86 - Volume 11 - Chapter 8

10.11

D-DAY PLUS TEN

“Never imagined we’d end up going back to the Republic.”

“Pretty crappy as triumphant homecomings go, right?”

It was dawn. As the battlefield’s night sky began to melt into cerulean darkness, the Processors shuffled their feet as they finished their pre-sortie briefing. They were in one of the Federacy western front’s FOBs, which was mostly occupied by an armored unit engaged in mobile defense.

Support the evacuation of your own persecutors, the Republic. Despite having been ordered to fight to defend Republic citizens, the child soldiers didn’t betray any displeasure or concern in their expressions. In fact, they were chatting, using it as a reason to crack jokes and laugh out loud as they spoke of the aid mission before them.

“I mean, it’ll be the second time we save the Republic, if you count the large-scale offensive.”

“Whoa, we’re awesome. Imagine saving your own abusers twice. We’re fucking saints, man.”

“For us at the Lycaon squadron, it’ll be our third time, so I guess that makes us angels.”

“Right, that was your first assignment.”

“Good on you.”

“Good job, Archangel Michihi.”

“You think the Republic’s people are gonna actually change this time around? Maybe show a bit of gratitude for once?”

“Wish they’d act a bit more proper, like Lena and Dustin, you know?”

“Nah.”

“Snowball’s chance in hell of that.”

“Man, talk about a crappy trip.”

The child soldiers went on without a single hint of displeasure, concern, or even anxiety at how the war’s tables had been turned against them. They chatted and joked, laughing everything off.

“We meet again, Captain Nouzen! Where’s that cheeky sycophant of yours today?! Come to think of it, I never did ask for her name!”

The very incarnation of the color red, standing there with bloodred hair, a crimson dress, a ruby tiara, and punctuated with a scarlet cape—or as she was otherwise known, the mascot of the Brantolote archduchy’s Myrmecoleo Free Regiment, Svenja Brantolote—spoke to him with animated excitement.

“…”

Looking away from her, Shin directed his attention to the Myrmecoleo Free Regiment’s commander, Major Gilweise Günter. Shin wasn’t lacking in sleeping hours, but it was still early morning. Frederica, he could have dealt with, but he wasn’t in the state of mind to handle a shrill child.

“I hear that despite being a raiding unit, they even had your Free Regiment stationed on the front lines?” he asked, holding up a hand to push away the small girl’s head as she drew on him, shrieking.

Gilweise nodded, moving his princess away with a surprisingly crude hold.

“Thanks to the chief of staff’s efforts, their surprise attack ended with minimal losses, but that’s not to say there were no casualties,” Gilweise replied.

The two of them were currently standing on the western front’s current front lines, the Saentis-Historics line’s third formation. The place originally had pillboxes, concrete anti-tank impediments (dragon’s teeth), and anti-tank gun platforms. With the front lines falling back, these were reinforced with a hastily prepared but thick field of scatterable mines.

In addition, they’d brought in iron scaffoldings, which they fashioned into anti-tank impediments and a row of anti-tank guns. There were more pillboxes made of reinforced concrete being presently built. They were trying to set up the minimal fortifications that a reserve formation would require as quickly as possible. Such work was in progress across the Saentis-Historics line.

Infantrymen were set up as the primary force across the formation, while the armored units—which included the Myrmecoleo Free Regiment—were setting up the second line. The western front’s primary strategy remained unchanged even after falling back: mobile defense. It stood as a testament to how important the armored forces were to the Federacy.

“The Free Regiments of other fiefdoms have been attached to the other fronts, as well. I think you and your Strike Package are the only force left that’s still functioning as a raiding unit.” Having said that, Gilweise’s smile waned. “Last operation, the Princess discovered that Mass Driver tower. And despite that, we couldn’t intercept it in time. That regret’s been eating away at us. It’s…frustrating.”

“…Yes.”

Shin and his group felt like they’d failed to stop this in time, too. They saw a Mass Driver over a month ahead of Svenja and Gilweise, after all. During the Mirage Spire operation—and during the Strike Package’s very first deployment in the Charité Underground Labyrinth operation. If they could have predicted the satellite missiles, if they could see this cataclysm coming as far back as then…

Shin actively suppressed the emotions surging up in him again, but Gilweise keenly noticed it and furrowed his brow.

“…Are you all right, Captain? With the situation having changed this much, you have to be feeling the strain. Your Queen in particular.”

“Yes… But we’re trying to keep our feelings out of this. We’re in the middle of an operation.”

Shin sighed once. Some of the Processors who had only recently recovered from their injuries were capable of piloting a Reginleif, but not quite well enough to handle combat. So instead of fighting, they served as pilots for control officers and tactical commanders.

From a distance, Shin could see one such unit, Saki’s Grimalkin, close its canopy—with Lena inside. Incidentally, the brigade’s commander, Grethe, was piloting a Reginleif on her own, with Marcel being her unfortunate partner.

Saki reported preparations were complete. With those words as his switch, Shin shifted gears, looked up, and replied coldly.

“I’m aware of what you’re saying… I’m fine.”

First light dawned in the sky, and with it, the operation began.

“Commencing launch. Armée Furieuse—fire!”

With the aid of the Mantle of Frigga, the Reginleifs landed behind the lines of the Legion facing off against the western front’s forces. A force of the Strike Package’s 4th Armored Division touched down first.

“Suiu Tohkanya, Banshee, successfully touched down. Maintaining control of the area.”

At the same time, the Federacy’s main force launched an offensive. They began eliminating the Legion forces around the high-speed railway, securing the rails all the way up to phase line Aquarius, located sixty kilometers off reference Point Zodiacs on the western front.

And in that gap…

“Here we go! Catoblepas, sallying forth!”

Canaan’s 3rd Armored Division passed through the gap. Following after them was the Strike Package’s 2nd Armored Division, who were charged with securing the road to the Republic.

“We’ll start by clearing the way to the ninety-kilometer point, phase line Capricorn, and escort the 4th Armored Division. Artillery unit, strike at the enemy’s face!”

Svenja suddenly cried out in alarm from the gunner seat, prompting Gilweise to jolt in the cockpit. The Myrmecoleo Free Regiments weren’t currently in combat, but they were certainly in the middle of an operation.

“Brother! I forgot to ask for that Mascot’s name again!”

“…Oh…”

Gilweise shrugged. That was her problem? Besides, her forgetting to ask wasn’t relevant here; if she’d asked it like that, Shin wouldn’t have answered.

“Princess, please, next time we meet them, be polite and ask her for her name yourself instead of the captain.”

The Federacy military’s forces were able to retain up to the thirty-kilometer point, phase line Pisces. Canaan’s 3rd Armored Division reached as far as the two-hundred-twenty-one-kilometer line—phase line Libra—and Siri’s 2nd Armored Division cleared the way to the three-hundred-kilometer point—phase line Cancer.

Only ninety kilometers remained to the Republic.

“All right, Nouzen, you handle the rest!”

“Right.”

Shin and Lena’s 1st Armored Division entered combat. They began cutting a path through the Legion territories, on their way to the edge of the Republic’s eighty-five Sectors, to the Gran Mur wall along the Eighty-Third Sector. The phase line close to the four-hundred-kilometer point—Aries.

Their ranks were made up solely of Reginleifs and Scavengers, with no other vehicles following them. At worst, they would have to walk back, so they didn’t bring the slow, sluggish Vanadis.

The expedition force worked in tandem with them, going out to the Gran Mur to greet them and opening the way for them from the other side. They secured the three-hundred-sixty-kilometer point, phase line Taurus, and continued their march.

The Gran Mur was coming into view. As Undertaker and the Reginleifs sprinted along, under the glow of the autumn morning, the first train bound to the Republic from the Federacy sped by.

“May I ask something, Major General? All of the Republic’s refugees were told beforehand to gather in the Eighty-Third Sector, right? Then where is that smoke coming from?”

“They lit the document vault in the Twenty-Fourth Sector’s government office on fire.”

As commander of the relief expedition force, Major General Richard Altner was in a command post in Point Sacra, in the Eighty-Third Sector’s former Ilex city high-speed rail terminal. In order to ensure they could be protected by the minimal forces remaining in the Republic, the Republic’s full population had been moved to the Eighty-Third Sector and the three sectors surrounding it in accordance to their departure time.

The Eighty-Third Sector was an industrial area, and those scheduled to leave on the second day were to spend the night in abandoned barracks or in the Eighty-Third Sector’s bunkhouses.

However, like Grethe commented, standing from the city hall, which had been converted into a makeshift command post, one could see a pillar of smoke rising from across the cityscape.

Richard was standing before a large table littered with paper documents and maps, with the rest being projected in holo-windows. Keeping his lone eye fixed on the holograms, which he could switch off at a moment’s notice, Richard spoke with a sarcastic snort.

“They’re doing the same thing in the First Sector. Apparently, there was so much paperwork to dispose of that they couldn’t get rid of it all in time for the evacuation. They said it’ll take them until just before the last train on the third day… Must be hard, being a country that relies on paper documents.”

“They aren’t burning any incriminating documents along the way, are they?” Grethe asked.

“We wouldn’t let them get away with that. We copied all the important things when we saved them last year. The Republic government asked that some essential documents be transported with them, so we let them take the originals for those.”

Richard pointed ahead to a group of transport trucks driving off, loaded with building materials.

It was the first morning in an operation set to continue nonstop for three days. All the high-priority Federacy military noncombatants had left on the first train earlier. They would now be tasked with loading the Republic citizens onto the evacuation trains set to make round trips for the operation’s duration.

At this point in time, the evacuation of politicians, high-ranking government officials, and the old nobility living in the First Sector was completed without issue. Celenas living in the Second to Fifth Sector as well as generals and field officers were boarding the train or waiting for the next one.

“And there were documents mixed in with those originals. Like, for example, Eighty-Six personnel files.”

“We had those sent back to the Federacy in the name of investigation. Those files are a treasure to us; we wouldn’t let the Republic damage them, no matter what.”

This was proof that would tell the other countries of the Republic’s evil and the Federacy’s merciful justice.

One of the Eighty-Six they were discussing, Shin, stood silently behind Grethe, a bit disgusted with the dirty reality these two adults were speaking of. He wished they’d have at least tried to smooth over the truth of what they were saying. And at the same time, he was relieved he didn’t come here with Lena.

Averting his gaze from them, he looked out the window, where a train was leaving the departure platform. The rails then switched, allowing the next train to slide into the platform.

Under the guidance of the Federacy military police, soldiers and military officers crammed into the train, washing into the cars like a flood. On the opposite platform, meant for disembarking at the Republic, another train just arrived, empty after unloading its refugees in the other country. It was waiting for the rail to switch over. Towing several dozen cars alone, this train would soon carry off an untold number of refugees later.

Meanwhile, the square in front of the Ilex terminal was lined with parked buses that spewed out countless people who were now waiting for their train. They, too, were Republic officers, dressed in Prussian-blue uniforms. These were the generals and field officers, scheduled for the morning to noon trains—meaning right now.

Under the guard of Republic soldiers—likely the company officers who would be evacuating in the next afternoon and evening trains—they passed through the empty plaza and silently entered the station.

They were leaving behind the citizens they were meant to defend, not sparing a glance at the quarrels that were breaking out between the abandoned citizens and the guarding soldiers.

By contrast, upon reaching the platform, the aging officers began complaining about the crowded trains, which they’d never experienced before. Shin couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for the Federacy’s MPs, who were forced to expressionlessly ignore their complaints.

“The Republic soldiers get to evacuate ahead of everyone else,” Grethe said, looking in the same direction as Shin. “They shouldn’t be allowed to complain about anything.”

“I’ve heard a few complaints in the morning trains,” Major General Altner huffed. “They were displeased that they didn’t get any luxury trains.”

Absurd. Now wasn’t the time to act spoiled, and they had no right to raise complaints at another country’s army to begin with.

“The most we did was give the politicians their own car. If they have any other demands, we don’t care. We’re not here to offer them a pleasant, comfortable trip. We let them have trains we could otherwise be using to ferry our personnel and Vánagandrs. If they have complaints about their reception or the order they’re leaving, they’re welcome to stay here.”

“So they’ve been complaining about the order, too…”

“Yes, they have. The government officials and former nobles ran off on the first trains. They left before the citizens could notice and set the officers so they’d leave when the refugees could see them. They made them into scapegoats—diverting the anger of the citizens, who were pushed down the line, to them… I guess they’ve gotten used to shifting the blame to others.”

Same as how the army once forced all the anger and resentment that should have been directed at them onto the Eighty-Six. The government made the military officers look like they were “hurrying to abandon and leave the citizens behind.” An obvious enemy…making it so the citizens’ anger would be fixed on them first. That way, the high officials would stay out of sight and away from the public’s anger.

“So I can only hope the high officials find someone they can pin all their anger onto. Like their Patriotic Knights, for instance.”

The pureblood, pure-white San Magnolian Patriotic Knights—a group that advocated for the Federacy to return the Eighty-Six so they could be used for the Republic’s national defense. They demanded that the duty of defending the country, which the Federacy had levied onto the Republic citizens, be returned to the state it was in before the large-scale offensive. Their mantra earned them support from the public.

Shin and his friends called them the Bleachers. Their efforts had all failed, and they lost all support; not only were the Eighty-Six not returned to the Republic, but now another Legion offensive also forced them to abandoned their land. And in this evacuation, the Bleachers…

“They ended up evacuating with the high officials, huh?” Grete asked.

“Unlike the Republic’s military, which is incompetent but not powerless, the high officials are both useless and weak. That means it’s easy to blame them, especially when they’re close by and in sight.”

Hearing this, Shin felt terribly dejected. He was disgusted—not by them, but with himself. How could he have once insisted that the world and humankind weren’t beautiful? He thought he’d seen all the ways humans could be unsightly, but there was so much ugliness still hidden from him.

But he was realizing that now no one was going to hide those ugly truths from him—he wasn’t a child anymore.

“As you can see, you were wise not to bring Colonel Milizé along. If the citizens were to see her, who knows what they might say?”

To her, this was her homeland. This city was part of her country, and these Alba were her compatriots. Hearing them throw those insults at her now, when the country was falling apart, would surely carve deep scars into her heart.

With that said, Richard turned his eye to Shin.

“But the same holds true for you Eighty-Six. I didn’t imagine they’d be sending the Strike Package of all people to help the Republic. The motherland must be really pushed against the wall if they resorted to this.”

As Richard then glanced at her with his sole eye, Grethe shrugged casually.

“The Strike Package’s role is only to help support the retreat. Managing the lodgings and guiding the refugees is the Republic administration’s job. And the MPs are in charge of guiding them onto the trains. If anything happens and we have to interact with them, we can have the Nordlicht squadron handle it. They won’t be in contact with the citizens, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

The Federacy’s army would only have minimal involvement with the Republic’s evacuation. They had neither the duty nor authority to assign, command, or coerce another country’s citizens into anything. The Republic’s citizens weren’t the Federacy’s people. Federacy soldiers could go as far as resorting to force in order to evacuate their own civilians to safety, but they didn’t and couldn’t extend the same treatment to Republic citizens.

But with the situation of the war being what it was, they wanted to prioritize the safety of their noncombatants. The soldiers, the Republic military’s logistics, communications, transports, and military-police divisions all left on the first trains.

“But Colonel Wenzel’s opinion aside, I’d like to hear what you think of this, Captain Nouzen… Feel free to speak your mind with no reservations. I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”

Are the Eighty-Six displeased with having to save the Republic? Shin paused for thought before giving his answer.

“Given we only have seventy-two hours for this operation, we can’t afford to waste time on needless arguments and friction. In that regard, I think positioning us so that we don’t make contact with the Republic’s citizens makes sense.”

“…Hmm?” Richard raised an eyebrow, looking surprised.

Shin carried on indifferently—like he was truly and honestly disinterested, his voice reflecting how little he cared about the Republic.

“I have nothing more to say. No complaints. This is a mission, and we are soldiers. That’s how we decided to return to the Republic… This is the choice we were allowed to make. So…”

So…

“I never wanted to or would have chosen to take revenge on the Republic’s people in the first place. Ever since I was in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, I cared that little about them, and now I care even less. I don’t want to save them, but I don’t want to see them die, either. So staying as uninvolved with them as possible is good enough for me.”

He no longer harbored any anger toward them—or resentment, or scars.

“We’re not going to let them get in the way of our lives anymore—not even in memory.”

The clock display in the optical screen of Tohru’s Reginleif, Jabberwock, showed that it was past noon. It was time for the Republic’s low-ranking officers—company officers and their families—to board the train.

The Legion didn’t launch any invasions past the Gran Mur. Nor did they invade the Eighty-Third Sector or the three sectors surrounding it. Both Shin’s preliminary scouting of the area and the expedition force’s Vánagandr patrols indicated today was nothing but a peaceful autumn afternoon.

And yet Tohru saw something that disturbed that sight: incessant arguments breaking out in the plaza of the Ilex terminal. Between civilians and soldiers—or between soldiers and the administrative officers guiding the evacuation. Republic citizens turned on their own, arguing nonstop.

The company officers guarding over the plaza began their evacuation, with a makeshift fence built around the white flagstone plaza and the administrative officers taking over for them. The inside of the plaza was full of soldiers in Prussian-blue military uniforms, and the outer rim of the plaza had civilians in casual clothing clinging to the fence and hurling insults.

There was only one gate to the plaza, and both sides of it were lined with mounds of travel bags. One young officer standing there had a thick album he was carrying chucked into the pile, and he angrily started shouting at the gatekeeper who threw it away.

They had a mere seventy-two hours to evacuate millions of people. For three days, trains would be arriving one after another, only to leave packed with people. This meant there was no place for luggage.

The civilians were only allowed to take what was on their person, and they were told ahead of time not to bring any luggage. But the people insisted on bringing their belongings over and were forced to discard them here, hence the mounds of bags.

The album the young man was carrying was callously discarded. And in all likelihood, it was a precious memento. It was possible this album was his only remaining memoir of his family.

The young man lashed out, crying, but the gatekeeper, a youthful administrative officer, also looked so troubled and taken aback that he was on the verge of tears.

Tohru watched on from within Jabberwock. He didn’t watch because he wanted to help them evacuate. The Federacy army wouldn’t and wasn’t even allowed to interfere with the evacuation save for guiding the refugees onto the train. He was simply left with nothing else to do, because the operations commander, Shin, was away at the temporary command post. So he decided to watch the evacuation.

Even still, just having a single Reginleif standing silently nearby was enough to strike some fear into the refugees. In the end, the young officer threw a glance at Jabberwock for no discernible reason and gave up on his album. The administrative officer, on the other hand, bowed his head in thanks.

It’d happened a few times before, and seeing him bow his head to him felt very strange.

“…Besides, why are the white pigs bickering like this when things are this bad? It’s pathetic.”

He heard another shout, another cuss tear through the autumn sky. This time, it came outside the plaza, where the civilians, who were waiting for their turn to board the train, were seated. Voices shouted out from there, crying out for reproach and criticism.

“Why do you get to board the train first? Why do the soldiers get to go first? We supported you, and even before the large-scale offensive, you never did anything! You never beat the Legion!

“You never protected us, your citizens!”

A heavy banging sound on the fence silenced the shouting. A hand snaked through the fence’s gaps, grabbing one screaming civilian by the collar and pulling them closer. It was a soldier from inside the fence. He was a soldier who was about to flee first and leave behind the defenseless citizens, but he shouted loftily just the same.

“—You’re the ones who didn’t fight!” he bellowed, his argent eyes burning with unsuppressed rage and hatred. “Not during the large-scale offensive or afterward! You forced all the fighting onto us! You had us protect you while you were running around and screaming like chickens with their heads cut off! While we were dying out there, you just complained, and even when the Federacy showed up, you evaded conscription! You call us useless?! You people never fought or helped anyone! You were just burdens!”

They grappled and cussed. Silver-haired citizens argued with soldiers who shared their same colors. The unsightliness of it all filled Tohru’s heart with a bitter emotion. Before the operation started, Kurena said that the Eighty-Six didn’t have to be the ones put through this.

The white pigs would force any problem onto someone else, even on their fellow white pigs.

If it suited them, the white pigs could make anyone, even their own, into a pariah, stripping them of any camaraderie of fraternity.

They had no intent whatsoever of shouldering the burden of trouble or injury, of combat or death, and they’d happily thrust that burden onto someone or anyone else. And even when they did, they would act like victims, irresponsibly demanding their rights.

It was…unsightly.

Back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, he resented the white pigs and disdained them even more. And he still did. But the way the white pigs were acting right now was simply too unsightly. Too wretched.

They weren’t even worth his scorn.

“This is weird. When they get this bad, it feels stupid to even hold a grudge against them.”

As they excused themselves from Major General Altner’s presence and walked through the noisy command post, Shin suddenly directed a question at the other three operations commanders, who’d been resonating with him via the Para-RAID for the duration of that conversation.

“I know what I said earlier… But shouldn’t you have said something, too?”

“Oh, uhh, yeah… I mostly felt the same way,” Suiu replied.

“We’re good so long as they’re out of our sights. We don’t want to save them, but that doesn’t mean we want them to die, either.”

“Besides,” Canaan said, “for us—I mean, the Eighty-Six outside you guys from the Spearhead squadron—this is actually nothing new, Nouzen. When we fought in last year’s large-scale offensive, it meant directly protecting the white pigs. And this time, the Republic’s people won’t have any choice but to fight. With the war getting this bad, if they come crying to the Federacy for mercy, I don’t see them getting treated much better than they treated us. And honestly, that’s probably punishment enough for them. Serves them right, too.”

“Agreed, but…don’t say that when Lena, Annette, or Dustin can hear you.”

“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t want a certain somebody lopping my head off with a shovel or another certain somebody accidentally shooting a missile at me.”

That second “certain somebody” must have been referring to Anju. Come to think of it, Shin never did throw a can of open paint or a cream pie at Dustin. Someone suggested they’d use their leave in October as a chance to throw something at him.

…But then again, remembering it only to say they’d do it later felt like a bad omen, so Shin figured they should at least splash him with a bucket of cold water once they were done with this mission.

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me, Nouzen. Let Raiden and the others splash you with some water. The operation’s already started, but at least let them baptize you before the retreat begins.”

“Yeah…sure. Not doing this feels like a death flag, and with the colonel piloting a Reginleif alongside us, it feels like an extra big death flag. If anything happens, it’ll weigh on my conscience. And the colonel’s, too,” said Shin.

“Shuga and the rest were gonna do it during your leave, but I’ll let them know the schedule’s been moved up,” Siri said. “We’ll splash water on the guys who hooked up on our side, too. Kind of pisses me off.”

Shin fell silent. He didn’t know they’d been planning to do the same thing to him, too. Plus, Siri might have said too much of the truth at the end there.

“…Just leave Lena out of this,” Shin complained, hoping for at least that much.

“Oh, obviously. What are you saying? We know better than that.”

“Scrawny girl like her. What if she catches a cold? The poor thing.”

“Besides, I think the colonel went through enough baptism as it is, like a while back…and during the large-scale offensive,” Suiu said with a sardonic smile, her tone slightly bitter.

“Anyway, let’s get back on track. It actually felt pretty good back then. The white pigs acted like they were the superior species and we were inferior, but with the Gran Mur broken, they were powerless. If we weren’t there to protect them, the Legion would crush them to bits, and they were too stupid to even see that and kept squealing… It felt good. Served them right on the one hand, but on the other hand, knowing their lives were completely in our hands was pretty fun.”

They could abandon them or save them as they fancied. If they insulted them, they could magnanimously overlook it or take offense to it and toss them out to the Legion. It was that kind of…

“…How do I put it? We always had the power to toy with them however we wanted, but we didn’t. It made us feel almighty. It was fun.”

The dark joy of being the strong dominating those around them.

“For two months, we could abuse that privilege as much as we liked. Long enough to get tired of it. So I think we could do without having to feel that way anymore.”

“…”

“So we’ve been wondering if your group is fine with that, since you never had that chance to vent it out.”

“I could actually ask you the same question, Siri. You got sick of protecting the white pigs and went to set up base somewhere else on your own… Are you cool with this?”

As the other two asked him that, Siri seemed to have shrugged. During the large-scale offensive, he hated the idea of being under Lena’s—under the Republic’s command—and set up a position commanded by him in the southern front.

“Well… Like you said, back then, the idea of dying to protect the white pigs didn’t sit well with me. That’s why I refused to work under Colonel Milizé… Hmm, but now—”

“—at this point, it honestly feels like all the anger’s kind of gone.”

Rito and the members of the Claymore squadron didn’t like the idea of fighting under the Republic during the large-scale offensive, preferring to enter Siri’s command rather than Lena’s. So for Rito and his squadron’s members, this would also be their first time fighting to directly protect the Republic’s civilians.

Rito was under the 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Battalion, which was stationed outside the Gran Mur. They were deployed in a narrow, long formation along both sides of the high-speed railway.

The Claymore squadron in particular was deployed near phase line Aries—in other words, the strip directly beside the Gran Mur. They were currently in charge of guarding the strip while the other squadrons finished supplying.

That said, the Legion didn’t show any signs of attacking yet, so for now, they just needed to watch the Republic’s refugees get loaded onto the train like livestock, which wasn’t much of a problem for them.

“I mean, I haven’t forgiven them for what they did to us at all… I probably never will.”

The things they did to us. Families killed, homelands stolen, comrades forced to fight to exhaustion and death.

They’d stripped them of their freedom and rights, scarred their hearts so deeply that they couldn’t look to the future without being filled by paralyzing fear. The truth was that Rito and his comrades, and indeed all the Eighty-Six, shouldn’t have needed to go through so much suffering and anguish to regain their wishes and futures. And the ones who’d forced them into this position were these people.

So Rito would never, ever forgive them—cry and beg though they might, nothing would absolve them of that sin. Even if they changed their ways, Rito would probably never accept the possibility of the Republic regaining some modicum of happiness. Even now, he believed they deserved to be scorned to their last breath, to regret and suffer and live wretched lives.

But he didn’t want to push them into that fate with his own hands. After all…

“They already punished themselves on their own. Back in the large-scale offensive.”

…the Legion’s onslaught had slaughtered their families and taken their homes away. They were all crushed, mercilessly and gruesomely, by that surging metallic tidal wave. And it ended with the Republic vainly falling to ruin once.

After the Gran Mur fell, the Republic’s survivors had to wait two months for the Federacy’s army to come to their rescue. They spent days trapped inside the walls, being crushed by despair with nowhere to run.

However, the Republic’s citizens brought those two months of despair on themselves. This was the outcome of a decade of closing themselves in a small, sweet dream, looking away from the reality of war and losing the ability to defend themselves.

Rito and the Eighty-Six didn’t have to deliver any more despair on them.

“We don’t even need to take revenge on them ourselves. They paid the price for their own ineptitude—their own stupidity and irresponsibility—for doing nothing for so long in the large-scale offensive. But even after that, they didn’t repent at all. So…now they’re picking up the tab for that, too.”

A train full of refugees passed them by and disappeared into the distance. It was a simple formation that included freight cars meant for livestock, which cared little for the comfort of those boarding them. The refugees had to be packed into those cars like luggage, ignoring the possibility some of them might end up injured in the process.

The memory of his younger self being forced to go through the same experience crackled like noise in Rito’s heart.

He felt like he should think it served them right, but he didn’t. But at the same time, he couldn’t overlap his younger self’s pained image with them. Because after all…

“They won’t repent even after this. They’ll keep saying someone else is guilty for not helping them, just like they always do. They’ll keep putting themselves through terrible things, and it’ll always be their own fault. So I don’t need to take revenge on them.”

If they won’t show any regret or penance, let them keep driving themselves to sorrow. And they’ll never escape that fate.

“And we don’t need to force ourselves to remember them, either. We can let go now.”

Just like how Tohru watched the argument on the terminal, Kurena was watching it nearby, from inside Gunslinger. She got out of her Reginleif, eyeing the Republic civilians’ argument—not out of glee or curiosity, but to come to terms with her emotions.

She watched, listened, and sighed softly.

…Really?

This was what she’d been so scared of for so long? These people looked so weak and insignificant now. Like scared dogs, howling pathetically.

She always thought she was the one trapped by them. But the ones who were really trapped were the white pigs.

They wouldn’t even face what they really feared: the Legion menacing them. They only looked away—both from the Legion and their fear of them. And the outcome of that was the Gran Mur. The internment camps. The Eighty-Sixth Sector and the Eighty-Six.

They killed so many people to build those stupid walls, but they only went that far to lie to themselves. In the end, the Republic never really came face-to-face with how terrifying the Legion were. Not even now. And even at the very end, they wouldn’t face them.

They kept on looking away from the threat, and now they had no idea how to handle it. And so they were prisoners to this threat. Even now, they couldn’t take a single step on their own.

And they couldn’t even see it was their doing that made them like this.

The Republic army’s defeat at the start of the war. The Gran Mur’s fall. And who was at fault for that? It was the Eighty-Six; it was the army, who wouldn’t protect them; it was the civilians, who sat idly by and did nothing.

Every single time, no matter what, someone else, anyone else—everyone but themselves—was at fault.

Living your life that way may have been easy…but living like that also meant they wouldn’t ever find a way out of their troubles.

“Yeah,” Kurena whispered, watching them. “I’m fine. I’m…all right now.”

I’m not afraid anymore. I might hate the Republic’s white pigs, and I’ll never forget what they did to me, but I’m not afraid of them anymore. What I was really afraid of were my scars—my younger self, who couldn’t protect my parents, my sister, and all my comrades. Of my own inability to free myself and my friends from our troubles.

But not these stupid white pigs, who can’t defend themselves but won’t stop lamenting the injustices done to them.

They didn’t have any power she needed to dread. And now that she knew this, she might never forgive them, but she didn’t need to care about them ever again.

“I’ve always fought with Shin and the others to survive so far. I’m strong, and I know it—so you people?”

You insignificant, powerless white pigs.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

The walls bordering the Eighty-Sixth Sector were all destroyed during the large-scale offensive, only leaving a few buildings and viewing platforms. Set on one of those was Snow Witch, and Anju was currently resting against its armor and looking out into the walls.

Trains heading to and from the Federacy passed by. Rows of vehicles in black metal coloring—transport trucks and the Vánagandrs guarding them—drove along both sides of the high-speed rail tracks. They bravely traveled under the tipping sun, guarding the trucks loaded with precious equipment and supplies that had to be returned to the Federacy.

Intermittent explosions could be heard in the distance, coming from the Eightieth Sector’s area. This was the sound of plastic explosives set by combat engineers going off. If the Gran Mur’s remains were left untouched, a Morpho could take cover within the eighty-five Sectors. To that end, the Federacy had the walls closest to it demolished.

Her clear blue eyes moved along the autumn sky, overlooking the view of the city. She could see rows of production and power plants standing like metallic, artificial mountains. Those weren’t there when Anju last saw the place as a young girl. And beyond them was a group of gray, uniform residences, all built densely together.

The square in front of the terminal was apparently being used as a truck yard, though it was once an industrial block before Ilex converted it into this form. The place was likely more chic before the Legion War, but in the decade afterward, the place was neglected, leaving behind only a square of white stone and cracked flagstones.

“…”

Did she want to come back here? Well, not really. It didn’t feel like a homecoming, and she didn’t feel much nostalgia, either. This was just the country she was born in. It was flat in comparison to the Eighty-Sixth Sector and how overrun it was with greenery, and by now, she was more used to Sankt Jeder in the Federacy and its neighboring cities.

So if she had any home to go back to, by now, it was…

Anju whispered with a smile.

Fare thee well, the land where I was only born.

“Good-bye… The place I live in, I want to be in… The place I call home isn’t here.”

The old lady’s school, where Raiden had hidden in his youth, was in the Ninth Sector—slightly to the north of the administrative wards’ center and quite far from the Eighty-Third Sector, which was on the brink of the southeast.

Since this could be the last time they’d ever see this place, Raiden thought he could take some pictures for the old lady, Lena, and the other Alba. But disembarking his unit and descending onto the wayside of the Eighty-Third Sector now, Raiden could see that going that far would be impossible.

Maybe taking pictures around here would be better than nothing? he thought, aiming his digital camera around the abandoned streets.

It was a distorted cityscape, and looking at it pained the heart. There were still traces of fighting on the streets, likely from during the large-scale offensive. Ruins of buildings lay along the road in terrible condition, with prefabricated buildings lined up together in a cramped, squalid mess in their place.

These facilities had been made to accommodate the Republic’s citizens, who went from having much vaster territory into confined lives within the walls.

The old lady’s school was in the Ninth Sector, which was a relatively affluent residential area that was more spacious than this. And based on what Lena and Annette said, the First Sector prioritized maintaining the scenery over accepting refugees. Its residents forbade the building of high-rises, even during the war. Despite the countless refugees bemoaning their deplorable living conditions.

The way the war warped the Republic didn’t just stop at the Eighty-Six.

Unable to conjure up the motivation to snap a photo of this small, melancholic public park, Raiden lowered his camera, only to find one of his squadron members there.

“Claude?”

It was the captain of the 4th Platoon, Claude Knot. The dusty wind toyed with his red hair, and his argent eyes, hidden behind his glasses, looked up at the way the sun hit a statue that’d originally been a sundial.

Hearing Raiden’s call, Claude glanced at him and blinked.

“Raiden… Oh. You taking photos for the old teacher lady?”

“And Lena and Annette—and the priest. Might be the last time we see this place. What about you?”

“Yeah… Figured I’d give this place one last look.”

Those weren’t words Raiden expected to hear from Eighty-Six discriminated by the Republic. As Raiden stared at him, surprised, Claude looked away.

“My big brother was a Handler.”

“Huh?” Raiden asked, stunned.

“My big brother was born from my father’s first marriage, and unlike me, he was Alba. And he was a Handler. For the squadron Tohru and me were in before the large-scale offensive.”

Those two had been in the same unit since even before the large-scale offensive. Maybe that was why their Personal Names, Jabberwock and Bandersnatch, were based on monsters from the same fairy-tale author.

Either way, Raiden shuddered. An Eighty-Six younger brother, commanded but never supported by his Handler—his unforgivable older brother. A relationship that must have been terrible for both parties.

“He knowingly became your Handler?”

“My big brother, he… I didn’t know it was him at the time. He introduced himself with a different name. I mocked him for it back then. Some crazy Handlers out there actually ask Processors for their real names…”

He mocked him, not knowing that he was looking for his younger brother, who’d become an Eighty-Six. Looking for Claude.

“…Your brother and father, are they—?” Raiden asked.

Claude’s answer came with a sigh. Like all his strength was draining from his body along with the air leaving his lungs.

“I don’t know…”

“…”

“He was connected to the RAID Device during the large-scale offensive, but when I looked for him, I couldn’t find anything, so…”

And so he ended up never meeting his brother and father, who remained within the eighty-five Sectors. Never truly meeting the Republic they were a part of.

He didn’t think this country was his home. But still, he wanted to see the land he was born in one last time.

“This could be my last chance to ever look at it, so I figured I should.”

The destination of the trains ferrying the Republic refugees was the Berledephadel City terminal, located in the Federacy’s southwest. The place was considered the gate to Sankt Jeder, and the tracks coming from the Eaglefrost route and the Kreutzbeck City terminal to the north and the Eaglebloom route and the Kirkes City terminal to the south converged there. Since this was a city where visitors from other countries came in, it was pretty and ostentatious for an old Imperial city.

Another refugee train arrived at the beautiful station building. It was the train for lower-ranking soldiers and was the first one to accommodate captain-class officers. And mingled between the soldiers clad in Prussian-blue uniforms disembarking the train was one twelve-year-old boy.

It was a suggestion made from a humanitarian standpoint, and more practically speaking, it was made to abate the guilt of the soldiers and officers for escaping first. Once every few trains, one car would prioritize war orphans. The officers, of course, prioritized their own children and families, and so there were really only a few such cars—a truly apologetic number.

And one of those cars carried the children from the boy’s orphanage. Apparently, a soldier his father used to be colleagues with arranged for orders from above to have them picked up, which is how he ended up here. He also said that because of this, they’d be taking him on that train, too, so he was thankful.

They were on different trains, so that person wasn’t around right now. The boy hurried off the train, along with a group of Republic civilians, who were angry at the uniformed Federacy soldiers telling them to hurry up.

The train was emptied out soon enough, and after a long inspection of the cars, it began moving to the track switch. With only its driver inside, the train switched over to the opposite track and took off toward the Republic again.

As he left the station building, which was fashioned like a cathedral with multiple stained-glass windows, he was greeted by rows of transport trucks parked in front of the terminal. There weren’t enough of them, though, and there were still refugees from the train prior sitting on the pavement. Stretching ahead of them was a beautiful plaza that extended into the main street, its sidewalk deserted due to the evacuation and its roadside trees untrimmed.

Or so it seemed at first glance, but the boy realized that all the trees in sight were in fact artificial ones, and he swallowed nervously. The tree standing at the heart of the plaza was a monument, its trunk large, thick, and colored a metallic silver. Its leaves were shards of glass. The light shining down diagonally from the autumn afternoon sun passed through the leaves, casting a different color from each one, producing a light show that shone mystically like a kaleidoscope.

Similar trees were lined up along the main street as roadside trees. Set into the pavement were “fallen leaves” that would never fade in color. What the boy was seeing now were trees without the light hitting them. Polished frosted glass shaped like fruit dimly glittered in the faint sunlight.

This was a town meant to greet foreign visitors, designed by the old Empire to show off its dignity. Overwhelmed by the coercive magnificence before him, the boy stepped down into the plaza, looking around in a fidgety manner.

“Ah, there you are. You come over here for now.”

Someone pulled him by the arm, gently dragging him out of the row of refugees. Looking up, he saw a young Republic soldier clad in its steel-colored uniform. He had golden, light-brown hair and jade-colored eyes, and he looked to be a few days older than him.

The boy blinked at him. For some reason, the young man’s other hand, which wasn’t holding on to him, was missing its wrist. His left sleeve was folded over.

“Hey. It’s been two months, right?”

“…Mister.”

It was the Eighty-Six boy who told him a bit about his father, who’d died in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. The one who told him to believe in his father, because he did the right thing. Those were words no one else but his mother would tell him.

Someone finally believed in Dad.

The boy looked up at him, baffled, and then realized: Was it he who…?

Theo ended up nodding.

“I thought this might count as cheating, but I figured this little wouldn’t be too bad? An officer I used to work under ended up getting a lot of demands, so I had them slot you in as compensation.”

“So you got me on this train…?”

“Yep.” Theo smiled with another nod.

This boy was a memento of the captain who once fought with him and shared his Personal Mark of the laughing fox.

“Welcome to the Federacy… You’re going to be all right now.”

As the 1st Armored Division’s HQ personnel were setting up camp, Lena was in the tent that served as her makeshift command post, mulling over the retreat plan one more time.

She had Shin confirm the position of all the Legion’s units when they embarked, and she had it marked on a map, comparing the data to see if there were any possible problems in the retreat plan.

It was her role as commander to ensure the thousands of Reginleifs spread out widely along the four-hundred-kilometer route would retreat in an orderly, timely, and sequential manner.

Each of the four armored divisions, several dozen battalions, and hundreds of squadrons needed to know the route they would take and stand on alert in their designated combat zones, while also keeping in mind the order in which they’d go through maintenance, resupply, and rest.

Each battalion and squadron had gone over the operation plan before the mission in the Rüstkammer base, but the enemy’s deployment and the progress of the evacuation were constantly changing, and each change had to be included into the operation plan.

Since this was a joint operation between the four armored divisions, Lena—the 1st Armored Division’s tactical commander—also had to keep the information spread among the 2nd to 4th Armored Division’s tactical commanders.

Still, she had it relatively easy because Shin’s ability gave them a general grasp of the enemy’s status. The Legion that were out on the offensive were currently still locked in combat in the other countries’ fronts, leaving few enemies within the Legion territories.

Lena couldn’t quite call this lucky, but for some odd reason, the Republic was only hit very lightly. Even though the Republic had the least soldiers and combat experience of all surviving countries, they took the least damage in the second large-scale offensive.

Vika and Grethe had said this, too, but this was strange and suspicious. If this was a trap and they were lured in, it was odd that the Legion hadn’t pounced on them yet. There must have been some kind of plan here.

We have to be careful…

The tent’s entrance flapped open. Marcel was back, and his expression was, for some reason, very fed up.

“Lena, just letting you know, but…we got a request from some evacuating officers to sneak in some luggage in the Federacy’s supply trucks. Could you check if this isn’t someone we should be pulling strings for?”

He then went out for a second and heaved in a few cardboard boxes. Another mound of requests. No one in the Republic was informed of Lena’s presence here, so they were probably addressed to Richard and his staff officers.

“…Read off the list of senders,” Lena said, moving her gaze back to the map.

Marcel indifferently started reading out the names in monotone. Once he was finished, Lena grinned.

“Second Lieutenant, I’m heartbroken to inform you that the retreat was so hurried that all these letters went missing.”

“That’s what I figured.” Marcel smirked, picking up on what she meant. “Roger that, ma’am.”

Fido, being the considerate, wise Scavenger that it was, brought a drum over, into which they could dump the letters. They carried the drum outside so they could light a campfire. Seeing Marcel leave, Lena sighed. Geez.

“The Federacy and the United Kingdom don’t have to go through this trouble…”

So why does the Republic need to be like this? I’m tired. I wanna go home.

But as that exhausted thought crossed her mind, she blinked. Go home…? The thought had occurred to her completely naturally, settling into her heart with no resistance.

…Oh. I see.

A smile played on her lips.

“…That’s right. I have to go back.”

She already had a home to return to. Not in the Republic, where she was born and raised, but rather….

The tent’s entrance flapped open again. This time, Shiden peeked into the tent.

“Your Majesty. A train just passed us by. We’re having free Scavengers set up a wall, so make sure you move before the next train comes. It’s almost time for dinner.”

Lena’s hands stopped. This was a three-day operation, so both commanders and soldiers were to alternate in their supply and break times. Lena’s own break time was during this evening, but…

“Is it that time already?”

The operation’s staff officer went into the tent next. He would be taking over Lena’s job while she was resting.

“Yes, it is, Colonel Milizé… It’s my shift. Please transfer command authorities to me.”

The autumn sun set early, and under its golden rays, Shiden’s newly reformed Brísingamen squadron and part of the Spearhead squadron, who served as Lena’s HQ personnel, entered their break time and had an early dinner.

This schedule was set up to accommodate for Shin, who would be serving as recon during nighttime, so as to prevent any raids. There were still no signs of any incoming Legion attacks, giving them the freedom to light a fire. And so rather than relying on the combat rations’ heating agent, Shiden and her new squadron all sat around a simple stove.

The 1st Armored Division was in charge of securing the ninety-kilometer range between the Gran Mur and the point three hundred kilometers away from the Federacy, phase line Cancer. They left the protection of the Ilex city terminal, Point Sacra, to the expedition’s forces and were in the central camp outside the Gran Mur.

Lena was able to get there by moving while hiding behind the Scavengers’ shadow. Feeling the rays of the setting sun and the autumn wind against her, Shiden continued to watch the evacuation trains and transport trucks sail in the distance.

The evacuation of the Republic’s company officers had been completed and moved to noncommissioned officers and their families. Soldiers in Prussian-blue uniforms were atop the train, screaming out complaints and probably thinking no one could see their faces.

A few of the Eighty-Six squad members regarded them with obscene hand gestures, though the soldiers probably couldn’t see them, either. Tohru, who’d brought a stuffed toy piggy, sentenced it to hanging from his Reginleif’s gun barrel.

The Republic’s twenty-two varieties of combat rations had some new flavors added recently, and so Shiden’s group was dining on dishes they hadn’t had before. Fortunately, or perhaps not so much so, Kurena ended up getting one of the new dishes.

“What’s tofu and miso soup?”

“…Can you even call this soup? It’s more like miso juice.”

When it came to combat rations, most main dishes called soup ended up being closer to juice.

“Soup, juice, I don’t care; what even is this?”

Fido went around, picking up trash like the rations’ laminated packs as Shin and Dustin came back with a fresh set of clothes. They’d had water splashed on them before dinner. They joined the circle, and while Dustin sat next to Anju, who handed him his ration, Raiden was the one to hand Shin his.

Shiden watched it, a bit taken aback.

What are you, his wife? And don’t sulk just because you’re late, Lena. Sit next to him.

Shin got a ration of meatballs with gravy. He was about to add some hot sauce, mistaking it for tomato sauce, only for Raiden to stop him.

Seriously, are you actually his wife?

With Lena finally sitting next to him, Shiden looked at her, flush, and shrugged.

“…It’s all good so long as it keeps her from thinking about the Republic.”

Besides, Shiden got the chance to splash Shin with water, so she was in an extra-good mood.

Michihi’s 3rd Armored Battalion was deployed near phase line Taurus, and from where they were standing, they could only see the very peak of the Gran Mur in the distance. Michihi and the Lycaon squadron were currently resupplying their units, so they’d be ready and on time to change places with the unit currently patrolling.

Sitting around the stove’s fire, they ate an assortment of rations and light pastries, the most popular of which was the fruitcake. As Michihi chewed on it, she asked:

“Speaking of, are all the Bleachers gone now?”

It was the middle of the night.

Despite it being before rising time, Lena got out of the simple bed in her tent and stepped out into the campsite. The HQ company’s camp offered a view of the imposing walls that once separated the Republic’s interior from the battlefield. One could also get a glance at the Ilex city terminal’s evacuation through the cracks in the walls.

The soldiers’ evacuation had ended early into the night, and it was finally the civilians’ turn. Even now, right before the date changed, the place was packed with people dressed in assorted outfits, forming a disorderly mass.

Thankfully, as far as Lena could see, there was no real trouble to speak of. The evacuation was proceeding well—according to plan.

“The evacuation’s going smoother than expected,” Lena said aloud.

“Is it? That’s nice,” Annette, who stayed behind in Rüstkammer, said through the Para-RAID. “Because they started making trouble as soon as they got off on our side. Both the officers who came early and are basically kicking back now—and angry civilians who just showed up. They’re saying their refugee sector is too close to the battlefield and they’re scared to stay there.”

Lena cocked her head curiously. Annette was waiting in their home base, meaning she was far from the refugee sector. And the army wouldn’t just leak information to an unrelated base.

“How did you hear about that?”

“Theo told me. He got sent over because there aren’t enough people to handle the clerk work in the refugee sector. Plus, you remember how he wanted to get his comrade’s kid over here on an early train. So his commander told him to go pick him up and help them out along the way.”

“Oh… But close to the battlefield? Their refugee sector was set up dozens of kilometers away from the fighting.”

The Federacy, of course, prioritized defending its own civilians first, so to accept the Republic’s refugees, they’d prepared refugee sectors along the border with the combat territories. But even so, they were still farther and safer from the Wulfsrin population’s refugee areas, since they were treated as actual reserves.

From a humanitarian standpoint, this wasn’t done out of discrimination toward the Vargus and the Wulfsrin. It was simply because, unlike them, the Republic refugees were civilians without any combat training, and they’d just get in the way if left on the battlefield.

“Yeah, but still. The Federacy’s been fighting on the western front day and night, and you can probably see the lights from afar during night combat, right? They’re saying it scares them. And if this was before the large-scale offensive, maybe they wouldn’t have been that scared.”

Scared of battle and the Legion themselves. The possibility of these metallic ghosts killing them or even waging war against them wasn’t realistic for the Republic. At least, it hadn’t been until the large-scale offensive.

“Are you all right on that front? It’s night right now, and your forces are smaller, but the citizens must be scared of the Reginleifs. Plus, all the soldiers ran off on them. They must be panicking.”

“Yes, well…” Lena trailed off, gazing at the Ilex terminal, which was visible a few kilometers away from behind the cracks in the Gran Mur.

The night air was crisp and cold, and the autumn skies shone so clearly that it looked like they might fall at any second. But the murmuring heard from the distance did have some anxiety to it, though she couldn’t hear any shouting or cursing.

“It looks like that’s not really the case. They’re very anxious, and there’s the occasional argument, but overall, they’re evacuating without making a fuss. We thought they might be more opposed to the evacuation itself… Like, if you want us to evacuate, beg for it. You know the citizens always know how to insist on their rights, like they did in the large-scale offensive…”

There were a few lighting stands prepared for the night evacuations, and they lit up the plaza before the terminal brightly. In the distance, one could make out the reliable silhouettes of patrolling Vánagandrs. Plus, there hadn’t been any combat with the Legion in this area since the evacuation began.

This was an evacuation from encroaching war, and yet there was no sign of fighting. Only a clear, silent starry night.

“I figured they’d say things like that, but…come to think of it, anyone who might say that probably already died in the large-scale offensive.”

Since the Republic had abolished the royalty in an armed revolution, it placed more restrictions on its military than most other countries. One such restriction limited the authority to declare martial law. No matter what happened, the army wasn’t allowed to overturn the constitution, meaning the army couldn’t violate the civilians’ freedom under any circumstances. And with that law as their crutch, some people refused to evacuate during the first large-scale offensive.

They all died.

On top of that, neither the army nor Lena had the time or presence of mind to go around asking people to evacuate, and the Eighty-Six had no desire to evacuate those people, either. So they had to leave them behind on the battlefield.

“That’s probably true, come to think of it. Everyone got so scared, they froze up or were so confused that they could only run in circles. They all ended up dying, so the only ones left alive are the ones who are smart enough to run when you tell them to. And someone walked up and told them they’ll help them get to safety, so they know to just shut up and take it.”

Of course, some people ran and died just the same. That was just what the large-scale offensive was like. Indiscriminate in its death and equal in choosing its victims. What one thought or did in their life made little to no difference.

If nothing else, the Legion didn’t care at all for what the victims they crushed to bits thought, did, or said.

“But it really is weird. I’m surprised that those guys who kept causing trouble with their nonsense— What did you call them again? Bleachers? I’m surprised they didn’t pull anything.”

“Yes. Colonel Wenzel, Shin, and me were worried they might try something.”

But in the end, they didn’t do anything. It was almost anticlimactic. This time, the Strike Package wasn’t greeted by banners full of their bigoted nonsense. According to Grethe, the blame for the catastrophe that was the second large-scale offensive and the subsequent evacuation was pinned entirely on the Bleachers, and as such, they lost their standing within the Republic.

Except that Ms. Primevére, the Bleachers’ head figure, was seen evacuating on the first train along with the government officials. And Lena saw, from within the cockpit of Saki’s Grimalkin, how that woman kept directing annoyed, hateful glares at the Reginleifs passing by.

She saw her lips mouth the words How dare you…

“…Keep an eye on the people managing the refugee sectors,” Lena said.

“Roger that. I’ll let Theo know, too, and of course remind the Federacy through the legit channels. I’ll start with the head of research first.”

“I’m counting on you.”

“Yeah. You be careful over there, all right?”

The Para-RAID turned off, and Lena took a deep breath.

“—I thought the official time to wake up was only fifteen minutes ago.”

Hearing the faint sound of grass crunching under approaching footsteps, she turned around to find Shin standing there. He looked at his tactical commander—who’d gotten out of bed ahead of time and walked around camp unguarded—with a bothered, blaming sort of look.

“Well, I just woke up early. And it was only thirty minutes, Shin. Besides, what are you doing up now?”

“I went to sleep before everyone else.”

For the duration of this three-day mission, Shin was to fundamentally not participate in combat. Instead, he was charged with remaining on recon duty and keeping an eye on the Legion’s movements.

In order to guard the relief expedition’s retreat route, the Strike Package’s combat units had to maintain a certain distance. And to keep the Reginleifs’ mobility up, they couldn’t afford to simply wait for the Legion to launch attacks.

They’d need to watch for indications of any of the Legion units dotting the territories moving in and crush them as soon they advanced. The Strike Package’s basic strategy in this mission was to destroy the enemy as quickly as possible, so as to not allow the Legion a chance to group up and cooperate.

And to that end, Shin would have to be in charge of tracking the enemy across this large area. So out of consideration for the fact that he’d be spending three days deep in the Legion territories, constantly exposed to their screams, Raiden and the rest had forced him into his bed and told him to get some sleep whenever he could afford it.

“But the time aside, don’t walk around the battlefield alone. There’s no sign of any Legion units in the area moving in on us, but—”

He then trailed off, his sanguine eyes settling on what was behind Lena.

“…You came to see the Gran Mur?” he asked.

“Yes. I thought it might be my last chance to see it.”

Shin paused for thought and then said, “I know we’re in the middle of an operation right now, but…if it gets too hard for you…”

Lena cracked a light, slightly pained smile.

“Thank you… Well, maybe I’ll take you up on that offer. Fawn on you for a bit.”

Fido approached them, turning its flank over to serve as a bench in what was perhaps its show of consideration. Lena sat down and patted the spot next to hers, spurring Shin to take a seat. Feeling his slightly higher body heat next to hers, she reclined against him and placed her head on his shoulder.

Shin said nothing, simply being there for her, and Lena didn’t say anything, either. His body was slightly hot, and it felt like she was slowly melting into him, like the borders between them were blending together.

“—I did want to return to this country,” she suddenly said.

Shin didn’t reply, and she continued, the words leaving her lips. It was like the warmth of the boy next to her temporarily did away with the sentiments and the pain. She spoke like it would help her hold on until the operation ended and they returned to the Federacy.

“I’m not fine with this. I’m sad. I wanted to come back to this country. When I came to the Federacy, I didn’t think it would really just disappear. Mother is dead, and our mansion is gone, but…I thought someday, when the war ended, I’d return here.”

“…Right.” Shin nodded, his crimson eyes fixed on the distant sky. “It might sound like I’m just saying it to comfort you, but…let’s come here again sometime. All of us, together.”

She looked up, finding Shin’s eyes were fixed on the sky. Like he was gazing at the distant night sky of the First Sector, which she’d wished they could watch together.

“Seeing as we can’t keep that promise to watch the fireworks at Palace Lune.”

They might not know how far into the future that might be. But even so…

“So let’s go see the southern seas. Let’s go watch the noctilucas light up the water in the Fleet Countries. And the diamond dust and aurora in the United Kingdom.”

The magnificent winter of the white-clad goddess. Or the lakes and the glory of the Alliance. Or the cities of the far-west countries, which might still be peaceful. Or the southern countries they’d never seen before that lay past the wyrm’s roost.

The whole world that waited for them beyond the battlefield.

The two of them, together. Or with everyone else.

Lena finally managed a smile.

“…Yes. We did promise.”

Two years ago, before they knew each other’s faces.

“Don’t worry. I haven’t given up yet. Yes, let’s come here again someday. For sure.”

“Then maybe you should say you’ll be coming back. Kaie told me once that putting something into words can make it happen.”

“Right. Then—”

Lena rose to her feet and got off Fido, standing before the Gran Mur. She spoke her oath with her back to the fortress walls, the opposite of how she’d stood back then.

“—I’ll come back someday for sure. To this place, where I first met you, Shin.”

There was an odd pause for a moment there. Shin looked up at her, as if to say Oh, right.

“—You forgot?!” Lena exclaimed. “I thought you came here because you remembered!”

“No, I didn’t forget. I just didn’t recognize it because the flowers that bloomed here at the time were different—”

“Jerk!”

When Shin saw her sulk, his expression became almost amusingly panicked. It made Lena laugh out loud, at which point Shin realized he was being teased.

“…Isn’t that a little too mean?”

“Nope!”

Fido let out a protesting “Pi,” trying to back Shin up.

Based on the report of the 1st Armored Division, the evacuation of the Republic’s civilians was going smoothly. Since Siri’s 2nd Armored Division was deployed around where the Eighty-Sixth Sector used to be, from which they could see neither the Gran Mur nor the Federacy’s front line, they could only guess at the situation.

But they did, of course, know how things were going regardless. They guarded the high-speed railway tracks and had seen dozens of trains pass by on the way to the Republic and just as many on their way back to the Federacy.

Eighteen hours had passed since the evacuation began. Fifty-four hours remained, and a fourth of the operation’s total time had passed. And since the evacuation was going smoothly, the evacuation rate likewise stood at 25 percent or so.

But that aside.

“There’s nowhere else to hide in the area, so we had to come here, but…going in here does feel bad,” Siri griped to himself within Baldanders’s cockpit.

Baldanders and the Razor Edge squadron’s units were all lying in wait in the ruins of an Eighty-Six internment camp. Much like the southern camp Siri had stayed in, it was a row of simple black facilities guarded by a needlessly sturdy wire fence. It’d been long since anyone occupied this place, but the ground was still empty of any weeds or flowers, just like it was back then. No rabbits or deer would wander in here for fear of being hunted down and devoured.

This desolate, savage sight was one that was all too familiar to him. A sight he wished he could forget.

The only part missing from this camp was the antipersonnel minefield surrounding it. Those alone had been dug up during last year’s large-scale offensive and weren’t there to impede Siri and the rest anymore. It felt terribly ironic.

Siri’s 2nd Armored Division was placed in charge of the strip between phase line Cancer—the three-hundred-kilometer point from the Federacy—and phase line Libra—the two-hundred-ten-kilometer point. The most outer patrol line of the high-speed railway and the retreat route.

Shin’s ability could accurately detect the Legion’s movements, but depending on conditions, they could possibly outsmart him. They couldn’t afford not to have the Reginleifs spread out and patrol. And on top of that, they couldn’t rely on Shin’s power for the whole three-day operation. It would be too taxing on him.

The 4th Armored Division was in charge of guarding the area between phase line Chiron—the closest one to the Federacy—and Pisces. To that end, he’d remained Resonated with Suiu, who was building her defensive line near his, and she replied to him through the Para-RAID in a teasing manner.

“Scared ghosts might pop out or something? I guess the camps do feel like the kind of place ghosts would haunt.”

Siri scoffed at her words.

“Don’t say ghosts; Nouzen might laugh at you. And you’re hiding in the old Empire’s farmland ruins, right? A ghost boar or cow might come floating at you.”

“The only one laughing at people here is you, Siri. Besides, even back when I was in one of the old Juggernauts, Banshee could at least handle animals.”

The Republic’s topography mostly consisted of plains, meaning that outside the cities and forests, much of its land was made up of vast fields and farmland. As small as a Reginleif was, it was still a Feldreß and couldn’t very well hide in open fields.

Preferring not to stay in the open, where the Legion would easily detect him, Siri decided to hide in the internment camp, where his unit could lay low. Suiu was in the old Empire’s border with the Republic, which was of a similar topography, and had the same concerns.

Incidentally, Banshee was Suiu’s Personal Name, as well as her Reginleif’s call sign.

“The old Juggernauts couldn’t beat a Grauwolf, to say nothing of a Löwe.”

“It’s honestly a miracle we survived. Did the Republic really think they could beat the Legion with those things…?”

They exchanged wry smiles and then both returned to their vigilant gaze. It was a clear, moonless autumn night, with the light of the bright stars casting shadows on the ruins’ darkness. They couldn’t feel it in the Reginleif’s sealed cockpit, but the air of these slumbering fields was probably crisp and pleasant to the touch.

Siri felt an unforgettable bitterness surge up in his heart as his Reginleif, shaped like a skeletal corpse, lay hidden in the shadows of this desolate carcass of a ruin. His eyes were fixed on the starry night sky.

A ghost. Some faint part of him pondered that ghosts really could emerge right now. The ghosts of the untold scores of Eighty-Six who’d died trapped here. And they’d emerge not as friends, but as ghosts who resented the living.

I mean…we never saved them.

Back in the internment camps, those who tried to escape were shot dead or otherwise blown to bits by the mines. Some were thrown into the minefields by the soldiers, their idea of a bad joke or justice. He still remembered the sight of a young girl, trapped, unable to move and sobbing between the corpses of her siblings.

He couldn’t save her. Young Siri looked away, fearful he might draw the Republic soldiers’ attention. He could only look on, shaking, as the girl was helplessly blown up by the mines next.

He saw children even younger than her snatched by the soldiers only to be sold inside the walls for pocket money. Even when he was eventually cast out into the battlefield, one of his female squad mates drew the soldiers’ attention. Rumor had it she was sold off to some rich man in the First Sector.

He heard stories about one internment camp that was altogether abandoned, only for its entire population to starve to death, because its people had developed some kind of nasty infectious disease. There were rumors of another internment camp where people were hunted down for human experimentation.

The human experimentation turned out to be true. Just earlier, his squad mates, who were spread out around the camp, told him about a strange facility full of cages and operating tables. Apparently, it’d still been in use up until just before last year’s large-scale offensive. That was what they’d told him, their voices clearly choked up with nausea.

So if any of those countless dead Eighty-Six’s souls lingered on here, still abandoned in this internment camp…they’d surely resent Siri and the rest, who still lived, had left them to die here, and were for some reason protecting the Republic’s white pigs now…

“…Maybe they should come out,” Siri told himself quietly. “Let them.”

“Hmm? Did you say something, Siri?” Siri keenly picked up on his whisper.

“No…,” Siri shook his head and replied.

But just as he was about to say it was nothing—

“Undertaker to all units.”

—a new Para-RAID target joined the Resonance. Shin. Siri immediately shifted gears with a snap. He moved from his alert state, where he still remained somewhat calm so as to preserve energy and keep his outlook bright for a prolonged patrol, to the keen state of mind of battle, where all his nerves were primed and ready.

“Legion offensive activity detected from a point one hundred fifty kilometers northwest of our departure point from the Federacy, Point Zodiacs. This isn’t a Legion formation but a singular unit presumed to be an unidentified Morpho. All Strike Package units and squadrons are to spread out and remain wary of enemy artillery fire.”

Considering 800 mm shells weighed several tonnes, the Reginleif’s 88 mm turret couldn’t hope to shoot them down. Shin’s orders prioritized minimizing damage, but even knowing this, Siri withstood the urge to click his tongue.

“…Roger that.”

“We expect it to fire in coordination with enemy armored units in the vicinity. I’ll inform you on any movements I detect, but all units are to remain vigilant. Also, we’ve requested the Federacy to use their special artillery unit to eliminate the Morpho, so there’s no need for us to worry about counterattacking.”

“—Roger that. 8th Special Artillery Regiment, commencing firing sequence.”

On the western front, on a point twenty kilometers away from the Saentis-Historics line. That gigantic bird imposingly crept out of a concrete tunnel and onto the requisitioned railways.

In place of the dainty legs of a fowl, it had countless wheels that screeched and shrieked metallically as they moved its weight. In place of its lustrous turquoise body was an undyed, exposed metal black chassis. Spreading on both its sides were not graceful wings, but two spades meant to serve as recoil absorbers, placed there to compensate for the double track they didn’t have time to complete. The long barrel of the railgun evoked the image of beautiful plumage.

Its overall height was twelve meters tall. Its weight exceeded three thousand tonnes. The same type of weapon as the Morpho that initially threatened all of humankind’s confirmed countries: a railway artillery loaded with a railgun.

This was a high-caliber railgun built as the successor unit to the prototype railgun introduced the month prior, the Trauerschwan. It was created, much like the Trauerschwan itself, as part of the Federacy’s plan to develop a countermeasure to the Morpho. In other words, this gun’s minimal requirements were firepower capable of being able to sink a one-thousand-four-hundred-tonne target, as well as a long range exceeding four hundred kilometers.

So inevitably, while it wasn’t quite a match for the Morpho yet, it was a gigantic turret capable of propelling very large shells at high speeds, which meant it was so large that moving it between points became a major issue. And since it was a weapon of the Federacy that prioritized defending its land first and foremost, the solution suggested for that problem was to use the railway tracks spread out around the country. They were, after all, meant for mass transportation to begin with.

And so ironically enough, the Federacy came to develop its prototype, the Trauerschwan, as a railway gun, much like the Morpho it was meant to oppose. However, its first battlefield ended up being the distant Theocracy. It was brought to the fold much sooner than expected—and in what was certainly a reckless play. In that battle, it had legs attached to it, forcing it to walk.

But this was its original form, the one it was meant to take: a railway gun. Albeit a hurriedly constructed railway gun, dispatched to accommodate for the front lines having fallen back.

The spades fixed in place. The shells loaded into their chamber. The enemy coordinates, which were transmitted by the Strike Package, were input. Confirming that the artillery crew had completed all preparations to fire and evacuated to a semibasement moat, the regimental commander raised their voice. Ferrying and deploying a weapon as large as this railway gun required an entire regiment of personnel.

The moats were made of reinforced concrete to both withstand the shock waves of their own railgun’s fire and offer some minimal degree of defense from the enemy railgun’s counterattacks.

The fire-control officer placed their hand on the wired firing device and looked up at the commander with a tense expression. The commander nodded.

“Mk. 2 Trauerschwan—Kampf Pfau, fire!”

The Legion had deprived humankind of aerial superiority through their Eintagsfliege and Stachelschwein, and despite this, they were careful enough to equip their precious Morpho with antiair guns and a wide-area radar system, so as to defend them from cruise missiles and suicide bombing from UAVs.

<< Radar reading detected.>>

With its thirty-meter-long barrel fixed on its estimated target’s coordinates, the Morpho was momentarily distracted by the warning from its radar. This was one Legion unit made intelligent by incorporating a dead human’s neural network—a Shepherd, as the humans called them. Much like many of the Shepherds, it was inhabited by the personality of one of the humans who’d died in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, a commander unit of this army of ghosts.

“He”—identifier Nidhogg—perfectly retained its memories and personality, while at the same time, he’d been driven mad by the instincts of a murder machine. By now, there was no trace of the man he used to be.

With the coldness of a mechanical monster, he estimated the threat level of the enemy targeting him. Its estimated firing position was two hundred kilometers southwest, and its shots’ velocity was rapid. It seemed to be an enemy railgun.

However…

<<Evasion deemed unnecessary.>>

…its large-area radar perceived the trajectory of the enemy projectiles, and Nidhogg wasn’t in their direct path. They would miss without so much as brushing against him. There was no need to evade—to stop firing.

<<Resuming firing sequence.>>

The large-caliber railgun the Federacy developed as a countermeasure to the Morpho was still in its prototype stages. One month ago, they repurposed a prototype meant for lab testing into the Trauerschwan, deploying it in live combat. After analyzing the assorted data obtained from that battle, they immediately used this feedback to spot any crucial flaws that required improvement, implementing them into the next prototype’s design, and began production.

However, they couldn’t possibly resolve every single flaw that came up in a mere month. Its slow automatic reload mechanism and incomplete fire-control system were still just as slow and incomplete as they were last month.

Still, with the Legion introducing more of the Morpho and its improved versions, as well as the front lines all falling back, the Federacy was left with little means to counterattack. They needed a railgun with a similar range, capable of stopping the enemy railguns. And yet they didn’t have nearly enough time to properly develop its automatic reload and fire-control systems.

But one day, during a meeting in a technical research institute, someone came to a realization, despite their mind being addled by sleep deprivation and unease; they only needed to change their perspective.

All they needed to do was render the enemy railgun inoperable. And the Trauerschwan was already capable of the minimal requirement of shooting and destroying a target hundreds of kilometers away. This meant they didn’t necessarily need to complete the automatic reload and fire-control systems.

They just needed to make sure they hit their target.

“First shot fired. Proceed to prepare second and third shots!”

The Kampf Pfau’s automatic firing device was incomplete. These shells couldn’t be loaded by hand, and using a crane to do it required a great deal of time and attention. And despite this, the regiment commander continued to order his men to fire in fast succession. And the gunners unquestioningly, without so much as confirming if the first shot hit its mark, continued to fine-tune the sights, changing the guns’ angle.

Yes, there was no need to pay any mind to the question of whether they hit their mark. Not with the Kampf Pfau. They never expected for the first shot to hit.

“Yes, sir. Preparing to fire first, second, and third shots!”

The rails trembled with a thundering rumble. A heat daze hung over the unit—but not over the pair of rails that’d fired the first shot. This improved railgun model, standing on the rails in all its heavy metallic glory, was equipped with twelve sets of elongated barrels, lined up against the sky like dorsal fins.

If its firing accuracy was bad, they needed only compensate for that with sheer numbers. If their loading speed was slow, they needed only load multiple cannons ahead of time.

The Kampf Pfau.

With its barrels lined up like the beautiful tail features of a peacock. And much like a peacock pecking a viper to death, it would defeat the enemy railgun. And this ferocity crowned this unit with the name of this bird, identified with a guardian god of the Federacy said to have once smote an evil dragon from a distant land.

“Second muzzle, followed by the third muzzle—fire!”

Ignoring the approaching enemy shells, the Morpho continued its preparations to fire. Its cooling wings opened, and liquid metal began to seep between its spear-like barrel. It assumed firing position, like a viper raising its head in preparation to bite.

<<Nidhogg to wide-area network. Opening fi >>

But that moment.

His radar picked up a salvo of shells hurtling toward him with the same velocity of the earlier enemy shot, but each of them with a slightly different trajectory.

<<…!>>

And one of their predicted trajectories triggered an alert. The alert spurred the Morpho to dodge, its Liquid Micromachine nervous system running rapidly, but there was no avoiding the hit—because doing so would expose it to a hit from another shell.

So instead—

<<Nidhogg, resuming firing sequence.>>

Its instincts as a combat machine did not fear death. He coldly, calmly prioritized completing his mission. Blue lightning crackled through his barrel. The first enemy shell he’d detected finally impacted. As predicted, the first shell missed him by a large margin, striking a faraway hill and blasting the trees on it to bits.

But then came the second, third, and fourth shots. It was an unguided, long-distance circular-error-probability barrage, but since the barrage was so wide, it closed in on the coordinates it had aimed at—on the Morpho’s vicinity—scattered like a cage.

The second shot shattered the rails, one of which went flying and impacted one of his antiair autocannons.

The third shot skirted right past his barrel, crashing right behind him and boring a massive hole into the ground.

The fourth shot missed him entirely, crashing into the crowd of the Edelfalter attending to him.

<<Resuming fi >>

And then.

The fifth long-distance shell ruthlessly skewered the gigantic dragon’s flank, like a spear thrown by a mighty hero.