86 - Volume 11 - Chapter 4

10.2

D-DAY PLUS ONE

“Due to the all-out Legion attack that began yesterday—which is hereby dubbed the second large-scale offensive—all confirmed human military fronts have fallen into retreat.”

The Strike Package’s headquarters at the Rüstkammer base. The largest conference room was full with the long shadows of the officers in attendance.

The brigade commander, Grethe, sat at the head of the table. Also present were all armored-division captains starting with Shin, all four tactical commanders including Lena, and all staff officers in addition to the heads of research and maintenance.

Vika and Zashya of the United Kingdom and Olivia of the Alliance were absent from headquarters at this time, as they’d returned to the western front headquarters to confirm the war situation in their respective countries.

Shin looked around the room for a moment and returned his gaze to Grethe. The Eighty-Six had been given time off in preparation for the upcoming counteroffensive, Operation Overlord, but were called back before they could even spend a full day at school. They were just getting used to “peace,” only to be called back so suddenly.

The state of the war was changing so rapidly and so radically, even battle-hardened soldiers like them couldn’t keep up with it.

What was happening? And how did it happen?

With all eyes on her, Grethe continued speaking to the countless holo-windows.

“The five Legion army corps that attacked are currently being held in check by the second reserve formation along the Saentis-Historics line. There are sporadic, small-scale conflicts—a few skirmishes, but as a whole, the front is in a state of stalemate. The eastern, northern, and southern lines have likewise managed to bring the fighting to a standstill.”

Grethe deployed her main hologram window to display a map of the entire Federacy’s combat areas. The Federacy had long western and eastern borders. As such, its north and south borders were each divided into four front lines, which were marked on the map alongside the western and eastern fronts with a blue line.

With the exception of the western front, the Federacy was graced with large mountains and rivers that served as natural defenses, allowing it to hold on to those front lines with relatively small forces.

Every single front had their defenses destroyed, forcing the Federacy to move their defensive lines back to the flatlands and marshlands behind them. And while marshlands were difficult terrain for bulky armored weapons to traverse, flat plains were where Löwe and Dinosauria reigned supreme. So while the Federacy was able to reach a stalemate for the time being, defending these lines would prove difficult.

“Communications with the Holy Theocracy of Noiryanaruse, the far-west countries, and the Grand Duchy of Qitira are still offline. The Regicide Fleet Countries have had their final defensive line breached and have their remaining forces deployed in the Stellia Fleet Country territory, holding the Legion back with stall tactics. They requested that their civilians be evacuated to the United Kingdom and the Federacy, and preparations to accept them are underway. Realistically speaking, their nation is considered to have been destroyed.”

More holo-windows deployed, showing maps of the far west, the southern shores beyond the Alliance, the Fleet Countries in the north of the continent, and lastly, a map of the Alliance of Wald’s and the United Kingdom’s combat zones.

Every single front line on that map was in a state of defeat.

“The Alliance abandoned their second defensive line and moved back to their final, absolute defensive line. The United Kingdom abandoned the Dragon Corpse mountain range and, after blowing up their entrance to a tunnel leading across the mountain’s base, retreated to the foot of the mountain. They’re fighting defensive battles while rushing to set up fortifications in the plains behind them. We can’t contact those two countries directly, but we are tapping into their wireless transmissions. They’re still fighting as we speak.”

Shin looked up at the map. The area between the Federacy, the United Kingdom, and the Alliance was dotted with countless red blips signifying hostiles—the Legion—which filled up areas that had been occupied by existing roads just a few days ago. All three countries had their front lines pushed back, making it so their spheres of influence were much smaller compared with the previous large-scale offensive.

As things stood, a mouse couldn’t move between the countries—to say nothing of the possibility of international cooperation.

With so much distance between them, being able to tap into the other countries’ wireless was almost a miracle. It seemed the Eintagsfliege couldn’t keep up with the increase in the Legion’s sphere of influence.

The situation was that unprecedented.

He turned to the map of the Federacy’s western front. To the east of the Neuedaphne and Neuegardenia combat territories, pincered between the Saentis River and Historics River, were where five army corps of both the Legion and the western front army were locked in a stalemate.

This was the reserve defensive formation—formed between two major rivers that divided four Wolfsland combat territories between north and south and between midwest and east. A line set with a large number of dissemination mines, with even more of them planted after the previous day.

The Saentis-Historics line.

It was right before the line where the combat territories that safeguarded the former Empire’s borders and the lands defended by them met. If the Legion was to push even a few kilometers ahead, the fires of war would spread into Federacy farmlands, making this effectively the last defensive line for preserving the Federacy’s current production prowess.

The Rüstkammer base, too, was built on the western edge of a territory called Silvas, near the border with a combat territory called Blan Ross. The distant rumbling of cannons could be heard every now and then, and the nearby town’s civilians were preparing for a hasty evacuation.

Having seen this much, Shin turned to Grethe. Countless bombardments had driven every human-held front to the brink of collapse, and yet when the western front was bombarded, Shin couldn’t hear the voice of the Legion firing at them.

“What happened…? How did the Legion launch the initial bombardments that destroyed all the front lines…? Could they have kept several other Morpho a secret from us and spread them out?”

“No.” Grethe shook her head and called up another holo-window.

It showed footage of the night sky at such altitude that no building was visible. Within the darkness of this rough footage, grainy and crackling with static, was a group of what looked like red comets, blitzing down diagonally across the night sky.

A feeling of déjà vu filled Shin’s heart. He’d seen something like this just two days ago, when the fighting began to intensify, with a relative of his in one of the western front–integrated HQ’s rooms.

Was that a shooting star?

There shouldn’t be any stars in that part of the sky at this time of night. I don’t think so anyway…

It’d sparkled and then disappeared. A star that shouldn’t have been there, shining red like a flame.

And that…star was what had bombarded the front lines…

“The truth behind the attacks is estimated to be satellites that were used as makeshift ballistic missiles.”

A dubious, suspicious silence hung among the commanders.

“Before I explain further, I need to ask,” Grethe said. “Do you know what a ballistic missile is?”

The staff officers and chiefs of maintenance and research, who had been in service since before the Legion War, all nodded like it was obvious. Lena nodded, too, as she had some fundamental knowledge of what ballistic missiles were. But Shin and the other Eighty-Six looked puzzled.

Grethe nodded. It only made sense they wouldn’t know.

“Yes, that’s what I thought. The Legion don’t normally use ballistic or even cruise missiles. Eintagsfliege disturbance makes it impossible to direct missiles, and all the debris in orbit gets in the way. So both the Federacy and the United Kingdom treat those missiles as dead stock.”

“They’re long-distance missiles that use rocket boosters to propel themselves outside the atmosphere, and then they typically use gravity to fall in an arc toward a land target,” the chief of research appended.

They were tall and slender, and they’d grown out their hair, which was tied up in a speckled knot for some reason. Their original hair color was reddish-brown, and their eyes were green.

“And since they’re fired outside the atmosphere, that naturally means there’s no air, meaning no energy loss from air resistance. So it can aim from greater distances than it can within the atmosphere. Missiles with maximal range can reach from the western tip of the continent all the way to the eastern tip. But since you can’t control them during their descent, their accuracy is low. That was mostly compensated for by equipping them with nuclear warheads, which have a wide effective range. As Grethe—excuse me—Colonel Wenzel said, at present, all countries that possess ballistic missiles don’t use them. Even if they could, firing them blindly could end up polluting your own territory with radiation.

“And if you set the missile’s arc to the horizon instead of a point on the ground, the centrifugal force and gravity can cause it to rotate around the planet’s orbit. That’s called a man-made satellite. Putting it another way, ballistic missiles and man-made satellites are the same in the sense that they’re launched out of the atmosphere and set to fall; the difference is in whether they’re dropped down to the surface or into the sky.”

In other words.

“The Legion fired a large number of man-made satellites into orbit and intentionally dropped them onto the surface so they would function as ballistic missiles. Satellites utilize propellant to maintain their altitude, but they instead used it to produce the thrust necessary to send them falling. They were launched from a Legion base you raided during the Fleet Countries operation, aka the Mirage Spire. That was actually a launching facility. A similar structure was observed in the Theocracy, and there are probably several others scattered across the Legion territories.”

“…There’s just one problem, Grethe. There’s no way we wouldn’t have been able to detect them,” the chief of research said, cocking their head and leaning forward.

Their green eyes made it clear that this wasn’t a rebuttal, but an honest question.

“Be it firing a satellite or a missile, burning that much propellant produces massive amounts of heat,” the chief of research continued. “There are still early-warning satellites up there, and we would’ve definitely been able to detect the missile launches. The United Kingdom still has some satellites, and they didn’t warn us, either. Firing even a single satellite requires an absurd amount of fuel. Where would the Legion even get enough fuel to launch multiple—?”

To exit the atmosphere, one could not rely on a jet engine, which used the surrounding air to achieve thrust. So rocket engines were used instead, but doing so was very cost inefficient. A speed of eight thousand meters per second was required to launch a satellite into orbit, and the ratio of weight to fuel required to reach that speed was one to ten. Firing a one-tonne satellite required ten tonnes of fuel. And needless to say, consuming that much fuel produced so much heat that early-warning satellites located in geostationary orbit were bound to detect it.

“That’s right. They need a velocity of eight thousand meters per second. So rather than relying on rocket engines, railguns were utilized as Mass Drivers. That’s what the general staff headquarters speculates. It’s a much more cost-effective way of launching a satellite into orbit.”

“Ah…!” the chief of research exclaimed.

Railguns were capable of firing at an estimated eight thousand meters per second. The Morpho already proved to be capable of firing 800 mm–caliber projectiles weighing several tonnes at that very velocity. And the Legion also showed that they were capable of producing railguns in large numbers and even increasing them in size. The Noctiluca and the Halcyon demonstrated that they were capable of equipping them with multiple barrels and setting them up to produce the required energy internally, though the size of their barrels was never expanded.

But if they were able to increase their energy output, who’s to say they didn’t attempt to increase the projectiles’ weight, too? It was possible the Morpho itself was only a prototype for the Mass Drivers, a mere step in the way to achieving the blistering velocity of eight thousand meters per second.

“Ballistic missiles have high velocity and a shell hard enough to withstand the strain of leaving the atmosphere, so once they’re fired, intercepting them becomes difficult. The western front military’s general staff headquarters performed an analysis, but it only came up with results just before the attack began. We had no way of stopping the bombardment. If anything, it’s impressive the chiefs of staff of each front and the joint chiefs of staff were able to come up with a retreat plan for every single front in the space of a day.”

As Grethe thought the western front military’s general staff headquarters’ commander, the Killer Mantis, likely didn’t think his own achievement was impressive at all, she moved the conversation along. Once launched, a satellite could not change its trajectory. Likewise, once a ballistic missile begins its descent, there’s no changing its course. So with that in mind, since the Legion set their sights on the front lines, where most of the Federacy’s forces would be concentrated, he made the retreat plan to move the majority of their forces back to safety.

This wasn’t a plan one could come up with in a day. With hundreds of thousands of soldiers, having them retreat in an orderly fashion required discipline, and facilities would have to be set up to accommodate them in the reserve positions, too. On top of that, for the formation to effectively stop the Legion, forces would need to be placed there, and they’d need a sufficient supply of howitzer ammunition. And as soon as the soldiers evacuated, new mines would need to be set with the enemy in sight while being wary of the missiles’ descent.

To achieve all that, one would need to keep a close eye on a truly massive amount of information. Willem had no way of knowing when the satellite missiles would come down. At the same time, he couldn’t have the front lines evacuated until they did. Once the descent began, there was no stopping the missiles, so for the time being, he drafted a minimal retreat plan using what little information he did have, with the intention of examining and revising the plan once the attack began and more details surfaced.

When it comes to commanding an army, one must be swift rather than thorough. And true to that rule, the minimal retreat plan drafted in just a day effectively bore fruit. In that regard, one could only say the chief of staff did very well. And of course, the fact that the officers and men of the Federacy military pulled off the plan with no preparation reflected greatly on how disciplined they were.

This result had been weaved together by steadily gathering intelligence and carefully scrutinizing it—and by relying on the soldiers’ constant discipline and training.

“Also, if there is a silver lining here, it’s that they only used a kinetic projectile and not a nuclear warhead. It did blow away all the defensive facilities in the impact zone, but unlike a nuclear warhead, it didn’t produce any heat or a blast, so for as long as there weren’t people on the impact site itself, there’d be minimal loss of life. And as a matter of fact, the military retreated from the southern front after the first bombardment, so relative to the scale of the damage, we lost very few lives.”

Except…

“We did warn the other countries, of course, but…we still lost the Fleet Countries.”

On top of that, communications were severed from the far-west and southern-shore nations. The Alliance was forced back to their final defensive line despite not having a lot of territory to begin with, and the United Kingdom had to rebuild its defensive line on the grain-producing regions, which accounted for most of their food production. All those countries were in terrible shape.

“But now that we know they’re using satellites, detecting them shouldn’t be that hard. It’s difficult to optimize them for stealth, and they can’t veer off their orbit. By comparing the inventory to the situation before the war, we can confirm if any satellites are added or go missing, so if nothing else, they won’t catch us by surprise again. If possible, we’d like to destroy their Mass Drivers, but first, we need to focus on holding our lines.”

As Grethe spoke, she added footage of the Mass Drivers—or rather, the Mirage Spire base. She then added an image of the steel pylon detected in the blank region and then brought up another image.

Shin gasped. It was a record of the Charité Underground Labyrinth operation from six months ago. To be more exact, it was an image of the main shaft Kaie’s Black Sheep had sent him tumbling into, which funneled sunlight into the structure. The place where he’d first encountered and battled the Phönix.

The footage showed the large hall, its walls and floors covered in Prussian-blue mirrored surfaces. A passage made of glass and metal had collapsed in, now resting diagonally on the floor. And standing solemnly at its center was a flywheel, its cogs still alive and clicking like the interior of a clock tower. This was a facility for producing electricity.

And emerging from somewhere in the building was a raillike structure that stretched through the entire area, extending to the heavens.

Shin thought that what “Kaie” had been trying to alert him about was the Phönix. But was it possible that this was what “she” had really been trying to tell him…?

Grethe continued her explanation coldly.

“A structure resembling the other Mass Drivers was discovered in the Republic city of Charité.”

Meaning that the Legion had been planning to attack using satellite missiles as long ago as back then. Which meant…

“This means the information the Merciless Queen—Zelene Birkenbaum—has been providing us was a red herring meant to distract us from the Legion’s true objective…”

<<It can’t be.>>

The Legion had no emotions, and yet perhaps there really was surprise in her voice.

Vika stood before Zelene’s sealed container. Hearing her artificial, mechanical voice moan in disbelief, Vika pondered to himself coldly.

“—The Federacy seems to suspect that your surrender to us was nothing but a ruse to deceive us. And indeed, we got played. We became too desperate to gather intelligence, so as to prevent a second large-scale offensive.”

And indeed, the second large-scale offensive she’d told them about was true. But Zelene had warned them about mass production of Morphos—that the Legion would increase in mass and number, and that wasn’t what happened in the second large-scale offensive at all.

The mass production of the Phönix was a clearly unnatural development, as were the production of the Noctiluca and the Halcyon.

“If one was to simply look at the outcome, it seems all the information you divulged to us was a distraction to mask the ballistic missiles. And it worked.”

<<…>>

“However…”

Yes, however.

“…I’m personally of the opinion that you, too, were played by the Legion.”

When told of the Noctiluca, Zelene said it was baffling. And her reply didn’t seem to be a lie. In order to protect against information leaks, militaries only divulged intelligence to those who needed to know it. That applied to the Legion, too. With that in mind, hiding the truth from Zelene wouldn’t have been difficult for them. And having Zelene believe her fake information was true would be an easy way of making it seem more credible.

That way, she wouldn’t be able to speculate and reach the truth.

It wasn’t clear if the Legion had been planning this ever since the Strike Package was established, since a small group of Reginleifs destroyed the first Morpho deep in the Legion territories. But when the Federacy started pinpointing Legion bases and commander units, the Legion handed Zelene over willingly, allowing her capture.

The Legion weren’t human, they were heartless killing machines. They were immune to all manner of interrogation techniques. To gain confidential information, humankind would need to either crack the heavy encryption on their transmissions or target bases holding important information.

When they find a way out, humans always flock toward it—making it the most efficient location to place a trap. They planted the pitfall at the target they knew the humans would go after.

Zelene was made into a sacrificial pawn to deliver fake information to the humans. Or maybe humankind capturing her was a coincidence, and other commander units were used as sacrificial pawns, too.

The combat machines were coldhearted and emotionless—they would even cast aside their own commander units to wipe out their enemies. It wasn’t unlike ants or bees killing an old queen to protect the whole swarm. It might have seemed cruel to humans, but they acted under a different sort of logic.

“To protect your homeland, you gave the Legion their lack of mercy, only for them to use that logic to cut you out. Ironic, isn’t it, Merciless Queen?”

<< >>

Zelene met Vika’s ridicule with silence, and Vika raised an eyebrow dubiously. Surely, this murder machine wasn’t offended by him.

“What’s wrong?”

Zelene’s response was indifferent and cold, but it was clear.

<<No.>>

“I can’t believe everything we and the Strike Package achieved turned to nothing in the space of a day,” said Theo.

Yuuto, who was severely injured during last month’s operation in the Fleet Countries, was currently staying in a military hospital facility for patients requiring prolonged hospitalization and rehabilitation. He was beyond the period that required him to stay bedridden, but he still needed to rely on crutches to walk, and one of his hands remained in a sling.

Theo placed a paper cup full of coffee by Yuuto’s left hand, which had healed, and took a seat in one of the lounge’s chairs. He picked up his own cup of coffee from the tray he’d placed on the table earlier.

He’d closed his empty left-hand sleeve with a safety pin. A nearby nurse glanced at him when he was picking up the two cups of coffee, but upon seeing him use a tray to carry them over, she didn’t say anything. This made him oddly satisfied.

As he picked up a sugar stick with his hand, using his teeth to tear the paper packet open and pour it into his coffee, Yuuto replied:

“Forget our achievements; all the progress the Federacy made for nearly two years got pushed back in one go. Looking at the news, it was a pretty severe blow. What’s it like outside?”

“My new officer told me discreetly that for the time being, they called back the Strike Package, even the 1st Armored Division, who were supposed to be on leave. The base I’m in right now is in an uproar. They’re so short on soldiers they’re considering adjusting the age for enlistment.”

Having been transferred from the armored branch to a logistical support unit, Theo was currently stationed in a base on the outskirts of Sankt Jeder for his training period. And since it was a base charged with the training and retraining of cadets and reserve soldiers, the deaths of the front lines weren’t inconsequential to them.

“Anyway, compared to what I heard from the base, the news doesn’t show the bodies or the wreckage of the front lines—pardon, former front lines. But other than that, they’re not hiding anything. The Federacy was like that before you guys came here, too, back during the first Morpho attack.”

Theo was told about the news from Teresa when he stopped by Ernst’s estate before coming here. Freedom of the press was a basic condition of modern democracy. They didn’t want to make the public anxious, but at the same time, they had no intent of withholding information from the people.

“And because of that policy—and thanks to the army and government sticking to that policy for so long, the people in the city seem to believe the news and are trying to stay composed. But everyone’s still pretty jittery.”

The main newscaster, with their uniquely calm voice, had a slightly sharper tone than the previous day. The soldiers bickering in the base’s dining hall wasn’t an unusual sight, but they did seem rougher than usual, and weird groups of people were demonstrating in the capital plaza, speaking in unison. The young people parading through the main street held up placards with morose expressions, criticizing Ernst and his administration as useless dictators.

“Not that I can’t relate to them,” Theo added with a mumble.

The attire of the young demonstrators walking between the roadway was very light. Sankt Jeder was near the continent’s north, and one needed a coat to stave off the cold at this time of year. And yet they were dressed lightly, like it was the height of summer.

Like they hadn’t prepared their coats even this late into autumn. Like they were in the south, where it was warm even during October, up until just the previous day.

“With the front lines pushed back in a day, people had to evacuate all of a sudden. I can see why they’d be outraged.”

The outer-province citizens had their lands become the new front lines overnight and were progressively being evacuated into more inner cities. A sudden need arose to accommodate this vast number of refugees, so some of them were sent as far as Sankt Jeder in the distance. They were given preferential spots on the transport trains and provided temporary residence in hotels, motels, and empty apartments. However, due to the urgency of the evacuation, they weren’t allowed to bring any luggage.

“They were forced to leave because they’d be in danger in the defensive battles…or more like in the way. And there were some older citizens who insisted they’ll ‘never abandon the farms passed down by our fathers!’ and soldiers had to hold up guns to them and drag them away to evacuate. I heard about it back in the base.”

It was the army’s duty to protect its citizens, even if it meant being resented for it. Leaving unarmed civilians on the battlefield would not only mean the loss of their lives, but they would also get in the way of operational activity.

So the soldiers shouted at them, dragged them out of their domiciles, picked up their children, and forced them to walk to safety at gunpoint. But of course, the citizens being driven away from their homes were outraged by that. Both at what was done for them, and at this city for being so peaceful by comparison.

“And then there’s the civilians from the combat territories. They call them Wulfsrin, I think? They evacuated into the country on their own, and they’re worried if their homes and cities weren’t ransacked.”

The Wulfsrin gave up their land in the Empire days when they had to fall back, and they had to emigrate into new land whenever the Empire’s land expanded, meaning they were used to moving with all their assets and families. They lived in mobile homes, didn’t gather more family assets than they needed, and had a custom of carrying their things and precious metals they could liquidate into money. That made things easier for them now, and when the retreat began, they were able to pick up their things and voluntarily evacuate the combat zone.

So they wouldn’t get in the way of their parents, brothers, and spouses who fought as Vargus.

“Hmm.” Yuuto scoffed. “Demonstrators and citizens who refused to evacuate. Do they really think anyone has the time for this kind of nonsense now?”

“I guess things weren’t like that in the Republic back in last year’s large-scale offensive?” Theo asked.

“Anyone who refused to evacuate got butchered by the Legion soon after.”

“…Oh, right…”

Before their emotional composure was even a factor, they simply didn’t have the time to worry about it.

“They had to throw everything away and flee for safety, and only then did they have a chance to survive. I don’t know if it was because the situation was just bad enough to make people lose it, but there were even people greeting the Legion with flowers and placards that said something about their savior. Considering it hasn’t come to that, I’d say the Federacy is faring much better.”

Of course, this wasn’t a matter of faring any better; it just meant that things in the Republic had been that much worse.

“…Well, as a matter of fact, despite falling back so much, the new front is in the combat territories. All the fields and factories are in those territories. Sankt Jeder functions as the capital, and the people living there are fine, so it didn’t influence the Federacy’s livelihood. Some people are anxious the capital might be next, but I think most people don’t know how the attack even happened. I don’t, either, to be honest. And when you don’t have a good idea of what something is, you can’t really be afraid of it.”

It’s easy to panic in the face of the unknown, except…

“If anything scares me, it’s the fact that they’re not aiming at Sankt Jeder,” Theo whispered.

Yuuto glanced at him. Theo kept his head down, gazing into the coffee swirling in his cup.

“Ballistic missiles, man-made satellites… I heard the explanation, but I can’t really wrap my head around it. But if they could attack every front in the Federacy, that means they could just as easily target anywhere else in the country. So they could have just fired at the capital and taken out the Federacy’s brain. And still…”

Of course, the Federacy wasn’t organized in such a way that destroying the capital would completely topple it as a country. Those metallic shooting stars were inaccurate and didn’t have the destructive radius of a nuke, and to compensate for those flaws, they had to be fired in large numbers. So maybe, in the end, they were just too inaccurate to land a hit on the capital. However…

“It’s eerie, honestly. They want to kill us, but instead of finishing us off, they pull back and try to crush us bit by bit from the outside in. It’s like they’re trying to take bites out of us while completely blind to whether they’re aiming at our brains or our limbs. They’re attacking us like insects, and it’s just…creepy.”

If you want to kill an enemy, you aim for vitals—like a human’s windpipe. Even animals follow that logic. But a colony of ants chooses to swallow up their prey rather than aim for their vitals. They cover their opponent up, biting into every inch of them before eventually tearing them to bits. Completely deaf to the screams and death throes of their unfortunate prey all the while.

It was an eerie difference from the thought, the judgment, the very way of life of other organisms.

“The Federacy, the United Kingdom, the Alliance, and the Republic. The Legion’s got us split up and surrounded, and they actually can crush us from the outside in. And that makes it all the creepier.”

Shin was the one who saw the electric-generation flywheel in Charité, but it was Annette who personally saw the Mass Driver’s rail structure. That knowledge frustrated her to no end. The center of the office building was open from the bottom floor to the top one, and the silver rails ran through the whole thing, aiming up at the sky.

At the time, she thought the skylight had shattered and fallen in, but thinking back on it, the skylight probably wasn’t there to begin with, and the hole offered the rails a way out into the sky.

“I even saw it with my own eyes…! How did I think it was some kind of decoration?!”

“I know how you feel, but…you weren’t in the state of mind to figure that out then, Annette. It’s not your fault.” Lena shook her head softly, sitting opposite her.

The two of them were in Annette’s office, occupying two sofas. At the time, Annette had been investigating a Para-RAID malfunction. Soon after she started, the Phönix launched a surprise attack that wiped out the Phalanx squadron. And after that, the Sheepdogs were discovered, leading to an urgent retreat… Neither Annette nor Lena could have paid enough attention to those rails to assume they were anything but a useless environmental decoration.

Lena herself couldn’t help but think about what could’ve happened if she’d have noticed it back then, but objectively speaking, with her very rudimentary knowledge of satellites and ballistic missiles, it was doubtful Lena would have realized it even then. And the same held true for Annette.

“Besides, even if they did fire from those rails, it was the Republic that failed to notice anything,” Lena told her.

“…But the Republic didn’t get bombarded by the satellite missiles.”

“…Yes.”

The Republic was the only one among the countries whose survival was confirmed by the Federacy—and probably even among the nations whose survival was uncertain—that hadn’t been bombarded by the satellites.

There was some time from the strike on the Federacy’s western front to the bombardment in the far-west countries. And then from the strike in the far-west countries to the bombardment of the Federacy’s eastern front.

The Federacy assumed that the Legion used the several-hour gap between those bombardments to attack other human countries. Ironically enough, it was the satellite missiles that exposed the existence of other surviving countries. Though, since they’d been bombarded, it wasn’t clear if those countries still existed.

“Other countries might have been destroyed by this bombardment. And the Republic survived despite having a launch facility standing right in front of them. And then they endured the second large-scale offensive. The Republic never noticed, I never noticed, and that’s going to…!”

“Annette.” Lena silently but firmly cut off Annette’s words of regret.

She thought back to what Shin told her the first day they met.

Please stop making that tragic face.

“It’s not your fault… You can regret it if you want, but you can’t insist that you’re guilty for something you’re not at fault for. You can’t act like some kind of tragic saint.”

Annette gulped…and then breathed out a long sigh.

“Sorry… You’re right. Now…isn’t the time for this anyway.”

“It’s ironic how the flywheel was in the same place where I first fought the Phönix—where I saw Zelene’s ‘message.’ The Phönix’s message completely distracted me.”

The bluntly indifferent way Shin recollected it made Raiden furrow his brow. If Raiden—heck, if anyone was in Shin’s shoes, they’d be distracted by the Phönix’s message. And what happened after that, too.

“…Even if you ended up being fooled, it ain’t your fault, man.”

Nor was he guilty for being cajoled by Zelene’s information after she was captured.

“If anyone’s at fault for fooling you, it’s Zelene, and the higher-ups at the intelligence division didn’t see through her lie, either. You’re not guilty for any of that.”

Shin was a Processor in the middle of combat. This wasn’t a mistake he could be held accountable for.

Seeing Raiden’s earnest attempt to cheer him up, Shin chuckled.

“…The hell’s wrong with you?” Raiden growled at him grumpily.

“Sorry, it’s just…you worry too much. You fuss about me too often,” Shin said, snickering again. “Yeah, I know that. It’s not my fault.”

I’m fine already. I can handle guilt now.

“…Right.”

“If anything, I don’t think I’m the only one who got fooled here. I think Zelene was tricked just the same.”

As Raiden directed a quizzical glance at him, Shin hung his head in concern. Concern for someone who wasn’t present here, for Zelene—for the soul who had turned into a mechanical ghost.

“I don’t think she was lying to me. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, because I want to believe her, but she went as far as allowing herself to get captured to express that desire…”

The desire to end the war. To save humankind.

“…I don’t think she was lying,” Shin concluded.

Raiden took a deep breath. True enough, questioning everything they saw would get them nowhere, and it wasn’t their job to doubt everything, either.

“Even so, the question is…who lied to whom—and how deep the lies go,” he said.

“Yes.”

Was the information she gave them about shutting down all the Legion valid? Was the information about the transmission base and Frederica being the key to doing that well-founded? Would the top brass have to reconsider how credible that information was? Would they even have the time and presence of mind to do so?

Shin suddenly thought back to what Zelene had nearly told him in the Fleet Countries.

The shutdown order is transmitted to each base’s commander units via its own exclusive communications satellite. And if that satellite is shot down, the nearest Rabe would compensate for it.

And Grethe mentioned that it was extremely difficult to apply stealth to man-made satellites.

“Then do you think there’s any chance…we can find that communications satellite?”

When he found out his homeland was isolated on the other side of the Legion territories, even Dustin couldn’t help but go pale at the news.

“…The Republic is fine, at least for now. So…I’ll be all right.”

Upon hearing him repeat those words despite how white in the face he was, Anju furrowed her brow.

“Dustin…”

“I’m all right, really. You guys all lost your families. I haven’t lost anything yet; I can’t let this shake me up—,” he started.

But Anju placed a finger on his lips, silencing him. As if to ask him, exasperated, if this was the issue weighing on him. At this point, that didn’t matter anymore. Anju and the others may have still been scarred, but the wounds of loss had stopped aching long ago.

“Our families are dead, that much is true, but…your mother survived last year’s large-scale offensive, and she’s still in the Republic, right?”

The offensive did unfortunately claim his father’s life, though. But his mother was fortunate enough to survive, thanks to Dustin and the Eighty-Six protecting her. She was still alive.

“She’s still fine, so it’s only natural you’re worried about her. You don’t need to force yourself to act like that’s not important.”

“…Sorry.” Dustin hung his head.

“The Republic military and the Federacy’s relief expedition are still in the Republic’s territory. They’re bound to come back, so you can have them take your mother along.”

As he returned her gaze with his silver eyes, she shrugged. Anju cocked her head with a smile. Dustin being earnest and fastidious was part of his charm, but…

“You’re here, fighting for the Republic, Dustin… You’re allowed to have your way a little, right?”

When she came back from the integrated headquarters to Rüstkammer base, Zashya didn’t seem too shaken. Lerche called out to her, a bit concerned by her attitude. Zashya was seated on the sofa set in Vika’s office. Despite the room’s owner being absent, she was there with Olivia sitting opposite her and Lerche standing behind her.

“Lady Deputy…”

“I’m fine, Lerche. I cried my nerves away in bed after hearing the news,” Zashya said, her expression stiff and her eyes a slightly lighter shade of Imperial violet than her master’s.

Those eyes were the symbol of the Amethysta, rulers of the United Kingdom and royalty of the northern lands.

“I am the deputy commander of His Highness’s regiment. If I let my doubts show, it would sow unrest among my men. And if His Highness’s men were to let doubt make them cause a blunder among the United Kingdom’s army, I wouldn’t be able to look him, or his father and brother, whom we left behind at the homeland, in the eye.”

Hearing this, Olivia couldn’t help but feel an inappropriate thought cross his mind. This prince was known as the United Kingdom’s King of Corpses. Despite this, Olivia had conversed with the serpent prince, but that only made him realize that his name as the Serpent of Shackles and Decay was well-earned. Was that cold, emotionless snake even capable of being shaken up?

Perhaps sensing Olivia’s doubts, Lerche glared at Olivia with dark eyes, to which he raised a hand apologetically.

“Why would I be shaken up? The situation isn’t nearly bad enough to give me pause.”

Vika opened the door right in time to hear their exchange. Returning from negotiations with the Federacy commanders and his meeting with Zelene, Vika entered the room with those indifferent words.

Zashya hurriedly got to her feet, but Vika motioned for her to sit down with a wave of his hand and took a seat on the sofa, too. He then carried on, with a tone that was less wishful thinking and more of an obvious fact he’d conjectured.

“The Dragon Corpse mountain range falling isn’t nearly enough to topple House Idinarohk. I’m sure they’re facing great difficulties, but my brother and father can handle this situation. And as such, I have no reason to be shaken up.”

“Of course, Your Highness… Forgive me if I was discourteous,” Zashya said.

“I used my name to ask that the Federacy disclose any information regarding the war situation as it develops. I asked for information regarding your country, too, Aegis.”

Olivia bowed his head. He used his name—his status as prince of the United Kingdom, which the Federacy couldn’t ignore—to get confidential information for Olivia, a mere instructor for the Strike Package.

“…I am grateful.”

“Don’t worry about it; just think of it as being in my debt. I’ll have you pay it back before long, Anna Maria, heroine of the spear dance.”

Olivia gazed back at him questioningly, to which Vika shrugged without answering.

“Your unit and mine can’t go on operations for a while, but who’s to say how long they’d be able to keep saying that…? Zashya, keep a tight hold on our men. Aegis, you’ll be handling the instruction unit, of course?”

With their impregnable natural fortresses conquered and no other news to speak of their countries’ situation, even seasoned United Kingdom and Alliance soldiers couldn’t stay composed. The Federacy’s operations were another country’s battles to them, after all, and if any of their comrades were to die now, it could spark strife and rebellion. This meant the Federacy couldn’t carelessly send out these two units into battle.

They couldn’t.

Exchanging gazes, Zashya and Olivia each nodded. Even if they couldn’t send their soldiers out into battle given their current mental states—

“By your will, Your Highness.”

“Of course. I’ll have it done right away.”

—whatever may come next—even if their beloved homelands may perish beyond the gray walls of the Legion—they were still here. Trapped in the Federacy’s battlefield. And a time may come when they would have to fight anyway.

Even with all the Federacy’s fronts having greatly fallen back, including the western front, which was adjacent to the Rüstkammer base, there were still cartoons for kids airing on the airwaves just the same. This was, perhaps, how the broadcast stations stuck to their guns. Even though the adults were preparing to flee, there were many kids who didn’t understand the situation, and the stations resolved to give them some semblance of a normal life.

But despite being one such child, Frederica had no time to enjoy those cartoons. Kurena, Shiden, and the others were all eating in the dining hall, sneaking concerned glances at the girl as her eyes were stuck to the news playing on TV.

Despite the front lines having been pulled back, both the dining hall’s menu and the Processors’ appetites remained unchanged. They had to make sure they ate, so they’d be ready to fight at any time.

“It only makes sense since the Federacy’s surrounded and all its fronts are pushed back,” Michihi said as she listened to the news report on the evacuation status. “But they keep moving everyone toward the center.”

“I wonder if it was like that back in the Republic, when the Legion War was only just beginning?” Rito wondered.

Shiden exchanged glances with Claude and Tohru, captains of the Spearhead squadron’s 4th and 3rd Platoons respectively. The Republic military had fought to stave off the Legion’s progress for a mere two weeks, and as they did, they evacuated citizens from around the border.

“Ah… I don’t remember,” Shiden grumbled.

“Figures. We didn’t watch the news at that age.”

“Ah, I remember! They evacuated us, yeah. A bus showed up, and I got in it with my ma, pa, and grandpa.”

“How am I supposed to be a part of this conversation…?” Marcel asked, his expression guilt-ridden and awkward.

After all, eleven years ago, soon after that evacuation, the Republic started sending the Eighty-Six to internment camps, and everyone save for him and Frederica were Eighty-Six, who knew the pain of that life.

“You can just talk about what the Federacy did at the time, right?” Tohru replied briskly, representing the rest of the Eighty-Six. “Did you evacuate back then?”

“I didn’t, but…,” Marcel said, and then he appended how someone he knew did. Eugene, his friend from middle school and the special officer academy. “A friend of mine evacuated but ended up getting split up from his family and never saw them again. His kid sister doesn’t even remember their parents anymore…”

“…”

A rather uncomfortable silence descended on the table, as if to say they shouldn’t have asked that. Marcel hurriedly continued:

“Still, it doesn’t look like things are as chaotic as they were back then, at least for now. So I’m sure we’ll manage.”

“…Do you truly think so?” Frederica cut him off, her voice low.

Her crimson eyes were contorted, with tears built up. Like she was holding back great anger.

“You, too, believed that the war would soon end. That peace was in sight and within grasp. And though that should have been the case…!”

“Frederica.” Kurena interrupted Frederica before her words were about to turn into a shout.

As she did, Claude changed the channel.

“Frederica, don’t,” Kurena told her.

“Yeah, you can’t say that, squirt,” Claude said.

The TV had switched over to a random animal show. It was a documentary about wildlife caught on the front lines.

“Not now, at least,” he carried on. “If watching the news puts you on edge, just change the channel.”

Footage of a wildcat captured on the front lines played on the screen.

Even with all humankind’s spheres of influence so greatly diminished, these wild creatures hunted prey and raised their cubs undisturbed.

“This doesn’t look too interesting. Can I change the channel to a monster-movie marathon I started watching?” Rito asked nonchalantly.

This caused idle chatter to break out again. Some argued they wanted to watch a zombie film instead or finish the rest of this one magical girl show they saw once. And as the chatter continued around them, Kurena kept her hands wrapped around a shivering Frederica.

In the midst of the chatter, Tohru asked Claude a question. Tohru had an Aventura’s blond hair and green eyes, and he was tall and lanky.

“Claude, are you all right, though?”

His friend answered without turning to look at him. They had been friends for years, as they’d served in the same unit since the first squadron they were assigned to in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, and they were comrades who fought together even now.

He had red hair, passed down from his mother who had mixed noble Imperial blood, and wore glasses without optical lenses to hide his moon-white eyes. Tohru knew that.

“I’m not, and that’s why I just want to watch something, be it wildcats or zombies or monsters or magical girls.”

“…Right.”