Chapter 3 Stone

CHAPTER 3

STONE

Sven cheerfully served customers as usual, and Lud silently baked bread.

The two didn’t exchange a word.

They didn’t know what to say to one another.

Very early the next morning, Sven was lying on the cot in the attic. She had spent the entire night thinking how to best approach Lud.

Among the hundreds of thousands of scenarios she thought up, the greatest chance of success was still only fourteen percent.

“What should I do … I don’t know …”

Ten days had passed since Lud had first said “thank you” to her for bringing customers into the bakery.

She had been wrapped in euphoria then, but now she had no idea what to do.

It was time for work.

Lud was up and she could hear him working at the kiln downstairs.

“… I’ve got to get going.”

Sven changed into her work clothes. It was an unforgivable crime to run away in the face of an enemy.

She couldn’t abandon the field of battle.

But, her movements were sluggish, as if her legs were eaten away by rust.

As she opened the attic door and began to lower the ladder, she met Lud’s eyes below.

“Huh?”

“Oh … M-Morning …”

Holding a tray of bread, Lud was standing aimlessly.

This was unexpected. Suddenly ambushed, Sven was unable to put up a proper resistance.

Lud called out to her.

“S-Sven!”

“Y-Yes!”

Sven’s body jumped to attention. Was he going to fire her?

But he responded with a surprising question.

“I-I made something new. Will you try it for me?”

“Y … Yes.”

Lud was forcing the edges of his mouth to twitch and convulse.

Was Lud trying with all of his might to smile?

Lud had also been agonizing over how he could repair their relationship, and had mustered all his courage to speak to Sven.

“I tried baking regular bread dough with cookie dough around it. I thought both textures would be fun and different.”

Lud had come to the conclusion that if he kept the conversation on bread and work, then Sven wouldn’t get offended.

“O-Okay, I see …”

She grabbed one of the new creations and took a bite.

The sweet cookie dough on the outside and the soft, fluffiness of the bread dough on the inside had a depth of flavor that Lud had increased by kneading butter into the dough.

Sven analyzed each component of the taste, compared it to the ideal chewiness she calculated based on data about human occlusal capacity, and arrived at the conclusion that the bread was delicious.

Sven observed, and was only able to determine that the bread was “delicious,” based on her thorough calculations.

“… I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“…………?!”

“You were doing your best with everything you had, all for the sake of the bakery, and yet I slapped you … I am truly sorry. Will you … forgive me?” Lud asked.

Sven couldn’t believe it.

She was his follower, his servant, and his possession.

She was frightened that if she offended Lud somehow, she would become unnecessary.

Yet, Lud was scurrying to repair his relationship with her.

It was a strange feeling.

She was confused, and at the same time, a loud and clattering sensation burst forth from the bottom of her heart.

“……!!”

Without touching the upper section of her tongue in her mouth, an immeasurable amount of information rushed into Sven.

The sweet flavor of Lud’s new creation suddenly spread through her mouth, and without thinking, she cried, “This is delicious!”

“Huh?”

“Th-this is very tasty! It’s flaky, and fluffy, and soft, and flaky!”

She had said flaky twice. Sven never misspoke.

“That … and … yesterday I was the one in the wrong … I was overly assertive, and because of that I forced Master to experience something painful. If there is any way I can apologize, then …”

“That’s not true! You did nothing wrong, Sven! It’s because I’m a coward …”

“No you’re wrong, Master is …”

“No, you’re wrong, I’m …”

The two stared at each other.

“It looks like we both screwed up, huh?”

A clumsy, wry smile appeared on Lud’s face as he scratched his head.

“Master …”

It was strange. Earlier, Sven’s heart had been frozen and her body felt weak and tired, but after seeing that Lud had forgiven her, strength surged through her.

It was so much power that she could easily demolish an entire armored division.

“What have you decided to call this?” Sven asked.

“Well … I haven’t thought about it. Since I made it to apologize to you, how about if you think up a name?”

“Me?!”

It was an honor. Sven couldn’t believe that she was being asked to give a name to something Lud had poured his heart and soul into.

“Umm, well …”

The two different doughs rose at different rates, so there were lattice lines running over the bread’s surface that reminded Sven of a fruit she had seen before.

“How does ‘Pineapple Bread’ sound?” she asked Lud.

“I get it … It does have that shape, doesn’t it? But, I don’t know, it kind of looks like an Mrk2.”

The Mrk2 was a type of hand grenade that resembled the fruit of the South Seas.

“You don’t like Pineapple Bread?”

“Not at all, it’s interesting. Let’s start selling it today!”

“Okay!”

Chomp, munch munch munch, gulp.

Jacob held his free milk tea in one hand and stuffed his mouth with pineapple bread with the other.

“Yeah, this is good.”

“Right?”

Lud was taking a break and the two of them sat in the back of the bakery.

“It’s been three days since you’ve stopped by. Did something happen?”

“It’s been busy at the shop, you know? My parents made me take a break from school to help out.”

Recently there had been a large number of customers in the repair shop and the young boy knew that the business wasn’t in a position to turn down any work.

“It was awful. I can’t believe there are still guys trying to pay with old Pelfe notes. That stuff is more worthless by the hour and they’re trying to use it? My mom had to run to the bank first thing this morning.”

Just before the annexation, Pelfe had been experiencing an economic recession and was barely able to stay afloat by overprinting bills.

After annexation, Pelfe notes were exchanged for official Wiltia notes, but the exchange rate quickly spiraled downward, so unless you switched immediately, their value would keep plummeting. A Pelfe note that was enough to pay for lunch one day, wouldn’t buy a coffee the next.

“Well, at least now crunch time is over, and you can rest a little—”

Crash!

The deafening sound of glass breaking came from the bakery.

“?!”

Jacob and Lud ran to the storefront, and saw that the front window to the bakery was broken, with shards of glass scattered about the inside of the store.

“What … in the world … shoot …”

The scattered pieces of glass had fallen on top of the bread on display.

A rock the size of a balled fist lay on the floor.

This wasn’t an accident. Someone had thrown the rock through the bakery’s front window.

“Wait, isn’t that girl Milly, from the church?”

Jacob pointed out the figure of a young girl running across the street.

He couldn’t see her face, but there was no doubt it was her.

The distinctive way her long hair was tied behind her head was exactly the same as the girl who had showered Lud with abuse the other day.

“She’s done something really nasty now …” Jacob was stunned.

Lud knew that Milly hated him, but he never thought she would go this far, and the realization made him feel more sadness than anger.

“…………………”

“Oh, Sven … You aren’t hurt, are you? Could you please go get the broom and dust pan and—”

Lud had just noticed Sven standing behind him, but his words were cut off.

“Unforgivable!”

It was a tone of voice that made those who heard it tremble, and even a former soldier like Lud, who had survived countless scenes of carnage and bloodshed, unconsciously stiffened up at the sound of it.

“Master … Pardon my request, but would it be alright if I took a break right now?”

“Uh, um, ah … y-yeah. G-Go ahead …”

Sven was an employee, and Lud was her employer.

Normally, he would have said no and asked her to stay and clean up, but the frightening power inside her made that impossible.

“In that case, please excuse me.”

Sven flashed a sudden, beaming smile and, picking up the rock that lay at her feet, she headed out of the store.

“Lud … Lud?

Jacob tugged at Lud’s sleeve.

“Who’s gonna serve the customers? If you’re here the customers might run away again.”

“Oh, right!”

Lud looked at Jacob with a pleading expression.

“Please, Jacob!”

“Don’t ask a kid to help!”

Grabbing Jacob’s shoulders, Lud begged him as though he was asking Jacob to participate in a life-or-death battle.

Unforgivable!!

A dark flame welled up from deep inside Sven.

She was now at her limit.

Tockerbrot was Lud Langart’s sanctuary, and as his devoted servant, she now needed to defend it as she would a military position.

An attack had been mounted. Worse, it had made the bread that Lud had taken great pains to create, unsalable.

Exiting the bakery, Sven immediately went after Milly.

The girl running away was already a pinkie-sized speck in the distance.

“Target sighted and locked. Restricting all functionality to thirty percent power. Duration: three hundred seconds.”

Sucking in air lightly, in a small voice, a countdown began.

“Drei … Zwei … Eins … Null!”

In an instant, Sven vanished.

Her movements were already faster than the human eye could detect.

After throwing the rock through the window, Milly took off, weaving her way through town.

She had been born and raised in Organbaelz.

She knew the back streets and secret passages where someone like Lud would get lost.

There was no way he would catch up to her.

Serves you right, Wiltian military scum!

As she ran, a smile appeared on her face.

Milly prayed every day. She prayed with all her heart.

Every day, without fail, she prayed for Wiltia’s annihilation.

Ever since she was taught that God had once destroyed an entire village of evil people in one night, she had prayed to God.

But, no matter how much she prayed, Wiltia wasn’t destroyed. That bakery didn’t go away, either.

In fact, customers had started to flock there.

I’ll never forgive them for taking my dad away!

So Milly made a move herself.

“Haa, haa, haaa …”

In a back alley, she stopped running and caught her breath.

It was strange but she didn’t feel any better at all.

Her actions were just. It was divine punishment. So why did she feel so awful?

“Ug … Ugh.”

She knew the truth. What she did hadn’t changed anything.

She knew that it wasn’t the baker’s fault.

But, if she didn’t hate someone, she would fall apart.

“… Shoot!”

Milly spoke as if she was suffocating.

It was frustrating. The world, fate, and her own powerlessness; all of it was frustrating.

“It looks like you forgot something.”

“Huh?!”

Milly whipped around and standing in front of her was the waitress from the bakery.

She was smiling. But her smile looked like it was painted, as if on some kind of elaborate doll.

“This is yours, is it not, Fräulein?”

The waitress raised her right hand, and she was holding the rock Milly had thrown.

How had she followed her? Milly had tried her best to use a path that someone new in town shouldn’t be able to follow.

Pop … grind … snap …

Milly heard a grating sound.

It was the rock in the waitress’s hand cracking.

Crack.

It broke apart like a biscuit.

“My, my, my, my, it seems pretty fragile, doesn’t it? I tried to hold it delicately, like an egg.”

Sven played with the pebble fragments in her palm.

As she did, the pebbles were quickly reduced to gravel, as though by a drill.

“Oh … Eh?”

The waitress was smiling.

A bright smile, like she was enjoying herself, but it wasn’t a smile that came from affection, nor did it express any benevolence.

It was the sort of smile a carnivore made after capturing its prey. Perhaps even the smile a carnivore made when it trapped its prey, not to eat, but to torture.

“You need to apologize and pay for the damages. All. Of. Them.”

While she scattered the remains of the rock in her palm, now nothing more than sand, Sven drew her face close to Milly’s.

“Eek!”

Sven looked at her with murderous intent.

She looked ready to kill another person.

And not just kill. It was a rage that could only envelope someone ready to make the other person struggle, to torture and even make her opponent regret having been born.

It wasn’t something that a fourteen-year old girl could endure.

Milly was paralyzed with fright, and locking eyes with Sven, unable to even blink, she began to cry.

She couldn’t stop her own trembling, shivering, and the chattering of her teeth.

But even when a crime is committed by a child, there are damages.

So how should amends be made?

Sven decided to demand it from this child’s guardian.

“Excuse me!”

They were at Marlene’s church, outside of town.

“Hello, who is it? Oh, Sven … Huh, Milly?!”

Seeing Sven holding Milly by the collar like a captured cat, Marlene let out a small cry of surprise.

The suspended girl was terrified and didn’t say a word.

Sven had inflicted no physical harm on her but Milly was clearly her prisoner.

Abusing prisoners was prohibited by international law. Sven had come to hand Milly over and demand an apology from Marlene, Milly’s guardian.

“Please come inside.”

While Marlene was calming Milly down, Sven waited in the chapel with tea that Marlene had prepared for her.

The tea leaves were cheap. They smelled musty.

And the way it was prepared was unacceptable.

Even dunking the delicious madeleines that Lud had baked in tea like this would not improve the flavor.

Sven took a single sip before returning it to its saucer.

Marlene joined her.

“I am extremely sorry for the trouble that girl has caused. I will … I will absolutely compensate you for the window and the bread she destroyed.”

After Sven told her the details of Milly’s behavior, Marlene promised to pay for the damages.

Sven knew that the church did not have much money.

“You don’t need to do that. At any rate, I am sure that Master will simply overlook this.”

Sven could easily imagine Lud saying that himself.

This was exactly why Sven felt that Milly’s actions were unforgivable.

Lud was always considerate of others, and Milly had trampled all over his kindness.

“How exactly can I make amends for her actions …”

Marlene was thinking that while Milly had cursed at Lud before, this time her actions were malicious.

“In that case …”

Don’t come near Lud ever again.

Catching herself before she said it aloud, Sven stopped.

“Yes?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Marlene asked her again, and Sven immediately evaded the question.

Lud wouldn’t want that, Sven thought. It would probably make him unhappy.

“I understand that this will sound like I’m making excuses for her, but … It’s just, Milly has a complicated story—”

“I know,” Sven replied, bluntly.

Lud had told Sven Milly’s story two nights ago.

Milly’s father was a militiaman.

Pelfe had been the victim of a long military invasion from the larger August Federation to the north.

Several years ago, August was an imperial monarchy but after the working people renounced the monarchy, there was a revolution.

It was supposed to become a “Nation of Freedom and Equality,” but instead it turned into a military dictatorship, and under the guise of “liberating” its neighboring countries, it began to invade them.

August’s policy was that even the people are a resource for the country.

Citizens had no freedom of thought or belief, and they were prohibited from owning private property.

The adults and children of invaded countries were sent to the frigid edges of the north under the pretext of land reclamation and development.

The people of Pelfe rose up against August, and Milly’s father fought in the militia.

In order to make Pelfe a place where his child could live in peace, he went off to battle, and never returned. Then—

“You know the story, don’t you? Pelfe could not maintain its independence and chose to become an autonomous region of Wiltia rather than be occupied by August.”

If they were unable to keep up the appearance of a sovereign nation, at least they would protect their pride as a people.

But for the citizens of Pelfe, it was a bitter decision.

Because they needed a buffer against the August Federation, Wiltia accepted Pelfe’s proposal, brought them into Wiltia by annexation, and joined them to fight against the Federation.

“Wiltia gave formal recognition to the Pelfe Militia. Since Milly’s father was killed in action, he was mourned as a soldier who fought for Wiltia, and Milly should have been given a bereaved family’s annual pension,” Marlene’s voice was soft and sad.

But, Milly was abandoned by Wiltia.

When Sven had heard the reason from Lud, she was stunned.

Her father’s remains were never found. They didn’t pay her the pension because he might have fled the frontlines, and was considered nothing more than a missing person. That was what Milly was told.

It was absurd logic. In a lengthy war with artillery fire from tanks and cannons, aerial bombardments from airships, and battles against infantry and Hunter Units, it was rare for there to be remains of all the fallen soldiers.

But the truth was that after the war, amid budget cuts, Wiltia had a hard time providing insurance to their own soldiers, so money was too scarce to give to the militia.

“For Milly, it was as though her father had been declared a coward. They stole the money she was owed, and her father’s pride as well.”

So Milly despised Wiltia.

It was far too sad for her father to be treated as a deserter while his body lay dead on a battlefield somewhere.

Her father was tricked and killed by Wiltia.

If she didn’t blame Wiltia, it was too cruel and heartbreaking for her to bear.

Sven understood, but it was still unfair for her to blame Lud.

And, Lud put up with this treatment.

On the way back to the bakery after visiting the church that night, Lud told Sven, “If that girl can find the willpower to continue to live by hating me, then that’s fine.”

He said it with a lonesome look on his face.

“Even still … if someday Milly eats my bread and tells me that it tastes good, nothing will make me happier.”

Lud believed that day would come.

He believed that with time, even if the scars from the past could never completely heal, they would be able to help each other in some way.

“I understand how much hardship you have endured, however …”

Now, at the church with Marlene, Sven remembered what happened yesterday at the mine.

How hard it must have been for Lud to insist to the miners that there was no poison in his bread, and tell them that they could throw out what he had put everything into baking.

And then how painful it must have been for Lud to have the child he hoped to help throw a rock at his bakery.

“Does that give her the right to blame someone trying frantically to keep his head above water? He doesn’t ask anyone for help … she is cruel … to him …”

If Lud said the word, she would massacre all of the people that would harm him.

But Lud definitely didn’t want that.

He wouldn’t even dodge a rock thrown at him.

As if that was his atonement for killing other people.

It was war and those were his orders. It was patriotism; killing for the sake of his homeland.

Now Sven laid her head down in sorrow, and made a weeping sound.

But tears didn’t fall. Sven couldn’t cry.

Even if she could exude water to moisten her eyes, Sven couldn’t secrete excess liquids in response to her emotions. Yet.

Marlene looked at her and asked, “You … You love Lud, don’t you?”

“—What!?”

Sven lifted her head up with a look of shock.

“Absolutely not! I could never be so insolent!”

Sven was Lud’s shield, his armor, and his sword. The purpose behind her entire existence was to do what was necessary for him.

“Please don’t say such things! I’m nothing more than the Master’s tool …”

As Sven spoke, she realized her voice was shaking.

A tool should not fall in love with its owner.

But …

“You feel Lud’s pain stronger than you feel your own because he’s precious to you, isn’t that right?”

Marlene’s eyes seemed to peer into the depths of Sven’s heart.

But Sven was sure that Marlene had watched her sincerely trying her best to help this awkward man, and believed Sven must have an abnormal amount of affection for him.

Her words stirred emotions in Sven that she wasn’t aware she had.

“… I will be taking my leave.”

Sven stood up but stumbled, grabbing the edge of one of the chapel pews.

“Are you okay, Sven?”

Marlene reached out to steady her, but Sven straightened quickly and moved away.

If she was touched right now, that alone would be enough to make her collapse.

Managing to walk alone, she left the church as quickly as possible.

“You’re wrong … I’m only … For the captain …”

Sven muttered to herself in a daze as she walked down the street.

All she wanted was for Lud to be happy.

But she hadn’t done a single thing for Lud, and she was seeking her own happiness instead.

It was impossible. Her priorities were wrong.

She staggered and finally collapsed, without the energy to stand up.

Sven didn’t need sleep.

She was unconscious only during her maintenance hibernation and even then, she could control her on and off states at will.

But now Sven lost consciousness, as if she had fallen asleep.

When she awoke, in the middle of pitch-black darkness, her body remained asleep.

It’s a strange feeling, Sven thought.

This is what dreaming must feel like.

Nonsense …

She couldn’t move her mouth to whisper, so she spoke inside her head.

Dreams were something that humans experienced. She wasn’t human.

And yet, why was she in this situation? She wondered if her thoughts were abnormal and her brain was malfunctioning.

Then unexpectedly a person called out to her.

“Oh, this is a surprise. I thought that girl’s descendants disappeared from here long ago.”

Sven’s sense of sight wasn’t working, nor was her sense of smell, touch, or hearing, but she definitely perceived the voice.

It was less like a voice, and more like a wave streaming through her.

As if the warm, bright light of the sun’s rays has been converted into sound.

“Hm … but, it appears that you were created slightly differently. Humans do some outlandish things. Using such a method to give birth to someone with that girl’s blood in her veins.”

Sven had no idea what it was saying, and seemed to laugh as she thought this.

There was no blood inside her.

“No, no, that’s not what I mean.”

The voice admonished Sven, as it read her thoughts.

There was no malice in the voice. It seemed to be trying to explain the situation.

“Well, that’s alright. You still aren’t aware of it. There’s no need to talk about it now, is there? But, a contract is a contract. You have the right to that.”

Right? Sven had no idea what the voice meant.

What exactly was this voice? Sven wondered if she was indeed malfunctioning.

“Sooner or later, you will know everything. No, it doesn’t matter … I will be watching with great interest who you choose in the end.”

The voice faded away.

Sven’s consciousness once again began to sink back into the depths of darkness.

“Let us meet again. Far away, my …”

Before Sven could make out the final words, she again lost consciousness.

The bakery had closed for the day and Sven still hadn’t returned.

Customers who had come to see Sven left dissatisfied, but thanks to Jacob’s sociability, Lud was able to manage until it was time to close the shop.

Jacob had gone home and Lud sat alone, staring at the broken window, now sealed up and covered with a sheet. He felt anxious as he waited for Sven’s return.

Lud knew Sven, and although he didn’t think anything had happened to her, he knew that she had a hard time restraining herself when she set her mind on something.

She looks calm, but has an explosive personality. Kind of like …

He thought back to his favorite unit that he had piloted in the military.

All the Hunter Units in his squad were equipped with an onboard, pilot-support AI, but Lud’s AI, Avei, was quite the worrier. When he suffered an injury, it would loudly request to run vitals checks.

When Lud assured Avei that the wounds weren’t serious, it would admonish him. “Human bodies can suffer severe damage without being aware of it,” and list all such incidents in its records.

That’s strange … I’m worried about Sven, and yet all I can think about is that AI …

A wry smile appeared on his face.

He glanced at the clock. It was night.

Lud didn’t chase after Sven earlier because he couldn’t leave the bakery, but now he had to search for her.

“Hm?”

There was someone standing at the door.

“Mr. Lud Langart?”

It wasn’t Sven. A middle-aged postman in a navy blue uniform opened the door slightly and called into the bakery.

“You have a letter.”

The postman passed a brown envelope to Lud and left the shop with a bow.

Who could this be from?

No one knew where he was.

There were two pieces of paper inside the envelope.

“?!”

When he read the first page, he thought it was a joke.

He looked at the second page.

“… Haha, hahahahaha!”

Lud started to laugh.

He couldn’t believe it. There was no way this could be true.

“Hahaha … ha … ha … sniff, sniff …”

He was so happy, he was on the verge of tears.

Lud put the letter in his chest pocket and dashed out of the store.

He had to tell Sven immediately.

She would be delighted. He knew she would be even more ecstatic than he was.

He wanted to share his happiness with her.

Share? No! Together, their happiness would be doubled!

Although the Thanksgiving Festival was still a ways off, they might dance hand and hand in the streets.

Lud ran.

He had to find the red-eyed, silver-haired waitress of Tockerbrot.

There was a large shack of sheet metal with a house attached, and in the storage lot next to it was a mountain-high heap of rusted steel drums and scrap.

“Anyway for now, just sit somewhere over there and I’ll bring over some coffee … wait, stop! There’s oil spilling out, it’ll get your clothes dirty!”

Inside the workshop, which was permeated with the smell of iron and oil, sat Sven and Jacob.

Ten minutes earlier, on his way home from the bakery, Jacob ran into Sven.

He had planned to chew her out for running off like that, but when he saw her pale face and her dress covered in mud and leaves, he called out to her anxiously.

“What’s wrong Sven? Did something happen?”

As Sven turned to look back at Jacob, her movements were slow and lifeless.

“Jacob …”

After she woke up, Sven had tried to stagger back to the bakery.

But as she got close to the shop, her legs stopped moving.

“Lud’s not mad at you for skipping out on work. Don’t worry, if anything he’s worried about you. Go back so he can relax, okay?

Sven knew that was true.

“Sven … Did something happen?”

That’s not it.

“I’m scared … to see Master …”

Marlene’s words had caused her to malfunction. No, they had opened her eyes.

She existed to make Lud happy, and to help Lud realize his dreams.

She was Lud’s servant, nothing more than a tool.

That was the meaning to her life, her reason for existence.

In spite of this, she wanted to make Lud her own.

Sven didn’t know what she might do if she saw Lud now.

She was terrified of herself, and scared to see Lud.

“Scared … You mean scared of his face?” Jacob didn’t understand.

“That’s not it!”

Sven unconsciously raised her voice.

“It’s true that to someone else, Master’s face might be frightening, but for me, a face that charming … no, never mind.”

Sven realized that she was about to blurt out something strange again.

She didn’t understand anything anymore. She felt dizzy.

“Hey, come over to my house if you like. It’s close by.”

Still not ready to see Lud, Sven nodded her head.

Now, Jacob made them both coffee.

“Here. Unlike what you and Lud serve, this is the instant stuff, but think of it as medicine to warm up your body.”

The coffee Jacob handed Sven in a chipped mug was very bitter, and although there was no medicine in the coffee, it gradually began to soak into Sven, and calm her down.

It appeared that this workshop had been used to service a piece of heavy machinery a few days ago.

“You know, I didn’t trust you at first,” Jacob began, sitting down next to Sven and taking a sip of coffee.

“I thought that maybe you were trying to trick or cheat Lud.”

“Trick?” Sven asked, not understanding.

“Isn’t it normal to think that? I was the one who suggested hiring a waitress, but who knows what might happen in that bakery on the brink of collapse, with such a frightening looking owner? It wasn’t certain that you’d even be paid.”

Jacob laughed cheerfully, and there wasn’t any contempt for Lud on his face.

He sounded like he was the delinquent older brother-figure talking about his partner in crime.

“Not only that, a beautiful girl like you shows up and even says that you’ll take the job no matter how much it pays. Honestly … it would be impossible not to think that you were plotting something.”

Sven had noticed that when Jacob thought she couldn’t hear, he would pester Lud, asking, “Is there anything strange about that girl?”

“If that was the case, I’d never allow it to happen.”

Some people might be confused about why they would need a young boy’s permission to do anything, but Jacob was completely serious.

“But instead, you have been working yourself to the bone for that good-natured sucker. It looks like you’re just a kind person … so, thank you.”

Jacob bowed his head.

“What are you saying? I’m just doing my job, that’s all …”

It was strange. Sven was happy when Lud thanked her, but when this boy bowed his head to her, a complex feeling rose inside her.

It was like she was fidgety and her whole body felt itchy.

This boy was Lud’s friend and shouldn’t have been anything more than a Class 2 Safeguard Target—a companion to Lud, the Highest-Priority Safeguard Target—whose existence and well-being had to be taken into account in order to prevent any negative impact on Lud.

On the battlefield, he would just be a civilian; one Sven would be coded to keep out of harm’s way as much as possible.

And yet Sven’s chest felt like it was burning.

“… Jacob, how did you become friends with Master?”

They were friends despite their difference in age and Lud’s intimidating manner. It couldn’t be just because they were both Wiltian.

“Hmm … We first met when he brought his hunk-of-junk truck to the workshop, I think. I thought he was crazy to drive a thing like that.”

A foreign, scary-looking former soldier turned baker.

Jacob’s first impression of Lud wasn’t good.

“I didn’t like him. You know, I didn’t like Wiltians, or soldiers.”

“Why … After all, aren’t you …”

Jacob had blonde hair with blue eyes—a distinct trait of the people of Wiltia.

He might have been born in Organbaelz, but he looked Wiltian.

Because the two countries had shared a border, there were many Wiltian-Pelfish people.

“Actually, I’ve never seen my father but I do know he was Wiltian. So it’s true that I’m a full-blooded Wiltian.”

“Was he killed in the war?” Sven asked.

Sven feared that she was forcing him to talk about something painful, but the reality was even more depressing.

“No, but I don’t really know anything about him. My mom was a prostitute.”

Jacob said this so lightly that Sven thought that there might be a different meaning to the word, but she had understood him correctly.

Many Pelfish people crossed the border and went to work in Wiltia to escape Pelfe’s long economic recession.

Jacob’s mother was one of those people.

But Jacob’s mother was a young girl struggling to survive, and began working at a brothel operated by the military as a licensed prostitute.

Then, she became pregnant with Jacob.

The town’s people spread rumors when the girl returned with a large belly after having told everyone she was going to Berun to become a café waitress. Gossip continued after Jacob was born and he was teased by the other children.

“That’s why I didn’t like Lud. When I heard he was from the Wiltia military, I thought for sure that he was a cold-blooded, heartless man.”

“Then, why? If that’s the case then …”

Jacob continued his story.

One day, about a month after he met Lud, Jacob was bothered by classmates at school and it grew into a huge Jacob-versus-all fight.

Jacob soon fell to the ground and was kicked and stepped on, unable to put up a fight.

Then, Lud appeared.

“Oh man, when Lud showed up, everything changed right away! Suddenly this expressionless giant was standing there glaring at us. The other kids were scared and ran off.”

“Oh. That was probably …”

Something came into Sven’s mind.

For the most part, Wiltians are stout and sturdy, but Lud was particularly well-built. In addition, his long years of military service had given him a sullen look, and when he was nervous his face would stiffen up.

“I think he was trying to break up the fight …”

“I wondered what he had in mind making such a grisly face, but that’s just his face, right? But I seriously thought he was going to kill me.”

The only reason that Jacob didn’t run away with the rest of the children was because he couldn’t stand, so Lud took him back to his shop to treat his wounds.

Even then, Jacob still didn’t trust Lud.

He was a Wiltian soldier. Just like the guy who skipped town after knocking up his mother.

He hated even being touched by Lud, but he was terrified that Lud might hit him, so he let Lud bandage him up.

While he did, Jacob scanned the inside of the shop and noticed all the bread on display. It looked so delicious that Jacob wondered if it had really been baked by the man in front of him.

“Want some?”

Lud handed him a piece of bread.

Jacob was on the verge of stretching out his hand for the bread when his pride awoke.

Do you think I’d ever accept charity from the likes of a Wiltian soldier?!

Jacob took out his few precious copper coins and thrust them at Lud.

“I haven’t sunk low enough to accept charity! I’ll pay for it!”

He gathered up all the guts and pride he had in these words.

Jacob didn’t care if he was going to get hit. It was the final line he had to prevent anyone from crossing.

“What do you think Lud did when I said that?” Jacob asked Sven.

“I don’t know …”

“It was pretty unexpected you know.”

Jacob bent over giggling to himself.

“The guy started to cry. And he grabbed my hand and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you. You’re my first customer!’”

Sven was amazed.

That meant that Lud had not drawn in a single customer since the bakery opened the month before.

It also meant that Lud had cried in joy at his first customer, even though it was a young boy who was there against his will.

“Oh my …”

Sven placed her hand on her forehead, at a loss for words.

“Well I ate some. Some of the bread, I mean. And, man … the guy’s bread is incredible. When I told him it was delicious, he started crying and thanking me all over again!”

The next day Jacob returned and peeked into the kiln area of Tockerbrot.

There he saw Lud covered in sweat, baking bread hour after hour for customers that might never come.

“You know, my mother won’t tell me what type of person my father was. That might be why I thought all Wiltian soldiers were cold-blooded brutes, but I learned that there are guys like Lud, too. I thought maybe my dad might actually be a person like him. It’s probably not true but …”

Jacob put the palm of his hand over his chest.

“Lud—he can be an idiot, but he’s straight-forward and works as hard as he can.”

The smiling young boy sounded proud and determined.

“I now know for certain that half the blood that runs through these veins also runs through someone like him.”

Jacob’s face had an air of nobility and grandeur.

The strength to overcome the wounds he suffered from his unfortunate birth and the pain of his early childhood had become his personality.

“Well in short, before he’s a Wiltian, or a former soldier, or whatever, that guy’s just a really kind idiot, right? That’s why I became his friend. After all, I’m a nice guy, you know?”

Jacob awkwardly scratched his head in embarrassment

“Lud’s foolishly good-natured and kind. That’s why I’m sure he’s worried about you. So go back and see him, okay?”

“… Okay.”

The mug in Sven’s hands had grown cold but something warm started to grow inside her chest.

She realized that Lud had an outstanding friend who saw his good side clearly.

“Hey Jacob, is someone here?”

Standing in the doorway was the owner, Jacob’s grandfather.

The black in his hair was overwhelmed by the white, and he wore a cross scowl. It was difficult to believe that any of this man’s blood was inside Jacob, who always had a smile on his face.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Sven and I am the waitress at Tockerbrot.”

Sven politely introduced herself, but as soon as Jacob’s grandfather heard the name of the bakery, his face grew even more distorted.

“Jacob, have you been going to that store again?”

“Grandpa, you don’t have to say it like that! What has Lud ever done to you?”

“Quiet!” He turned to Sven. “You can get out of here! This is my workshop!”

Jacob’s grandfather hated Lud.

Considering his grandson’s origins, it wasn’t hard to believe.

“I apologize, please excuse me …”

Sven obediently got up to leave. As she did, a small machine part caught her eye.

Sven recognized it. It was a part from a cylinder joint, made of cheap aluminum, and a piece this shoddy could only mean one thing.

“Excuse me, sir … what is this?” Sven asked, picking up the part and showing it to Jacob’s grandfather.

“That?! Don’t go touching stuff you shouldn’t—”

“Answer the question!”

Sven cut him off with a cold voice filled with anger.

Both the old man and Jacob cowered.

“This is … This is the part from a T-3 II’s transmission. Why is something like this here? Explain yourself!” Sven demanded.

It was a part for a weapon used by the August Federation that Sven had fought against many times called the “Beast of the North.”

She knew it well. She had smashed and scattered these weapons and had seen what they looked like inside.

“T-3 II … Sven, what’s that?”

“They comprised the main part of the August Federation’s tank forces. Why would a town in Wiltia-owned Pelfe have something like this?”

“I-I don’t know! Don’t make false accusations!”

Sweat appeared on the old man’s forehead. He wasn’t really a bad man. He was just a civilian who didn’t know anything. Even if he tried to hide the truth, he wouldn’t be able to deceive Sven.

“I don’t know … All I was told was they needed maintenance for some heavy machinery.

Sven looked directly at the old man, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Sven’s voice again grew violent.

“Stop your useless excuses! Even if it was brought here with all of its main armaments stripped off, there’s no way you could mistake that for simple construction machinery!”

Even a child being questioned about some mischief could come up with a better excuse.

“Grandpa, why are you servicing tanks? It can’t be …”

Jacob’s voice shook as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

When there is a dispute between two major powers, both countries exhaust their own resources, and a third country swoops in to reap the benefits.

They give weapons to those inside who are dissatisfied with current rule and teach them to fight. These dissidents believe they have justice on their side and are manipulated into becoming terrorists.

Jacob’s grandfather was contracted to service a weapon supplied to terrorists in Pelfe from the August Federation.

This small machine part was an irrefutable piece of evidence. Claiming that he had no idea what he was working on would not help.

“You’ve done something quite foolish, haven’t you? Aiding the enemy is a serious crime. The worst case would be the death penalty. Civilians should stay quiet and keep out of things that they don’t understand.”

“They raped my daughter! Is what I’m doing any different?” the old man whined, sinking to his knees. But Sven was unmoved.

“That is something you’ll have to settle with those who come to take you.”

A person’s feelings don’t matter to the colossal beast that was the nation-state.

But few people understood this.

A war can start with the firing of a single bullet. And yet, to end a war, sometimes many thousands of soldiers firing millions of bullets aren’t enough.

“Sven … Is Grandpa going to be arrested? Me and mom, too?”

Jacob was near tears.

“I won’t allow that to happen, Jacob.” Sven replied.

If anything happened to Jacob, Lud would be devastated.

If the terrorists acted, it would also put Tockerbrot in jeopardy. That was something Sven had to prevent at all costs.

“Jacob, please call one of the military installations, give them this identification code, and act like you’ve been tricked. Play the victim any way you can.”

Sven quickly jotted down a ten-digit number and passed the paper to Jacob.

It was the identification code Lud used when he was in the military.

Sven predicted that the military would believe the message came from Lud and respond leniently. There was no glory in taking the head of an old man who had been used.

And that wasn’t the only problem.

“Alright then, Mr. …”

Jacob’s grandfather was aware of his own folly, and looked as if he had aged ten years as Sven interrogated him.

“Who introduced you to the people who brought the tank here?”

Sven pressed the old man for answers without her bright red eyes blinking once.

Jacob’s grandfather had just been used, and he clearly wasn’t a member of a terrorist group.

There was someone who knew the old man’s feelings; someone who had lived in town for long enough to take advantage of him without raising suspicion—an actual spy must be here in town.

CHAPTER 4

MONSTER

Sven got carried away when she was angry, so it was likely she was causing trouble for Marlene.

The thought of Sven rampaging through the church made Lud’s face pale.

He rushed to his truck and turned the key, but the engine responded with a faint, rumbling sound and wouldn’t start.

With one final pop, it went silent.

Why at a time like this? Lud wanted to hurl abuse at the truck.

Instead he got out and began to run.

Lud took a back road that wasn’t in use. It was pitch black outside, but compared to the night marches back in the military, this was easy. The ten-minute drive up the beaten road took about thirty minutes on foot.

Then he stopped.

A familiar feeling ran down Lud’s spine.

He sensed the presence of someone, and felt a mixture of fear and hostility.

The intuition he had forged in the military informed him of this presence, even after two years of civilian life.

He crouched down to keep out of sight and used all his senses.

There was someone there! Some men … carrying weapons. There were three … no, five of them.

They weren’t moving away but they were fidgeting as if they couldn’t settle down.

Looks like guard duty … What are they guarding?

He envisioned a map of the neighborhood and concluded it could only be Marlene’s church.

Why are they surrounding the church?

Lud suspected that these men were not soldiers but knew how to fight.

They were possibly armed punks but definitely just amateurs without formal military training.

Or thieves? No, Lud didn’t think so. Those types were more cunning. They would know that the church had nothing worth stealing.

But Lud felt uneasy. It was precisely because of this precognitive ability to sense what was ahead of him that allowed Lud to survive as he had up to this point.

Without making a sound, almost without disturbing the air itself, Lud cautiously advanced, reaching the church.

There was no one around, but Lud took precautions and waited until the moon disappeared behind the clouds before he climbed through the window and inside the church.

“………………”

The chapel looked the same as always. It was completely dark, but otherwise nothing was out of the ordinary.

Lud crept silently across the floor like a cat. There were no signs of a struggle.

“What’s this … tea?”

On one of the pews sat a mug of unfinished tea that had long gone cold.

Lud tried to silently pick up the mug, but it tipped and the tea poured onto the floor, leaving a pool of brown liquid.

Lud decided to find Marlene and tell her about the men outside the church. But he also needed to apologize to her for sneaking in and dirtying her floor.

Just then, the moon peeked out between a break in the clouds, and bathed the chapel in a pale blue light.

Lud felt as if he was at the bottom of a deep ocean, and unthinkingly looked down at the spilt tea.

“?!”

The tea was flowing towards the altar.

Given how old and decrepit the church was, it was no surprise that the floor was warped and uneven.

What was strange was that as the tea reached the altar, it disappeared, as if sucked in.

Lud tried quietly pressing the area between the altar and the floor with his finger, when he noticed there was a slight crack.

Lud didn’t want to think about it. Just thinking about it was awful.

But Lud had spent most of his teenage years as a soldier, so his thoughts could only work out one answer to what this meant.

Lud tried to push the altar with his shoulder.

The altar moved and underneath was a space just big enough to fit a single coffin.

But, inside was a stockpile of firearms.

“This is … an AK21 assault rifle! Why are these here?”

The AK21 was the rifle of choice for the infantry of the August Federation, but this model was from the weapon’s previous generation.

It was out-of-date but you could still kill someone with it.

Lud had blurted out the question, but there was only one possible answer.

Since ancient times, churches and other religious buildings were well-suited as hiding places.

It was something Lud had seen often during the war.

This church must be some sort of base for an irregular military.

“Mr. Lud?”

A voice called and when he turned around, he saw Marlene.

It had been two years since Lud had left the military but he still had the instincts of a soldier.

During that time, he fervently tried to forget his past and live his life as a baker. However, in an abnormal situation, the old, ingrained habits in his body would pull him back to his time as a soldier.

But the demands of his body were suppressed by his thoughts, which aligned more with his wishes.

This is wrong. She isn’t an enemy.

Even though there was no way this could be the case.

Lud completely let down his guard and started to say, “Good evening,” to Marlene.

Marlene shot a bullet from her handgun into Lud’s laughably defenseless stomach.

It was pathetic. A comedic tragedy.

He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

All he knew was that he was in a dark room, tied to a splinter-covered, old chair, and that he had been shot in his side.

“Umph … U-ugh …”

Blood oozed from the wound. The bleeding wasn’t severe, but he couldn’t ignore it.

With a click, the lock turned and the door opened.

Light entered the room for a moment before the door closed and it was dark again.

Someone walked past Lud and lit the lamp behind him.

“Hehehe … What a pitiful looking creature you are now, Mister Silver Wolf.”

He recognized the voice and the laugh.

Standing there was Marlene.

“I thought you would be more surprised.”

Marlene looked a little bit disappointed.

Another man in Lud’s situation might lash out, saying that he was betrayed or tricked, or he might try to appeal to Marlene’s heart by saying how much he had trusted her, but Lud had been raised on the battlefield.

“I just don’t show it on my face.”

A soldier always prepares for the worst-case scenario and knows that anything can happen.

Lud was made up of forty percent pessimism and sixty percent pragmatism. He kept his optimism as a secret ingredient.

“So I guess this makes you a member of that Pelfish militant group?”

Lud’s tone didn’t reveal any despair or fear; he spoke as if he was pointing out that Marlene enjoyed football when she was a student.

“We’re the Pelfe Liberation League.”

Marlene’s voice was cold, and something hard pressed against the back of Lud’s neck.

Lud knew it was the barrel of a gun.

“For how long?”

“From the beginning. A lovely sister, bravely taking care of a group of poor, wretched children … It’s effective, is it not?”

“Then the children … just a cover? No … just props?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Why else would I look after the brat of some traitorous Wiltian supporter?”

A traitor’s brat. The daughter of the Wiltia-supporting militiaman. Milly.

“I see.”

There wasn’t any particular emotion in Lud’s voice.

He wasn’t trying to act cool. He was disinterested. He sounded as though he just wanted to confirm the facts.

“Do you have any idea what Wiltia’s colonization policy has done?”

Marlene seemed impatient when Lud didn’t give the reaction she hoped for, and began answering questions Lud hadn’t asked.

“Last I heard, it was annexed, not colonized,” Lud said, as though he was simply correcting her misinformation.

The two words meant something completely different under international law.

“Hmph! So that makes Wiltia our benevolent ruler, is that it?”

This time Lud’s answer appeared to be the one Marlene wanted.

Marlene continued as if she was trying to convince the arrogant Wiltian of the crimes he had committed.

“We lost our pride …”

Wiltia had employed many Pelfish people in the top levels of Pelfe’s ruling government to avoid rebellion among the subjects.

They did this because they did not want to turn the population into guerilla fighters, but that plan backfired.

Soon the Pelfish people thought that if they wagged their tails and catered to Wiltia, they would be rewarded.

Bribery became rampant and some people even offered up their wives and daughters.

Wiltia strictly forbid this and sent out proclamation after proclamation. Those who accepted these bribes were severely punished, but the practice continued in secret, where prying eyes couldn’t see.

Of course, not all the people of Pelfe did this. However, even if only one person out of a thousand participated, when you took Pelfe’s population of three million into account, it was more than enough to make Pelfe look like Wiltia’s shameless lapdogs.

As a result, enmity built up between the Wiltians who already disliked the Pelfish, and the Pelfish people who considered Wiltians to be unjust conquerors.

This was why the townspeople ostracized Lud, and what gave birth to terrorist groups like Marlene’s.

In the end, the only way for a people to truly live in freedom was for them to have their own self-reliant country.

“All you did was lengthen the chain on our collar and tell us you were giving us freedom!”

“That might be true, but it’s dangerous to get close to August.”

“They actually listened to what we had to say.”

Marlene came around in front of Lud, and showed him the gun that had been pressing into the back of his neck.

“Do you know what this is? It’s called a ‘liberator.’ It’s funny, isn’t it? Even though it looks like this, it’s still a gun.”

Composed of iron pipe, wire and plating, it was far too crude to be called an actual gun. It looked like something an intelligent child could construct.

It was nothing more than a bullet ignition device.

“We made contact with an alliance of countries that stand against Wiltia. We said that if they gave us weapons, we would kill Wiltians. They responded by giving us this crap! You people from the bigger countries always treat us like this!”

High performance weaponry increases a soldier’s survival rate. To every country that values the lives of its military, providing first-rate weaponry is the highest priority.

But weapons like the gun Marlene held said exactly how much they valued the guerillas.

“I’m sure that August listened to what you had to say, but they aren’t ones to keep their promises …”

Lud knew how that country operated.

“What do you know? They gave us a plenty of weapons, and trained us in how to use them!”

“… That’s not what I’m talking about.”

If there were an armed uprising, the August Federation would use that as an excuse for military intervention. If by some chance they achieved independence, the new administration would simply be a puppet of the Federation.

If another independence movement emerged, a merciless and relentless purge of the dissident elements awaited them.

In the name of “thought control,” they already had a track record of killing their own citizens in the millions.

Marlene and her group didn’t understand what they were doing.

No, Lud thought. They knew. They just didn’t have any choice.

They were trying to endure beneath all the misery and misfortune, and hurled their anger at the colossal thing known as the nation-state.

By playing God, they were escaping their hopeless reality.

Lud knew that anything he said would be a waste of breath.

“Marlene, do you mind if I reminisce a little?”

“What? Are you planning to repent? You know I’m not a real sister, don’t you? I can’t pass anything you say on to God.”

“I know.”

Lud had no intention of being forgiven.

Marlene was pointing her gun at him, but she stuck out her chin, as if telling him to say whatever he had to say.

“I’m the third type of soldier.”

“Third type? What’s that?”

The first were voluntary recruits and the second were drafted.

“Whether they’re war orphans or something else, the third type are the neglected children taken and raised to be soldiers.”

Lud’s family was reasonably wealthy but they tried living on money they didn’t have and ended up bankrupt. His father chose to take his own life, and his mother soon followed. Lud was the only survivor.

“Oh … well it’s not that uncommon, right? I don’t have parents either. That doesn’t—”

“Yeah, it’s something that happened all the time back then.”

Lud sounded indifferent. His face had even less expression than usual.

“But, well … The food I ate, the bed I slept in, the sheets that covered me, the roof that kept out the rain and the walls that protected me from the wind—it all went to pay their debts, and I had to find another way to survive.”

Even as a child, he was given extensive, rigorous instruction.

He endured such brutal training that only one out of a hundred could make it through.

By the time he was thirteen, he could kill several adults with his bare hands.

He was sent to do the dirty jobs, the missions that had little chance of success.

“One mission … Ever heard of the city called Lapchuricka?”

Lapchuricka wasn’t on any map. Wiltia had used Lud to wipe the city from the face of the earth.

The city of Lapchuricka was in a section of the Kingdom of Haugen, which directly bordered Wiltia.

The town had an anti-Wiltian resistance organization.

The residents and the Haugen government thought they would show their patriotism and spirit by disrupting Wiltia’s military operations.

In order to solve the problem, Lieutenant General Genitz at the western front headquarters came up with a strategy that even his own troops were against.

His plan called for complete and utter annihilation using large railway artillery, newly-developed incendiary artillery shells, and biological weapons.

The city was completely destroyed and the entire population eradicated, along with the resistance.

Hundreds upon thousands upon tens of thousands of people.

Everyone in Lapchuricka was killed and everything was destroyed.

Men, women, children, the elderly, the sick, priests, pregnant women, mothers, teachers, book stores, fruit vendors, fishmongers, general stores, and bakeries …

As a member of the Special Forces, Lud snuck into Lapchuricka to investigate the resistance in preparation for the attack.

Lud was a soldier, but he still looked like a young boy. He lied about his identity, and got a job as an assistant at a bakery called Tockerbrot.

It was a small bakery, owned by an old man and managed by his granddaughter.

While he was there, Lud was taught to bake bread.

“You’re a quick learner, Lud, you’ve got talent. Especially this rye bread, its super tasty. It might even be better than Grandpa’s.”

“If he can make my own specialty better than I can,” the grandfather laughed, “there’s really nothing more I can do, is there? How about it Lud? You want to take her for your wife and inherit the store?”

His infiltration was flawless, and the two of them treated Lud well, never suspecting he was a spy. Lud gave them his artificial smile.

He didn’t feel guilty at all.

These two are fools. They know nothing about who I really am.

On the day of the military operation, Lud ran to the bakery at the edge of the strike zone.

It was already gone.

The first round of railway artillery had destroyed the entire area.

“Wha … Ah … Aaaaaahhhh!”

Lud screamed. He was in tears. He vomited up his insides and tore at his body.

In his head he had known that it was all a lie.

But in his heart, he had thought of them as his family.

Even as he deceived them, his affection for them had grown.

He had finally found a warm place of belonging and he destroyed it.

It was small, and it hadn’t enjoyed great success, but the simple, honest Tockerbrot Bakery that he had helped keep afloat was now gone.

Marlene looked uncomfortable and appeared at a loss for words.

“Nothing, it’s just …”

He wanted her to understand that Organbaelz was in danger of repeating the same mistakes as Lapchuricka.

The nation-state was a giant monster that could wipe out an entire town as if that was its only course of action.

If Organbaelz lit the spark that ignited another war, then either the Federation or Wiltia would wipe it off the face of the earth too, along with everyone who lived there.

“It’s just … I’m the monster who did those things. That’s why … I want you to kill me.”

Lud meant it. He believed he was evil and shouldn’t be forgiven for what he had done. He didn’t want the deeds of his past to be forgotten or forgiven.

“Just as I said, I’m a monster in human flesh. So, let’s put an end to it here.”

“Are you offering to be the scapegoat so I won’t harm any other Wiltians? Hah! Such admirable patriotism,” Marlene sneered.

“I’m not as patriotic as you are, that’s for sure … Although, I don’t hate my country either.”

He needed the strength of his homeland in order to survive. That was all.

He didn’t love it enough to sacrifice his life for it.

“That why … When you finish this, go back to being a sister. For the children’s sake.”

Lud’s words touched a part of Marlene’s heart that she didn’t want him near.

“Don’t judge me, you Wiltian scum!”

Marlene struck Lud’s face with the grip of her gun, and Lud took the hit without moving.

“Do you think if you put it like that, I won’t kill you?”

“How many rounds are in that gun? First, shoot me in both legs, the thighs are best, the bullet will entwine with the muscle and double the pain. Also, shoot me as if you are whittling down my body. The pain is sharper near the edges.”

Lud spoke with a matter-of-fact voice while he stared at Marlene.

“Hitting me on the side of my heart near the base of the lung is also good. Blood collects in the lungs and it’s difficult to breathe. That’s an ugly way to go. It might not be bad to crush my genitals too.”

Lud was usually not a smooth talker but he instructed Marlene fluently, without faltering.

Perhaps Lud had envisioned this before. An awful death best suited him.

He had to have an awful death, and being covered in mud and tossed in a ditch was the kind of death that suited him.

So he could rattle off the best ways to die, one after another.

“I don’t need you to tell me how to do it …” But Marlene’s hands were trembling and Lud understood.

She had never killed anyone before.

He couldn’t say exactly what part of her or her behavior made him think this, but she didn’t have what Lud would describe as the stench of dirty work.

Lud thought this was the perfect solution.

She needed to kill a monster like Lud to fulfill her desire for revenge. Then, she could return to her old life.

She still had a life to return to. If the price was Lud Langart’s life, then it was cheap.

Marlene shook with frustration but kept the gun trained on Lud.

She was frozen with her finger on the trigger, like a young mouse being stared down by a snake.

Lud could hear her breathing.

“It’s too late … I’m not going back. I’m a terrorist! I can never go back to my old life …”

“It’s okay.” Lud spoke gently.

“If I kill someone … How could I face the children? I’d be deceiving them, you know?”

Lud knew.

The same children that Marlene had earlier called her cover, her props.

Lud knew how much she cherished the children.

When Milly hurled insults at Lud, Marlene would bow her head and quietly insist that Milly wasn’t a bad child, and Lud could see how much she cared.

“I’ve … betrayed them …” Marlene went on.

Lud thought that Marlene was feeling the same way he had.

He wasn’t aware of it himself before, but the moment that he lost everything, he understood.

The place he had slipped into in order to hide his true cruel and cold-blooded self, was in fact what he wanted most of all.

“Don’t worry, kids are perceptive. No matter how much I tried to pretend otherwise, Milly realized I was evil, didn’t she? You’ll be fine. Even deceiving God is easier than trying to pull one over on a kid.”

Maybe He just wasn’t looking, but God had yet to aim a lightning bolt at Lud.

“Those kids have lived happily with the Marlene they know—the kind and beautiful sister, who’s just incredibly bad at making tea.” Lud smiled a little.

“Bad at making tea? What, that can’t be true …” Marlene was clearly insulted.

“It’s true. You need to use very hot water, just on the verge of bubbling over, and steam the tea until the tea leaves open. You’re too impatient. The tea you serve is almost a declaration of war.”

Lud decided that he might as well tell her before she killed him.

Marlene’s face grew red but her thoughts were on something else.

“… Still, all of this … Alec won’t forgive me …”

Alec.

He might have been a lover, a family member, another character from the tragedy of war, but his existence must have given her the resolve to seek revenge against Wiltia.

“I doubt we’re going to the same place, but I can ask Death to tell Alec not to be mad at you.’”

Lud realized as soon as he said it that this was a terrible joke.

Marlene raised the gun and aimed at Lud’s forehead.

The distance was short from where she stood. Marlene could easily kill him.

She pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed through the room.

“WAAAAAAAAA!”

Marlene let the gun slip from her hand and began sobbing like a child.

Her sadness, her rage, and her frustration were mixed together in her tearful sobs.

The bullet hadn’t hit Lud, but it put a hole in the wall behind him.

“You’re human after all, Marlene,” Lud said quietly.

He didn’t mean it sarcastically.

She had refused to become a murderer.

She stopped herself before she crossed that line and was twisted by her righteous cause.

How much stronger than him must she be, Lud wondered.

“Just shut up! Always with that damn sullen face of yours! You’re telling me you never accepted my invitations because the tea tasted bad? Even if you weren’t from Wiltia, I’d hate you!”

Even her words had become childish.

But Lud had a warm look on his face.

She had told him that she hated him, but for some reason Lud was happy.

Before he could respond, the door opened and the people who entered cut him off.

“What are you doing, Marlene?”

There were three men, and two were holding the assault rifles hidden in the chapel.

They were Marlene’s comrades, members of the Pelfe Liberation League.

But the third man in front had the scent of someone who earned his living killing other people.

“M-Mr. Dolchev …”

Marlene’s voice shock as she said his name.

“Pleased to meet you, Silver Wolf. Even in my country, your name is well known. It is an honor to meet one of the top ten Hunter Unit pilots of Wiltia.”

The man called Dolchev looked so hard and forbidding that Lud suspected peeling off his skin would reveal nothing but icy steel.

“You’re the one who’s been teaching terror to these civilians?”

“All I’ve done is give the oppressed a way to regain their freedom.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Lud guessed that Dolchev was a spy and had provided weapons and fighting instructions to the Pelfe Liberation League. The instigator who implanted fangs into the mouths of herbivores.

Dolchev now turned to Marlene. “I left this up to you because you insisted that you wanted to torture him yourself.”

He shrugged, but seemed unsurprised.

Even a marionette controlled by a street puppeteer would behave more naturally than Dolchev just now.

This man hadn’t had any expectations from the start. He had no faith in the Pelfe Liberation League.

“That’s not it, Mr. Dolchev! I thought we could use him like thi—”

Marlene tried to justify herself, but Dolchev silenced her with a slap of his outstretched palm.

“I don’t have time for this. I need to make the final adjustments to the T-3 II. You two, put this wolf down.”

Dolchev left the room.

Marlene had fallen to the floor. Her cheek was already swollen, and blood dripped from a cut on her mouth.

“I’ll do it! Let me kill him! It would be the highlight of my life!”

“You idiot, I let you kill the last one. My gun is dying to shoot off some fireworks.”

The two men began arguing like children bickering over who would go first in a game of marbles.

“Hey, big bad wolf! You can’t get out of here! So go on, howl! We might even consider killing you quickly.”

Because they feared death, men sought to control it.

To have control over someone else’s life gave them joy, as if they had become God.

Men often take great pleasure in doing to other people what they find most awful.

However, Lud sat in silence, biding his time.

“Well, say something, go on!”

The men each hit Lud in the face with the butts of their rifles.

“… You’re the one who tied me to this chair?” Lud asked.

“Yeah, and? Do your hands hurt? I’m sooo sorry!”

He looked at his companion and began to laugh.

“I just have a piece of advice for you,” Lud offered. “When you’re restraining someone, you want to tie them at the thumbs, not the wrists.

Lud raised both his hands. He held a loose rope.

“Huh?!”

The two men gasped in surprise.

They had certainly tied Lud up securely, enough even to cut off his circulation.

There was no way that a bundle of straw or logs they had tied up would fall apart.

But, with the method they used, it wasn’t possible to securely tie up a person. Unlike wood and straw, people can tell that a rope is loose.

One aimed his gun toward Lud in a panic, but Lud stabbed him where the bones of his fingers met the inner arm that held the weapon. His hand opened and Lud snatched the gun.

He knocked the man out with a slug to his cheek. Not really necessary, but satisfying payback.

Then Lud pushed the gun against the scrawny thigh of the other man and pulled the trigger.

This was known as a human silencer.

Firing a gun while it’s pressed against a person’s body lets the body act as a soundproof barrier, covering the noise of the gun. Without any sound leaving the room, Lud robbed both men of their ability to fight.

“Gyah—!”

Lud drove his elbow into the man’s chest and knocked him unconscious.

“Huh?!”

When Marlene finally raised her voice at what she had seen, it was already over. Lud’s brilliant technique was like the wind.

Before he was stamped with the name “Silver Wolf,” he was taught this method of hand-to-hand combat as a Hunter Unit pilot.

Whether they called themselves guerillas or terrorists, they were still amateurs after all.

Lud had only waited until Dolchev was too far away to hear the shots.

“Lud … You were able break loose from the beginning?”

“No … but when you drew his attention, I was able to get the ropes off.”

Lud only had a few seconds to spare, and while it was easy to deceive civilians-turned-terrorists, fooling a professional soldier was much harder.

“… Um … That stuff about asking me to kill you … Were you serious?”

“I meant it. I’m not clever enough to fake that.”

When Lud was trained as a spy, he learned the techniques of how to deceive people, but after what happened in Lapchuricka, he could no longer use them.

That was part of the reason he was driven out of Special Forces and became a Hunter Unit pilot.

“If I was that good an actor,” Lud went on, “I would have learned how to smile for my customers.”

Lud slightly twisted the sides of his mouth and made sort of a smile.

“You’re an idiot … If you died, you couldn’t run the bakery anymore.”

“That’s right … But if I had wrestled you into submission, made you out to be the bad guy, and stood over you in triumph, I couldn’t return to the bakery anyway.”

Lud had things he wanted to do. He had a reason to keep on living.

But if she was going to fall into the same world he once had, and writhe in agony, it didn’t matter whether he died or not.

“And if I did that, Milly would definitely never want to eat my bread. That would … be awful.”

“You …”

Marlene looked close to tears, unsure what to say.

“Do you know what apple bread is?” she asked finally.

“Apple bread? You mean Apple Danish? Bread that’s made by kneading butter into thinly stretched pieces of dough that you then lay on top of each other …”

“I think that’s it,” Marlene nodded. “Milly said that she loves it. I don’t remember when but I heard her say that once.”

“Really?!”

Lud raised his voice in delight.

If he offered Milly her favorite type of bread, maybe she would forget her principles and eat it.

“Apples … the sweetly-boiled ones that you use in apple pies, right? Instead of really sweet apples, making it with tart ones might taste better. I need to hurry and see the farmer …”

With a look of excitement on his face, Lud worked out how to make his Apple Danish.

His face wasn’t that of a Hunter Unit pilot, nor was it the face of a Special Forces spy who specialized in sneaky, underhanded missions; it was simply the face of a rural baker.

“I’ve got to try this right away! If I can make it fragrant, that will arouse her appetite even further. I could try using a bit of liqueur … Yeah.”

Lud appeared to have put his thoughts in some kind of order. He nodded and looked at Marlene.

“Hey Marlene, the Pelfe Liberation League and this guy, Dolchev, are they planning something?”

“I think it’s a raid on Baelz Mine. The second mine that’s being dug experimentally … It sounds like they found a vein of Rezanite.”

Rezanite emitted a blood red glow and as an enduring metal, it couldn’t corrode or be destroyed. One theory was that it came from the mineralized hearts of ancient dragons.

“I get it. Destroying that would be a heavy blow to Wiltia.”

In old times, Rezanite had only been used for decorative ornaments, but recently a scientist, referred to as a “sorcerer,” discovered a use for the metal that no one expected—as the fundamental element of the Hunter Unit’s hearts, the Rezanium Reactor.

The war was over. But new weapons and new strategies were being developed in preparation for the next war, and the one after that. The Hunter Units were being improved and Rezanite lay at the core of this development. Wiltia needed plenty of it.

“If their plan is carried out, the mine wouldn’t be the only thing destroyed …”

Organbaelz was a mining town.

If the main industry in the town disappeared, the flow of goods and people into the town would also vanish. It would be a death sentence for the town.

“My shop would go under … and what about the children of the orphanage?” Lud asked.

The children weren’t the terrorist’s accomplices, but they would either be sent to different orphanages, or worse, become street urchins, wandering about the streets of the town.

Even though there was finally a possibility that Milly would eat Lud’s bread, everything would be ruined.

“Marlene … I’m sorry but I’m going to stop them.”

“You’ll stop them as a soldier, you mean? To save your country from danger, is that it?”

Marlene averted her eyes as she questioned him.

“No, I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m just a baker and I have to stop their malicious interference with my business,” Lud replied.

“Really? I see …”

Lud’s answer appeared to be the one Marlene wanted.

“In that case … As a sister, I want to protect this town and the children in this church!”

Marlene smiled, with her swollen cheeks and puffy, red eyes.

Lud had never seen her really smile before, and it was the most charming smile he had ever seen.