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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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It was embarrassing.
It had been a long time since Karin Maven had shown tears since the Strategic Security Agency had stabilized at Forbidden Lake Fortress.
Werner had grown fond of the people in the Security Agency over the past year or so.
And among them, Karin was the person he had been closest to.
“I really don’t understand anything anymore! Why? What are you doing all this for, Director? If you die, if you fail, it’s over! Why are you wasting your precious life like this?!”
“Karin…”
Werner trailed off as he looked into her eyes.
He already knew what she was angry about.
From a common sense perspective, the operation Werner had proposed was absurd.
Gathering criminal organizations operating in the capital Hoenbaren and the Wolves, referring to former members of the Graveyard’s reconnaissance battalion, to attack an Imperial Military Police base.
They would succeed.
But then what?
While Werner had been almost obsessive about making contingency plans when he was the commander of the Graveyard, this time there were no particular preparations.
It was because he was tired.
Making contact with the group called the Eagle’s Nest had been a good thing.
It meant that besides himself and Arthur Philias, there were others in the military who were hostile to President Mikhail and had grasped his true nature.
However, they had all lost their power already.
It was too late, far too late.
The end was too clear to endure with the spirit of ‘No matter what happens, we must see this through to the end.’
The blade of a purge was already at their throats.
Available troops? Far from enough.
Meanwhile, Lea, Charlotte, and Arwen had regained their memories.
Moreover, Charlotte had not only forcibly taken the authority of Akasha, but it was impossible to know what she was planning.
He judged that there was no way to solve the problem other than cutting through the tangled and intertwined threads.
So he had devised an operation that was tantamount to suicide.
Because he was a “regressor.”
“The Director I saw was always wise and wonderful. You always made the best choices. You had humor, and above all, you were warm. Although you were overly cautious about some things… at least I thought you wouldn’t push forward with an operation like this!”
At Karin’s cry, Werner bit his lip hard.
And then, forcing himself to swallow, he uttered a cold remark.
“…What does that matter, Karin. Since when did you know me so well?”
Instead of comforting her, he was eating away at her heart.
He was driving a large nail into her chest, which was already heavily scarred.
In fact, it hadn’t been just a day or two.
He had long since discarded his guilt towards those he would leave behind.
During the forty regressions, he had gained much but lost much as well.
The habit of sharply uttering words that didn’t need to be said was also one of the aspects of humanity that the regressor Luthers Edan had lost.
There had never been a time when he didn’t resent this cursed ability.
Even in the victory over the Titans that he had finally grasped, he couldn’t be purely happy because he realized that he wasn’t such an upright person.
Luthers Edan was weak.
And at the same time, he liked to avoid things, was stubborn, could be lethargic, and was too slow to understand things at once.
‘If someone else had this ability instead of me.’
He had always lived with only that regret.
They would have achieved victory in fewer cycles.
Fewer people might have died or been injured.
The chances of achieving a more stable victory would have been higher.
Even now, how could such things be happening when it hadn’t been long since the war with the Titans ended?
It was just because he was incompetent.
Prejudice had settled deep in Luthers Edan’s consciousness, and it had already festered to the point of emitting a disgusting rotten smell around him.
If he had any sense of responsibility left, he wouldn’t have abandoned everyone else and fled with Lea in the twelfth cycle.
Even in that underground they had desperately escaped to, there was no hope.
So now that the first button had been fastened wrong from the start, this world had to be reset.
The peace that he had failed to find even in the fortieth regression was inevitably being passed on to the next cycle this time as well.
So he arbitrarily judged that a person named ‘Karin Maven’, who was only a connection made in this cycle, was not particularly important in his life.
Werner had made such a judgment on his own.
“You’re certainly a good aide, but… this has always been the problem. You presume and judge me as you please.”
“…”
Karin could only stare at the Director who was pouring out harsh words towards her.
Clear tears kept flowing down her cheeks.
“So leave now. I have nothing more to say to you.”
No answer came back.
Was it a sign of agreement, or was she simply shocked?
In fact, it didn’t matter which it was.
Instead… it wasn’t good to thrust his subordinates who had trusted and followed him into a hopeless dangerous situation.
Perhaps even without him, the remaining people might live their own daily lives in their own way.
There was no need to burden the people of the Security Agency with such a heavy load.
The Graveyard Fortress and the Strategic Security Agency were worlds apart in terms of the trust their organizations held.
“I will carry out the operation alone. Tell the others too. It won’t be of any help anyway.”
From the beginning, he had no intention of deploying the Security Agency personnel in combat.
So it would be much easier to cut off the tail.
If it had been John Hobbes or other department heads instead of Karin Maven here, they would have long since become offended and followed the Director’s orders.
Bluntly put, if they could avoid getting caught in the crossfire, there was no reason to follow.
But Karin didn’t back down either.
Her hand gripping his sleeve tightened.
“Director, that’s not what I want to say.”
Her red eyes met his gaze precisely.
A gaze he simply couldn’t look away from.
Feeling as if he was being drawn in, Werner unconsciously held his breath.
“Use me.”
“I just said I would proceed alone—”
“Hold onto me, and entrust your burdens to me. Share your secrets with me, and let me understand you…”
Karin Maven added, still shedding tears.
“You’re hiding something, aren’t you? I don’t know what it is, but it’s killing you, isn’t it? Is that the driving force behind your actions now? Is that why you’re throwing yourself into impossible odds without even sparing your life?”
A storm of questions hailed from her.
“Can you predict the future? Or maybe you wake up at the same point every time? It doesn’t make sense otherwise!!”
“…”
Werner couldn’t answer hastily.
At this rate, he might really reveal everything.
His own secret that was inaccessible to anyone who wasn’t from the Graveyard Fortress, and not just from there, but specifically from a high-ranking officer position.
That was why he could only weakly murmur her name.
“Karin…”
“Just as you’re being greedy, this is just my greed too. Like when I followed you to the Graveyard last time.”
Her eyes flashed.
“If you’re moving as an individual and not as the Security Agency, I’ll move as an individual too, not as part of the Security Agency.”
“Why are you going this far?”
At that, Karin, who had finally reached her limit, let out a cry that was almost a scream.
“Because I don’t want to lose you!!!!”
Karin began to pour out the emotions that had been stickily lingering deep in her heart.
“Now, now I don’t want to lose anymore! I don’t want to lose the people who have become precious to me!! I don’t want to see the people I envisioned a future with appear as cold corpses before my eyes!!!”
“You’re asking me to just stand by and lose the person who first granted me salvation? The teacher who taught me how to live in this world? The man I love and admire who stopped my self-harm and made me realize what true happiness is—?”
“…”
“Just as you’re trying to save three women, I’m going to save you too. If you always carry other people’s burdens, who carries yours? It kills me to see you stupidly giving and giving, tossing and turning in pain every night…”
It was a confession of her heart.
The true feelings of Karin Maven that she had never expressed or shown to anyone.
The crystallization of the pure emotions that ‘Karin Maven’ the person, not the Security Squad Captain and personal aide, held for Werner.
It wasn’t something Werner could refuse even if he wanted to.
“Karin, I…”
But he was afraid.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t met people like Karin Maven during his forty regressions.
They had all tried to carry the burden of the regressor Luthers Edan in their own ways, and had indeed been of great help.
But look at the situation now.
His relationships with his fiancées had somehow become shackles.
Those connections that had been the driving force of his life now often made Werner despair.
That was what he feared.
That with one mistake, he would once again put shackles on himself.
But Werner’s answer never came.
Thump thump thump!
The sound of someone hurriedly coming up from downstairs was heard, and then the door flung open.
It was Chief of Staff John Hobbes.
“Director, I’m truly sorry for interrupting your important conversation. However, there’s something I must report to you right now…”
“What is it?”
He handed over a portable device that was blinking crimson.
A crimson LED, a satellite phone.
“It’s a direct line contact.”
“Who’s the sender?”
“It’s Brigadier General Heinz Bismarck, currently dispatched as the commander of the Holy Cross Brigade.”
Heinz Bismarck.
At that all too familiar name, Werner began to waver.
Why was he suddenly being contacted from Saint Francis?
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Go girl. I’m rooting for you