86 - Volume 11 - Chapter 7

THE FALL OF LIBERTÉ ET ÉGALITÉ

Rows of headless, four-legged skeletons crossed the gate into the Gran Mur. This sight made the Republic citizens watching from afar wail aloud. They cried out in despair and resentment. With regret and hatred.

That night, the Legion invaded the eighty-five Sectors when the northern walls of the Gran Mur fell, and they destroyed the final defensive line drawn in the capital, Liberté et Égalité. All the people who ran for dear life and took cover here in the eastern part of the Eighty-Second Sector were filthy and haggard. And yet despite the fate of their country and their own encroaching deaths, the hatred and despair they uttered now was even greater at this moment.

Lena stood in front of the citizens, who came there uninvited, right when the first row of Juggernauts stopped before her. As the Processors disembarked, the murmurs of hatred picked up in volume.

They stood there, their different colors a contrast to the homogenous silver of the Alba. They were boys and girls of different ethnicities and skin colors. Eighty-Six. Subhumans and failures of evolution who’d been cast out of the Republic’s eighty-five Sectors—a paradise only allowed for human beings. Pigs in human form who occupied the no-man’s-land of the Eighty-Sixth Sector, from which they were never meant to return.

Seeing these despicable creatures once again tread on Republic soil—on the holy ground of the single most superior and ideal of lands across all humankind—the citizens raised their voices in terrors of hatred and distress.

Standing near one Juggernaut with black armor and the Personal Mark of an eyeball emblazoned on it was a Processor. She smirked at Lena, her red unkempt hair cut short and the zipper of her field uniform pulled all the way down to her navel.

“It’s our first time meeting face-to-face. A pleasure to finally see you, Handler One.”

Lena nodded with a jerk of her chin, and then Lena’s pale features, mired with dust and rubble, softened into a smile.

“…You really were a woman,” she said.

Shiden cackled pleasantly, her voice a husky alto that made it difficult to discern her gender.

“Ah-ha-ha, I get that a lot. Yer exactly how I imagined ya, though. A beautiful, cold, and bloodstained queen of silver.”

As Shiden continued her inappropriate cackle, one of the civilians stepped up from the crowd and shouted:

“You…you filthy Eighty-Six! You were so busy trying to save your own sorry hides you wouldn’t even die with the Legion! You’re what got us into this mess!”

His howl disappeared into the clear, new moon sky like the flaring of a flame. After a moment’s silence, the crowd, spurred on by his shout, all erupted in anger.

“““That’s right, it’s your fault, Eighty-Six! You didn’t fight hard enough! You didn’t put your lives into it and win the war for us! You didn’t throw your worthless lives away to beat the Legion!

“““You cared more about your survival, when you’re defiling this sacred country just by breathing its air! And despite how worthless you pigs are, we were merciful and kind enough to keep you!

“““You useless ingrates…

“““Your incompetent thanklessness is why innocent people like us have to go through this!”””

Their accusations were absurdly selfish and blind to the fact that they were suffering the consequences of their own mistakes. They were the ones who didn’t fight and didn’t beat the Legion, after all.

It was so offensive that Lena was struck speechless for a moment. Shiden, however, shook her head in exasperation and raised her right hand. She held it up with the casualness of pointing at someone…except gripped in her hand was a large, imposing 12-gauge shotgun, its muzzle like gaping holes.

A sawed-off lever-action shotgun.

It was a shotgun with a shorter muzzle, and in exchange for decreased initial velocity and recoil reduction, its scatter shot was much more destructive in closed spaces.

“…Huh?” The first man to step up let out a stupefied voice as he gazed into the muzzle.

She casually fired the shotgun. The chokeless, sawed-off shotgun launched scattered shots that spread over a wide area in front of the muzzle, making it an exceptionally lethal short-range antipersonnel weapon. The 9 mm buckshot was fired off at high speeds, effortlessly slaying deer that were much larger than a human.

But since she averted the muzzle at the last second, the shot only gouged at the ground near the man’s feet. Thankfully, there was no ricochet effect. And still, seeing this show of violence displayed before their eyes after a decade of peace snapped the crowd’s frenzy like a twig.

As the crowd froze up, Shiden calmly reloaded her shotgun. With her finger still on the loading lever, she swung the weapon, twirling it along the lever in a spin load. By the time her right hand settled back on the grip, the shotgun was locked, loaded, and aimed. And this time, she pointed it straight at the man’s face.

The Republic man went pale and wordlessly stared into Shiden’s striking odd-colored eyes. Shiden opened her mouth, revealing a row of sharpened teeth that would suit a demon or a beast, and laughed out loud.

“Stop oinking in my face, ya white pig. If yer gonna act like a pig, at least do us all a favor and stay inside your pigsty when you squeal. If ya do, us Eighty-Six…”

Each of the Processors standing by their Juggernauts silently stared at the citizens. Their hair and eyes were an assortment of colors, but their gazes betrayed no emotion, glinting as artificially as the deepest darkness.

And with them as their backdrop, the cyclops witch cackled. A cackle full of genuine malice and scorn at these white pigs who still thought they could boss them around.

“…might decide to protect yer sorry lives along the way, too.”

Someone running off with a petty cry of “Those damn painted swine…!” was the signal. The other citizens scattered, darting off in all directions.

“I’m sorry, Captain Iida…,” Lena said, directing a sidelong glance at the fleeing citizens. “Thank you for your patience and restraint.”

“Of course I’d show restraint here.” Shiden’s reply came colder than she expected. “If I’d have shot them dead at that point, things would snowball in no time.”

The situation only settled down because the Eighty-Six went from being weaklings they could freely abuse to a “threat” the Republic’s people couldn’t contend with. But if Shiden had shot someone dead, they wouldn’t have been a threat—they would have been enemies. And then the citizens wouldn’t just run away. At worst, the Republic’s people and the Eighty-Six would have clashed there.

Of course, the Eighty-Six were armed and used to handling guns. They wouldn’t lose to unarmed civilians. No matter how many of these powerless masses gathered, modern firearms would be able to mercilessly crush and mow them down. It would be the start of not a battle, but a one-sided massacre.

And honestly, no one could tell the Eighty-Six to stop. The only reason they were restraining themselves was because they knew that wasting bullets here would just lead to them losing to the Legion.

“We know the white pigs are that stupid. We’re used to it. ’Sides, we don’t have time for infighting with the Legion closing in on us… But I guess that part didn’t click for the white pigs yet. If they’re gonna keep acting like that, we’re gonna snap sooner rather than later.”

Even at this point, the Republic’s people still wouldn’t face reality. Even with the Legion invading within their walls, they still believed they wouldn’t be the ones to die. They thought everything happening now was all the result of someone’s carelessness or incompetence, and they thought they were still allowed to vent out that indignation at the inferior Eighty-Six.

They thought they could sit back and do nothing while someone else fought to protect them. They still honestly believed they were the most superior, finest race of all ethnicities in this world.

Even though that foolish dream had already crumbled to nothing along with the Gran Mur.

“We don’t give one shit about whether the white pigs live or die. If ya wanna keep them safe—ya better keep them on a tight leash, Your Majesty.”