Chapter 31
Knock knock─
Cedric looked up from the sandwich he was eating while working in his office.
When he glanced at the wall clock, he saw that the hour hand had already reached five in the afternoon.
‘……Then the one knocking now must be Captain Daniel Steiner.’
Around lunchtime, Daniel had requested a meeting, saying he wanted to consult Cedric about supporting the operation in the North.
Since Cedric had wanted to see Daniel in person anyway, he had told him to come at five. Daniel had arrived and knocked at precisely the appointed time.
“Come in.”
With Cedric’s permission, Daniel opened the office door.
Seeing the inside of the Deputy Chief of Staff’s office for the first time, Daniel was overcome by a strange sense of intimidation.
The Deputy Chief of Staff’s office contained an oddly complete lack of unnecessary objects.
No matter how much he looked around, all he could see were a coat rack, bookcases, a fountain pen, a telephone, a desk, and various documents.
Usually, one might expect to find at least one item related to the occupant’s hobbies, such as golf balls or stamps, but there was no trace of anything like that here.
The only things in sight were countless classified documents filed away in the bookcases lining both walls.
“You’re here.”
It was a low but sharp voice.
Cedric, seated behind an elegant mahogany desk, glanced at Daniel once before finishing his sandwich.
Seeing that, Daniel felt a quiet tension rise within him as he walked to the center of the office and saluted.
“I’m sorry to disturb you while you’re eating. However, I had something urgent to discuss, so I took the liberty of coming to see you.”
After stuffing the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, Cedric took out a handkerchief, wiped his hands, and looked at Daniel.
His eyes, with the whites showing all around the irises, seemed to ask in the silence: Tell me what brings you here.
“……I don’t want to take up your valuable time, Deputy Chief, so I’ll be direct. I would like you to withdraw Lieutenant Lucy, my adjutant, and Cadet Prien from the Northern deployment.”
From Daniel’s perspective, both of them were troubling presences, so he wanted to keep them as far away from him as possible.
But Cedric had no way of knowing what Daniel was thinking, so he could only be puzzled.
After swallowing the sandwich he had been chewing, Cedric asked a question.
“Why?”
If only he could say, ‘Lucy is a spy, and Prien is insane.’
Daniel sighed inwardly and thought up a plausible excuse.
“My adjutant and Cadet Prien have only just reached adulthood. I can’t take young women who haven’t even shed their girlishness to a dangerous battlefield.”
“I can understand Lieutenant Lucy, but as I recall, you took Cadet Prien with you when she was still a soldier?”
“At that time, we were sent to support an operation to defend our own territory. Compared to this operation supporting the Northern Army Group, which will take us deep into enemy territory, it was a relatively low-risk assignment.”
The answer was unexpected, and Cedric blinked once.
‘Unexpected.’
He had thought Daniel was the sort of cold-blooded man who would ignore even minor issues if it meant earning a promotion.
Yet seeing him step forward to protect his subordinates revealed that he had a surprisingly human side.
‘They say even a hedgehog thinks its babies are adorable.’
Caring for one’s subordinates could be considered one of a commander’s most important virtues.
Cedric liked Daniel even more now, but he still could not grant his request.
“I refuse. The Empire’s ideology is rewarding merit and punishing demerit. It focuses on equality of opportunity. Therefore, deciding not to send someone to the battlefield simply because she is a young woman would run counter to the Empire’s ideology.”
This was what Daniel had expected.
“Then please exclude only Prien from my unit’s roster. She’s a cadet still undergoing training at the military academy. I don’t see why I should have to take along a mere cadet.”
There was no reason to bring an untrained cadet into the unit. It was a sound argument.
But Cedric saw limitless potential in Prien’s ‘special nature.’
“Captain Daniel. She isn’t a mere cadet. You fought alongside her, so you should know. Prien’s magic has a ‘color,’ unlike that of ordinary soldiers.”
Daniel could not deny it. When Prien had shot Colonel Jeremy dead, she had imbued the bullet with magic and fired from right beside Daniel.
“Prien’s magic is black, a color through which light does not pass. Considering that ordinary magic is transparent or accompanied by a pale blue glow, it’s an extremely anomalous phenomenon. You could call it a kind of mutation.”
Cedric removed the monocle he had been wearing and placed it on the desk.
“Shall we digress a little? Since ancient times, black has been an omen of ill fortune. It was a symbol of the devil, after all. Superstitions that black cats and crows bring misfortune also stemmed from that.”
Cedric placed both hands on the desk and interlaced his fingers.
“Of course, it’s nothing more than superstition. In this day and age, anyone who says something about someone like you having black hair or black eyes would rightly be called crazy. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes.”
“But magic is different. Especially if a child born into a family of clergymen were to manifest black magic? They would inevitably face religious condemnation.”
Daniel nodded, having roughly understood what Cedric was getting at.
“Cadet Prien didn’t enlist voluntarily, then. There must have been outside pressure.”
“You catch on quickly, which is good. Yes. Cadet Prien was abandoned by her family. They sent her to the army practically by force, telling her to prove she wasn’t a child of Satan by demonstrating patriotism. In reality, it was no different from sending her off to die fighting the enemy.”
“The reason you’re suddenly telling me all this is…….”
Cedric opened a drawer and took out a letter.
It was Prien’s application to support the Northern Army Group.
“Cadet Prien, who had been living while desperately denying that her family had abandoned her, has met someone she can rely on anew. It seems that person is you.”
“Your Excellency? I am absolutely not someone Prien can rely on.”
“Is that so? If I read the letter, it says you provided Cadet Prien with considerable comfort in the detention cell and did not discriminate against her when carrying out operations together in the North simply because she used black magic?”
Daniel found it somewhat absurd.
In the detention cell, they had merely chatted to pass the time, and he had not been surprised when she used black magic only because his knowledge of the game had told him about it in advance.
However, from Cedric’s perspective, Daniel’s feelings were not particularly important.
“Captain Daniel Steiner. Let me put it plainly so you can understand. Black magic may be condemned religiously, but in the military it deserves praise. It has strategic value in and of itself. Do you understand what I mean?”
Black magic, through which light could not pass, could make concealment and taking cover easier simply by being scattered around the area.
Thus, based on its high strategic value, Cedric was telling Daniel to turn Cadet Prien into a battlefield-ready asset.
‘Why me?’
Daniel wanted to refuse and tell Cedric to have some other capable person handle it, but Cedric’s gaze was firm.
If he quibbled over Cedric’s words here, he might needlessly incur his anger.
In the end, Daniel reluctantly raised a salute.
“I will follow your orders, Your Excellency.”
Satisfied, Cedric returned the salute.
“Good. If you have nothing else, you may leave.”
Lowering his hand, Daniel turned and walked away before opening the office door and leaving.
Seeing that, Cedric leaned back against his chair and let out a low laugh.
‘It’s like looking at the former Chief of Staff. Even though they tense up before their superior, they still say everything they have to say.’
Cedric knew that people like that were never swayed by power.
It had been a very long time since a talent he wanted to cultivate had appeared.
*
At the same time, Prien and Lucy were gathered in Daniel’s private office.
Lucy had come to the office to organize the documents, since it was nearly time to leave work.
As for Prien? Daniel had told her to wait in his private office while he met with the Deputy Chief and then conveyed the result, so she was merely killing time.
Rustle─
Prien, standing with her back against the wall, cast a sidelong glance.
She felt strangely envious of Lucy, who was sitting in her own place and skillfully organizing the documents.
‘The position of Captain Daniel’s adjutant should have been mine…….’
She felt unpleasantly as though her position had been stolen from her.
Perhaps sensing that gaze, Lucy looked up in the middle of her work.
Their eyes met.
“……”
“……”
In the strange silence, Lucy was the first to speak.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
At the businesslike question, Prien answered curtly.
“Nothing. I was just wondering why you applied for the position of Captain Daniel’s adjutant, Lieutenant Lucy.”
“There is no particular reason. If I had to find one, I suppose it would be for the glory of the Empire.”
It was an immediate answer.
In truth, Lucy had applied because the position was the perfect cover job for her role as a spy, but she could not say that outright.
Lucy had succeeded in completely concealing her true thoughts, yet Prien could only tilt her head in puzzlement.
She had the feeling that Lucy was lying for some reason.
This was more a sixth sense than intuition.
It was Prien’s own discernment, not always precise but generally accurate.
“Lieutenant Lucy? I was raised by my father, who was a priest. So I used to attend worship services every day. When the service ended, people who wished to confess their sins would usually remain behind. They would follow my father in to receive confession.”
Wondering what Lucy was talking about all of a sudden, Lucy stopped sorting the documents.
“So when I was young, I played a game of guessing which of the many people attending worship would go to confession. I was quite accurate. No matter how pious and upright someone looked while praying, a shadow fell across the faces of those hiding sins.”
Tap. Lucy closed the documents and quietly stared at Prien.
Prien did not avoid Lucy’s gaze either, meeting it directly.
Tick─
After a silence in which the sound of the wall clock’s movement could be heard clearly, Prien walked over to where Lucy was sitting and placed a hand on the desk.
“And yet, I can see it clearly.”
Prien slowly lowered her head and stared intently at Lucy’s face.
Their impassive gazes met, and the space froze.
In that atmosphere as thin as ice, Prien quietly moved her lips.
“The shadow falling across your face, Lieutenant.”