Volume 4 Release Commemoration Special Chapter:
Another Battlefield ② Lurking Malice
Translator : PolterGlast
The solemn funeral
convoy carrying the mortal remains of Gale did not linger inside Kusanagi,
but steadily proceeded onward along its trajectory. Alexis had
meticulously considered the logistics to ensure he would be cremated within the
borders of Termira—in the ancestral land of the Kingdom of Kyle,
which was his true homeland—at least so that his wife and young daughters could
watch over his final rest. It was a profound, deeply protective manifestation
of the young commander's enduring respect.
After seeing off the
funeral procession past the gates, Yuka turned back to address Raymond.
「 Now
then, I too shall personally depart for the primary checkpoint down the highway
from here on, and take direct command of everyone at our reception office to
oversee the arrays. 」
「 Yuka-sama, I implore you, please maintain absolute
vigilance and safeguard your person. 」
「 Yes, Yuka-sama!
As for my duties, I will immediately head towards the temporary refugee camps
and get the housing arrays and preparations for acceptance ready there, 」 Chrisia added with a supportive nod.
「
Understood, Raymond-sama. And thank you, Chrisia-san, 」 Yuka responded, gracefully executing a smooth military
pivot to mount her warhorse, and driving her boots to lead her escort out from Kusanagi.
The high command had
finalized an absolute directive to receive the ten-thousand people of the Istoria Orthodox
Theocracy refugees not directly at Kusanagi, but strictly at the
border checkpoint established earlier on the primary highway, intentionally
choosing to halt their footsteps before they could breach the main city lines.
This structural deployment was anchored by two specific reasons:
·
First, the raw metropolitan infrastructure of Kusanagi
was currently stretched so catastrophically thin that, even temporarily,
packing an uncoordinated mass of 10,000 people directly into the city center
would be unreasonable and physically plunge the grid into absolute chaos.
·
Second, considering the intense, mourning
atmosphere following Gale's funeral procession, they must not permit a
massive wave of foreign outcasts to immediately flood the streets and receive
the volatile, burning hostility of the grieving original territory residents,
which would inevitably trigger something untoward to happen.
『 That would completely and wretchedly ruin the sacred
sacrifice Gale-san executed, risking his life to protect these people.
We must just fight through our own battlefield to absolute perfection. 』
On horseback, Yuka
thought to herself,
forcefully whipping her mind into an ironclad focus as she scolded herself.
Sweeping behind her were the
twenty veteran cavalrymen Raymond had personally arranged to serve as
her iron wall.
To ensure the
success of this monumental humanitarian operation, Captain Claire had
meticulously summoned a formidable reinforcement unit of 300 highly expert administrative
personnel from the reception office staff across the Demon Territory Dukedom
domain she had raised with great care, sending them straight to Kusanagi's
jurisdiction. Consequently, combining their strength alongside the originally
assigned local city staff, a massive force of 500 professional processing
agents had been successfully accumulated—out of which 220 elite specialists
were gathered directly at the highway checkpoint. However, because this
campaign had evolved into an absolute, all-out war requiring the deployment of
an expeditionary force to the southern front, the commander-class officers of
the reception office—namely Isla,
Crawla, and Laila—were also currently marching and serving in the
active military warzones this time. As a direct consequence, the checkpoint
lines completely lacked an expert officer to stand above them and take overall
macro-command over the entire grid.
「 I
extend my deepest apologies for keeping you waiting with a delayed arrival,
everyone! Tell me, how are the current preparations and configuration of our
processing lines? 」 Yuka called out the exact second
her warhorse cleared the checkpoint barracks.
「 Yes, Yuka-sama!
」
an authoritative voice rang back instantly. 「 The twenty specialists
forming our core command structure have successfully pounded all information and
upcoming projected plans directly into their heads. Prior to the arrival of the
guests (refugees), ten of our elite handlers will rapidly disperse to convey
the content of the strategic orientation to the staff they are respectively in
charge of. The remaining ten will be permanently deployed around Yuka-sama
to flawlessly handle various transmissions and manage your executive commands! 」
「
Magnificent, as expected of Camilla-san! It is flawless perfection. I
can see why Yortia-san affectionately revered and relied on you, calling
you her 'big sister'. I look forward to working with you, and humbly place the
success of this front into your hands. 」
Saying so, Yuka
let her mind trace the fascinating, resilient trajectory of her background.
Years prior, inside the treacherous underworld of the Teigoon brothels, Camilla
had operated with a fiercely protective, big-sister disposition, uniquely
doting on and taking care of the young maiden 'Yoru' (Yortia) in various ways. Following the war, receiving
a passionate recommendation from Yortia herself, she had successfully
taken up the post to serve as the chief administrator of the newly established
entertainment sectors within Ishtar. Afterwards, blessed with a
magnificent marriage, she permanently washed her hands of the night world to
stay close to her husband as a devoted wife, while proudly applying for and
being hired as a staff member at the newly established reception office in Termira.
Having started working at the administration, her natural capability
distinguished her within a mere six months, and this time, acting under Captain
Claire's instructions, she had come to Kusanagi leading the
dispatched vanguard detachment from Termira.
『 That's right…… across an administrative reception office
composed exclusively of highly independent, strong-willed women, coordinating
and steering their ranks is her exact specialty. 』
Thinking so, Yuka
smiled at her anew with a radiant, gentle warmth as she drove her proposal
home.
「 Camilla-san, regarding the immense gravity of this
upcoming processing response, could I humbly request that you officially assume
the mantle and assist as Vice-Commander? 」
「 Eh?
But Yuka-sama, I am still…… nothing more than a fresh newcomer who
hasn't even been at the reception office for a year…… is it really tactically
alright to entrust a high command to my un-tested caliber? 」
「 Yes,
that doesn't matter at all. An individual who can stand at the absolute apex of
leadership is the exact same regardless of what place they go to. I implore you, please
lend me your hand. 」
Gracing her with a
profoundly gentle smile, Yuka felt an immense wave of satisfaction,
knowing she had successfully secured a terrifyingly reliable right arm to lock
down her flank.
※
Around that exact
same moment, Lars, leading the precise allocation of the one thousand
shield titans together with the Holy Shrine-Maiden Sior, was
aggressively driving the massive refugee convoy ahead, desperately hurrying to
reach Kusanagi. The collective marching pace of the party, heavily
saturated with frail elders, defenseless women, and children, was structurally slow.
To aggressively break through this limitation, they put those with the slowest
walking paces onto the horse-drawn supply wagons Alexis had arranged on
the way, forcefully accelerating the march's overall speed.
「
Listen to me, everyone! Kusanagi is almost here, right over the next
horizon! Tonight, although temporary, proper beds and hot meals are
meticulously prepared to receive you! Do your best and push forward until
there! Those who can no longer walk, or are injured, please do not hesitate to call
out your distress to the surrounding soldiers! 」
Riding on horseback
and spurring his mount to move through the column many times, Lars went
around calling out to them, relentlessly injecting courage into their hearts.
Originally, he
desperately needed to deliver them to Kusanagi even a little earlier,
allowing his accompanying 1,000 troops to immediately execute a full-speed
pivot and return to the Third Army. Although he maintained a flawless
mask of composure on the surface, his soul was ruthlessly driven by a
suffocating sense of impatience.
『 Because our vanguard forces are already at a catastrophic,
overwhelming disadvantage in terms of soldier numbers…… 』
As he was thinking
so, his vision locked onto the figure of a young boy taking his mother's hand
and advancing forward across the road.
「 Hey
kid! Is your mother okay? You can easily get a ride packed onto a wagon if
necessary, you know? 」 Lars called
out, easing his mount down to ride parallel to their steps.
The boy spoken to
whispered a soft confirmation with the woman thought to be his mother, and
although he silently and solemnly bowed his head, they chose to maintain their
steps on foot, seemingly having no such request in particular to accept his
hospitality.
『 So he's managed to cheer up and regain a little focus, has
he……? Well…… because he ultimately ended up bearing a torturous shackle far too
heavy for a child…… 』
After the exact
moment his blade stabbed Gale, the boy, realizing his own horrific sin,
had become utterly distraught and his psyche shattered into a state of pure
confusion and madness. Lars, acting on the fallen Gale's absolute
dying wish, had continuously cared for the boy, dedicating his strength to
soothe his panic and striving to calm him down many times afterwards. Because
he had been glued directly by Gale's side during the melee, his veteran
intellect fully understood the structural circumstances and variables at that
time.
『 That nightmare was an
unfortunate, cruel accident. In the first place, it's an impossible story under
raw physical laws for a child's arm to pierce through specialized armor forged
from monster skin. It invited such a fatal result strictly because the weight
and dense momentum of several people violently leaning and slamming into his
back simultaneously focused straight onto the dagger…… 』
In that logical
sense, although he couldn't confirm who they were in the swirling confusion at
the time, the adult provocateurs who deliberately and simultaneously attacked Gale
were the true perpetrators harboring genuine, sickening guilt. However, those
cowards smoothly disappeared into the chaotic panic, leaving it physically
impossible to verify who they were at this point.
『 The grown adults commit the atrocities and vanish into thin
air, letting a defenseless child bear the absolute weight of the sin…… it's
thoroughly unbearable and sickening. 』
To break the boy out
of his self-reproach, Lars repeatedly admonished him that it was an
unfortunate accident, hammering home the truth that with the boy's mere
strength he couldn't have pierced the armor, and he continued to track and care
for him, calling out to him at every opportunity. Perhaps thanks to those
tireless efforts, the boy had successfully emerged from his madness, though he
had almost completely stopped speaking words. Merely saying, 『 I will apologize to that person's family, and I wish to
atone for it by consecrating and risking my life from now on 』, it
felt precisely as though that singular, grim purpose was the absolute reason he
was following along and continuing to draw breath.
In the midst of
that, across the processing train, there were substantial numbers of adult men
who stepped forward to present various requests—claiming to have sprained their
ankles, or that their dormant old wounds ached so they could no longer walk—and
they successfully secured slots to be put onto the wagons.
※
Rattling and
groaning, the horse-drawn wagons finally cleared the dirt trails and became a
remarkably decent, comfortable ride after entering the high-quality primary
highway and proceeding on the well-maintained road.
「 Hmph,
it finally became a piece of decent infrastructure. Up until now across those
wretched back-roads, it was a state where you'd bite your own tongue off even
if you tried to talk…… 」
One of the adult men
who had fumbled through a medical pretext to board the wagon began to speak,
dropping into a remarkably low, chilling voice.
「 Yeah,
but even so we are
incredibly lucky. This too is a magnificent testament to the sacred will of God
Ishtar, isn't it. 」
「
Exactly, without a doubt. So, what do we do from here on? 」
「 The
first stage of our strategy wretchedly failed by that domestic rebellion. Then
we simply transition and move to the second stage. The absolute second we enter
their city, we will locate and set fire to their primary food storehouses.
Since their administration is already harboring a suffocating, massive number
of refugees, and that will newly increase by 10,000 souls tomorrow, they will
have absolutely no leeway or luxury to send a single grain of food to the front
lines once the supplies are burned to ashes. 」
「
Hahaha! Which implies that the march by the 'Apostles of God' is still actively
continuing forward. Without the outcasts themselves even knowing. 」
These hidden
entities were exactly the ones who, receiving Azel's secret orders, had
meticulously embedded and mingled among the defenseless refugees.
The man who raised
the low, cold laugh was none other than the armed provocateur who had
forcefully pulled out his fake family to the front row amidst the Shield of
Gaia lines. This man, to break the situation, violently pushed the woman he
had curried favor with and called his makeshift 'wife' straight into the large
steel shields together with his comrades. He had surgically executed that
disgusting act thinking that if he could severely injure her before the crowd,
it would be possible to incite a towering wave of hatred and toxic hostility
across the masses.
However, the
situation dynamically rolled into a vastly more fortunate direction for his
black heart. Seeing the civilian woman faint after hitting her head and
collapsing against the steel corner of the shield, her fake, deluded 'son'
violently erupted into madness, and holding a concealed dagger he originally
shouldn't possess, he desperately attacked one of the defending generals.
『 We must not let a golden opportunity of this magnitude
escape! 』
Thinking so, the
hidden operatives had pounced all at once, violently slammed their combined
mass into the boy's back to push him down, simultaneously clamped their hidden
fingers tightly over the hilt of that dagger, and deeply drove the steel
straight through the enemy commander's vitals.
「
Fufufu, it was an incredibly magnificent surprise that the fool turned out to
be the Supreme Commander of their enemy front line, but we should probably
execute a big job once more. The absolute second we enter the city, we will
surgically lock onto another of their commander-class officers and offer his
head up as a blood sacrifice. 」
「
Right…… if that happens, this time their local garrison will surely go mad with
towering anger and ruthlessly massacre all 10,000 of the refugees. And with
that bloodbath finalized, our fanatical countrymen will…… be called to God in
the truest sense, transformed into a sacred sacrifice to become the absolute
sustenance for our ultimate victory. 」
「
Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos of the mass execution, we will
systematically set fire to the city and burn all their food infrastructure to
cinders. Listen, men—until the match is struck, we are strictly pitiful,
innocent refugees who were blown the falsehoods preached by the church and
thoroughly believed them. Don't dare forget your lines. 」
「 Yeah,
understood. May the dark grace of the Dark Clan be with us…… for the
glory of our master, and to extract absolute vengeance for Serpens-sama,
who struck His Excellency and fell in regret as well…… 」
These hidden monsters were exactly the absolute final survivors of the Dark Clan that Azel had historically taken root deep within the infrastructure of the Istoria Imperial Kingdom, and which his successor Serpens had subsequently taken over. Trapped on the opposite side of the board, there was absolutely no way Lars and his veteran riders would know of their toxic schemes and conspiracy. Fulfilling their sacred duties to protect the surrendered refugees they sheltered, they maintained their hurried march, unaware of the profound irony that they were personally bringing them along straight toward the throat of Kusanagi. Accompanied by a pack of venomous wolves who would bring explosive turmoil……
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