Chapter 79
Chapter 79
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 79
Chapter Title: Huss Bellu Sant
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“In the end, it all comes down to Mr. Lander’s decision. What will you do?”
Kalligo asked Lander.
“If Guchi has made his choice, I’ll support him. I could use the help, too.”
“You hold Guchi in high regard. Very well. With the man himself decided, there’s no turning back now. Then we should properly introduce you, Mr. Lander.”
He observed Guchi’s face. Once Lander’s identity came out, that calm expression would shatter in an instant. And with it, Guchi would realize just how dangerous the path he’d stepped onto truly was.
“Lander would’ve been enough, but since things have come to this, I suppose I’ll hear it too. You told Kalligo your theory—that he held a key position in the military.”
“As you said, I was in the military.”
“Lander’s a false name, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“To be honest, I don’t know the names of famous nobles well. I barely know the Emperor’s name. No reason to remember names unrelated to my work. So even if you told me your real name, I probably wouldn’t recognize it.”
“No need to worry. It’s a name everyone knows.”
He interjected. The supreme commander of the Imperial Knights, hero of the 15-Year War. It was absurd not to know Huss Bellu Sant.
“The name I used before was Huss.”
“Huss?”
“Huss Bellu Sant. That was my name.”
“Huss Bellu Sant.”
Guchi repeated the name. But his reaction was underwhelming. He watched Guchi furrow his brow, then slipped in a comment.
“You really don’t know it?”
“No, it does sound familiar. Maybe from Luis’s shop.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Do I seem like someone who jokes? I get serious at times like this.”
“Good lord. Guchi, did you live holed up in the mountains until you were over forty before coming to the city? Or are you from some far-off foreign land? You don’t know Huss Bellu Sant?”
“Knowing people’s names doesn’t benefit me any.”
It was a bold response. An unexpected counter, leaving him swept up in fresh shock, staring blankly for a while.
What could he say? Even if the Emperor announced tomorrow he was stepping down from the throne, it wouldn’t shock him this much.
The name neighborhood kids chanted endlessly, the name young men dreaming of glory first thought of upon arriving in the Empire, the name every Imperial citizen had heard at least once in propaganda broadcasts—he didn’t know it.
Once the shock faded, it was replaced by a refreshing laugh. He laughed heartily.
It was so funny his breath came short and his stomach ached. Tears welled up as he stomped his feet, nearly tumbling to the floor.
“Ah!”
After a long moment, Guchi made a sound. What followed was spectacular.
“That war hero who died! Now I remember.”
Lander, jabbed by Guchi, responded with a dazed laugh. His throat hurt from laughing so much. Clutching his Adam’s apple, he approached Guchi.
“It’s a masterpiece! No playwright could craft a comedy like this. Guchi, let’s stay together forever. Not knowing Huss—and then just ‘Ah!’ and done.”
“Don’t cling. Shout in my ear like that, and my hearing’ll go bad.”
“Of course, of course. Gotta protect those precious ears. But Mr. Lander, how does it feel? An Imperial citizen who doesn’t know your name.”
“It makes me realize it wasn’t such a big deal after all. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have bothered changing it. Guess the name change was pointless.”
He flicked away the tears lingering at his eyes with a wave. He’d laughed his fill.
Someday, he’d tell his subordinates. They’d probably laugh it off as a lie.
“Now I fully understand why Mr. Lander’s with Guchi. Laughing so much has made me hungry. Let’s talk over a meal.”
He and Lander perched on the altar’s edge, while Guchi fetched a chair. He urged him to sit comfortably there, but Guchi flatly refused.
“Might get got by a ghost. You brushed off the grudge lightly, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Better safe than sorry.”
“Guchi, you’re a riot. Ghosts scare you, but not Lander right there? Even a ghost wreathed in hellfire would meekly retreat to the afterlife at the sight of him.”
He said, munching a sandwich. A stomach that could enjoy a full meal beside a corpse. An altar stained with human sacrifice was just a clean table to him.
“But is that all your reaction? Nothing else you want to ask Mr. Lander?”
A war hero who’d gotten a state funeral was sitting there eating a sandwich. Fainting wouldn’t be out of place, yet Guchi was grumbling that there wasn’t enough cheese in his.
“I knew Lander was impressive. No surprise since I already knew.”
“Still, he’s a war hero. And one who had a funeral right beside you—aren’t you curious about his story?”
“I’d listen if he explained, but no urge to ask. I’ve already heard plenty from Lander. About his late wife, why he set out traveling. That’s enough to know what kind of man he is.”
“The complete opposite of me. If I were you, Guchi, I’d bombard him with questions until my mouth went dry. Ruminating on the past is one of my main jobs.”
“People are all different.”
Guchi said after sipping his tea.
“But is staying alive such a dangerous secret for you? From your actions, you don’t seem to be hiding much.”
“As you said, I’ve no intention of living in hiding. Even the Emperor knows.”
“So Kalligo was teasing me. Not much of a secret.”
Guchi glanced at him.
“You can say that because you’re the man himself, Mr. Lander. You’re closer to true freedom than anyone. No one can stop you, so they let you do as you please. But powerless folks like me and Guchi are different. Go outside right now and spread a rumor that Huss is alive. What do you think happens?”
“They’d scold me to shut my nonsense.”
Guchi shrugged. He shook his head vigorously before speaking.
“I guarantee within ten days, Guchi, you’d be dragged to a camp. Stoa agents might be dispatched. Maybe even a political officer would show up. Charge: defiling a dead hero’s name with insult. They’d confirm the facts in a quiet room, then use you as an experimental subject. If you’re lucky, you’d be released having lost your language functions.”
“Isn’t that overkill?”
“Of course, they wouldn’t make an issue of casual bar talk. But say it publicly, like issuing a statement, and you’d see my prediction come true. That’s the weight of the name Huss. A name that could split the Empire in two—would the Emperor punish it lightly?”
“Split the Empire.”
He and Guchi both looked at Lander. Lander was rummaging in the basket. The sandwich he’d held earlier seemed to have vanished into his stomach.
“This guy really?”
“Guchi knows all sorts of trivia, yet he’s blind to Imperial politics. Mr. Lander was the Emperor’s sole rival. If he’d wanted the throne, the Imperial family would be overturned by now.”
“What you just said is high treason, punishable by death, isn’t it?”
“So what? No one to hear. And investigating rebellion falls under my purview—just tweak the records, no problem.”
“Fine bureaucrat.”
“That’s why everyone likes me.”
“Keep me out of that ‘everyone.’ More importantly, Lander, you planning to sneak all that away?”
Lander pulled a sandwich from the basket and alternated glances between him and Guchi. Then he slowly opened his mouth and bit into it.
“Continue your talk. I’ll eat.”
A brief silence fell as they finished eating. He fetched Jon’s journal. With only the proper record of the journal, he had no choice but to keep flipping through it.
“First, we need to see if anyone knows Jon. He lived in this village for 40 years and interacted with neighbors. Asking the village chief or locals should yield clues.”
“How, without even a name?”
“We’ll infer from what’s left here. No name, but we know his actions to some extent. Most importantly, we need to find out what happened to Jon’s wife and son.”
Lander, who’d been watching, spoke.
“Since it’s what turned him against the gods, it’s likely an accidental death.”
“Or people invoking the gods’ name might have harmed his family. Digging into past incidents will turn something up. No archives here, of course, so it’ll all be oral history from start to finish. Hope the elders’ memories hold.”
Guchi pointed to a page. The words “orphanage” caught his eye.
“The rich man who ran the orphanage is the same as Jon, right?”
“Probably. Roughly: about 50 years ago, there was an accident. Jon lost his family. Then through some means, he secured capital and built this structure. To hide his identity, he fronted as an anonymous wealthy man to run the orphanage. Who’d care if a few orphans vanished from this backwater?”
“Then around 20 years ago, he closed the orphanage, but the bizarre experiments continued.”
Kalligo nodded.
“If we trace the funding, we could track fast, but it won’t be easy. The building’s old, and the orphanage was privately run. One more thing to check.”
He looked at Lander.
“Did Naria ever mention this place?”
“Once.”
“What did she say about life here?”
“As my wife described, it was utterly ordinary. Eat, do assigned tasks, pray, sleep—that was daily life.”
“Good.”
Naria having been here was unsettling, but an uneventful life eased his mind. Anything to avoid enraging the supreme commander.
“But something’s off.”
He listened tensely to Lander.
“I used to think she avoided talking because childhood memories weren’t pleasant. But now, it seems she truly didn’t remember.”
“A memory issue?”
“Riselra, who was with Gilliuud. She was an Oblivion too. My wife as well. What do you think, Mr. Kalligo?”
“Twice is no coincidence. That’s how I see it.”
“Same here. Those hazy childhood memories might stem from what happened here. That’s why I want the truth. What went on in this place.”
He was calm and composed. Recalling the pain of the woman he loved most, yet he didn’t lose his cool. That’s the kind of man he was—and why he was truly terrifying.
A blue flame surely burned within that impassive face. Once it burst forth, it would incinerate all in its path—a cold rage.
His job was simple: guide that deathly fire away from the innocent. Calm the supreme commander? Impossible.
If Naria was involved as suspected, and suffered for it, the sword meekly sheathed at the commander’s side would be drawn. When that came, Jon would regret it.
(To be continued in the next chapter)