Two Stars (4)
Chloe Winterland, age 15 at time of death.
Death confirmed….
Right now I was soaring toward the northern reaches of the empire, cradled in Lieutenant Anke Mauer’s arms at an altitude of roughly two thousand meters.
Under normal circumstances, trainees would complete a series of courses at the training camp before being assigned to their permanent units.
But thanks to the compulsory authority of the Stars, both Anais Shen and I had been exempted from all of that… and were sent straight to our new platoon.
Lieutenant Anke Mauer, having explained this absurd privilege, ignored the shell-shocked instructor, tossed Anais Shen to Lieutenant Weiss, and scooped me up into her embrace.
Then she simply launched into the sky….
That was a simple summary of the current situation.
At least it’s warm. That’s something.
Two thousand meters up was an extremely cold and brutal environment for a human body.
Yet whether by the lieutenant’s consideration or some kind of magic, I felt neither the biting chill nor any lack of oxygen.
The only thing I could feel was pure terror.
In my entire life I had never been this high up without any protection….
If I fell and died here, no one would ever know. It would be an anonymous death.
I hated that. It was the complete opposite of the kind of death I wanted.
No matter what, I absolutely refused! I was dead set against it!
It looked like I would need to play a slightly different character in front of this lieutenant.
She said she liked honest children, but that didn’t necessarily mean she liked childishness.
Did she want the kind of style that spoke exactly as it thought, with no filter at all?
No, it was probably safer to keep at least some boundaries.
Even if she liked me, there were still several ranks between us.
Skipping over all that and acting overly familiar would be the same as advertising that I wanted to be chewed out.
She’d only just met me and she was already calling me by my first name without hesitation!
No matter how unique military society was, did her social awareness really have to be this bad?
There was a much better title—Private Winterland.
Personally, I wasn’t all that fond of the name Chloe.
…Probably because the director gave it to me.
Chloe was also an extremely common name.
I wanted to become someone special and be loved by everyone, yet my name was utterly ordinary.
Even bad taste had its limits.
Still, no matter how much I disliked the name or her attitude, she was my superior. I had to answer.
The fact that I was hesitating this long would normally have been enough to get me in trouble.
It was fortunate my superior was so lenient.
At the time, I had made one major misunderstanding about Lieutenant Anke Mauer.
She was not a lenient person.
She simply did not see anyone other than herself as human.
I answered.
Of course I knew, but she clearly wasn’t looking for that kind of response.
Huhu.
She added a light laugh to her words.
That statement was dangerous.
The Federation was currently at war with the Krantz Empire—an enemy nation, the primary foe.
For one of the empire’s greatest military assets to casually tell a new recruit that she could naturalize in the enemy state….
Could it be that the empire was already a sinking ship?
The thought flashed through my mind for a moment.
I could be killed at any time.
So that was it. I was nothing more than that.
I had been mistaken for a moment.
Just because I had the appearance of a beautiful girl didn’t mean the whole world would feel favorably toward me.
Most would, but some would not. There were always exceptions.
I should not have overlooked that.
One of the empire’s eleven Stars—Comet, Lieutenant Anke Mauer.
She did not see me as a human being. To her, I was nothing more than a convenient trash can to be used and discarded. That was the extent of her impression.
The conversation taking place right now was barely even imitating the form of a real conversation.
Do you see me as a person?
No. You don’t. I wasn’t doubting that….
Ugh, there’s no need to prove it right now.
Wait, s-stop….
…Talent.
To reach the rank of Star, to create one’s own magic, a person’s mind had to be twisted in some way.
That was what Lieutenant Julian Weiss and Lieutenant Anke Mauer had said right in front of me.
Only now was I beginning to understand those words a little.
One must not seek warmth from the Stars.
They possessed ways of thinking and emotional circuits far removed from ordinary humans.
The reaction I wanted would never come.
She put on her goggles and stared straight ahead.
The sun’s halo curled into a perfect circle, looking like a cross of light.
Lieutenant Anke Mauer added words I couldn’t quite understand.
She did not see me as human.
She only saw the ghost of someone from her past.
Because someone who had been her classmate at the military academy had the same silver hair and blue eyes as me.
That was all.
At last, we had landed.
The moment we landed, the only impressions that came to mind were dizziness, a desire to die, and the urgent need for somewhere to throw up. That was all.
When she got bored, she carried them?
I could easily imagine what kind of image this person had among the platoon members.
A crazy woman who kidnapped people on a whim to relieve her stress and then spouted nonsense while flying through the air. That was probably it.
I wanted to swear, but I held it in.
I had to be a pure, innocent, pristine beautiful girl who didn’t even know such words.
A fragile, precarious girl who looked like she would shatter at the slightest touch. A tiny girl pitifully dragged onto the battlefield.
A girl who didn’t show her emotions well because of the strange education she received at the orphanage!
I barely managed to hold onto my sanity in order to protect that image.
I did not throw up.
Beautiful girls do not vomit. That was common sense.
“Haa…”
Only after catching my breath a little could I look around at the outpost.
The northern reconnaissance platoon’s outpost had a bizarre shape that mixed trenches and graves.
The roof was made of iron sheets and rotting logs, then covered again with mud and snow for camouflage.
From the outside it looked like nothing more than a low mound or a snow-covered hill, but inside was a damp, gloomy space large enough for eight people to squeeze into.
Moisture beaded on the walls, and rusty nails and strings dangled and clattered.
We couldn’t light a stove. Smoke would act as a flag and beacon announcing our position to the enemy.
In short, it was a platoon so miserably poor that it was downright cursed.
A unfamiliar voice came from a distance.
Since she spoke first, she was probably close to Lieutenant Mauer and simultaneously the second-highest ranking person here.
It was just a guess, but the probability seemed highest.
I lifted my head to check her face and, honestly, was a little surprised.
…She looks about my age, or maybe just a little older.
Blue hair swayed gently. Her eyes were the same vivid blue. She possessed beauty on a similar level to mine—she was unmistakably a beautiful girl.
It seemed I would be able to collect some decent expressions from her.
Outpost leader, spotter, and signal officer, huh.
If it were me, I would have killed myself.
She turned her head to look at me and at the same time extended her hand.
I also reached out, took her hand, and shook it.
It was a handshake.
Wait, but a sniper?
…Why?