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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Zaped
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It wasn’t that I grabbed her wrist, but more like I loosely encircled it with my fingers.
Loose enough for her to pull away if she wanted.
Camilla didn’t shake off my hand.
But she didn’t go into the room either. She just stood there, unmoving.
So, I moved.
“Johan?”
Startled, Camilla followed me into her room.
The CCTV lenses installed all over the walls looked unusually dull today.
The noise from the rooms above, below, and beside us was still there, but I had grown used to it, barely noticing anymore.
The only place for two people to sit was the bed.
Camilla obediently sat where I led her.
Holding onto her wrist felt awkwardly tentative, so I carefully covered her calloused hand with mine.
“What are you doing?”
Her tone was disgruntled, hiding no annoyance.
But her hand curled ever so slightly, making it easier for me to hold, more natural for her to be held.
Come to think of it, it had always been like this between us.
Words and actions misaligned, yet our bodies told the truth.
Instead of listening to what was said, we read the intentions in what was done.
So this time, too, I spoke and thought as my instincts led me.
“Because I’m worried.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I said, I’m worried.”
It came out sounding like I was picking a fight.
But at least she seemed flustered.
Perhaps she hadn’t expected to hear that.
Honestly, neither did I expect to say it. But since it was out, I decided to just keep going.
“You and I both had mild fevers yesterday. We’ve barely rested properly in the danger zones, always keeping watch or enduring uncomfortable conditions. At least here, though it’s noisy, we don’t have to worry about zombies or keeping guard. So…”
What am I even saying?
The more I talk without thinking, the more my words get tangled.
“So, I think it’s natural to feel sick or tired when you finally relax. But this seems different. What’s got you so uneasy?”
Before Camilla could pull her hand away, I gripped it firmly.
She looked at me, bewildered, but I held her gaze.
For some reason, it felt like I couldn’t afford to lose this staring contest.
It was harder than arm-wrestling, but I didn’t look away.
“You’re stronger than me, physically. I know that. You’ve always kept moving, even when tired or struggling. You’ve done so much for us. That’s why this feels strange. You know how to keep going even when you’re drained, so what’s changed since we got here? You’re trembling, even now.”
Camilla shifted closer, wrapping her arms around mine and resting her head on my shoulder.
I could distinctly feel the softness of her chest against my arm.
A subtle, delicate trembling transmitted through her body to mine.
I placed my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.
“…Why do you even want to know?”
Her tone was still curt, but her body leaned into mine.
Maybe it was her pride or just her own awkwardness matching mine.
So, I decided to be just as clumsy.
“Because I’m selfish.”
I slowly embraced her, ignoring her initial resistance, and gently laid her down on the bed.
The sharp, synthetic scent of the mattress’s plastic cover wafted up.
Camilla struggled briefly as if to get away, but then her arms encircled my waist, holding me tight.
“…I can’t say. Not right now.”
She looked at me, speaking with quiet resolve.
“I hate being a burden to you. I hate asking for understanding just because I’ve been through things. It won’t change anything…what’s the point of saying it when it can’t be undone?”
She drew a line with her words, but her voice trembled, and her eyes wandered.
Just like that moment when she had asked me to come with her.
A woman who sought me out, following every clue, because she was afraid to be alone.
Someone who knew how to fight even when exhausted but couldn’t hide an inexplicable anxiety.
Which one was her real self?
I didn’t know. I just held her closer.
Like my teacher once did for me.
I raised my hand and gently stroked her back, soothing her like a crying child.
How much time had passed?
“Johan.”
“Yeah?”
“You know, I wasn’t a great athlete.”
Surprised by her sudden confession, I looked at her.
She wasn’t trembling anymore.
Her gaze was steady.
“I was always somewhere between fifth and tenth place. They said I could win a medal if I pushed just a bit more, but I never got past that ‘bit’ before graduating.”
“But you were a successful model.”
Camilla smiled, but it looked bittersweet.
“…Yeah, I was. I made decent money, paid for school, living expenses…even sent my parents a little sometimes. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t what I really wanted.”
When she spoke about swimming, Camilla seemed like a different person.
There was a strange liveliness, though at times she hesitated and faltered, as if someone had suddenly stopped the music she was dancing to.
She toyed with my hair as she continued.
“Someone once said to me, ‘You’re only in the spotlight because you’re either a model who used to swim or a swimmer who models. You’re not truly either.’ It was something a girl who failed an audition said out of spite, but for some reason, her words stuck with me.”
“Don’t let it get to you.”
“…Maybe. But some things just don’t fade easily. After I stopped swimming…I joined the resistance. I hated Römer and despised Elza’s puppet regime even more.
I thought if we built a nation just for the Elza people, the suffering would end. My modeling experience came in handy, oddly enough. Those ridiculous propaganda pieces boosted recruitment numbers.
Back then, I felt like I was making a real difference…but then.”
A heavy sigh escaped her. Her hair fell over her face, and I gently brushed it aside.
Camilla tilted her head into my palm, letting me cup her cheek.
She stayed still as I waited for her to gather herself.
“Johan. There was a man named Hoot. The original owner of that bag you retrieved and that phone being restored in the living room. Or rather, he wasn’t the true owner—he probably stole it or got it on the black market.
That man abandoned the bag at Mini Bell.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And then you got involved, and Hans used some…less than pleasant methods to recruit ‘volunteers.’ He ordered them to go to Rambert, retrieve the bag, or at least confirm if it was there.
The outcome…well, I don’t need to explain. But…back on the fire truck…ah, damn it, I’m not going to cry. Sorry.”
I pulled her closer to reassure her. The creak of the mattress and the sharp smell of plastic rose again.
But all I could see was Camilla.
“…While escaping, I saw Hoot. He was trapped in a cage dropped from a helicopter. He’d already been bitten by a zombie and had no chance of surviving.
He begged me to kill him. Said he wanted to die as a human. He was a traitor, but I granted his wish. No one deserves to go out like that. But before he died, he said something strange.”
“What did he say?”
“Hans tricked all of us. And that I’m being deceived too. He said the proof was in the video on his phone—the one being restored now.”
This was news to me.
I hadn’t expected the item I thought was just some bartering material to hold something so significant.
Wait.
Was that why Camilla had followed me this far?
“Did you follow me because of the phone?”
“That’s part of it. But it’s not the whole reason. I didn’t plan to bring it back or take it anywhere specific.
Even before hearing Hoot’s words, I’d already started having doubts…about what I was doing, whether I could trust Hans. Do you remember when I gave you the phone?”
I did.
It was when she handed it over, claiming she wouldn’t contact her comrades.
If her true goal had been the phone, she could’ve taken mine back then.
But she didn’t.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“…Believe me. I’ve never tried to deceive you. Not once. And I’m not doing it now. I want to stay by your side. Just like this.”
“But you’re still anxious.”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of seeing for myself that I’ve been wrong again.”
Camilla burrowed deeper into my embrace, her voice trembling.
“I…I’ve never been able to achieve the things I truly wanted. I loved swimming, but now I can’t. I thought the resistance would fix everything, but now…I don’t even know what I’ve been doing.
If only I hadn’t made those decisions for my comrades back then, maybe they wouldn’t have died…”
Her words grew increasingly disjointed, but one thing was clear—she was wracked with confusion and guilt.
And the last part was wrong.
“No.”
I held her tightly, trying to comfort her as if soothing a fierce, raging storm within her.
My heart ached seeing her suffer, yet something inside me warmed at her vulnerable honesty.
I whispered softly.
“You’re not wrong.”
Camilla returned from the kitchen with two water bottles. A message popped up on the laptop:
“Backup successful. 100% restoration.”
I was too nervous to directly access the USB folder, so I made a separate copy on the hard drive.
That way, even if I accidentally deleted a file, it would be safe.
Camilla and I turned our attention to the monitor.
We sorted the files by date, going back four years.
Photos, text conversations, application data, videos—there was a lot.
The problem was that all the file names were just dates, making it hard to tell what was what at a glance.
It seemed we’d have to open each one individually.
“Let’s start with the oldest one,” I said.
Camilla nodded, her arm wrapped tightly around mine.
I swallowed, and I could feel my collarbone through my shirt.
It was a little embarrassing, but at the same time, I felt a strange excitement.
Okay, let’s get this over with. I pressed play.
“- Ahhh, good! Ahhh! Harder!”
I immediately paused it.
Even though the keyboard was different, my fingers knew exactly where the shortcut keys were.
Camilla froze, her eyes wide open. I took a deep breath.
“Um… yeah.”
It was pretty explicit.
“Yeah,” Camilla replied, trying to play it cool.
“That tail is pretty fluffy.”
“I know, right.”
I clicked on the next video.
“- Ahhhhhh!”
This time I just paused it. At least this one was just a close-up of a face.
I could vaguely make out something that looked like a white fox tail.
“…I wonder if this was actually Hutte’s thing?”
“No, I don’t think so. The resistance only uses their own apps. And we usually switch phones every mission. We steal them or buy them on the black market. Since Hoot got this one during this mission, I think… it probably belongs to the original owner.”
I was just as surprised as Camilla.
There were at least a hundred more videos like this.
We were going to have to watch them all.
“…I guess we’ll just have to get used to it.”
We had watched over 60 videos.
I felt dazed.
They all had tails, even if the species varied, and they all spoke.
The owner clearly had a consistent preference.
At this point, I began to suspect that Hutte might have been lying.
“- Say, how does a bunny rabbit go?”
“- Bunnies go ‘peep, peep!’… Aaaah!”
“- Say ‘peep!’!”
“- I, I want to, but Master always…”
“…Um, Johan?”
Camilla cleared her throat.
“Yeah? What is it?”
I snapped out of it.
“We’ve been watching these for a while…”
“Yeah, it’s a latex bunny girl,” Camilla said, looking disgusted.
“You like this kind of stuff?! You’re a pervert!”
“And it’s reverse-bunny, too.”
“I’m disappointed, really!”
Camilla slapped my hand lightly and grabbed the mouse. She accidentally clicked on something else. This time, the video was different.
Before, it had been in a room, but now it was in a large park. Watching too much pornography can be a problem. Your brain starts to crave more and more stimulation.
So, it’s quite natural for this guy to have developed a taste for public humiliation videos…
“The Goddess of Hunger Statue Unveiling Ceremony”
That wasn’t it.
“…Huh?”
Camilla blinked and paused the video.
“Why?”
“…I know this. Everyone in Elza knows this.”
“What is it?”
“Here. The Goddess of Hunger Statue Unveiling Ceremony. Let’s watch.”
Camilla played the video again. It looked like a concert hall, packed with people.
The owner of the phone was sitting in the audience.
Judging by the height and angle of the shot, he probably filmed it with his phone in his shirt pocket.
A row of people sat on the stage.
They were all overweight and elderly, both men and women.
There were soldiers too, covered in medals.
Camilla paused the video and pointed at each person with her finger.
“This is the former President of Elza. This is the former Speaker of the National Assembly. This is the former Minister of Defense. And here, the men in gray suits, they’re the delegation from Roemer.”
“Why are you talking about them in the past tense?”
“They’re all dead. Killed here, by the Resistance. …They sold out their own people and amassed wealth through corruption. Honestly, I don’t feel any sympathy for them. Remember this day? Elza was like a festival. Free alcohol was flowing everywhere. But this close-up footage is new. The news only showed photos and short clips.”
I asked about the things I didn’t understand.
“The President was there at the unveiling ceremony for the Goddess of Hunger statue?”
“…Well…”
Camilla seemed to be thinking about how to explain it.
“Elza has been under the control of Minsk in the west or Roemer in the east for a long time. The desire for an Elzan government has always been strong, but not everyone shared that desire.
People living near the borders, in the west or east, considered themselves to be Minskian or Roemerian. Their sense of Elzan identity was weak.
Even those who fought for Elzan independence before the Resistance understood this problem. They needed to find something uniquely Elzan, something that set them apart.”
“Only Elzans believe in her?”
“It’s strange, but the Goddess of Hunger statues are only found in Elza. I mean, besides the crudely carved ones made by the fanatics, the ones carved from stone and polished.
Other countries ‘know’ about the Goddess, but only Elzans ‘believe’ in her. Not all Elzans believe, of course.”
To distinguish a group from others, nothing is more powerful than shared national spirit, culture, and religion.
Just like how the Jewish people maintained their identity as ‘Jews’ even while wandering without a homeland.
That identity might have brought them persecution, but it also kept them united as a people. For the people of Elza, the Goddess of Hunger seemed to hold a similar position.
“But Camilla, doesn’t that make the Goddess of Hunger a symbol of Elzan liberation?”
“…That’s right. This cunning bastard figured that out too. Look, the former President. The puppet government, while being puppets of Roemer, shamelessly claimed to be the independent government of Elza. That’s how they ‘stole’ the Resistance’s words.
By fully supporting the worship of the Goddess of Hunger, they could claim to be champions of Elza too. The Roemerian delegation’s presence was a sign of their support for this trend in the Elzan puppet government.”
It was a clever tactic.
When a larger political entity adopts the framework of a smaller one, the smaller entity quickly loses power.
People prefer to see a large entity push forward rather than watch a small group struggle and falter.
If the Elzan government claimed ‘Elzan independence’ and ‘the worship of the Goddess of Hunger’ for itself, the Resistance movement would inevitably lose momentum.
The essence of the Resistance movement lies in disrupting the status quo.
While it has the advantage of awakening complacent people, it also has the drawback of irritating those already weary of daily life. People would start to think, ‘I know they’re doing the right thing, but aren’t they being a bit too noisy?’
But if that motive, that core idea, is adopted by a seemingly legitimate government, even a moderate one…
The citizens would naturally support the government. They would think, ‘Well, they may have been bad in the past, but maybe they’ll do better now.’
The video continued to play. The presenter introduced each person on the stage, and the audience responded with boos. The louder the social status, the louder the boos.
“- Gregory Muller, top student in the Medical School of Elza National University, and recipient of a government scholarship!”
The camera quickly panned upwards. The owner of this phone was Gregory Muller, a medical student. He must have been filming with his phone in his shirt pocket.
There wasn’t much applause.
“- Next, we have Dr. Joanna Merstain, the driving force behind this excavation project. A distinguished archaeologist and paleontologist, the youngest tenured professor at Elza National University…”
A woman stood up and bowed. Again, there was little applause.
“Wait a minute.”
I paused the video and rewound it frame by frame.
“This woman… something about her seems off.”
She was short and slender. I felt a strange sense of unease. It was because of her glasses.
While they can be a fashion accessory, the primary purpose of thick-rimmed glasses is to hold thick lenses.
Thick lenses distort the appearance of the face behind them.
But the woman in the photo had clearly defined cheekbones, even though she was wearing thick-rimmed glasses.
This meant she wasn’t wearing any prescription lenses.
Just like Camilla’s disguise glasses.
Camilla also squinted and examined the video.
“Those are a wig. Look here.”
I could see strands of dark brown hair peeking out from under the blonde wig.
The texture and position of the hair were different. It was definitely a wig.
“Is she dead too?”
“…Wait a moment.”
Camilla turned on her phone and searched the news. She frowned after searching for a while.
“No, she’s still alive. Dr. Joanna Merstain. She’s still teaching at Elza National University.”
This was strange.
I played the video again. The President stepped onto the stage.
“- Long…
The microphone screeched. Engineers rushed to fix it. The President looked annoyed. The audience erupted in cheers.
“- We have waited long enough, my fellow citizens. I have many things to say, but first, let us welcome the star of today’s event.
Let us all pay our respects. The pride of Elza. A cultural treasure of Elza. The embodiment of Elzan spirit, the Goddess of Hunger!”
The cheers were deafening. The stage shook, and even the Roemerian delegation couldn’t help but laugh.
People dressed in ancient Greek-style robes pushed a glass case forward. It was about 1.8 meters long, covered with a white curtain.
The people in robes carefully untied the cords holding the curtain in place and pulled it back.
A large screen in the hall displayed the full image of the statue.
Except for the fact that it was carved from white marble, it was identical to the statue the fanatics had been carrying. But there was one key difference.
The expression.
This was something the crude wooden statues couldn’t replicate.
The angels on the fanatic’s wooden statues had expressions of protest, as if in agony.
But the expression on this marble statue was different, though similar.
It was the face of an animal devoid of any emotion.
In other words, the expression of a zombie lunging at prey.
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