—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Heinz Bismarck immediately got into the vehicle with the terminal.
Then he shouted at his old comrades.
“Hey! Get in quickly!!”
“…?”
Lea and Charlotte just looked at each other at his behavior.
“What are you doing? I said get in! We don’t have time for this!!”
Charlotte burst into laughter and waved her hand dismissively.
“You’re still the same, Heinz.”
“What?”
“So what can we do now? If you just take this and report it, do you think the President will sit quietly?”
“…”
Thinking about it, that was true.
Heinz embarrassedly scratched the back of his head and got out of the vehicle.
It wasn’t before deployment, but already after.
From his position, already firmly entrenched, exposing the fact that the President had induced war in Bostania and tried to use it as a pretext for invasion wouldn’t change anything.
“We’d need the help of the Imperial Air Force for aircraft too. And what about the ships to load and transport the equipment.”
“That’s right, Heinz.”
The two of them were really in sync.
Were they always this close before?
Thinking about it, he remembered Lea being closer to Brigadier General Arwen.
But that wasn’t important right now.
Heinz beat his chest and asked again.
“Damn, my fate… I should have cut my losses early and run away like Durand. Then what the hell do you want me to do?”
It was frustrating.
The Graveyard days were better after all.
Back then, all he had to do was follow orders well under a commander with superhuman abilities, and manage just a few hundred subordinates.
Heinz, who had been looking back and forth between the terminal and the two female soldiers with a dumb expression, suddenly jumped as if he had realized something.
“Th-that’s right! Yes! Do you happen to know anything about Brigadier General Luthers Edan’s whereabouts? He’s more of an expert on Titans than I am.”
If there was something he didn’t know, he could just ask Luthers.
For Heinz, who was more careless and lacked improvisational skills than expected, Luthers was like a perfect answer key.
Surely that man would come up with a perfect strategy to overcome this situation.
Lea Gilliard nodded and answered in his place.
“Yes, we know. We even know where he is and what he’s doing now.”
“Ooh…!!!”
It was an exclamation filled with sincerity.
Of course, that made sense.
Commander Luthers had been close with all the unit members, but occasionally, he would show especially close feelings towards the three women, including Lea and Charlotte.
It seemed they had found Luthers Edan before coming to him.
“So? What did the Commander say?”
“You should ask him that yourself.”
“????”
Heinz’s face contorted with bewilderment once again.
“Don’t tell me you came straight to me instead of Commander Luthers? What were you thinking? You know what kind of person I am.”
If someone who didn’t know anything heard this, they might wonder how the commander of the Holy Cross Brigade could have such low self-esteem.
But Heinz would answer like this.
It wasn’t low self-esteem, but high meta-cognition.
Heinz Bismarck was a passive person.
Even with goals and the power to achieve them, he tended to be overly swayed by others’ words.
The position of field commander of the expeditionary force, which he had reluctantly taken on, was just like that.
“What is Commander Luthers Edan doing now? Did he just retire?”
“No, he’s still working hard for the Empire. You must have heard about it at least once.”
Charlotte added, bitterly tasting her words.
“The Strategic Security Agency, I mean.”
“Strategic Sec… Security Agency? Wait. Is the Commander the director of the Security Agency?”
This time, Lea nodded in response.
Heinz immediately shuddered.
Somehow, it felt more chilling than when he had seen the Titans being cultivated underground in the Armaments Bureau earlier.
“No wonder… Damn it, that’s right! The Empire that’s desperately pulling in even idiots like me wouldn’t have let a legendary war hero retire peacefully.”
Of course, the President’s reason for putting Luthers in the Security Agency was completely different from Heinz’s thoughts.
“He’s living under the alias Werner Grimm now.”
“And now… he’s also devising plans to oppose the President.”
“Of course. Naturally.”
Heinz unconsciously clenched his fist.
During Luthers Edan’s tenure as the Graveyard Fortress commander, he had committed undeniable corruption.
To the extent that inspection departments, including Arwen Orka, and military investigation agencies could have easily torn into him, even considering his status as a war hero.
Corruption in a clear wartime situation.
He remembered it being focused on sensitive items like shells and various weapons.
Wasn’t Charlotte, the logistics chief, aware of this fact and turned a blind eye?
Everyone had kept quiet because they knew the fortress would be turned upside down the moment Arwen, who was particularly strict, found out.
It meant it was an open secret.
But for Heinz, who received more equipment than anyone else and was the ‘spearhead’ breaking through the front lines, he knew that all that corruption was for the victory of humanity.
-The armored units must never stop. Once breached by Titans, armor becomes practically useless, so request supplies immediately if maintenance is needed.
-This is twice the amount of shells originally scheduled for distribution. Take them generously. Make sure the soldiers never say they’re short on shells.
-This is a command communication vehicle that was scheduled for disposal as a prototype. It was canceled due to excessive budget, but I managed to get it somehow. With communication disruptions due to jamming waves, it will be useful for armored units where real-time communication is vital.
Every word was like a pearl of wisdom.
It felt like a test supervisor secretly giving away the answers.
In fact, when he was deployed for operations after hearing such words, unexpected variables would often arise.
“We’ve written down the number to contact Commander Luthers on that terminal too.”
“Then right now—”
“No. No, that’s wrong, Heinz.”
Charlotte hurriedly stopped him.
“Stop that habit. It’s time for you to think for yourself now. Do you understand what I mean? What you’re thinking now, and what Commander Luthers is preparing for?”
“…”
He knew all too well.
A coup d’état, and the outbreak of civil war.
Heinz was feeling the horrors of war firsthand, being directly dispatched to the field.
“First, think about how to bring your troops back to the Empire safely.”
“Certainly… that would be best.”
“We’re short on people right now. Our opponent is the President. He’s the embodiment of politics, with about a hundred snakes in his belly.”
“How could I not know that?”
On the day his dispatch to the Republic was decided, he had clearly witnessed the high-flyers of the Imperial Army struggling to catch the President’s eye.
There was no longer rank, honor, or patriotism there.
Only endless greed for higher positions and power remained.
“You can do it well. You always have.”
Charlotte and Lea said this as they turned around and began walking towards the completely ruined road.
The two of them were slowly walking on the highway towards the destroyed city.
It looked as if they were proudly walking into hell.
Heinz, who had been dazed for a moment at the sight that seemed very unfamiliar despite clearly being long-time comrades, suddenly came to his senses.
“Hey! Hey, you guys! Where are you going?!”
“We have to go back. We still have a lot to do.”
Lea turned back slightly and waved at Heinz.
“When we meet again, let’s catch up on what we couldn’t do then.”
Heinz felt something boiling up inside him.
Surely.
He felt like he had heard those words somewhere before.
It felt like quite a long time ago.
He didn’t know when it was, but in any case, what Heinz had to do now was clear.
“I should go see General Robert.”
Heinz muttered as he got back into the vehicle.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Charlotte Evergreen and Lea Gilliard appeared and disappeared like ghosts, literally.
Even after waking up, he checked several times to see if he had really been dreaming.
But the problematic terminal suddenly placed on his desk clearly proved that what happened yesterday was not just a hallucination.
Heinz Bismarck looked at General Robert Walker of the Republic’s rebel army, who was seriously examining the data.
“…What’s your intention in showing this to me? Are you saying we should make a truce with the government forces and invade the Empire?”
“No, would the government forces even agree to that proposal? Moreover, the moment that happens, the Republic of Bostania and the Empire would truly enter a state of war.”
Then, it wouldn’t be just a brigade-level force, but millions of Imperial soldiers that the President has been honing for this moment would arrive to ravage this land.
Heinz added with the most serious face he had ever shown.
It wasn’t bluster.
“Hmm… So what does the General want to do?”
At Robert’s words, Heinz pulled out the declaration of surrender he had been carrying.
It was the document with Robert Walker’s own signature when he had been surrounded by Imperial forces and surrendered humiliatingly.
Riiip—!!
Heinz tore that document in half right in front of Robert.
“What…?!”
“From now on, you are not a prisoner. Moreover, I will hand over some of our Imperial Army equipment to you.”
“General!”
As if he never dreamed Heinz would act this way, the old general’s expression was colored with surprise.
“In exchange, please arrange a ship that can transport a brigade-level force to the Empire.”
“No way…!! D-do you know what you’re trying to do right now?!”
“Yes, of course I do.”
He had pondered it many times before going to sleep, but the answer was always the same.
“I’m going to withdraw our army.”
Retreat.
“And I’m going to hold the President accountable for all of this.”
The young general’s eyes flashed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
