Chapter 1: Haze Blue

Chapter 1: Haze Blue

CHAPTER 1

HAZE BLUE

Every light in the room was off. Tendrils of white cigarette smoke danced through the air.

“…Regarding our pending issue.”

Sunlight filtered in through the window. Outside, all was bathed in the blinding-white glow of midday summer. The Federal Republic of Giad’s summers were not as brief as in the United Kingdom, due to being a good distance away from the frozen north. Theirs was a summer where flowers bloomed with all their might, as if trying to celebrate their short lives for as long as possible.

There were vibrant petals as far as the eye could see—in the streets, in the fields, and even on the western front, all flaunting their vitality. The lush green of the vegetation had deepened in hue so much that it almost seemed black. Growing ever defiantly, it stretched toward the azure sky, which boasted a clarity unique to the summer months.

The dark silhouettes sitting in the dim room oddly contrasted the brilliant scenery outside. One man—a one-eyed officer wearing a black eyepatch—broke the silence. His steel-gray uniform’s left breast was adorned by a ribbon bar. He had the pitch-black hair and eye color characteristic of one of the old Empire’s pureblood races: an Onyx.

He was the commander of the western front’s 177th Armored Division, Major General Richard Altner.

Another officer, also a major general, with one artificial leg and the air force’s insignia still appended to his uniform, responded to Richard’s words while blowing out a puff of white smoke. He flicked his thick fingers, dropping the ash into a gorgeous silver tray sitting on the polished, amber-colored wooden mosaic table.

“The Eighty-Sixth Strike Package’s 1st Armored Division… The detachment led by the Bloodstained Queen and the Headless Reaper.”

“They’ve accumulated a bit too much experience. Or perhaps I should say they’ve seen too many things they should not have seen,” Major General Altner said grimly, to which the other silhouettes in the room nodded.

Badges identifying high-ranking officials of the Giad military glittered from all their lapels. They were the generals in charge of the western front. These officers continued their confidential meeting, as if trying to hide from the summer sun.

“We must come up with a countermeasure at once.”

“Thankfully, the Legion offensive seems to be quieting down for the moment. Apparently, they’re reorganizing their forces. If we’re going to do this, now would be the time.”

“Even those murder machines can’t stay composed after losing two production bases and having one of their commander units seized.”

“Which is convenient for us. It gives us ample time to enact our countermeasure.”

The Eighty-Sixth Strike Package. A raiding force built around the Eighty-Six. Their activities greatly exceeded expectations. In the three months since the unit’s birth, they brought down two Legion bases. They exposed the existence of the Sheepdogs and the Phönix and both discovered the reality of the theorized Zentaur units and managed to subjugate several of them.

They had recorded video data and brought back sample parts of the Weisel and Admiral units in the Dragon Fang Mountain base. And in that same operation, they saved the United Kingdom from crisis and even captured a Legion commander unit.

They racked up achievements that were unrivaled not just in the entire western front but also by any other unit among their allies, the United Kingdom and the Alliance.

“The Merciless Queen,” one of the silhouettes spat out bitterly. “The commander unit speculated to harbor the consciousness of Zelene Birkenbaum… I hear the one who made its capture possible was that Reaper, as well. This is all quite troublesome .”

“Heroes have no place in this world, after all.”

“Soldiers are to be seen as replaceable parts. Victory in battle must not rest on the shoulders of a single hero.”

“…Don’t worry.”

The one silhouette who had kept silent so far, the chief of staff for the western front, Commodore Willem Ehrenfried, parted his lips.

“I’ve already put something in motion. I believe you will receive the report soon enough.”

Major General Altner scoffed.

“You work quickly as usual, Willem. Your reputation as Ehrenfried’s murderous blade is well earned.”

The chief of staff, Willem, regarded him with a sardonic smile. He gave off the atmosphere of a cold, well-whetted military saber.

“You exaggerate, Major General. This is just paperwork. All I did was sign a few pesky documents and place them in the settlement box.”

He gave an exaggerated shrug. In one hand, he held a cigarette, and in the other, he held materials regarding the aforementioned countermeasure. Deciding he no longer needed the document, his aide, who had been standing by during the exchange, stepped forward, accepted the proffered document, and returned to his spot near the wall.

Willem’s aide came from a long line of servants who had attended his family for generations. He would always hide in the shadows until he was needed, appear at his master’s side a moment before he was called, and return to his place in the shadows as he did what needed to be done. Such diligence was the product of his upbringing.

This aide, who was still fairly young, returned to his spot without another word. His flawless performance was met with no praise from either the chief of staff or the other officers present. Before the Federacy’s founding, they were all high-ranking nobles in the Empire and were used to seeing aides and servants as those who remained out of sight.

The aides themselves did not require any recognition, either, with the exception of the words their masters gave them at the end of each workday. They were shadows, not meant to be acknowledged. If anyone was to offer them words of praise, it would simply show they were being too conspicuous and thus failed in their duties.

And so the officers immediately forgot the aide’s existence and continued their conversation as if they had never been interrupted. The aide didn’t show any sign of displeasure at that fact. He stood as expressionless as a doll for the duration of his duty, breathing as quietly as he could.

His black eyes turned a fleeting glance at the “document” the chief of staff had just handed him, however. In the ten years the Legion War had raged on, there was no need for the Federacy to update it, and so its cover was quite old and weathered.

It was a document that seemed to be the worst possible match for this extravagant—yet slightly gloomy—room in the western front’s HQ, full of smoke and stern Federacy officers. Even in his hands, it seemed to stand out with its gaudy cover with frivolously colored text.

A LLIANCE OF W ALD

T OUR G UIDEBOOK

Looking down at it, the aide thought:

So in other words… Those children had seen a warehouse full of skeletal corpses in the Republic operation… They had to climb up a cliff along a road formed from their allies’ remains. These poor child soldiers have been faced with one gruesome sight after another, and so the adults have sought to ease their troubled minds by sending them on vacation…

Why must the chief of staff and the other officers spend their cigarette break pretending to be a bunch of evil masterminds plotting something terrible…?

Such was the aide’s exasperated, silent soliloquy.

“I…can…”

As they ran forward with young and shapely limbs, their bare feet slapped against the marble floor. The light reflected off the slightly tanned yet pale skin unique to girls of their age.

“…flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

Raising her voice in a spirited cheer—a far cry from her usual demeanor—Kurena plunged into the pool. A warm spray flew up in her wake. It was hard to see the green stone bottom of the pool through the steamy water, but it was deep enough for one to dive without issue.

Kurena submerged herself until only the very top of her head was above the water. Then she bobbed her face up past the surface before spreading out her limbs and enjoying a leisurely float.

“Wheeew… It’s so waaarm…”

Frederica, who happened to be in Kurena’s splash zone and had failed to avoid the water in time, adorably furrowed her brows.

“Kurena! Where are your manners?! You’re an adult, are you not?!”

“But it’s my first time being in a bath this big…”

Yes, they were in a bath. But the word bath could not accurately reflect the sheer scale of the luxurious complex. It had been built long ago, as part of an emperor’s villa, and the domed structure was easily large enough to fit an entire sports track. The floor was covered in ancient, well-polished marble. Building blocks made from various types of stone were meticulously placed together, creating a multicolored geometric pattern on the floor.

The bath itself was dug out in a rectangular shape and could have easily been used as a competitive swimming pool. Its surface was carved from a massive marble monolith, and to everyone’s surprise, there weren’t any seams at the bottom of the bath, meaning it had been created from a single slab of marble. The answer to how many human hands and horses were required to carry such a gigantic slab up a steep mountain in the ancient times would remain a mystery.

Standing in the middle of the bath, as if to divide it in half, was a line of stone sculptures, with the emperor sculpture set front and center. Next to it were statues of nymphs, surrounded by baskets of blooming flowers that added a pleasant aroma to the steam.