Chapter 132: What It Means to Be Human
"Pant, pant..."
"Fuhrer Ungern-Sternberg! Stahl is pursuing us!"
"We must surrender immediately—"
Bang!
Without a shred of mercy, Ungern-Sternberg fired his pistol directly into the head of the subordinate who had dared utter the word "surrender."
"You dare speak of surrender...?"
The largest nation in the world had fallen into his hands. He had driven back the British in the Baltic Sea, fulfilling Russia's long-held dream. He had slaughtered people in Poland without hesitation, offering the Russian people a thrilling sense of catharsis.
"I am a patriot! Just because my backing is gone, you think I am finished?"
"F-Fuhrer...!"
"In Poland, in the Baltic... I gave you everything you wanted. And now you betray me?"
"N-No, that's not it...!"
Faced with Ungern-Sternberg's terrifying charisma, his subordinates shuddered. The Russian Black Army, a chaotic and hopeless regime, had only been able to sustain itself through this sheer, unimaginable terror emanating from a single man.
As Ungern-Sternberg glared, the Cossack cavalrymen standing beside him glared as well. He still held their lives in his hands.
"Fine. Let's say we surrender to Stahl. Do you honestly think he would let you live?"
"......"
"Do you not know what happened to Fuhrer Apis's inner circle? Yes, at least Fuhrer Apis left his name in history, wretched as it was. Footage of him dying in the electric chair is being secretly screened in theaters. But his lackeys...? The big shots might have left their names. But the small fry all vanished without a trace. And you will be those very small fry!"
Ungern-Sternberg roughly grabbed the boy's neck.
The people who had followed Ungern-Sternberg were divided into three groups. The national revolutionaries who truly desired the glory of Russia and the Slavic race. Those who had submitted to Ungern-Sternberg's terror. And finally, those who believed Aleksei, Nicholas II's son, possessed far more legitimacy than Dmitri I—the constitutional monarch held by the White Army, who cared for nothing but hunting.
The third group glared at Ungern-Sternberg's tyranny.
"P-Please, release His Majesty!"
"Release him? What is this hemophiliac idiot boy to you anyway?"
"Your Excellency! Please..."
By grabbing and shaking the young Emperor by the scruff of his neck, Ungern-Sternberg reasserts his crumbling authority.
"Your Excellency, then tell us. Where must we go?"
"Beyond the Ural Mountains, to Mongolia. We have not continued the pioneering of the Far East since Peter the Great for nothing!"
"Fuhrer, there are no factories there, nothing!"
"There are horses, men, and furs! We have the Emperor too! Furthermore, I am of the Golden Clan, a descendant of the Khan. Mongolia will welcome me."
He was completely insane. But what could they do? Everyone already knew he was mad. They had known it since the decapitation contests in Warsaw, or since he threw a bomb at Nicholas II. They had followed him knowing all of this. The die was cast.
Ungern-Sternberg gritted his teeth and spurred his horse forward.
I will rise again. I can stand once more!
The Tsar was in his hands. One way or another, the Russians were nothing but slaves to the Tsar. Why could the White Army keep fighting a war despite their regime being built on nothing but terror and oppression? As long as they held the Orthodox Church and the Tsar, the Slavic slaves would throw away their precious lives on the battlefield.
Though he could not understand it with his Hungarian blood, these Slavs seemed to regard the yurodivy—the holy fool—as the ideal human existence. Dying like an idiot was a virtue to them.
As long as the Tsar is in my hands, I can rise again as many times as it takes...!
As they rode for a long time, a roaring sound echoed from the sky.
"A-Airplanes...!"
"Stahl! Stahl has found our location, Your Excellency!"
"Tsk... Already?"
It could not be helped. He needed bait. He would throw the Slavic idiots to Stahl as prey, then escape with his cavalry.
"Hey, Archbishop!"
"Y-Yes?!"
"Now is when I need your power."
Ungern-Sternberg pointed his pistol at the Archbishop of St. Petersburg's head and barked.
"Say something nice to those soldiers. Tell them heaven is waiting for them, or some rubbish like that."
"W-What do you intend to do with the soldiers?"
"You ask because you don't know? I'm asking them to die for the Tsar and the Orthodox Church."
The Archbishop bit his lip. What did all of this mean...? The Black Army's infantry was completely neutralized. Now that St. Petersburg had fallen to the British, the war was practically over. How much more blood did this man, Ungern-Sternberg, need to shed to be satisfied?
To be frank, the Archbishop was by no means innocent of Ungern-Sternberg's war crimes. He had actively cooperated at best, and turned a blind eye at worst. Even so...
The Archbishop bit his lip hard.
"I cannot do that..."
"What?"
"Your Excellency, stop this now! Has there not been enough?!"
Ungern-Sternberg's face contorted. Only then did the Archbishop realize what he had done during this war. This man... this man was Satan! He was a descendant of Lucifer, a Jesuit agent sent to destroy the world!
"You are Satan! Ungern-Sternberg, I have always wondered what your goal was. I thought, like any secular ruler, your dream was infinite power. Or perhaps you dreamed of eternal life by leaving your name in history forever. Because that is how humans usually are!"
"Keep babbling."
"But... I was wrong."
The Archbishop bit his lip, tears streaming down his face.
"You simply...! You only wanted endless blood! You only wanted to drench the entire world in blood!"
"Haha, and?"
"I do not know if Christ will forgive my sins... but if I cross the line any further, I will burn in the fires of hell forever alongside Judas Iscariot!"
"So you're saying you won't do it, correct?"
"That is right, you hellbound—!"
Ungern-Sternberg drew his saber and cleanly severed the Archbishop's neck. Indeed, it was a clean stroke, befitting the leader of the Cossacks.
Ungern-Sternberg's subordinates gasped in horror. It was not because of his clean swordsmanship. It was because of his utterly indifferent expression after killing an Archbishop, as if he had done nothing more than swat a mosquito.
"Where is this fellow's subordinate? You are the Patriarch from now on."
"B-But, ascending to the position of Patriarch requires strict procedures..."
"Procedures? The Anglican heretics have occupied St. Petersburg, so what procedures do we need? Just be the Patriarch."
"I cannot do that!"
Only then did Ungern-Sternberg's face begin to contort. It was not out of guilt for killing the Archbishop, but simply because things were not going his way.
"Then I shall take the position of Patriarch myself starting now. Any objections?"
"That is impossible!"
"Is that so? Kill everyone who objects."
"O-Oh, heavens...!"
It was the end. Stahl was already in hot pursuit. The airplanes flew low, strafing the cavalry regiment with machine guns, gradually whittling down their numbers. The roar of the engines grew closer and closer.
Even when they should have been fleeing for their lives, Ungern-Sternberg took the time to meticulously massacre the Orthodox priests who had followed his procession.
Naturally, this was beyond the comprehension of any normal human being. It was not a rational or logical decision.
Historians often try to attach reasons to such irrational and atrocious acts. For example, they add superfluous explanations like "economic efficiency" or "means of maintaining authority" to Xiang Yu's live burial of hundreds of thousands of prisoners.
But history, and humanity, never work that way.
Think of the Nazis. If they truly wanted to win the war, they should not have engaged in highly inefficient actions like mass slaughter. Did they really hate Slavs and Jews that much? And did they also want to win the war? If so, they should have used them as slaves, not treated them as trash to be swept away.
For some, endless bloodshed itself is a goal just as important as conquest and maintaining power.
"Th-This is..."
"He's mad! We can't do this!"
"So what? Hey, Emperor Aleksei. Go and babble some nice words to the soldiers. You know what I want, don't you?"
"Y-Yes!"
Of course, it was not entirely inefficient and irrational. Thanks to his choice to slaughter all the Orthodox priests, his terror-stricken subordinates did not even dare think of betraying him.
I was well aware that the Russian Black Army had held decapitation contests in Warsaw. After all, I was the one who spread those photographs, and I was the one who made Britain cut ties with the Russian Black Army.
But...
"Ugh, urgh! That psycho bastard, Ungern-Sternberg!"
It was my first time seeing such a scene in person. Never in my life had I witnessed such a sight.
For some reason, Ungern-Sternberg seemed to have slaughtered every single Orthodox priest who had followed him. Nearly a thousand corpses lay scattered here and there.
And those corpses... were too grotesque to describe. They had been massacred "cleanly," as if to show them off to someone. Their heads and torsos were completely severed.
"F-Father...!"
"Aaaargh!"
"Calm down!"
"U-Ungern-Sternberg...!"
And seeing this, the Polish soldiers began to break down. Seeing the same sight as Warsaw triggered their PTSD.
"H-Here is the body of the Patriarch of St. Petersburg!"
"Oh, Lord..."
The Russian White Army soldiers were also thrown into shock. Of course, from the White Army's perspective, their feelings toward the St. Petersburg diocese were clearly not good. After all, they were also perpetrators of the massacre who had turned a blind eye to, and even cooperated with, the Russian Black Army.
Nevertheless, seeing those dressed in priestly robes lying dead made the White Army soldiers' faces contort with rage.
Although Hitler was young, he had been in politics for over ten years, so he knew well how cold-blooded war and politics could be. In fact, Hitler seemed to frequently feel the urge to do something similar to Stalin and the Austrian Agricultural Association's Audit Team.
Tomáš, the leader of the Czech Agricultural Cooperative, was old enough to know this as well.
Even Tomáš and Hitler were shocked by this sight.
"W-Why on earth did he do this...! What does all this mean...?"
"The war is over, it's over! Why is he doing this?!"
The three cooperative leaders—Tito, Tomáš, and Hitler—cried out in shock.
I also stared coldly at the final atrocity Ungern-Sternberg had left behind, gritting my teeth.
I, too, vividly remembered World War II. As a Korean, I knew all about the horrific atrocities committed by the Empire of Japan.
It could happen. Humans are capable of such things.
But...
"Humans are capable of such things, Your Majesty. You know this, do you not?"
"...Yes. Humans are indeed capable of such things, Vice Chairman Stahl. But... can we really consider them to have the qualifications of a human being anymore?"
"Of course not."
Ungern-Sternberg's escape route was obvious. He was riding east as fast as he could. He clearly intended to cross the Ural Mountains.
"There is only one place Ungern-Sternberg can go anyway."
"Where is that?"
"He is a madman who calls himself the 'descendant of Genghis Khan.' The only place he can go is Mongolia."
His path was clear. Although he split his forces in two and left some troops behind as bait...
It was obvious now. We held total control over both aerial power and mobility.
"Vice Chairman Stahl! We have received intelligence that Ungern-Sternberg is moving due east!"
Only 10 kilometers left. The fastest unit here was the Bosnian Revolutionary Guard.
The Bosnian Revolutionary Guard and the Hungarian Revolutionary Guard were like horses and camels. In terms of instantaneous explosive power and mobility, the Hungarian side, which possessed a large number of battle tractors, clearly had the upper hand.
However, if various variables arose, the battle tractors could slow down. The same went for the Czech Agricultural Cooperative's automobiles.
"Tito, go and capture Ungern-Sternberg immediately."
"Yes, sir!"
Tito rode his horse, chasing Ungern-Sternberg like mad.
Hungarian airplanes supported the cavalry running across the plains.
About half a day passed.
Before long, we were able to catch up with the Bosnian Revolutionary Guard, who had ridden ahead.
And there, I faced the greatest villain of this era, whose eyes were already completely hollow—Ungern-Sternberg.