Chapter 295: Willingly

On the western coast, with the sea rippling in the distance, I handed General Leber a document. It was a new surrender agreement I had written myself in Prozen language.

"What do you think?"

Leber read the terms in silence. Their eyes moved rapidly across the page, and their expression shifted through a range of emotions.

"..."

After reading for a long while, Leber looked up at me and asked,

"...Do you mean this?"

I smiled faintly.

"Yes."

The Emperor had already granted me full authority.

That included the authority to decide how to handle a battlefield like this.

"You must convey this to every Allied soldier."

Would you be able to do that?

At my question, Leber gripped the document tightly.

* * *

The Imperial Army's bombardment stopped. The infantry's advance and gunfire stopped as well, and Allied officers ordered every unit to lay down its weapons.

As rifles, ammunition, and trucks piled up like mountains, Allied soldiers spoke among themselves in low voices.

"We'll be taken to a Camp."

"I heard no one comes back alive from there..."

"Have you heard of Larkordak? Up north."

"They'll shoot us or bury us alive..."

They would be sent to a Camp. They would be shot. They would be buried alive and die beneath the earth. It would have been better to keep fighting.

As such words passed between them, the Imperial Army entered their positions.

Accompanied by interpreters, Imperial personnel checked each unit's status, its abandoned weapons, and its remaining ammunition and fuel. They informed the officers of the time and place to assemble.

Then came a procession of trucks collecting weapons.

Whoooosh.

Trucks came and went, kicking up dust.

Before the Allied soldiers' eyes, their guns, artillery, and tanks all disappeared.

"They're coming."

The disarmed soldiers looked in one direction. Administrative officers wearing Imperial armbands had arrived.

Escorted by guards, they set up tents for processing prisoners.

"We will prepare a registry!"

Every Allied soldier lined up before the barracks, guided by their officers beneath the scattered watch of Imperial troops.

"Name. If you tell even the smallest lie, you will be executed."

The interpreter conveyed the words.

The soldiers stated their names, nationalities, units, branches of service, and ranks.

The most important matter was their bloodline.

"Sign."

They signed documents scrawled in Imperial language, but every tent also contained one more person in an Imperial uniform.

"..."

They asked nothing. They held no documents. Whenever a soldier passed before their desk, they merely closed their eyes and took a short breath.

The soldiers did not know what they were doing.

But whenever they twitched a finger, an administrative officer added a mark to one line of the registry.

Izenheim.

...

The Western Allied Forces had marched out to restrain the Empire's tyranny, only to be isolated and defeated.

The Hailand Defense Bureau conjectured that Imperial knights had dropped behind the Allied lines and occupied the rear, cutting off every supply route and line of communication.

The reason no one had detected them beforehand was the nature of their flight. Imperial transport craft flew only as close as they could without being detected by radar or the naked eye. The knights handled the rest by gliding.

"Knights are strategic weapons."

Hailand quickly analyzed the battle and reached its conclusion.

"What is the response?"

Prime Minister Arthur Winston asked Leonard's staff.

"Shoot down the transport craft before they can take off, destroy their bases, intercept the knights as they drop..."

None were easy methods.

"More than anything, superhumans are needed to oppose superhumans."

Superhumans. The Empire likely did not have many knights it could deploy in actual combat. Of those, only a few hundred would be Sentinel class.

But their power had been proven all too clearly in this battle.

"Training cannot produce fully developed superhumans immediately."

As Arthur said, time was the greatest obstacle. Humans did not grow all at once. Nor could they be assembled in an instant like machines.

"Prime Minister, Belford has been training them for a long time already."

Army Minister Leonard spoke.

A military academy founded by Belford, an Izenheim educator. For years, it had been raising a different kind of superhuman.

"We don't need to make knights. Hunting dogs that can catch knights will be enough. We need thousands to face hundreds."

When knights dropped from the sky, three things were needed to respond.

First, eyes to observe them.

Knights had no choice but to use mana while dropping. Therefore, they would train observers who could detect those waves from dozens of kilometers away.

Second, hands to reach them.

A knight in the middle of a drop could not maneuver easily until folding their wings. Therefore, they would organize anti-mana sniper battalions to target them and manufacture mana stone bullets.

Third, legs to hold them to the ground.

Immediately after landing, knights left the sky and became slower instead. Therefore, if they could simply move faster than the knights, they could restrain them long enough to buy time.

"It is a system that uses ten people to kill one knight. Thousands are training at Belford even now."

It was a military academy with a high proportion of Izenheim students. A facility that had received no support from Hailand proper and had operated solely on Izenheim capital until now.

"...I will provide the necessary funding."

Arthur leaned on a cane. Rubbing between the brows, he looked around the room again.

"What of the prisoners?"

"Nothing has been confirmed yet."

They would be sent to a Camp. Or all executed. Most expected one of those outcomes.

Even the Hailand and Prozen press wrote as though they had given up on the safe return of the enlisted soldiers.

"Was it too hasty? Or was their resolve lacking?"

The press criticized them as well. Why should they bleed for the East? Why should young people be sacrificed to defend the East?

"No. It was necessary. We must use this battle as justification. Only then..."

Arthur frowned at Leonard's words.

"Leonard. At times, you unsettle me."

Leonard lowered their head. Arthur murmured with something like a sigh.

"...But you are right.

"The soldiers who have already left will not return. We must use them as nourishment to unite Hailand. To stand against the Empire's ambitions..."

"Prime Minister!"

Suddenly, a secretary burst through the door.

News no one could have imagined was delivered to them all.

...

The prisoners gathered in a wide open field. Tens of thousands of Allied soldiers stood assembled in one place, every face filled with anxiety.

The Imperial Army surrounded them. Machine-gun emplacements stood at every corner, and behind them came the sound of digging.

"They're going to shoot us all?"

Someone muttered it, and no one argued. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Allied soldiers had already been taken away. Their crime was lying while the registry was being prepared.

But how had the Empire distinguished lies from truth?

Perhaps it was simply the Empire's whim.

Whoooosh...

Was it the smell of blood? The smell of iron? Whenever the desolate wind blew, death seemed to brush against their noses.

The field was silent. Even the dirt beneath their feet seemed soaked in blood.

Step. Step.

Then General Leber appeared.

Leber stood before the assembled soldiers. Their appearance was still neat, fitting for a general, but their face was haggard.

"I have something to tell you."

Perhaps it would be their final order.

The soldiers staring blankly did not yet feel that any of it was real.

How had war broken out? How had they been dragged to this front? How had they become prisoners?

"Those in the front, please pass my words to those behind you. The people behind may not hear me."

Leber cleared their throat and unfolded a sheet of paper.

"..."

As Leber looked down at the document and took a deep breath, that brief moment felt like eternity to everyone.

Tens of thousands of breaths stopped at once.

"I will first explain the meaning of the registry you signed yesterday. It means your return."

Return.

At first, the front row did not understand what they had heard.

It was too sudden. Too direct.

"You swore to the Emperor that you would never take up arms again. With that signature, your return has been guaranteed."

Murmurs began in the front row and spread farther and farther back.

Leber waited for the ripple to reach the end before continuing.

"Every soldier from Prozen and Hailand will return home. The Imperial Army will open the way."

Soon the field was covered in murmurs and commotion.

"We're... going back?"

"We're going home?"

"Pass it back! We're going home!"

"Is it true? Is it really true?"

The words spread. Voices mingled and grew louder.

The air of the field slowly changed. Stiff shoulders shook, and someone sank to the ground amid the dust. Cries that could not be told apart as laughter or weeping burst out everywhere.

Step.

But in the very next moment.

Step.

Silence fell over the space again. It was colder than before.

Because of one person's arrival.

Step.

A man had appeared from nowhere.

Wearing a uniform, he crossed through the prisoners' ranks.

Step.

Every eye turned toward him, from the very back, the very front, and the middle.

Step.

He climbed the dirt steps and stood beside Leber.

Without saying a word, he looked over the prisoners.

Tens of thousands of gazes focused on him. In their eyes lay strange admiration and fear.

The prisoners immediately realized who he was. Rumors of the one who had come for them had already spread among them.

"..."

His expressionless face was bleak.

He looked as if he might kill everyone here, or spare them all.

A face impossible to predict. The most dangerous thing dwelling within a beautiful exterior...

"You will now."

He opened his mouth.

"Return home."

Perfect Prozen language rang out, clear as crystal.

The face they had feared suddenly seemed touched by an angel's light.

"I hope we never meet again."

Everyone understood that there would be no such mercy at their second meeting.

"Return home."

Leaving those words behind, he turned away.

...

No sound rose for a long time after he left. Countless hems fluttered in the bitter wind.

They did not dare give voice to either the joy of survival or the sorrow of defeat.

An army of tens of thousands had been crushed by the presence of one person.

* * *

As I sent the prisoners back, I realized Johann had been right.

Appearance was a talent. Usually, it was only one of many factors. But when that appearance reached a certain level and combined with the right circumstances and environment, it could become the whole.

They would return to Prozen and talk about my appearance. They would speak of the Empire's mercy and majesty. Photographs taken by war correspondents would be shown to them.

Now was the perfect time to reveal my appearance to the continent.

"...Prozen will not keep its promise."

Commander Hagen, a major general, said so.

"Yes. That may be true."

If circumstances became urgent, those soldiers might be conscripted and sent out again.

But this was justification for what came next.

Strategy was not limited to the battlefield. It looked at a broader picture and laid the groundwork.

"But a soldier who has been given another life in exchange for having their name entered in the registry will value the rest of that life more dearly."

Rather than return to the front as a soldier, they would try to desert. If they were captured then, death would be unavoidable.

"If one or two people in a unit do not want to fight, that alone lowers morale."

Besides, officers were the important fighting force anyway. No matter how exceptional enlisted soldiers were, they did not command armies, and officers promoted in a rush were bound to cause problems.

That was why I sent every Hailand and Prozen officer, including Leber, to a Camp. I showed them no mercy.

"Let us look farther ahead, Major General Hagen."

The war was only beginning now.

* * *

Gauthier's cabinet in Prozen was bewildered. The defeated soldiers had returned on their own feet.

The government immediately isolated and interrogated them at the border. It pressed them on what had happened, what the Empire had said, and whether anyone had collaborated.

After a long investigation, the events of that day reached the government through the official reports.

"...So that is what happened."

Jean Pierre closed the documents. Maximilian had shown the Allied Forces a subtle mercy.

Even Jean Pierre found Maximilian's moves difficult to read...

"Maximilian's photograph has appeared in the papers."

Minister Duvall held out a newspaper.

The Empire had not confiscated the film taken by a war correspondent. A Prozen newspaper had bought it and released it as a scoop.

"Look. This is the main one."

A photograph taken directly in front of Maximilian. A clean, elegant face looking straight ahead. Flawless beauty, perfect as a sculpture. Though it was black and white, it seemed colored by his distinctive blond hair and golden eyes.

"He was handsome. Almost unfairly so."

Duvall gave a hollow laugh and swept back their hair.

"Just as you said, this paper is selling like hotcakes. I'm considering whether we should withdraw it."

Appearance was so cold and honest. The commander of an enemy nation who had returned soldiers rather than keep them prisoner was becoming popular, and people were even beginning to fall in love with him.

Everyone had forgotten what Maximilian had done before that.

"According to the soldiers' testimony, races such as the Izenheim and Mer were isolated separately and did not return. If we reveal that fact..."

"Absolutely not."

Jean Pierre stopped Duvall at once.

Prozen itself still quietly discriminated against minorities, including the Izenheim. If that fact became public, it would only divide the factions.

The Empire spared Prozen people and killed only minorities?

It could easily become an opportunity to create more people who were drawn to the Empire's bloodline law.

"...Then what?"

Jean Pierre was about to speak, then closed his mouth again.

"..."

Stress suddenly surged through him. Words difficult to say aloud, yet suddenly rising in his chest.

"...You are the ones doing politics. Why do you keep asking only me?"

He had warned them. He had written papers. Yet they had not prepared for them. They had been too busy fighting among themselves. Factions, ideas, ideologies. They had been swayed by such meaningless things even more than by the Empire...

"...Jean."

Duvall's voice sounded guilty.

Jean Pierre came to his senses too late. He sighed before speaking.

"The Empire will return west after it has firmly occupied and stabilized Bolska and Yursled. Releasing these prisoners may be groundwork for that."

Killing the prisoners would only earn needless hostility. Keeping and feeding them would be an unnecessary burden for now.

"So conduct diplomacy."

Jean Pierre spoke.

"We cannot stop the Empire ourselves. We must somehow move Lobrus..."

...

In a darkened private room within Hailand's prime ministerial residence, Arthur Winston read a letter by the light of a standing lamp.

[ Greetings, Prime Minister Arthur Winston. ]

That was how it began.

[ Long ago, you sent me a letter. Of course, you were not prime minister at the time. ]

It was Maximilian's letter, sent through one of the returned prisoners.

[ You said that I was someone who wanted war and desired hatred. ]

Not even a Hailander, yet he wrote Hail language this well.

[ Thanks to that, I thought deeply about the kind of person I am. ]

[ I can now answer you like this. ]

They said he could handle not only Hail language, but Prozen language, Zerpan, and even Lobrus language with ease.

[ Yes. I may truly be such a person. ]

[ Even if it means causing war and hatred, I intend to achieve my goal. ]

A man who possessed such absurd linguistic talent and had put in such effort, only to devote it all to war and racial discrimination.

[ Still, I hope that at least the soldiers of Prozen and Hailand return safely. ]

[ As they have sworn, I hope they are never sent to the battlefield again. ]

The Hailand soldiers taken prisoner had returned to Hailand through an Imperial port.

It was a decision shaped by Maximilian's calculations.

[ But this is only the beginning. ]

[ One day, Prime Minister, you asked whether being born could be a crime. ]

[ Yes. It can. If one is Izenheim, it is. If you seek to protect the Izenheim, that too is a crime. ]

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.

[ The Empire and the West are at war. ]

Each line was heavy, yet nowhere did it threaten. There was not even a curse or any agitation.

[ From this moment onward, as the Empire's sword, I will give my full devotion to cutting down every one of you. ]

Everything in the letter was simply polite.

[ And so I will become a slaughterer... ]

That made it all the more terrible.

[ One day, in a future distant or near. ]

[ If history seeks to judge me, as you said it would. ]

A bitter smile suddenly touched Arthur's lips.

Maximilian did not deny his crimes. He did not make excuses or dress them up.

Only...

[ I can only answer like this. ]

Arthur read the final word aloud.

"...Willingly."