86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 2.3

1

“Speaking of, we haven’t received a demand for a goat lately, Vulture.”

Hearing this comment from the Handler speaking to him through the Para-RAID from the other side of the wall, Isuka snorted.

“The little black goat we got recently is lasting longer than expected.”

The Handlers were cattle keepers meant to make sure the Eighty-Six wouldn’t rebel, but a lot of them were idiots who neglected their jobs. The Handler assigned to the Stiletto squadron was relatively diligent, though. It was mostly the difference between a neglectful idiot and a hardworking one.

They were idiots and disgusting white pigs just the same. They stayed behind the walls and thought anything that occurred on this battlefield was none of their business. The Republic had no intent of fighting this war. To them, drones simply fought each other to death in some faraway world, and sometimes, these drones would remember that and regard them with scorn in their eyes.

Either way, that was how Isuka, the long-running captain of the Stiletto squadron, had known this Handler for quite a while, despite neither of them knowing each other’s names or faces.

And the Handler of course knew about the reason Isuka requested “goats” every now and then. Weak, useless members, or members of minorities. And given how short the cycles were with which Isuka asked them to send new goats, he likely had some inkling that the goats were being treated cruelly enough to die that soon.

But among the goats the Handler had sent him, Shin was proving to be quite the catch. He clearly looked like he had noble Imperial blood, but he was in fact stronger than any of the previous scapegoats and indeed most of the squadron. Maybe the fact that his origins were that obvious made it so he had to get stronger if he was to survive.

And as expected, he was surviving much longer than the average scapegoat. He accepted the way his squad mates treated him, and yet, in stark contrast to how detached he looked, he seemed to care for them.

Mirei, who had picked a fight with him not long ago, had died in the previous day’s battle. But Shin survived. Isuka had recently started asking himself if Shin only let his squad mates’ bullying slide because he knew they were bound to die before he did.

“You damn pigs eat your own—even the children,” the Handler sneered. “You Eighty-Six are barbaric. That’s the kind of vulgar behavior we noble Republic citizens can’t understand. Filthy subhumans.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Handler One,” Isuka sneered in turn.

The Eighty-Six were supposed to be citizens of the Republic just the same. The Republic used child soldiers, like him and Shin and Ruliya, as disposable parts of a drone.

Isuka felt a cold, almost terrifying silence settle over the Resonance.

“…Don’t act like you’re our equal, you filthy stain.”

This did nothing to really scare Isuka. The Republic locked them away in this battlefield and forced them to fight, but it wasn’t like a simple civilian like this Handler had any special authority over the Eighty-Six. The most he did was send them supplies, and if the squadron got wiped out, it would be seen as the Handler’s fault.

Apparently, with the Republic’s territory having been greatly reduced because of the war, the unemployment rate had become quite high, and so the Handlers worked in exchange for a monthly wage. But it seemed the Handlers weren’t pressed for money enough to accept having a pig talk back to them.

In the end, all of the Republic’s citizens were the same. They closed themselves off inside a sweet dream, plugging their ears and shutting their eyes to achieve false peace. Stupid, slothful white pigs.

Isuka sneered again. Coldly.

“I apologize if it came across that way, esteemed human master.”

Like anyone would want to be your equal, you white pig.

Dealing with idiots was easy, but it wasn’t particularly pleasant. As soon as the Sensory Resonance closed, Isuka clicked his tongue and walked away from the hangar wall he’d been leaning against. Exchanges with their commanding Handler was his duty as captain. And each and every time, it was irritating to go through.

Much like the barracks, they neglected to clean the hangar. It was littered with spare parts and empty containers, and the air was distinctly dusty. The number of Juggernauts lined up in the hangar had strikingly decreased over the last few battles. Shin’s unit was crouching in the corner, stained with spots of red paint the squad mates found somewhere.

But despite fighting in an urban battlefield with these absurd colors on his rig, Shin survived today, too. They forced the most lethal roles onto him, like serving as a decoy or the rear guard, and he kept using a haphazard combat style that pushed the Juggernaut’s already poor suspension system to its limits.

To begin with, the Stiletto squadron was in charge of a highly contested ward. In this battlefield of zero casualties where people died left and right, this was one sector that stood out in the number of Eighty-Six lives it claimed. And despite this, Shin survived.

And as if to counteract Shin’s tendency to survive, the other squad mates seemed to have started dying more often ever since he joined the squadron. This was a bit of a source of a headache for Isuka. Both because the squadron’s combat potential was decreasing, making the battles harder…and because the atmosphere in the squadron was becoming worse.

The glares and whispers directed at Shin were gradually building up and turning to clear enmity. You pest, they would say. Bringer of ruin. You call death to your comrades. The bullying was escalating every day, and it was approaching the point where Isuka felt like he had to step in for the kid.

If a Processor chose to off themselves or was dumb enough to be killed by the Legion, that was one thing. But Processors killing each other was where the line had to be drawn. It was a final restraint that could never be allowed to come undone. If it did, all order in the squadron would go out the window.

He’d set him up to be a scapegoat so the Processors would survive, but consequently, that was only making them die that much faster.

But just as he grimaced, he felt something pass him by silently.

“Oh.”

He didn’t notice he was there. Looking down with a hint of surprise, he saw someone with distinctive black hair, wearing a blue scarf and a uniform that was too large for their small physique.

Shin.

Much like a prowling animal, he walked without any footsteps. Hearing his reaction, Shin flicked his emotionless bloodred eyes in his direction, implying that he didn’t notice Isuka was there, either. Isuka had been leaning against a wall that was horizontal from the hangar’s entrance; that was hard to spot when walking in. Shin narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixed on the wall.

The way he looked at Isuka had become much bleaker and colder compared with the anger he’d shown when Isuka chided him for trying to help that idiot who’d gotten his legs blown off. He looked at Isuka like he were a nasty insect or a pebble in his way and then turned away.

Apparently, he was intent on ignoring this coldhearted captain who shot any squad mate who’d become a burden. Same as how he ignored his squad mates, who despite being discriminated Eighty-Six ganged up on anyone weaker than them.

Those cold eyes seemed to look down upon him, as if in condemnation…as if he was a person who’d reduced himself to a wretched status.

“…Hey.”

Isuka called out to him before he knew it. He could tell he had a crooked smile on his face. The same sneer he always had when he interacted with his squad mates. An unamused smirk that intimidated, pushed away, and coerced.

“Is that piece of metal from Mirei’s rig? You actually picked it up?”

He asked that question while eyeing the small metallic fragment Shin held in his hands. It had the color of the Juggernaut’s plating, that of dried bone. Even the Stiletto squadron had heard of how Shin recorded the names of those who died with these fragments. He usually relied on whatever pieces of wood or metal he could find. But he did use scraps of their Juggernaut’s armor when he was lucky enough to locate them. That wasn’t very often, since the fragile Juggernauts were frequently blown to bits.

He had several fragments with names carved on them in his rig’s cockpit. They looked like junk, but there was a time when a squad mate took them out of his Juggernaut and tossed them into the mud, only to have Shin beat them up until their face was unrecognizable. Judging from that, these pieces were seemingly important to him.

This was part of why, despite him being a scapegoat, one had to take their hat off to Shin.

The other squad mates and maintenance crew all seemed to believe he was doing it in the same vein of how the battle-crazed Imperial nobles would claim the severed heads of their enemies as a prize. Shin, being the god of pestilence that he was, instead boasted the number of allies he got killed instead of the enemies he slayed.

But Isuka knew that wasn’t the case. Before, some squad mates who’d been relatively sympathized toward Shin and were now dead said that he was doing it because of a promise he’d made with his first squad captain. The last one to survive would remember those who had died fighting beside them and carry them with him. This was how he kept that promise up.

Would he end up bringing Isuka with him, too…?

…That’s stupid.

“I’m sure you’re not enough of a birdbrain to forget what Mirei did to you. And you’re still taking him along?”

The water he’d splashed on him, the insults he’d hurled every day, how he’d always use him as a decoy to stall the enemy. And he was still taking him along?

“Are you seriously that stupid? Between this and how you keep trying to save the dying… Do you get off on being a hero or something?”

“…That’s not it.” Shin’s reply was indifferent, like he didn’t even fully acknowledge Isuka was there.

He was probably looking back to whoever forced that promise on him, someone who was already gone. Whatever irresponsible person they were to force him to make that promise before going ahead and dying first.

“It’s because the Eighty-Six don’t get graves. If someone doesn’t remember those who died, they’ll just disappear. So I just want to remember everyone.”

“Oh,” Isuka said with a thin sneer. “So what kind of guy was Mirei? A petty bully who picked on and shouted at anyone smaller than him every day, only to die like a bitch?”

No one would want to be remembered like that.

But Shin didn’t seem to acknowledge Isuka’s sneering, his crimson eyes instead sinking into reminiscence.

“…He was a joker who always laughed, always put on a brave face even when it was hard, and always tried to keep his friends cheery.”

The sneer disappeared from Isuka’s face.

“He never directed that behavior at me, but just looking from the side, I could tell that was how he treated others…and that’s something good enough for me to take along.”

“…”

Isuka contorted his face bitterly. At that moment, it finally hit home why this brat pissed him off so much.

“…You think you’re some kind of saint, kid? Here, in a battlefield where no one’s human?”

The Eighty-Sixth Sector is hell. No one can stay normal in a place like this. And Shin was still holding on to his dignity, on to the image of what a sane, decent human being should be. That was something Isuka had discarded, and he wasn’t interested in ever picking it up again, but it felt like Shin was showing him off.

“I’m just doing what I want to do and not doing what I don’t want to do.”

Because I don’t want to end up like you.

“Fucking brat—,” Isuka growled.

“Besides,” Shin cut him off.

He finally averted his clear, bloodred eyes, displaying a hint of bitterness for the first time.

“Even I have things I don’t do, despite the fact that I could… Even if I told you, no one in this squadron would believe me anyway. So there’s no point in saying anything.”