Chapter 257: The Country of Steel and the Faceless Men - 6
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 257: The Country of Steel and the Faceless Men - 6
“You’re here earlier than I expected. I was hoping to finish before you arrived.”
I meant it. My original plan was to have everything ready before they got here.
I had successfully breached the outer wall. Using my mind-reading ability, I’d scanned the interior beforehand and confirmed it was empty, so I moved without hesitation.
After infiltrating the vacant control room, however, I ran into a huge problem.
I had no idea what anything was.
With no minds to read, I couldn’t understand the structure of the countless machines before me, no matter how hard I looked.
Damn mind-reading. For all its power, it can only read human minds. It can read a person’s thoughts, but not some stupid machine?
I looked around for anyone who could help, but the Princess was just as useless here. I considered letting Azzy and Nabi go on a rampage of indiscriminate destruction, but that was a last resort.
Left with no other choice, I waited for Kerapald. Once he arrived, I could read his thoughts and figure out which of these things was the annihilation device.
And then, Kerapald arrived.
“I thought you said you couldn’t take it anymore. Why did you come back?”
“I was worried you all might not be able to reach a conclusion about what to do with the refinery. You still haven’t decided, have you, Shei?”
The Regressor flinched, my words hitting a little too close to home. I clicked my tongue openly.
How pathetic. Even if Kerapald was pulling the strings from behind the scenes, how could she let herself be swayed so easily? Could she even call herself a Regressor at this rate?
“…Y-yeah. But I’ve almost got it. Just wait a little longer, I can solve this.”
“Well, that’s fine. That’s why I’m here, after all.”
With his hands clasped behind his back, he walked slowly across the control room. While the others hesitated, unsure how to approach him in this unfamiliar atmosphere, I quickly read Kerapald’s thoughts.
‘This is the worst. The stage has slipped from my grasp. The flow of the performance is now in his hands.’
Kerapald’s way of dealing with an unfamiliar flow was to erase his presence with a cliché reaction and simply ride the current.
Part of it was because forcing his presence would make us suspicious… but that wasn’t the whole story.
He was a born actor, a director at heart. A well-crafted stage will sometimes escape its creator’s control. As a natural performer, he felt an instinctual aversion to interrupting the very moment a play transcends its script.
The Warforger, the Camarilla… all of the Six Generals were completely insane. How in the world did the Military State manage to gather such a collection of nutjobs?
In any case, this bought me time. It meant he would keep watching as long as this flow continued—as long as my lines remained meaningful, right?
Fine. I’ll play along.
I walked slowly, lightly resting my hand on a towering steel rod as I spoke.
“Shei, you possess the power to shake the heavens and the earth. You could easily kill everyone here without borrowing the power of the annihilation device. If you just swung Chun-aeng and Jizan, you could bury this entire building underground.”
“I wouldn’t do something like that!”
“Yes, I know. It’s precisely because you can that you’re so hesitant to kill them. Whether you use the device or your own power, it all comes down to a choice. You’re afraid that if you cross that line once, you’ll keep crossing it without a second thought.”
Historia flinched at my words. She might not have understood the full extent of the Regressor’s feelings, but she understood a part of it.
She didn’t know that the Regressor regressed, but she knew that a power that could literally shake the world lay dormant in her hands. What if a Regressor who had crossed the line used that power indiscriminately? What if she paid no mind to the consequences?
A horrific slaughter, one that would carve a new line in the history books, would unfold.
“It’s a precious sense of justice—a bit inconvenient to hold onto, but impossible to regain once you’ve thrown it away. To be honest, I think that quality of yours is truly precious, Shei.”
By the way, is this steel rod not the annihilation device? I’m touching it, but Kerapald isn’t reacting at all.
That persona of his… it’s a bit of a pain to read. It feels like reading a book full of malicious narrative tricks.
Whatever the case, this didn’t seem to be it. I continued my spiel, moving toward a lever with a red handle.
“But Shei, Ria’s position is different now. She’s already crossed the line. Raised in the Military State, having seized power and authority within it, Ria has now decided to abandon everything she gained there and join our side.”
I casually placed my hand on the red handle and continued.
“Ria is one of the Military State’s Six Generals. She honed her talents desperately to reach that position. But the reason she became a General wasn’t to pledge loyalty to the State.”
“Huey. Stop…”
Whoa there, don’t interrupt. If my lines are cut short, Kerapald might snap back to being Zigrund.
I raised my voice, drowning out Historia.
“Her wayward friends. Her former comrades with whom she once shared everything. The children of Hamelin, abandoned by the State, who threw themselves into the resistance. Even me, whose very survival was a mystery. There’s no place for us in the Military State. That’s why Ria became a General. Only a General-level officer can appoint their own adjutant.”
“You…”
“But because her friends were all so damn stubborn, Ria ended up abandoning the position of Six General she worked so hard to achieve and joined our side. She’s already crossed every line there is. Therefore, Ria must achieve a meaningful outcome in every operation. Because this is the last thing she can do.”
The Regressor, seeming to finally understand, looked at Historia with a new light in her eyes.
“Ah. So that’s why you were like that. It all makes sense.”
‘Whether the war was lost and the New Kingdom was established, or the resistance succeeded in their uprising and founded a republic, she always secured a position for herself. So, securing that position was the goal itself… Good. I can use this in the next timeline.’
“Shut up! And you, don’t you dare ruin this with your half-assed resolve. If things go wrong, just watch. I’ll grab Huey and Shiati and run as fast as I can!”
Sorry for exposing you, Historia. But if I didn’t deliver some meaningful lines, Kerapald wouldn’t have waited for me. I had no choice.
Anyway, it’s not this red handle either. What in the world is the annihilation device? Maybe this? Let’s see, one more step to the side…
‘…This flow is dangerous. This stage, these lines. And what he’s standing on right now. What he’s aiming for is…!’
Bingo. So it was this.
I smiled and stomped my foot hard. A square panel slid open, and from within, an unnaturally large gear slowly rose. It was so massive it looked like the helm of a great ship.
It makes sense. Something as heinous as an annihilation device shouldn’t be placed where it could be triggered by accident.
“In the end, neither you, Shei, nor you, Ria, are in the wrong. Neither of you has done anything wrong enough to warrant agonizing over this and feeling responsible. But how can you not feel responsible? No matter if they’re criminals, the lives of so many people are at stake.”
“You’re right. There’s no need for us to fight.”
‘Tch. I ended up getting his help again. I don’t know why, but things are convenient when he’s around. The Gunmaster incident, the Tyrkanzyaka incident… I should probably keep him around in the next timeline, too.’
The Regressor seemed to think I had come to mediate their fight. Sorry, but you’re only half right.
I didn’t come here to stop your fight.
“But when you think about it, isn’t it a little unfair? The Military State is the one that built a device to kill every person in this refinery. So why are we the ones who have to agonize over it?”
Having said that, I grabbed the teeth of the gear with both hands. I felt a heavy sensation, as if I were holding a part of this massive factory itself.
The gear, the device, and the words I had spoken.
The Regressor, instinctively realizing what I was about to do, shouted.
“Wait! You, don’t tell me!”
“Forcing a judgment by creating an extreme situation and calling it a dilemma. It’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it? When the Military State creates the circumstances, it’s just the environment, but when we have to act, it’s a dilemma? What a joke! Isn’t the Military State a nation of humans? Even if it is a nation, it’s all the same!”
My last words became a furious shout. I summoned every last ounce of my strength and turned the gear with all my might. The device, which had never been used since its creation, began to move slowly.
The device named the Annihilation Device, which would lead every laborer in this refinery to their deaths.
“Will you spare heinous criminals to fight a war, or will you righteously carry out their executions? Military State, now it’s your turn to decide!”
*
Somewhere in the refinery.
A laborer, walking while pierced by a hook, heard a loud clanking sound. He weakly lifted his head.
He had just finished his assigned task and was utterly exhausted. The chain moving along the rail was supposed to be taking him to the break room now. There, he would enjoy a sweet moment of rest until his mana recovered.
But for some reason, the chain was now leading him not to the break room, but to some unfamiliar place.
At first, he didn’t understand the situation. Only after checking dozens of times that the rail was moving in a different direction than usual did he become certain.
Something was different. This sense of wrongness, which would have been ominous to an ordinary person, was a glimmer of hope to him.
From the summit of a mountain, every path leads down.
Likewise, daily life in the alchemic steel refinery was the most horrific thing in the world. Therefore, escaping this daily routine had to mean things were getting better.
Could there have been some kind of error? Some strangers had entered the facility earlier; had they touched something they shouldn’t have? Would the overseers come running at any moment to drag him back?
Afraid that this newfound peace would vanish, he diligently suppressed any sign of joy and followed the chain’s guidance, pretending that nothing was amiss.
But he did not know.
The place where the chains were dragging him… was the furnace that melted alchemic steel. The very heart of a purgatory where magical flames melted iron.
To use mana, one needed a living human.
In other words, by using a living human, one could obtain mana.
Steel forged from molten humans would surely ring more beautifully than any other.