Chapter 6: Lud Langart’s Decision

Meanwhile, at Twelve Comm, in the urban district of the city...

“A monster...”

Delz murmured the same word Sophia had used, but against another humanoid Hunter Unit with unimaginable strength. Lieutenant Delz was an officer in the Schutzstaffel and the commander of the force that had conquered the city.

“Call me what you want. I don’t care.”

Rebecca answered him, tired from the bottom of her heart from incapacitating over fifty Schutzstaffel soldiers, including reinforcements. She had killed about half of them, and had broken the arms, legs, ribs, and ruptured internal organs of the rest. They were barely conscious. In comparison, Delz had suffered only a light injury by having one leg broken.

“S-Stop... Help...”

“Not a chance.”

Delz cast aside his pride as a Schutzstaffel soldier and begged for his life, but Rebecca denied it without mercy. She made a tight fist and drew it back to hit his face. At that moment, her raised right arm was silently blown off.

“What?!”

She couldn’t immediately ascertain what had happened. A fraction of a second later, she heard the monstrous boom of a cannon and realized that a supersonic warhead had removed part of her body.

“Y-You guys are late!” Delz shouted.

He was looking at men dressed in black army fatigues with no badge of rank.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. We are not your subordinates.”

They were Werewolves, the secret special ops unit and Genitz’s private force to which Lud had once belonged.

“Ungh!”

Rebecca had lost one arm, but she still had the other. Even if she lost both arms, she could still kick them to death. But, in the next moment, when Rebecca tried to attack the Werewolves, cannon fire blew off her right leg faster than the speed of sound.

“Aagh!”

Humanoid Hunter Units felt pain. However, pain was only to alert the body to a threat. Unlike a human being, she wouldn’t die from shock, and severe pain didn’t disrupt her thinking. Rebecca was able to calmly identify the source of this attack.

“Impossible... A Gerlich?!”

This weapon wasn’t just fast. It was enormously powerful. And it wasn’t originally designed for attacking human beings. This was the sound of fire from an anti-tank Gerlich.

“We got it from the development bureau, along with only two shells.”

It was a prized weapon, even for the Werewolves. And they had been waiting for the right opportunity to use it. They had waited for the perfect moment as they watched Rebecca level fifty Schutzstaffel soldiers and shatter Delz’s right leg. When Rebecca’s attention was slightly diverted they attacked.

“What a surprise. I thought you fought like a monster, but you really aren’t human!”

The leader of the Werewolves sounded intrigued. A pseudo-skeleton and artificial muscles were visible where Rebecca’s right arm and leg had once been.

“You’re one of that genius scientist’s toys. Cool!”

Because the Werewolves routinely killed people, the soldiers sounded delighted to confront someone inhuman.

“Oh, she isn’t a human being. She’s a... doll?”

Slowly, Delz stood.

“You puppet! How dare you!!”

Angrily, he kicked Rebecca in the face.

“Gah!!”

However, he used his broken right leg, so he screamed in pain.

“Dimwit,” the leader of the Werewolves spat.

“Shut up and give me a gun!”

Delz grabbed a gun and in a fury, shot repeatedly at Rebecca’s body.

“Argh! It won’t break! It’s incredibly strong!”

Delz had failed. The area was now subdued, but that success was substantially due to the Werewolves. If Genitz saw Delz as incompetent, then someday Genitz would abandon him. Frustration and fear turned to anger and motivated him.

“What about here?!”

He aimed at Rebecca’s face and shot her in the eye.

“Agh!”

The surface of a humanoid Hunter Unit was covered in a skin very like a human body, but underneath was a special alloy Daian had created with the greatest care so that even gunshots could not penetrate. However, the eyes were different. They were stronger than human eyes, but they weren’t that strong. Rebecca’s right eye popped, spilling artificial biological fluid.

“Argh! Arrrgh! It won’t break easily, will it? Hey! Destroy it with the Gerlich!”

“Like I said, we only found two shells. We don’t have any more.”

If the soldiers wanted to break Rebecca, the weapons they carried weren’t enough. They had to either blow her up with explosives or smash her under the treads of a tank.

“Tch! Oh well... Let’s kill her after we have a little fun.”

“What? You’re going to rape her?”

“No.”

Delz wore the cruelest of smiles.

“Hey, doll... You’ve got one eye left, so let me show you hell.”

He yanked Rebecca’s hair, forcing her up.

“I’m going to kill all your friends here and then break into Billions Trading to get them, too!”

“What...?”

Rebecca’s features hadn’t changed even when her right arm and leg had been blown off and her right eye destroyed, but they showed desperation now.

“You better not...”

“Huh? What? A doll with emotion?”

Delz took sadistic pleasure at the sight of emotional anguish in the one who had backed him into a corner.

“Do not touch Jacob! Just kill me!”

“Not kill. I’ll break you, you doll!”

Excited, Delz smashed Rebecca against the ground as hard as he could.

“Jacob? All right, I promise to kill him last. I’ll smash out his brains right in front of you!”

“N-No...”

Rebecca was usually without emotion—expressionless and cold—but now she was trembling. She shook with the fear that she couldn’t prevent harm to someone so important to her.

“Gya ha ha ha! I like that look on your face!”

“That’s enough!”

A new voice called out. Delz, the Werewolves, and even Rebecca, hadn’t sensed him. That was because he had flown down from the sky.

“Who—”

Before Delz could finish his sentence the man’s fist bashed into his face.

“Goff!”

Delz made a foolish sound and tumbled away like a battered ball. Smashed to the ground, face down with his broken neck at an impossible angle, he quickly died.

“Wh-Who are you...?”

The Werewolves were a highly trained special ops unit but they were confused by this strange man. No one knew where he had come from, and he was dressed oddly. He wore an expensive but otherwise unremarkable trench coat. And he wore a metal mask.

“That’s... the Corporal’s mask,” the Werewolves’ leader uttered a moan.

Genitz had used the mask of the so-called Corporal to disguise himself. It was left in Organbaelz, and later Lud used it to pass inspection and then dropped it in the train. Now the man standing in front of them was wearing it.

“You... Who are you?!”

Without waiting for an answer or issuing a signal, the Werewolves attacked.

“You pitiful pawns!”

The man wasn’t frightened.

“Unlike the Silver Wolf and Black Spear, I can’t use anything awesome like bujutsu.”

He swung his arm to knock away an approaching Werewolf with a knife. Then he kicked off to smash another soldier who was pulling a gun.

“But I’m very good in hand-to-hand combat!”

He didn’t have any technique. He relied on brute force, like a rogue in a back-alley brawl, but his devastating strength and sheer destructiveness finished them off in one attack.

“What the...?! Are you a doll, too?!”

The way he fought closely resembled Rebecca’s attack rather than regular human combat. It was far beyond a typical human’s potential.

“You are... That voice...”

For Rebecca, his superhuman strength and disguise didn’t matter. It was his voice that delivered the shock causing her to tremble.

“How dare you hurt my girl!”

He then mowed down the attacking Werewolves, one after another. Rebecca also recognized his style of fighting. He controlled the battlefield simply by his presence. Without hesitation, he defeated his opponents with accurate and powerful blows. He was like a hawk diving for prey from on high.

“You!!”

In minutes, all but the leader of the highly trained werewolves had fallen. One attack per person had felled them all.

“What’s going on? Who are you?!”

The Werewolves weren’t weak. They had shown unparalleled strength against fellow human beings. When Lud, a former Werewolf himself, had fought against an exceptionally strong soldier from Greyten during the fight inside the airship, his techniques had been ineffective. Specialized in killing human beings, they were incapable of handling the inhuman.

“It doesn’t matter, so go ahead. You’re the only one left now.”

The man in the mask of the Corporal emitted a faint sound. He was a mechanical soldier, and it was the sound of a cybernetic warrior who had obtained superhuman strength by replacing human body parts with machinery.

“Ugh!!”

A hand chop to the stomach killed the last Werewolf, their leader.

“Is that you... Major?” Rebecca asked shakily.

“...........................”

The man didn’t answer. The mask hid his face, but his guilty demeanor was like that of a child whose mischief had been discovered.

“It is you, is it not? Major Blitzdonner?”

Rebecca noticed that much of his body was now made up of cybernetic enhancements. But there was no way Rebecca could mistake that voice. He always told bad jokes, grinned like a fool, and was a womanizer... and he was Rebecca’s beloved, the person she held most dear. Before Rebecca became a humanoid Hunter Unit, when she was still a weapon, Erich Blitzdonner, a.k.a. the Crimson Hawk, had been her pilot.

“It is I... You gave me the name Sharlahart!”

Daian had given her the name Rebecca, along with her girlish figure. Blitzdonner had named her Sharlahart, which only those important to her were allowed to use.

“I’m sorry, Sharlahart. It seems you’ve had a hard time.”

The man didn’t remove his mask. However, he spoke with a sweet voice as if addressing his own daughter.

“You’ve been watching over my father and son. Thank you.”

“Major...”

Rebecca was weeping. She hadn’t once shed a tear or cried out when her arm and leg were blown away, her eye smashed, and her body riddled with bullets, battered, kicked, and slammed to the ground.

One day, he had suddenly disappeared. Some said he was dead, but Rebecca hadn’t believed it. This man could never die. She had waited, because she believed he would return. And then he had. There was no other reason she would cry.

“Sorry, but keep it secret that you saw me. I’ve got circumstances.”

There were reasons he couldn’t reveal his name or his face and why he had transformed his body into a machine. The reason he had appeared to Rebecca was also secret.

“Ask that scientist to fix you up.”

“Scientist? Do you mean...”

There was only one person in the world who had the skills to repair Rebecca and the other humanoid Hunter Units.

“Anyway, Sharlahart... You’re quite a looker!”

“What?!”

At his words, her rezanium reactor went into high gear and her body started heating up. Her face was red to her ears and her remaining left eye darted around.

“See ya later.”

“Huh? W-What?!”

Leaving Rebecca in confusion, Blitzdonner disappeared. Just as he had appeared, he must have vanished using his cybernetically enhanced super-strength legs.

“Waaaaahhh!!!”

After seeing her master for the first time in five years, he had fought as he wanted, said whatever he wanted, and then disappeared again—all in a flash.

“He’s always so selfish! Always! Always! Always!”

As she cried out, Rebecca continued weeping. But she was also laughing.

“I am glad... Major... I am so glad!”

Blitzdonner had said, “See ya later.”

So she would see him again. She was frustrated, but it made her happy to know that.

Around the same time, at the royal palace in Berun...

“Youuu!!!”

As she screamed, Sophia continued shooting her machine gun at the girl who was the “third body.”

Sophia was an ace pilot also known as the Black Spear. A Hunter Unit pilot was more than just a pilot. Sophia was trained to survive alone, even if stranded behind enemy lines. In particular, Sophia was a specialist in the military martial arts, melee combat and firearms. Even with such skills, against the approaching third body, her only chance was to fight defensively so she wouldn’t die.

“Don’t you have any limits? Huh?”

Finally, she threw aside her empty weapon and ran. She had been repeating this tactic: Shoot like crazy, then get some distance. Her attacks weren’t doing much damage, and her opponent was slowly getting closer.

She’s intentionally pressuring me... No, it’s something else!

Her opponent was trying to take Sophia’s life silently, deliberately and impersonally. Which was understandable because Sophia was facing a humanoid Hunter Unit.

“Urgh... I guess this is it...”

Sophia had used every weapon she had. Now she was out. For a human, she had fought impressively.

“As usual, Sophia, you fight ugly.”

Someone spoke to her in the Wiltian national language with a strong foreign accent that sounded out of place.

“That voice...”

Sophia had heard it before. The voice belonged to someone she had met at a military exchange between the east and west, someone she just might detest more than anyone else...

“Hi! Long time, no see!”

She was a black-haired, dark-eyed citizen of Aesia. Suzuka Amaki, representative of Yamato, was standing in front of her.

“Suzuka?! What are you doing here?!”

“I have orders from up top,” Suzuka answered flatly.

“Intruder... Eliminate...”

The third body approached from behind at high speed and tried to deliver a hand chop.

“Knock it off, you mechanized ragdoll!”

The next moment, the third body flew through the air and struck the ceiling.

“What?!”

Sophia was amazed that Suzuka was capable of dealing with an opponent that moved so fast as to be invisible.

“Techniques for fighting human beings work no matter how fast or strong an opponent is, as long as it’s in human form.”

Suzuka’s tone of voice hadn’t changed. She was calm, betraying no concern whatsoever.

Budo was a heightened form of bujutsu, which Sophia and Lud had learned. Suzuka had surpassed her father, a master of both martial arts, when she was 10 years old. She was a woman beloved of the war god. Her skill was recognized, and she was assigned as military attaché at an embassy in a foreign country. If necessary, she could handle enemy fighters without support or supplies from home. In other words, with only her bare hands. Thus, people called her the Ultimate Ambassadorial Weapon.

“Eliminate... Eliminate... Eliminate...”

The third body pried herself free from the ceiling and fell to the floor. Then, with stiff doll-like movements, she attacked Suzuka again. She decreased the strength of her high-speed fists, but she further increased their speed. One hit would be enough to break human bones.

“This is bad...”

Nonetheless, Suzuka wasn’t worried. With one hand, she blocked all blows.

“The bujutsu of Yamato was forged during a turbulent period of war, so...”

She spoke calmly but swiftly grabbed her attacker’s arm.

“It doesn’t matter how fast they are. If my opponent uses two arms, then I can handle them,” she said.

Then she slammed the third body against the wall.

“Don’t underestimate human strength, you machine-moppet! Just serve tea!”

Suzuka’s budo used the opponent’s force against itself. Since the automaton had inhuman strength, Suzuka’s technique turned that power back against her.

“Another monster...”

“Now that’s just mean.”

Suzuka gently replied to Sophia, who had spoken in amazement.

“Why are you here? What do you mean by orders from above? Why is Yamato interfering in a Wiltian affair?!”

“Yamato isn’t interfering. Wiltia’s highest level requested aid. He was with me, but since you were in danger, I came ahead to help.”

“Who do you mean?”

A man with connections to Yamato had called upon Suzuka, an incredible fighter, and he knew about Sophia.

“Eliminate... Obliterate... Delete...”

“Oh my, she’s a strong one! She must be made in Wiltia!”

While Sophia gawked, the third body made three more moves.

“Doing this all on my lonesome is getting hard. Sophia, take this!”

Suzuka tossed a cloth bag she had been wearing at her waist.

“My firearm?!”

It was Sophia’s favorite gun—a Parapellum Pistol M908.

“I thought I lost it!”

When she woke up after the attack on the Weapons Development Bureau, her gun was gone. It wasn’t just the same type of gun. The serial number was the same. It was her gun.

“Can it really be him?”

A man’s face popped into her head.

“Sophia... Pay attention, or you’ll die.”

Expressionless as a machine, the third body attacked.

Genitz had taken Sven to the deepest part of the Royal Weapons Development Bureau, northeast of the royal palace. The occupation of Berun had failed. The regular military had quickly answered the king’s call and would reclaim both the royal capital and the castle. However, there was still time.

Among the tens of thousands of Schutzstaffel soldiers spread throughout the royal capital, some would escape and some would surrender in fear of being branded rebels. There would be enormous confusion. Even if the Schutzstaffel and regular army were opposed to each other, they would hesitate to kill their compatriots. And that hesitation would be enough for Genitz to enact his next strategy.

“Genitz... So you came?”

But one man had foreseen Genitz’s actions.

“Langart... What are you doing here?”

Lud stood in the deepest bowels of the bureau, as if he were guarding the largest Door—the most important and confidential secret of the principality of Wiltia.

“I don’t suppose you’ve come to rejoin me?”

“Of course not. I’m not a soldier anymore.”

They stared at each other. Neither would budge, bringing them to their final confrontation.

“What in the world is wrong with you, Langart? This isn’t like you!”

Genitz sounded sad.

“Who told you about this place? How did you find out about the king? Why did the king cooperate with you anyway? How did you bust out of jail? Why did you seek help from Shylock? And why did you rely on others?”

Genitz knew Lud was a solitary person. He eschewed help from others, didn’t trust anyone, and believed only in his own well-honed strength. That’s why he had been able to kill anyone. If ordered, he wouldn’t hesitate to end the lives of men and women of all ages, even the lives of those who had been friends until yesterday.

“You weren’t the type of man to behave like this, were you?”

Genitz had highly praised Lud’s tool-like... No, his machine-like accuracy.

“Your arms aren’t for kneading bread. They’re fangs and claws for killing.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“Yes. Believe me, I know. You should come back to me.”

Genitz implored him, strongly confident that only he could use this excellent instrument.

“I’m not a tool, Genitz.”

Lud answered with quiet determination.

“I used to think that if I was strong, I could live on my own, that people who can’t do that are weak, that weakness is one’s own fault, and weakness is bad.”

The military had picked him up as a boy after he lost his parents. His only choice was to earn food by killing. He had believed it was simply the way the world was.

“But I was wrong. No one can live all alone. Someone will shed tears over the death of even the worst scumbag. No one can live without help from others.”

After the slaughter in Lapchuricka, he was marked as unfit to be a Werewolf and became a Hunter Unit pilot. Later, he quit the military and to this day ran a bakery in Pelfe.

He met all kinds of people during that time. There were kind people and there were mean people. There were people who angered him and people he couldn’t forgive. And there were people he regretted being unable to save.

“That’s rubbish, Langart. That’s the way the vulgar crowd thinks. Grouping up is proof of weakness.”

“It’s not rubbish, Genitz. The desire to be with someone is a strength.”

Jacob, Milly, Marlene, Shylock, Hanussen, Rebecca and Sophia... These were the people he had met after failing as a tool. Without their help, he wouldn’t be here now.

“For those people who treated me like a person—and not a tool—I won’t go back to that!”

One’s life isn’t just for oneself. Lud’s actions, ideas and lifestyle came from the people in his life.

“I’m not a tool. Something that has a heart is never a tool!”

With firm determination, Lud said his farewell to Genitz.

“That’s enough, Master! Let me handle the rest!”

Interrupting their conversation, Sven stepped forward. She had once called Lud master, but now she was ready to kill him and protect Genitz, her new master.

“Yes. That’s why I should have made this decision much sooner.”

Sven was a humanoid Hunter Unit. Her fighting strength was tremendous. A former Werewolf, even the Silver Wolf, couldn’t oppose her with mere human strength. But there were exceptions.

The royal sage Hanussen or a certain bujutsu master Lud knew may have been able to defeat her. However, skills like theirs were very rare. They were exceptional among the exceptions. In any case, Lud couldn’t stop Sven. But his face showed no alarm. Rather than resigned, he appeared calm.

“I’m sorry I made you suffer, Avei.”

“—?!”

Sven had launched a hand chop, but Lud’s words stopped her.

“What...?”

The silver-haired girl was stunned. She could not explain why she had stopped. Sven... Svelgen Avei. That was her name. Her developer Daian had named her Svelgen. Her master, however, had named her Avei when she was still a weapon.

“Avei... How does that sound?”

She used to think that name was useless. But it was proof that she was a unique being in the world and not just one of hundreds or thousands of mass-produced machines.

“Uh... huh? What... I... I... Master...”

Her memories were confused. Her master was Genitz, who was behind her. And her opponent was the man standing in front of her. However, the person who spoke to her with such a sweet voice was...

“I’ve been wondering if the you I know is still inside you—and I clung to that possibility.”

Hanussen had told him about the emergency control code. It was the command that had taunted and smashed the “heart” she undoubtedly possessed and switched her devotion and loyalty to a new master.

“I had hoped to wake you up, so you would remember me and everyone else. But I was wrong.”

A person with a heart could never be a tool. That was Lud’s answer. So he decided to free her.

“Sven, your master isn’t me or Genitz. Your master is you!”

“Langart, what are you thinking?!” Genitz screamed.

Genitz had thought he knew everything about Lud, but right now he couldn’t understand what Lud was doing. Fear arose in this man who was so proud of the thick hide he called knowledge.

“Order DO89U3340Y000064Z!”

Lud shouted the string of letters and numbers Hanussen had given him. It didn’t have a particular meaning. It was just random letters and numbers. However, it had a function. It was a reset code that would delete Sven’s memory, leaving it blank.

“Uhhh...”

Sven made a faint sound and fell weakly to her knees. Then she collapsed and lay still.

“What have you done, Langart?”

“It’s a reset code. With this, Sven will no longer belong to anyone. No one will be able to control her anymore.”

“That can’t be... You fool!!” Genitz shouted. “Do you know what that will do?!”

Sven wasn’t just a humanoid Hunter Unit. Only a descendant of the emperor’s bloodline could open the Door leading to relics from the ancient European Empire. The empire’s descendants were extinct. But the rare genius scientist Daian Fortuner had found the remains of an emperor, cultivated those remains, and used the flesh and blood to create a human body. A mechanical doll wrapped in flesh.

A heart is necessary for being human. So he had implanted Avei’s “heart” to create Sven. When Sven developed into a full human being, she would be able to open the Door. But, a necessary element was that she must love someone. If she forgot Lud and Genitz, she could no longer be the key.

“Yes. I know, Genitz. Now all we have to do is finish our game!”

Lud kicked the ground and challenged Genitz.

“It’s a waste of time!”

However, the moment Lud’s hand touched Genitz’s arm, Genitz made a slight movement, as if turning a faucet, and the baker’s body was thrown into the air and then smashed to the ground.

“Did you forget? Just like you use bujutsu, I have mastered budo!”

“Touch me again, and you’re finished!”

“Yes... If I could only touch you...” Lud began hoarsely.

“That was all I needed to do!”

At that moment, as Lud shouted, there was a disturbing pop!

“Whah?! You...”

Genitz appeared to be in pain.

Even as his opponent had thrown him, Lud had maintained his hold on Genitz’s arm. And, never relinquishing his grip, he had squeezed.

“A baker’s work is physical work.”

Lud’s grip, strengthened by kneading bread dough every day, had the power to break Genitz’s arm.

“Waagh!”

The source of Genitz’s strength was a cold calmness that bordered on cruelty. He was flustered at having lost an important asset like Sven, and that created an unexpected opening. And then he had fallen under counterattack.

“Aiieeeee!!”

Lud wasn’t finished. He had made a crack in an otherwise impenetrable wall. Lud jerked Genitz’s arm closer as if to pry a wider opening and pounded Genitz in the face with his other fist.

“Gugh!”

“That one’s from Hilde!”

Lud did this favor for the girl Genitz had betrayed. Hilde had said, “Sock him a good one for me!”

“Hilde... Oh, the first lieutenant...”

“Why did you go through that farce as the so-called Corporal?!”

Genitz had disguised himself to sneak up on Lud and the others. It was too frivolous an act for a man who sought to overturn the nation.

“Two reasons... One was to see you and Sven with my own eyes.”

The terrorist attack inside the Defairedead. Genitz had organized that intrigue. However, unexpected individuals had stopped it... A former soldier turned baker and a waitress with red eyes.

“What a surprise... I thought you had fallen on hard times, but then I heard you played a role in making Greyten’s special forces withdraw.”

However, that wasn’t the only reason.

“The other reason was to discipline myself so I wouldn’t be like her. I don’t want to be like that young girl.”

“Do you mean trapped by the spell of your family name?”

“Yes. She completely relied on her fallen family’s name. I didn’t want to become someone like that.”

Hilde grew up to believe that her only value was through pride in her family. She was a girl to be pitied.

“If you want to be proud of your blood, you must prove yourself. You can’t rely on family lineage. I kept telling myself that.”

“Which... means?”

Genitz’s words unsettled Lud. He talked as if he too was trapped by the spell of family blood.

“I didn’t tell you. I am the last descendent of the Holy Empire.”

The Holy Empire possessed vast territory across Europea until one hundred years ago. The Lion Emperor from a western nation had broken the Holy Empire apart so it became little more than a regional lord ruling a small area around the imperial capital.

Luftzand Domain, which would later become Wiltia, had served the Holy Empire as a nation of knights, but then used the authority of the empty shell of the Holy Empire to construct a unified nation. To restore the empire, it had gathered large and small nations that had once been imperial domains.

Although the imperial family still existed, they lived quietly in the old imperial capital and only appeared at the coronation of the Wiltian monarch to pronounce the king’s mandate to reign. Most people in Wiltia and the other nations of Europea didn’t know that the imperial family was still alive.

“I will restore the Holy Empire... No, the European Empire!”

This was Genitz’s ultimate aim. Many people believed him to be excessively ambitious. In order to become an emperor, a moderate amount of ambition wouldn’t be sufficient.

“In the end, you are trapped by your blood!”

“No! I will unify the world and make up for a lost millennium!”

Genitz pulled a gun from the holster at his waist, aimed it at Lud and pulled the trigger.

“Agh!”

Lud swiftly dodged, but Genitz’s aim was surprisingly accurate given the suddenness of the shot. The bullet grazed the baker’s arm.

“I have to hurry! Even one day’s delay could prove fatal! But...”

Because of Lud’s interference, Genitz’s plan would be delayed another ten years.

“I won’t allow it! Not even from you, Langart!”

Genitz shot again.

“What a coincidence! I won’t allow this either!”

With that, Lud attacked Genitz.

“Uagh?!”

Lud kicked, then threw a fist. His movements were fast and sharp.

What the?!

Genitz sensed something unusual in Lud’s motion... Or perhaps, it brought back memories. In the past few days... and also when posing as the Corporal to observe Lud, he noticed that the man’s movements were clearly different.

“I can’t believe it...”

The two passed each other and turned around at the same time. Genitz pointed his favorite gun, his Walther P38. At the same time, Lud pointed the Walther PPK.

“What?!”

Two shots rang out simultaneously. Their bullets grazed each other’s cheeks and struck the walls behind.

“Oh, I get it...”

If Genitz hadn’t dodged, Lud’s bullet would have struck his forehead. Lud shot neither to stop Genitz nor to scare him.

“You... Are you going to kill me?”

Genitz’s nostalgia was understandable. Lud wasn’t a baker now. He was a soldier again. He was once again the man Genitz had known so well... the man who killed.

“Sven will wake up soon,” Lud said quietly.

No one knew whom this girl would love when she awoke and started her life over from the beginning. However, Lud couldn’t allow the slightest chance that she would love Genitz.

“Neither one of us can be nearby. If it makes Sven truly free and happy, I’ll be a wolf one last time.”

Lud pointed the gun he had borrowed from Hilde and glared at Genitz. His eyes were those of the Silver Wolf and the Werewolf who had once destroyed a whole city.

“I understand. Heh heh... Then I’ll say this again. Long time, no see!”

Once again, the two collided.