A Precious Reunion (1)
[Static]
Most of the story of what happened while I was unconscious I learned later from other people.
Someone who’s unconscious can’t see anything, can’t hear anything, and can’t even feel, either.
…Well, if you asked whether I truly felt nothing, that was a little more complicated.
Anyway, at the time I was lying on a bed with my eyes closed while everyone else hurried around me.
I’d heard there had been papers flying everywhere, orders changing hands, all sorts of commotion, but I couldn’t really feel any of it.
And then, at last, came the day I met you again.
—
Sergeant First Class Klaus Muller, then serving as both recruiter and administrator, hated paperwork.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t read, and it wasn’t that he was stupid. If anything, he rather liked books.
The reason he hated paperwork was simple: paper usually carried nothing but bad news. That was all.
Death, missing, transfer, discipline, promotion denied, supplies short, operation failed…
Those words were lighter than a human life, and yet they always carried news heavier than one.
One person died, and it was one line. A whole platoon died, and it was still one line. What an equal world it was.
Only when one of the Stars failed in an operation did several reports come raining in, and that was the sole exception.
The title of the report sitting on his desk was rather… disastrous.
[ Preliminary Report on the Annihilation of the Recon Platoon Directly Under Lieutenant Anke Mauer, False Star ]
He didn’t like the title from the very beginning.
Annihilation.
Annihilation, it said?
“The Star’s platoon… was annihilated?”
Muller flipped through the report.
The mission objective had been confirmation of the imperial signal flare observed on the eastern ridge of the Flowing Snowy Mountain, and verification of rumors concerning the Federation’s new Star.
The mission personnel were Lieutenant Anke Mauer, False Star, and the entire recon platoon…
Whether there had even been a clash was unclear. The enemy strength was also unclear.
Most of the casualties were dead or missing. The survivors numbered two.
Survivors.
Senior Sergeant Misty Misty.
Private Chloe Winterland.
The moment he confirmed the names, Muller froze for a second.
“…So she’s alive.”
He felt relief, but that relief lasted only a heartbeat.
Attached to Chloe Winterland’s name was something that defied common sense.
[ After the incident, the soldier returned to the Northern Outpost alone approximately eleven hours later. ]
[ Upon return, the soldier exhibited hypothermia, frostbite, multiple trauma, magic poisoning, and signs of internal magic circuit contamination. ]
[ Special note: it was confirmed that the issued Magic Stones were ingested directly by mouth. ]
[ Currently unconscious. ]
Muller frowned.
“What the hell is this?”
The administrative clerk in the corner of the office quietly watched his expression, but Muller paid him no mind at all.
He ate Magic Stones.
Even an ordinary person who wasn’t a mage would understand what that meant.
Magic Stones were batteries. Something you put into machines, not into a human mouth.
For a very brief moment, they might give you strength, but after that, they would wreck your body.
It was irreversible.
“Sergeant?”
“……”
“Sergeant, the appointment papers for the auditor have arrived as well. If you could just confirm—”
“Auditor, not inspector?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Sergeant Muller lifted his head.
“A semantic trick.”
“…An acting auditor. The order is to verify logistics, operations, and personnel assignments across the board.”
“Damn it.”
Inspections were for assigning blame.
Audits were for checking ledgers.
Higher command always did things like this.
The normal system was to find someone responsible first when somebody died, but then make sure the word responsibility never appeared on the paperwork.
And then magic happened.
There had clearly been an accident, and clearly losses, and yet? Incredible! On paper, nobody was responsible!
Muller picked up the appointment letter.
No matter how rotten the system was, the army was still the army; he had no authority to refuse the appointment.
More than that… he didn’t want to refuse it, either.
Chloe Winterland.
He had warned that girl.
Get tangled up with the Stars and you’ll die. Never, under any circumstances, go to Lieutenant Julian Weiss’s platoon.
It had been half a warning.
She had gotten tangled up with Anke Mauer instead of Julian Weiss, and she hadn’t died. Right. She hadn’t died.
“Get ready to leave.”
“Huh?”
“We’re going now.”
Muller shoved the report carelessly into his bag and left the office.
.
.
.
The ever-flowing Flowing Snowy Mountain had stopped. In a world where unreality had long since become ordinary, reality had finally begun to intrude again on the unreal.
Muller dismounted and looked up at the frozen relic before him.
Snow and translucent ice tangled together as they carved out a sheer cliff face.
He had long since become a sergeant first class, but he had once served in the north for quite some time.
So he knew exactly how strange the landscape before him was.
When he had been a recruit, he had fallen asleep to the mountain’s thunder, driven supply wagons to the mountain’s thunder, and eaten his meals to the mountain’s thunder.
This was the first time that the endlessly talkative mountain had gone silent.
Silence was golden, and this gold was colder than snow.
“What about the site?”
“The avalanche made access impossible. We also haven’t been able to confirm whether the Federation caused it.”
“…Body recovery?”
“We weren’t able to complete even half of it. The terrain remains unstable as well.”
“Where is Lieutenant Mauer?”
“She’s returned.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes.”
Muller decided to see the situation with his own eyes.
The Stars were usually a bunch of mentally unsound people, so he would have to reserve judgment until he saw for himself.
Even if they seemed physically fine, when an entire platoon had been wiped out there was no telling what state their mind might be in.
First, he decided to talk while walking.
“What happened to Senior Sergeant Misty?”
“She’s in the medical tent. Lieutenant Mauer rescued her. She’s conscious, but the questioning has been stopped.”
“Why?”
“She had trouble breathing during a simple line of questioning.”
Generally, a senior sergeant meant five to seven years in the army.
And she was having breathing trouble over something this small?
It was almost laughable.
The Stars had all been people who’d leaped up the ladder on the back of special magic, so perhaps that was one thing, but if you were a real soldier, shouldn’t you be able to weather something like this?
That was Sergeant Muller’s philosophy.
“…And Private Winterland?”
“She’s in a coma.”
Muller clenched his jaw hard enough to make his teeth ache.
When they reached the medical tent, a long red streak had been drawn across the snow.
Human blood was the ink, and the snowfield was the paper.
The bloodstain dragged across the snow was still wet, and here and there were marks that looked as though someone had beaten the ground with a rifle butt.
Muller stared at the marks for a long while.
With her legs ruined, she had chewed Magic Stones and made it all the way here.
“…Would it be right to call that fortunate?”
“Sir?”
“Talking to myself.”
He headed straight into the medical tent and found the answer to his own question.
No, it would not be right to call it fortunate.
It was obvious that dying in that avalanche would have been better for Winterland, if only a little.
The tent was full of the smell of blood and medicine.
Several magic lamps burned inside the canvas to provide heat, but the northern cold could not be driven off by magic lamps alone.
The military doctor met him near the entrance.
“Are you the auditor?”
“Acting.”
“Yes. Acting Auditor.”
Muller found the longer title a little irritating, but decided to handle his work first.
Calm, cool-headed, clean, blameless.
That was his creed.
The military doctor shrugged with a tired face.
“Would you like to see Senior Sergeant Misty first?”
“Is she in any condition to speak now?”
“She should manage a brief conversation.”
Muller nodded.
He avoided turning his head to look at the medical cots, where the smell of blood was thick in the air, because he was afraid of losing his composure.
He did not look at Winterland’s cot until he reached Misty’s bedside.
“Hah.”
Misty’s condition, seated on the bed, was not what anyone would call good, either.
Her blue hair was disheveled, and her face was chalk-white. Her naturally pale skin looked even more bloodless than before.
Even spirits get hurt.
Muller put aside the useless thought and returned to the matter at hand.
Even if they were old comrades meeting after a long time, work came first.
“Sergeant First Class Klaus Muller. I’m here in the capacity of acting auditor.”
“…It’s been a while. By the way, weren’t you the recruiter?”
“My post changed.”
“For the worse, then.”
“That’s the army for you, more often than not.”
Sergeant Muller pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down.
There was a short silence, and Misty ignored Muller.
Even so, the reason Muller said nothing to her at first was because Misty’s gaze was fixed on the bed beside hers.
The curtain had been drawn. There would certainly be another bed behind it.
A faint sound of breathing drifted from the other side.
Muller shut his eyes tightly.
“The mountain stopped.”
“Did you see the enemy?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Any magic traces?”
“There were some. But I couldn’t identify what kind.”
Muller felt a headache coming on.
Senior Sergeant Misty was a spirit, and as Anke Mauer’s observer in the Stars’ platoon, she possessed keen senses.
And yet even she had said she couldn’t identify the type of magic.
There’s only one meaning, then.
A 8th Star had appeared in the Federation.
But right now, Muller had another piece of news eating away at him even more than the appearance of an 8th Star.
It was about Winterland, unconscious in the bed beside them.
“I’ll see Private Winterland.”
He rose and walked to the adjacent cot.
—