To the Front Lines
The Müller family was a noble house in name only. At least, that was how Klaus Müller saw it.
Once industrialization began, mana-stone factories rose, and commoner-born officers started taking seats on the General Staff, old castles and bloodlines no longer carried the weight they once had.
On paper, however, they were still nobles. And that was precisely the problem.
Inside the Inspection Coordination Office attached to the Imperial Army Ministry of Military Affairs Personnel Bureau—a building burdened with that long, hollow, impressive-sounding name—Klaus Müller faced his father.
Lieutenant General Heinrich von Müller.
A high-ranking officer with a foothold in both the Personnel Bureau and the inspection apparatus of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and one of the greatest reasons Klaus Müller had become a soldier in the first place.
“You’re here.”
Heinrich looked up to meet his son’s eyes.
White had begun to thread his hair, and deep wrinkles creased his face, yet his gaze remained sharp—the perfect picture of an aging soldier.
One hand resting on the documents before him, he inquired after his son.
“How was the North?”
“Cold.”
“So you still have the energy for jokes.”
“……”
“Hah.”
Heinrich gave a short snort of laughter.
“You know why you were made an inspector, I trust?”
“For the family’s face, I presume.”
“……”
Klaus stood ramrod straight, facing his father.
The rebellious years should have been long behind him, yet those eyes… Heinrich swallowed his displeasure whole.
“The Hollow Star was thoroughly displeased about your little affair.”
“I am aware.”
“You took in a little brat who looks like the White Silver Star as a clerk, I hear?”
“…Yes.”
“Chloe Winterland.”
Heinrich frowned as he scanned the papers.
“What a farce.”
“……”
“I can soothe the Hollow Star. But we cannot leave combat-capable personnel in the rear.”
“She is a patient.”
“How many soldiers on the battlefield do you think are not patients?”
Klaus fell silent.
“Send her back.”
“Impossible.”
“Klaus. How many people in this country do you imagine possess magical aptitude? You mean to keep that precious mage in the rear? Have you lost your mind?”
“Yes. I am in full possession of it.”
“Klaus! We cannot grant special treatment simply because someone resembles another person. Consider our position and our standing!”
White Silver Star.
The Empire’s twelfth star, classmate of Anke Mauer and Julian Weiss.
And still, in a few memories, a savior who had not yet faded.
“I cannot send a child to the front lines.”
“After conscripting other children left and right all this time, you dare call that an argument? You are playing favorites with that girl.”
“……”
“If even I can see it, you know perfectly well how the other houses will view the matter.”
“You are still concerned only with the gazes of others, Father.”
“And you still cannot tell the difference between the army and playing house. You rotten bastard.”
Who was in the wrong had already been obvious from the start.
Klaus Müller was granting Chloe Winterland preferential treatment out of personal feeling—that was an undeniable fact.
The military was a narrower world than most imagined, and rumors traveled fast. Remnants of the old social circles still clung to the upper ranks.
If word spread that the heir of a declining house had appointed a girl who looked exactly like a dead woman as his clerk and was keeping her close… it would damage Heinrich’s standing.
And a narrower position for Heinrich meant a narrower one for Klaus as well.
That was why Heinrich von Müller intended to protect his footing even if it meant sacrificing his son to some degree.
Sending his son into danger for his son’s sake. Only if he himself held power could he protect his son.
A mistaken judgment born of an old soldier’s narrow field of vision.
Heinrich von Müller finished running every calculation and at last made up his mind.
Klaus, too, vaguely sensed that his father had reached a decision.
Even rotten, they were family, and blood was always thicker than water; each of them could see straight through what the other would do.
“The heir of a fallen noble house takes a girl who resembles a dead woman as his clerk and protects her. The Hollow Star and the Annihilating Star are both showing interest in that child as well. And yet you still keep her right beside your desk.”
“……”
“How do you think this situation looks?”
“As though I am protecting a patient.”
“Are you still seriously saying something that naïve?”
Heinrich turned to the next page of the documents.
“Patients belong in the medical unit, clerks in the administrative office, soldiers on the front lines. Those are the places assigned to them.”
“…So you mean to send a little girl to the front?”
“Not a little girl—a soldier with magical aptitude! Stop forcing me to repeat myself, Klaus!”
In truth the conversation was simply a repetition of the one they had just finished.
The exchange was unnecessary. Heinrich already possessed the authority and power to decide Klaus’s and Chloe’s dispositions as he pleased.
The only reason he had summoned his son to this room, looked him in the face, and spoken with him at all was that Klaus was his sole blood relative.
A final courtesy, of a sort.
And even that final courtesy had reached its end.
“Private Chloe Winterland is promoted to Private First Class under wartime special provisions. Assignment: sniper. However, restrictions stemming from contaminated magic circuits will be attached. Solo operations are prohibited; an observer must accompany her at all times.”
“……”
“And you, Sergeant Klaus Müller, are reassigned as senior non-commissioned officer of the Front-Line Inspection Detachment under the Inspection Coordination Office of the Ministry of Military Affairs Personnel Bureau. Your duties will be front-line reinforcement and oversight of mage-unit operations.”
Given that senior NCO posts were ordinarily held by staff sergeants or sergeants, the measure was, on its face, entirely reasonable.
“So you mean to send me to the front as well.”
“The rumors that you are keeping that child close in the rear are becoming a problem.”
“…In other words, if both of us go to the front, it ceases to be special treatment. Is that it?”
“Exactly. You will be carrying out inspection duties; the girl will be returning to service as a soldier. The upper ranks will accept it, and the rumors will die down of their own accord.”
“And if we both die, it will be quieter still.”
Bang!
Heinrich slammed his fist down on the desk.
“Watch your tongue.”
“I stated a fact.”
“I made this choice in order to keep you alive.”
“In order to keep the family alive, you mean.”
“…Come back alive.”
Müller’s face tightened.
Those words—“come back alive”—did not include anyone else. They included only his own flesh and blood.
A girl with a rustic name like Chloe could meet whatever fate she liked. That mindset underlay everything.
At least, that was how Müller felt it.
“Is that an order?”
“It is. An order. Come back alive.”
Klaus saluted as he left the room. Heinrich did not return the salute.
It was late evening. My stomach had begun to growl, so I slipped the lunch box from my bag and set it carefully on the desk.
I had decided the ideal course was to devour it quickly while Sergeant Müller was away.
…I can’t very well let anyone see me stuffing my face when I’m supposed to be playing the sickly beautiful girl!
Creak.
The door opened.
I immediately put on a woeful expression, snapped the lunch-box lid shut, and stuffed it back into my bag. Swift and precise.
Sergeant Müller called me.
…An ominous feeling settled over me.
“Chloe Winterland.”
“Yes.”
“Orders have come down.”
“……”
“Read them yourself.”
He tossed the documents onto my desk with studied indifference.
The way he then watched me out of the corner of his eye, as if worried I might have been inconvenienced by the very carelessness he had just displayed… it looked a little ridiculous.
Just how thoroughly do you want to be a good person?
I began to read the papers laid before me, slowly.
Private Chloe Winterland.
In recognition of wartime special provisions and meritorious service upon return from the northern front, promoted to Private First Class.
Change of assignment.
Temporary clerical duties in the Inspector’s Office hereby terminated.
Assigned as sniper.
However, in consideration of contaminated magic circuits and residual injuries, classified as restricted combat personnel.
Solo operations prohibited.
Observer accompaniment mandatory; magical usage restricted.
“…Sniper.”
“That’s right.”
“Back to the front lines?”
“That’s right.”
“……”
Well. Of course. Deep down I had already known it would come to this.
The moment I refused Sergeant Müller’s offer to make me his adopted daughter, I had become a stupid little sheep that had wandered outside the fence of its own free will.
Yes. This was the path I chose, the consequence of my own decision. The result of ignoring the First Principle and greedily reaching for the Second.
So I must not regret it.
I had decided never to regret my own choices. I had decided that for myself.
I asked Müller,
“Then this is where it ends.”
“No. I’m going to the front as well.”
…I’m sorry, what did you just say?