Introduction: An Encounter

I was 12 or 13 years old when I encountered the man for the first time. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was after I completed my mission. I was assigned the mission by the people who had picked me up as an orphan, raised me as a soldier, and inducted me into the Werewolves. I carried out all their orders so I could stay alive. I endured their grueling and inhuman training. On their orders, I relentlessly killed any opponent. And yet, they were now on the verge of killing me.

“This punk is dangerous!”

I don’t remember whether they were majors or lieutenant colonels, but soldiers with numerous stars adorning their shoulders had tied me to a chair and pointed and yelled at me, as if at a beast.

A beast? Only now? Wasn’t it a little late to say that about a Werewolf—a wolf disguised as a human being?

“I can’t believe he didn’t hesitate to kill his superior officers and fellow soldiers!”

“Then he came back alive all by himself! What a devil!”

The soldiers were disgusted. They were the leaders of the Werewolves. They were my owners.

“It would be bad if he did something like that again.”

“Yeah. A watchdog is useful, but only when chained. Anyway, this guy’s a wolf, so he might bite our hands at any time!”

I realized they intended to kill me.

Why was this happening to me? I had simply carried out orders. But I didn’t feel like resisting them or defending myself. Instead, I found myself accepting it as the natural course of events.

I had lost my parents and my reason for living. I had been sleeping on the backstreets like a wild dog. Then, for some reason, the military had picked me up and trained me. But that was a mistake.

I should have died sooner. But it wasn’t that I was giving up. It would be more accurate to say I had grown tired of defending myself.

One of the senior officers cocked his weapon with a click.

Aw, man... I wasn’t even fit to send to an execution site. I would meet my fate here in this highly soundproofed room.

The muzzle of a gun pressed against my head. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was somebody else’s problem even though I was the one facing imminent death. My only thought was that I wouldn’t be in this situation if I had been able to shed a single tear.

“Wait.”

Suddenly, the door to the room opened and that man entered. Immediately after he appeared—an officer who wore more stars than the man pressing the gun against me—every soldier in the room saluted so hurriedly that it was comical.

“Is that him? Is that the boy?”

The man was young, about 20 years old, but he behaved with more confidence and calm than anyone else in the room.

“Yes, Sir! We were just about to execute him!”

As one of the senior officers said this, he showed the gun in his hand.

“Why? He carried out his mission and obeyed his orders. What’s wrong with that?”

There was no rancor in his voice. He spoke as if asking an ordinary question, casually and without accusation or criticism—like asking a servant why he served coffee today when he usually served tea.

“This brat is dangerous. If ordered, he’d kill his own comrades without blinking. He isn’t human! He’s a machine!”

“Yeah! If we let him go, he’ll just cause trouble later! Better to execute him now!”

I didn’t feel any strong emotion when faced with these senior officers and their accusations. They could say whatever they wanted about me. They could do whatever they wanted to me. I could easily imagine what would come next. This man who had appeared would say...

“I see. Then there’s no choice.”

And that was exactly what he said.

“I see. Then there’s no choice.”

All over again, I keenly felt that I was the kind of person whose fate could be decided by the exchange of a few words.

“C-Colonel?! What?!”

Huh?

What had happened while my eyes were lowered? When I raised my head, two gunshots sounded.

“Agh?!”

“Agh!!”

My body wasn’t the target. Instead, bullets struck the foreheads of the senior officers who had been foully cursing me just moments before. The man who fired the shots was the officer the others addressed as Colonel. His face was expressionless and placid even though he had just killed two men.

“He kills when ordered to? He kills like a machine? Wonderful. He is the ideal Werewolf!”

The other soldiers in the room were frozen in surprise.

“He’ll cause trouble later? Ridiculous. Tools, technology and human beings all behave according to how you use them. Fools who can’t see when they’re only proclaiming their own incompetence bring harm and no benefit.”

Slowly, the man approached me after holstering his Walther P38, the representative handgun of the Principality of Wiltia’s military. Then, as if untying the ribbon of a gift box, he removed the belt that was binding me.

“Don’t worry. I will wield you effectively. You merely need to faithfully carry out my orders.”

After saying this, he told me to stand. Then he held out his hand. After a moment, I realized he was offering a handshake. Such behavior toward Werewolves was extremely uncommon.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Maximillian Genitz.”

Nonetheless, I extended my hand in fear.

“I’m... Lud Langart.”

He gripped my hand firmly. I was filled with a strange feeling.