Escape Operation
Escape operation…?
“Back so soon? All right, onto the bed—wait, just where do you think you’re sticking your hand!?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea.”
I fished out the two nuts that had been clinking under my underwear. A few lengths of wire came with them for good measure.
“Watch closely.”
The greatest weakness of a Crafter was abysmal physical ability. The greatest strength was that same abysmal physical ability.
As long as other humans got their hands on you first, they never treated an early-game Crafter as much of a threat. In the beginning especially, most fights still came down to blunt weapons or knives rather than guns, so the odds of ending up wounded, captured, or enslaved ran high.
And once you were a prisoner or a slave, handcuffs and prison bars might as well not exist for a Crafter.
Why?
“Here we go.”
“What… is that?”
“A makeshift key.”
“…And what exactly is it supposed to open?”
“Anything that isn’t an electronic lock.”
Dietrich stared blankly at the wire I had bent into a key. Then her expression shifted.
“You didn’t… get hit in the head or something, did you?”
That look was a little rude. Hit in the head? Really?
“Hit in the—didn’t you see what I was doing outside earlier?”
“I was tidying the room. And… I didn’t particularly feel the need to leave it. Running into the signals officer is already more than enough; other people’s eyes on me are…”
Damn. It should have been Dietrich, not Hans, who watched me torch the pipes back into working order.
“…Fine. Hand me any lock you’ve got.”
“Well… here. Each of these drawers has a keyhole. They’re where I keep the medicine.”
The faintly pitying look in her eyes did not sit well with me at all. Still—three drawers, and this improvised key only had a durability of three.
—Click.
—Click.
—Click.
“Huh?”
“See? Told you it opens anything.”
“But—how?”
The moment I pulled the key free of the last drawer, it snapped clean in half as if it had been waiting for the cue. I bent a fresh length of wire into another key and handed it over.
“As long as the lock isn’t too thick or too finely machined, it’ll open.”
Durability three. Anything tougher than that and the key simply failed.
“…I see. Now I understand why Major Schulz snagged you as his personal technician. Still…”
“Still?”
“The locks aren’t the real problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are only two ways in or out of this place, and both are sealed by checkpoints.”
“Are the checkpoint crews on duty twenty-four hours?”
“One of them showed up at my door bleeding in the middle of the night once, so yes.”
“…What about blocked passages? Pipes?”
“I wouldn’t know. I doubt I’d be much help there either. I could open the barracks doors that lock every night and move around a little, but I suspect that’s as far as this key will take us.”
So in the end it was going to come down to me running around on my own two feet. On top of that, the three people I had promised Dietrich were still unaccounted for—and one of their options was simply to abandon me. I had to move carefully.
“We’ll have to time it with the coup.”
“Even that I’m not sure about. The SS will definitely try to secure us when it starts.”
“What if something happens that even the SS can’t ignore?”
“Then… then I don’t know. Knowing Major Schulz’s personality, I can’t even begin to guess how large an incident would have to be.”
Throw open every door in the prisoner wing. Or, if they had a research facility for mutants, crack that open too. The armory was locked down so tight Hans himself had asked for my help, so getting explosives would be a nightmare. Raising the pressure in the heating pipes until they ruptured, flinging the prison gates wide, and bolting with only Dietrich might still be viable.
All of it was still pure hypothesis, of course.
“For now—if an opportunity appears, I can take it that you’re willing to escape?”
“…I still think the whole plan is far too dangerous. But… at the very least, yes. Better than staying with the Nazis.”
I had my confirmation. Now the problem was preparing the actual escape—
“Ah—yes. Basic treatment is finished.”
“Understood. Please tell him we’re on our way up.”
Hans. Just how tightly did that bastard intend to watch me?
“I saw you solve the pipe problem.”
“It isn’t fully resolved yet.”
“So I heard. Pressure issues. And you believe you can fix those as well?”
“I’d have to tear the pipes out and reinstall them completely, and I should inspect the boiler-room layout while I’m at it.”
“The more work I give you, the more impressive you become. We should have brought more technicians like you into this bunker from the start.”
Still seated, Hans clapped twice—sharp, deliberate—then suddenly leaned forward.
“However, I must ask you to leave the boiler-room matter alone for the time being. Instead, I intend to put you on ammunition production. Officially, of course, we will claim you are fabricating parts necessary for the pipe repairs.”
“I’ll need gunpowder for that.”
“No gunpowder will be required.”
I could already hear the plan starting to creak. That oily smile of his was genuinely unpleasant.
“Simply tell us the correct powder charge. My men will handle the rest of the assembly.”
“If the charge isn’t exact, it becomes dangerous.”
“Which is precisely why you must give us the precise amount.”
“Once you know how to make bullets, you’re going to discard me?”
“Oh… that was not my meaning at all. Why would I throw away a technician who has already demonstrated such skill beyond mere ammunition?”
Even so, the way his eyes slid away was unmistakably unsettling. The sooner I got out of here, the better.
“What about the items I asked for?”
“The inspection is still underway. I will inform you the moment anything becomes available.”
Did that mean the three of them were still safe? That my fortress still hadn’t been secured, or that he had simply lost interest? But Hans had shown interest in Sarah. What were the three of them doing right now?
If they had abandoned me and run, his men would already have torn my workshop apart. Or had they actually secured the place and were now cataloguing everything?
“…If I’m going to use pipe work as a cover story, I should at least pretend to inspect the boiler room first.”
“Shall we go now? How is your stomach?”
“Not bad.”
“Excellent. Then we shall proceed directly to the boiler room. Soldier?”
“Yes, sir. Please follow me.”
I needed information. To get it, I had to move. Even the muttered asides of ordinary soldiers or the gossip of officers would do. Anything was better than trying to pry secrets out of this silver-tongued bastard by getting chummy with him.
—Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.
The moment we left the room, the corridor filled with nothing but the stamp of military boots. Officers and enlisted men alike refused to meet my eyes; conversations died mid-sentence and people simply stepped aside. Even the maids—
“H-Heil Hitler.”
—some of them actually bowed to me. At first I thought they were addressing the soldier escorting me, but by the third encounter it was clear they weren’t.
“Why are they…?”
“Special orders from the Major.”
So even the higher-ups weren’t pushing back? I had heard the signals officer was a morphine addict, and the way he had fled at a single radio call from me still made sense in that light.
“The boiler room is this way. If you require additional personnel, do not hesitate to request them.”
“And the toolbox?”
“I will fetch it at once. Please wait a moment.”
I thought he might leave, but he only spoke into his radio. Watchdog, then. No choice but to open the door and step inside.
“Oh-ho…”
Three large water tanks sat in a room far more spacious than anything I was used to. Acrid smoke hung in the air; they were heating the water with firewood rather than electricity or gas. Not that this was what I had come to examine.
“Pressure’s… just as I thought.”
The gauge needle sat deep in the red. Bad pipe design, overheating, or simply age—any of them could be the culprit. Of course I had no intention of fixing it. My only interest was how thoroughly I could make every pipe in the place burst and turn the whole sector into chaos—
—BOOM.
A heavy explosion rattled the lights. Then the sirens began to wail.
EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. ALL PERSONNEL TO COMBAT STATIONS. ALL PERSONNEL TO COMBAT STATIONS.
The coup? No—if it were, he would already have given me a heads-up. Then what the hell was—
“Hyunwoo. Stop working and come with me.”
“What’s going on…?”
“We don’t know either. Just move. Somewhere safe—ugh!?”
His hand trembled, then tried to reach behind his back. What appeared from that back was a blood-slick dagger. The blade punched into his neck again and again, spraying blood in every direction; the body simply toppled forward.
The man who had stabbed him wore a steel helmet. Uniform… green.
The Wehrmacht side—?
“I knew you’d be here.”
Sarah?