Is This Unfair Treatment or Excessive Favor?

“Sob…… Sob…….”

The sound of sobbing beside me slowly roused me from sleep.

Irritated, I turned my head and saw a girl without a rank insignia on her shoulder boards. That meant she was a recruit.

Had she said her name was Prien? She was the girl I met yesterday after being locked in the military police detention cell.

Judging by her light brown hair and black eyes, she looked like someone from the south.

Thinking she might be from my home region, I exchanged a few words with her, but whether she had grown dependent on me or what, finding her clinging tightly to my side when I woke was exhausting.

I considered ignoring her, but she looked like she would keep crying if I left her alone, so I opened my mouth.

“You seem to have forgotten that soldiers of the Empire must not show their tears so carelessly.”

Hearing my voice, Prien startled and stopped sniffling.

“I’m sorry! I-I have no excuse! I suddenly thought of my father back home….”

“Why? Is he ill?”

“No, but… He was proud of me for enlisting in the Imperial Army, yet here I am, locked up without even completing my training properly. I feel like such an idiot.”

“Did you just use ‘yo’?”

At my rebuke, Prien’s shoulders flinched.

“Ah. I-I’m sorry! I’ll correct myself!”

There was no one more hopeless. I gave Prien a cold look, then turned my gaze straight ahead.

“You said you came here because your religious beliefs made you refuse to fire a gun.”

“That is correct. Since I volunteered as a medic….”

“Even a medic needs to know how to fire a gun. If the enemy tries to kill a soldier you’re treating, are you going to just let him die?”

Prien did not answer. More accurately, she was unable to answer.

“War isn’t child’s play. If you want to play hospital, why not go to some kindergarten and teach children instead of coming to the battlefield?”

Prien hung her head, crestfallen. Seeing that, I sighed and added,

“Even so, I think your resolve to volunteer for the military to save people is noble. Women aren’t subject to conscription, so volunteering despite that would be impossible without a spirit of sacrifice.”

“……Thank you, Second Lieutenant.”

A faint smile touched the lips of Prien, who had been sitting hunched over.

“Hearing your words gives me strength. I understand how childish I’ve been acting, too. For my pastor father’s honor, if I return to training camp, I’ll have to work hard again.”

Her speech was laced with another “yo” this time, but I decided not to point it out.

It seemed to be slipping out unconsciously, and I was not her direct superior, so there was no need to correct her.

Come to think of it, she had hesitated to use a firearm because her father was a clergyman.

She must have been taught that taking a life was taboo, so I could understand that…?

‘Wait a minute.’

Her father was a clergyman?

On top of being from the south and a woman, she had been disciplined during her training?

It felt strange, because this was remarkably similar to the backstory of an NPC I had often encountered while playing the game.

I looked at Prien, secretly breaking into a cold sweat.

“Soldier. What exactly is your name?”

“Pardon? Oh. I’m Prien. My full name is Prien Remiliat.”

The hair all over my body stood on end when I heard Prien’s full name.

Prien Remiliat was a named NPC known as the Empire’s Saint.

Prien had a unique signature hymn-chanting magic that applied a buff effect across the entire battlefield, literally turning the soldiers deployed there into murderous monsters.

That was why, whenever I heard she was on the battlefield, I would order a retreat unless the balance of forces was overwhelmingly in our favor.

I was deeply flustered to encounter a named NPC in a detention cell, but it had little to do with me.

‘I’m getting discharged anyway.’

Once I was discharged and left the Empire, I would never see her again, so what use was there in taking an interest?

“I see. That’s a pretty name.”

When I gave her a perfunctory answer, Prien blushed shyly.

I did not know much about it, but if she blushed at such a trivial compliment, I could tell she had no experience with men.

What on earth was she doing enlisting in the military when she should have been enjoying her youth?

Then again, if I had not awakened my past-life memories at the operations command post, I would have considered serving in the military the greatest honor of all, so I was no different.

“Second Lieutenant Daniel Steiner?”

Just then, a sergeant approached the bars and spoke to me.

I raised my hand, and after confirming that my face matched the name on the roster, the sergeant took a key from his belt and unlocked the detention-cell door.

“You’re being released. Come with me.”

Had the time come? It seemed the higher-ups had gotten to the bottom of things and convened a court-martial.

Prien beside me seemed unaware of that, blinking her clear eyes with a vacant expression.

“You’re finally leaving. It was an honor to talk with you, Second Lieutenant.”

I nodded with a dubious expression (while cheering inwardly), stood up, and followed the sergeant.

After passing through the military police office and stepping outside, I found Captain Philip waiting there.

He was holding some kind of box, and it had an oddly luxurious air about it.

“Ah. You’re here?”

Captain Philip gave me a benevolent smile.

Something about it seemed strange, but I saluted him out of courtesy.

Philip returned the salute perfunctorily and approached me.

“I would have gotten you out a little sooner, but the various procedures took some time. You’ve spent time at General Staff Headquarters yourself, so you understand, don’t you?”

I did. The military was the kind of place that treated reports and procedures as more important than life itself.

But what did he mean by saying he had tried to get me out sooner? As I stared at him, uneasy about the nuance of his words, Philip held the box out to me.

“This is your reward for your accomplishments, Second Lieutenant Daniel Steiner. No, that’s not right. I suppose I should call you First Lieutenant now.”

What the hell was he talking about? Blinking blankly, I took the box and opened it.

Inside lay two-diamond rank insignia and shoulder boards symbolizing the rank of first lieutenant.

Wondering what on earth this was, I looked up at Philip, who gave me a gentle smile as if to say I had every right to be proud.

“Your judgment was correct. Major Karl Heinrich has been identified as an agent of the Allied Nations. Therefore, the higher-ups have decided to reward your military achievement with a one-rank promotion, bypassing the promotion review.”

“……A one-rank promotion? Me?”

“That’s right. The Imperial Army’s basic principle is to reward merit and punish faults, after all. Furthermore, since the operations staff officer’s post will remain vacant for the time being, headquarters has ordered you to serve as acting operations staff officer.”

Is this a joke? I assaulted my superior, only for it to turn out that he was a spy for the Allied Nations, and thanks to that, I received a one-rank promotion? That made absolutely no sense.

“At this rate, you might even overtake me someday. In any case, congratulations!”

……But Philip’s congratulations told me that this situation actually made perfect sense.

Thanks to that, I had no choice but to praise the Empire while reluctantly shaking Philip’s hand.

*

I used the week of reward leave I received from headquarters, then returned to Imperial General Staff Headquarters.

When I entered the building and went into the operations staff office, the staff officers who had been chatting turned their gazes toward me.

They soon began converging around me with smiles on their faces.

“Lieutenant Daniel? Aren’t you our hero!”

“Even if he was an agent, attacking the superior you served must have been difficult. What courage!”

“It’s amazing that you’ve earned two military achievements in a row recently. Did you know your name is coming up at headquarters from time to time?”

I didn’t earn those achievements because I wanted to, you idiots.

My heart was rotting away while they congratulated me without the slightest idea, and it was driving me crazy.

“Please take back your praise. I acted solely out of a desire to serve the Empire.”

Even so, I couldn’t ignore their goodwill, so I answered with a smile.

Only after exchanging greetings for a while did I walk to my desk in the operations staff office…… the place where Major Karl had previously sat and worked.

It seemed they had removed all of Major Karl’s personal belongings, leaving the area around the desk spotless.

On the desk lay a map of the war situation, several documents, and a telephone. But the most conspicuous item was none other than the nameplate.

【Acting Operations Staff Officer / First Lieutenant Daniel Steiner】

Even as a temporary appointment, entrusting the operations staff officer’s post to a lieutenant was truly unprecedented.

The operations staff officer was important enough within General Staff Headquarters to be given a private office. Normally, they would never entrust it to some mere lieutenant.

In other words, headquarters considered me useful enough to warrant that kind of treatment.

It was absurd that I, only three months into my commission, had been promoted to first lieutenant and then landed the position of acting operations staff officer.

I was nothing short of the elite among the elite; it would not be an exaggeration to say that a flower-strewn path now lay before me, rather than merely a smooth road to success.

That meant, in turn, that the road to a dishonorable discharge had become even more arduous.

‘…….’

I sat down, frowning and pressing a hand to my forehead as I listened to the birds chirping outside the window.

‘Why the hell are they doing this to me…….’

I felt like I was really about to lose my mind.