribute—wealth, happiness, time, or pride. But the Military State never shares them. It just keeps stockpiling.”
The princess, forgetting she had just been snapping at me, focused intently on my words.
“…In that case, Huey. You’re angry at the power behind the scenes, the one who holds all of this in their grasp and controls this country from the shadows?”
“Who knows? Their identity, their location, even their very existence is uncertain. How can I be angry at something like that?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. Let me rephrase. You want to find the being who created all of this, don’t you?”
As if she finally understood, the princess clenched her fist and slapped it into her palm. The defiant attitude she’d had just moments before vanished in an instant.
I shrugged.
“More or less. But I’ve wandered the Military State for months and lived in the capital for years, and I still haven’t found them.”
My ‘discovery’ as a mind reader is on a different level. If this person were living peacefully, disguised as a commoner, their identity would be revealed the moment they met me and I read their mind.
Even if they were hiding in some secret base, if they came outside just once. If they happened to cross paths with me. I would have figured everything out with just a glance from afar.
It didn’t even have to be a shadowy ruler. A person in power is inevitably connected to countless others. If there was anyone who knew even a little about them or had been in contact with them, I would have grabbed that thread and slowly unraveled it.
…Well, in the end, I couldn’t find them. And it wasn’t a goal worth risking my life for, so I was taking my time.
“So… that’s why you tested me with that question earlier.”
“Pardon?”
A test? What test? I’m a master at solving problems, not making them. I know everything my opponent knows, but I can’t even imagine what they don’t know, so my shortcomings are easily exposed when I try to create a test.
When I asked her honestly, the princess looked at me as if to say, what are you talking about?
“You didn’t know how I, a member of the resistance, would act if I came face to face with that ‘someone.’ So you tested me by suggesting that the refinery’s existence was actually better for the resistance, didn’t you?”
‘Of course. There’s no way a colleague of Sir Shei would say something so heartless. And I took it seriously! Yerien Grandiomor, you must strive to be better!’
So that’s how she took it. This princess really does see people in a relentlessly positive light.
Then again, a deaf person can’t speak simply because they can’t hear, and a blind person can’t describe what color is. One becomes literally senseless to things they cannot perceive.
In that sense, the princess, having never been exposed to hostility, had never learned to be wary of it. She was a mentally handicapped person, born with a congenital lack of a sense of danger.
No, ‘simpleton’ might be more appropriate. What a simpleton.
“You’re very perceptive.”
I nodded. It wasn’t a bad misunderstanding. My original intention was to pique her curiosity anyway.
If I could stir her curiosity like this, wouldn’t she be more proactive when it was time to infiltrate the headquarters?
The princess nodded with a bitter expression.
“…You are brilliant. I was so shocked by the sight before me that I couldn’t think of anything else, but you, Huey, weren’t bogged down by the immediate situation and were already looking ahead…. Please forgive my inadequacy. To think I raised my voice instead of being helpful.”
On the contrary. The princess would probably be a huge help.
A power that prevents anyone from harboring hostility towards her. It had lost some of its luster after a madman with gears in his head nearly killed her, but I couldn’t just let such a ridiculously overpowered ability go to waste.
And.
“Well, it’s fine. All of that is just talk unless we get out of here safely.”
“What? Get out safely?”
‘Isn’t our work here done? Once we destroy the refinery and head to the headquarters… oh, wait a minute? Destroy…?’
She gets it.
This place is a trap. And a particularly nasty kind of trap at that.
Because it doesn’t confine us with strength or physical force, but with a dilemma.
The princess’s face turned pale.
‘How? How do we destroy it? Should we kill all the heinous criminals, or should we liberate the laborers? Who decides? How?’
It’s hard to realize it when you’re inside the refinery. Because they are the ones wrestling with the dilemma. For those moving within the script, the world outside the stage might as well not exist.
That’s why the princess and I needed to get out.
I explained it to her.
“The alchemic steel refinery is a truly important facility. In fact, in some ways, it’s a target that must be protected even more than the headquarters.”
Although alchemic steel is a resource with large stockpiles, it isn’t infinite. And a resource consumed in as many places as alchemic steel is never enough, even if it were infinite.
If production here is disrupted, any and every plan in the Military State will be delayed. For a state that runs like clockwork, they would never want the most important gear to slow down.
“So the Military State set a trap here. And we’ve walked right into it.”
So, they would stop us here. Even if it meant deploying a powerful asset like the Camarilla.
…Actually, it wasn’t that I figured it out, but that I read the Camarilla’s thoughts and realized it belatedly! Even I read that script and thought, oh, is this a big deal?
“But there were no troops here! Sir Shei confirmed it before we came!”
“That’s why it’s a trap. Because a place that should never be empty didn’t have a single soul in sight. For a state that treats even its army corps as consumables, there should have been a delay force to tie us down, even if only for a second. No matter that it’s night, Tyr’s time.”
In fact, during the day, a delay force had cut off the roads and bombarded us from a distance. They didn’t delay us for more than a few seconds, but that was the Military State’s way.
The princess’s mind grew complicated.
“Th-then. What happened? Did the Gunmaster lead us into a trap…?”
“No. Ria’s proposal was the right one. Thanks to her, instead of crushing us with overwhelming numbers and firepower, they’re now struggling to trap us in a crude snare.”
Historia’s strategy was quintessentially of the Military State. It was an efficient strategy: hide our movements, select a strategically important facility, and launch a preemptive strike.
The only problem was that its efficiency made it easy to read. The moment we turned to destroy the automaton carriage assembly plant, the Military State would have easily predicted our next target.
And more importantly, Princess, the one who led us into this trap was your colleague Kerapald… or rather, the Camarilla Zigrund, who extracted the information from him. How dare you try to shift the blame?
I can’t reveal that I use mind-reading, so I’m keeping my mouth shut, but if I were to assign blame, you’d be the first one on the chopping block.
Well, that’s not what’s important right now.
“This place is a stage. A route designed to make us witness the horrific plight of the laborers as we travel from the refinery’s entrance to its core. The process itself will present our party with an even greater dilemma. Should they kill them all, free them, or leave them be? Ria and Shei-ssi will clash, and Tyr and Shiati will chime in, leading to chaos.”
Historia is, for all intents and purposes, a general of the Military State. With the authority to order her subordinates to their deaths, she wouldn’t spare a thought for the lives of heinous criminals.
The Regressor is acting to prevent the sins that will overflow in the future. She couldn’t readily agree to kill so many helpless laborers in an instant.
Shiati would prefer to release all the laborers, if only to get revenge on the Military State. It would incite even greater chaos.
In contrast, Tyr, who is detached from life and death, is the type of person who might even offer the option of turning them all into ghouls.
Zigrund’s intention in separating me, the strategist, and the princess, who could eliminate the conflict itself, was likely to fuel that chaos.
After buying time like that, just before we take action, their plan is to surround and annihilate us.
“You might be right! What do we do?” the princess said, her face deathly pale, having fully grasped the possibility.
“No! Huey, why did you come outside knowing all of this…?!”
“Because the easiest way to ruin a prepared stage is to invade it from offstage.”
“Whaaat?!”
Magic and theater. Both prepare a stage for an audience. The need for performance is another commonality.
But if there’s one key difference, it’s the obligation of the genre.
A play must ultimately meet everyone’s expectations, but a magic trick must defy them. This difference in direction gives rise to all sorts of other distinctions.
I could see the end. The concrete outer wall, which seemed like it would stretch all the way to the Military State’s border, was finally ending, and we had arrived at the opposite side of the refinery’s entrance.
Only after arriving there did I stop the automaton carriage.
“The refinery is a building with no doors. Therefore, this side, the furthest from the entrance, is the very core.”
The refinery has no doors. The walls just stretch on like smooth skin. The princess, recalling that we hadn’t found a single side door on our way here, looked puzzled.
“Why wouldn’t they build even a side door? What if there’s a fire…?”
“Instead, the building was divided into sections, right? I guess they planned to separate them with bulkheads.”
“But then the people in the section on fire would have nowhere to run, would they?”
“The person who designed this building must have thought that was for the best.”
The princess looked shocked by my answer. I left her and hopped down from the automaton carriage. Walking to a corner of the wall, I took out a card and flipped it over. My favorite tool, the Ace of Diamonds skewer, greeted me with its familiar feel.
“It’s been a while, my friend. Did you miss me?”
“Woof! Didn’t miss you! Seen you too much! But good to see you!”
I call for one friend, and the friend to all humanity shows up. I waved a hand at Azzy, who was following behind me.
“…You go get Nabi. I have work to do.”
“Woof!”
Azzy nodded readily and went to fetch Nabi’s box. In the meantime, I gripped the skewer with both hands and aimed it at the gray concrete wall.
“Hup!”
A thrust with all my strength. The skewer, driven forward with both hands, dug fiercely into the concrete wall.
…About one centimeter deep.
“Concrete, as expected. It won’t budge with my strength alone.”
But that’s what Earth Art is for. The technique that was mistaken for Holy Power because I was trapped beneath the Abyss.
I dragged the skewer forcefully. A small but profane scratch appeared on the smooth gray wall. I carved a mark like graffiti on a historical monument, an irreversible trace that made me want to do it more.
“Ugh, this is pretty tough too…”
I moved the skewer in a circle to form a closed loop, then wiped away a bead of sweat and sighed. Dust rose from the gouged concrete.
Alright, time to work. I placed my hands on the wall, took a deep breath, and focused my mind. Recalling the distant, vast earth and my own insignificant existence crawling upon it, I used Earth Art.
Screeeech.
The section of earth I had marked with the skewer slid away as if it were merely resting there when I pushed it with my hands.
The earth always seems constant and eternal, but it’s not. It rises, sinks, and collides, its skin sometimes breaking out. Her divine body (神體) is a substance that fluctuates just like a human body (身體).
That’s because Mother Earth, like humans, has searing red liquid pulsing hotly beneath her skin.
What we think of as land is, in fact, nothing more than a plate (板) resting on that blood, and these plates flow and move along the currents of lava, sometimes colliding and rising up.
…To think that what we call mountains and look up to in awe is, from Mother Earth’s perspective, nothing more than chapped skin.
This is why she’s worthy of being called Divine.
“To cut through a wall so smoothly with a mere skewer…!”
‘Huey-nim must be a master of swordsmanship, he just never had a chance to show his strength! His Qi must have reached a masterful level, since there was no sound at all!’
Meanwhile, the princess was covering her mouth in astonishment. She thought I had used my Qi to penetrate and slice through the concrete.
How can you be so unobservant? It’s Earth Art. If my Qi was at a level where I could casually use penetrating force, do you think I’d be doing this?
When I pushed the wall harder with both hands, the cut-out piece was pushed into the building and fell with a thud. A heavy sound echoed from the other side, and pitch-black darkness was visible through the round hole.
Good. This side is ready.
“Nyaaawn… Let go, let go of nya. Nya will not move, nya…”
“Woof! No! Time for work! No work, no food!”
Azzy, preaching the importance of labor, was dragging Nabi by the scruff of her neck. Nabi tried to resist by digging her claws into the ground, but against Azzy’s strength, her claws offered about as much resistance as a plow tilling the earth.
Her claws are still sharp. More than enough for breaking things.
“The preparations are complete. I’ll go in first, so follow me with Azzy and Nabi.”
“Yes…!”
‘You must have an exquisite plan! If I can be of any help, I will gladly do so!’
The princess clenched her fists and watched me carefully as I climbed through the hole. Hehe, good. The more you think I’m amazing, the more you’ll follow my plan…
Huh. But this wall is thicker than I thought. It’s almost like a tunnel. Doesn’t that make the hole a bit small… Whoops.
“Darn, I’m stuck! Princess, could you give me a push?”
‘…He does have a plan, right?’
You’re doubting me already? If you’re going to trust me, trust me all the way! Isn’t that expiration date a little too short?
“Woof! Push! Heave, ho! Heave, ho!”
“Not you! Not you! Ack! Don’t use your claws!”