Chapter 17
While I was still dumbfounded, Ernst looked at me.
The expectation overflowing from his eyes seemed to say, ‘My capable subordinate has pulled off another one!’ and doubled the pressure I felt.
“How on earth did you get that tight-lipped milksop to talk? Tell me sometime, if only to give the interrogator some advice.”
At Ernst’s words, Sergeant Wendelin also looked at me with a smile.
I understood. Since I had turned off the microphone and conducted the interrogation yesterday, he probably didn’t know what had been said.
As an interrogator, he probably wanted to know how I had persuaded such a tight-lipped prisoner.
But no matter how I thought about it, all I had done was have an ordinary conversation with Reginald.
I couldn’t possibly have used any interrogation techniques, so questions like that only left me at a loss.
Thus, while I was searching for an answer, Wendelin spoke up in a bright voice, perhaps trying to liven up the atmosphere.
“In all my time as an interrogator, I’ve seen all sorts of cases, but I’ve never seen anyone wrap things up as swiftly and decisively as you did, Captain Daniel Steiner.”
“Oh. Really?”
“It’s true. After you left the interrogation room, that bastard Reginald said he would cooperate with the Empire in a voice that sounded like he might burst into tears at any moment. It was incredibly satisfying!”
He was about to cry? That stiff-looking Reginald?
“What’s more, most interrogations involve shouting or violence, but you spoke to him with a gentle smile the entire time. You were practically overflowing with dignity!”
Wendelin. There was one good thing about the man, but he was laying it on way too thick.
I wanted to stop him because it seemed overly exaggerated, but Ernst appeared to believe every word.
He was looking at me with even greater expectations than before.
“The more I hear, the more curious I become. What on earth did you talk about with Reginald?”
He had asked twice. Maintaining my silence after being asked twice was not the proper conduct for a subordinate.
I suppose I had no choice. After hesitating for a moment, I answered.
“It was nothing special. I only talked about Reginald’s family a few times.”
At the mention of family, both Wendelin and Ernst flinched.
Several officers who had been eavesdropping on the conversation without meaning to even glanced over.
An inexplicable silence settled around me.
Just as I was wondering why the atmosphere had turned so strange, Ernst cleared his throat and nodded.
“It is the most effective method, after all. Did you hear that, Sergeant? Take Captain Daniel as your example.”
“Ah. Of course! I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve been treating the prisoners too leniently all this time.”
……They seem to be misunderstanding this in a rather strange direction.
It felt odd, but I decided not to offer any particular explanation.
In my experience, whenever you opened your mouth to explain yourself in a situation like this, it only piled on even greater misunderstandings.
So I merely nodded once, and Wendelin gave me an enthusiastic salute.
For some reason, his salute was a little more rigid than when I had first seen him.
“Then I’ll return to the military police station! Enjoy your meal!”
“Go ahead. You’ve worked hard coming all the way to Headquarters.”
After hearing Ernst’s reply, Wendelin turned with crisp precision and marched off like a toy soldier.
Just as I was wondering what had gotten into him, Ernst picked up his utensils and spoke.
“Anyway, congratulations. By getting Reginald to open his mouth, you’ve earned another achievement. Honestly, your abilities have been astonishing lately. When I was your age, I had trouble even completing the tasks I was given.”
I wanted to say that this achievement had nothing to do with my own intentions, but saying something like that in front of the Chief of the Operations Staff would likely get me beaten to a pulp.
“You’re too kind.”
So I simply put on a modest expression and picked up my utensils.
As I was cutting into the steak served for lunch, Ernst spoke up as if he had just remembered something.
“Ah. Come to think of it, about your adjutant. They’ll be assigned to Headquarters today. They might have arrived by now.”
Adjutant? I raised my head and blinked blankly.
“……My adjutant?”
“That’s right. Didn’t I tell you before? Once you officially became an operations staff officer, you would get an adjutant. I hear the higher-ups pulled some strings to assign you an elite whose rank matches yours.”
Seeing my bewildered expression, Ernst said with a smile,
“I hear you’ve been working a lot of overtime lately. An operations staff officer being busy during wartime is only natural, but now that you have an adjutant, you should be able to suffer a little less.”
“That certainly sounds…… likely.”
“This is your first direct subordinate, isn’t it? Make sure you guide them well.”
“Understood.”
I answered Ernst calmly.
I was doing my best not to show how happy I was, but inside I was floating above the clouds.
‘At last, I’m getting an adjutant too!’
No. Let me correct that. It was a little early to call it ‘at last,’ considering I had received two accelerated promotions in such a short time.
Of course, such a trivial detail wasn’t important.
What mattered was that I was getting an adjutant.
‘And an elite handpicked by the higher-ups, at that……! I won’t have to be worked to death anymore.’
One thing I had realized after being promoted from ‘acting’ operations staff officer to operations staff officer was that there was far too much work.
As a low-ranking staff officer whose job was to review documents first and send them up to my superiors, reports and requests for approval came flying in from every corner.
The truly important documents would go straight to my superiors, but wartime generated more bizarre requests and reports than I could have imagined.
One example was a request from some regimental commander asking us to ‘send beer by fighter jet because the soldiers want to drink it cold.’
Unsure whether he was serious, I approved the document instead of putting it on hold and sent it up to my superior; somehow, it received final approval, and I got to see fighter jets transporting kegs of beer.
On top of that, countless other requests kept pouring in, leaving me no time to spare.
A day when I managed to leave work on time, like yesterday, was a lucky one.
At this rate, I’d end up leaving this world from overwork before I ever escaped the Empire, so naturally I couldn’t help but be delighted when Ernst told me an adjutant had been assigned to me.
While I was absorbed in thoughts of my adjutant, Ernst finished his meal first, picked up a napkin, and wiped his mouth.
“Oh, right. Spend this afternoon in your private office rather than the Operations Staff Room.”
“……Is that really all right?”
“Yes. You’ll need some time to get acquainted with your new adjutant, won’t you? You’d also feel awkward having a private conversation with your adjutant in the staff room.”
Ernst was completely right.
I gave him a faint smile to indicate my agreement.
“Thank you for your consideration, Chief of the Operations Staff.”
Although the Operations Staff Room was not a battlefield, in an emergency I would have to dump the grunt work on my adjutant—no.
I would have to entrust my back to my adjutant.
Therefore, building a rapport with my adjutant was one of my important missions.
*
After finishing my meal with Ernst, I wandered around outside Headquarters instead of going straight up to my office.
I wanted to buy a gift for my new subordinate.
I thought about it for a while, but in the end I bought a few pieces of bread from a nearby bakery that seemed suitable for a snack instead of a bouquet of flowers.
Unlike a pretty bouquet, which had no practical value, bread could fill a person’s stomach.
When I returned to the office at Headquarters, I stood outside holding the bag of bread and took a deep breath.
‘I’m a little nervous.’
The adjutant waiting inside the office must be just as nervous.
Only five months ago, I had been in that very position, sweating coldly as I waited for my superior.
The memory was still vivid.
When I had first been commissioned, instead of receiving a gift, I had been cursed out by that bastard Karl Heimlich the moment I reported for duty.
Remembering the humiliation and trauma I had felt then, I decided to treat my subordinate as well as possible.
As for their work, I planned to give them only simple, easy tasks at first, so that they could get used to the job.
‘All right.’
Having equipped myself with the mindset of an excellent senior and superior, I smiled and opened the office door.
“Have you been waiting long? I’m late because I went to buy some bread suitable for a snack at a bakery near Headquarters. Of course, I bought it so we could share it……”
I spoke to my adjutant in a friendly manner, but froze involuntarily when I saw their appearance.
The adjutant’s hairstyle, as she gently turned her head toward me, was a tousled bob.
The bob falling to just below her neck was a graceful silver-white, like sunlight settling on a pure-white snowfield.
Her eyes were blood-red, starkly contrasting with the clean, beautiful shade of her hair.
She had a sharp gaze, but there seemed to be no hostility in it. That was simply how expressionless she was.
She was a truly sophisticated and elegant woman.
If I hadn’t known her identity, I certainly would have thought so.
Lucy Emilia.
She was one of the central characters in the game Empire of the Emperor, as well as a mass murderer known as the Empire’s nightmare.
Why on earth was Lucy, of all people, sitting in my office dressed impeccably in an Imperial military uniform?
…….
…….
After holding each other’s gaze for a moment, I closed the door for the time being.
‘Wait a second.’
Why was Lucy here? At this point in the story, shouldn’t she have been making a name for herself on the front lines?
To begin with, why had someone affiliated with the Allied Nations come to serve as my adjutant?
‘……A spy?’
Both the Allied Nations and the Empire were actively engaged in espionage, so it wasn’t impossible that she had infiltrated General Staff Headquarters as a spy.
‘But why?’
Of all the many positions available, why had she come specifically to be my adjutant?
Too dumbfounded for words, I furrowed my brow and shook my head.
‘I’ve been working so much overtime lately that I’m seeing things.’
No matter how I looked at it, there was no way Lucy could possibly be here. Of course. That had to be it.
Confident in that conclusion, I opened the office door again.
“……Captain?”
And immediately closed it.
Even after looking again, that really was Lucy.
Her appearance wasn’t the slightest bit different from her illustration in the game.
‘Why are you doing this to me…….’
This really wasn’t going to be easy.