Chapter 11 : Chapter 11
༺ 𓆩 Chapter 11 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Chirp, chirrrrp—!!!
“…Ah.”
A faint sliver of morning sunlight danced against her cheek as Arditi Günther opened her eyes.
She let out a breath, a quiet sigh that escaped before she could catch it.
‘Did I oversleep?’
Blinking against the light, she glanced between her wristwatch and the window, hoping she had seen wrong. But no, both confirmed the same truth. It was already 8 a.m.
It was unthinkable. For her, at least.
After all, she was a woman who always rose before the sun.
‘Three hours more than usual…’
Her average night’s sleep rarely exceeded four hours. If any physician had seen her routine, they would’ve burst into a frenzy, shouting and scrambling to fix what they’d consider a crisis. But there was no other choice.
The workload was heavy, and talent was woefully insufficient.
Slide—!!!
Stripping off her sleepwear and running through a quick wash, she began dressing in her uniform. Each motion was swift but precise, a ritual she had long since mastered. As she buttoned the final clasp, a thought passed through her mind like the echo—
'These past few days have been full of bewildering events.'
And no wonder she was exhausted.
Because Ein Krieg had arrived so suddenly, she had spent several days and nights completing handover documents, approving urgent matters, and even engaging in actual combat.
Had she not been a Grade 4 Knight Officer, it would have been a workload that would have left her either exhausted or collapsed from overwork long ago.
It hadn’t even been ten minutes since she woke, but already she stood fully dressed, the picture of an immaculate soldier. She glanced again at her wristwatch and made a mental note.
‘I’ll ask Parmilla to prepare something small.’
There wasn’t time to go all the way to the dining hall.
And given the hour, all that remained would be stale bread crumbs and watery potato soup, reheated for the third or fourth time.
But she’d long grown used to it.
What truly weighed on her mind were the backlog of documents.
Her stint as acting Brigade Commander may have ended, but that didn’t mean the workload had eased.
'Especially now that a Dual Number has appeared.'
It was the first Dual Number in five years by military standards, and fourteen years by Northern Front standards.
‘Five years ago. The Western Front.’
Dual Number. Number. 87. Dust Worm.
The thing had emerged without warning, towering, grotesque, easily stretching several dozen meters, and descended upon the Siegfried Line construction site like a plague of living earth.
The outcome had been catastrophic.
Two entire engineering battalions under the 4th Battalion were annihilated.
‘A division was eventually deployed to hunt it down, and they succeeded. But I heard the toll on Specialist Officers was devastating.’
She hadn’t been privy to the classified figures, but from the whispers that circulated through the ranks, close to thirty Specialist Officers had perished in the effort.
That, above all, was why she couldn’t dismiss Ain Krieg’s words.
‘A Grade 3 Specialist Officer can’t kill a Dual Number alone. Unless we’re talking about knights from 200 years ago.’
The Empire’s ancient history had faded into myth, leaving only fragments, some of those half-remembered, some were half-believed.
But if the old tales held even a sliver of truth, those knights had stood alone against tides of monsters and emerged victorious with terrifying strength.
Stories of lone knights slaughtering hundreds, or a handful of elites toppling a Singale Number beast, they were dusty legends, spoken now only in jest or reverence.
Arditi Günther was, above all, a deeply rational person.
So it came as no surprise that while she harbored doubts about Ain Krieg, she never once questioned the very existence of the Dual Number.
‘Ain Krieg.’
Her thoughts inevitably returned to the man himself.
— I'll tell you specially. My objective is simple.
— To return to the Empire.
The words he’d spoken outside the fortress echoed in her mind.
“…Lunacy.”
Rare for her, the curse slipped out under her breath. A passing noncommissioned officer instinctively stepped aside at the sound, though Arditi, already immersed in grim contemplation, didn’t even register their presence.
‘Returning to the Empire is impossible.’
Why had the Krieg family fallen in the first place?
There were many reasons, Sentinel House’s rise, the waning authority of the Imperial Throne, the politically fraught Siegfried Line Project. But most of all, it was their unattainable ideal.
‘Restoration of the Empire.’
Those who carried the Krieg name, and the few who still supported them, believed humanity would one day break free of this narrow world of ash and monsters, and reclaim the lost glory of the Millennium Empire.
But the impossibility of that dream had been proven well over a century ago.
‘The majority of the Empire’s old territory, the regions buried in ash, lost all vitality long ago. Even if we somehow retake them, sustaining them is out of the question.’
Beyond the Vanargand Mountains, the land of the former Empire had become a hellscape unfit for human life. Every inch covered in ash, the soil cracked and dead, the air crawling with beasts, it was a vast, forsaken ruin, as lifeless as it was lonely.
‘The Military State tried multiple times in its early years. Each attempt ended in devastating failure.’
Whatever political meaning the Siegfried Line held for House Sentinel, its strategic necessity was never in question.
Unless the population of the Military State suddenly grew tenfold overnight, the reclamation of the Imperial homeland remained nothing more than a fantasy. And even then, its success would be far from certain.
There was no way Ain Krieg didn’t already know that.
‘Does he simply want a pretext to seize the brigade?’
If that was the case, his mindset wasn’t entirely irrational.
Regardless of feasibility, the Cerberus Brigade’s very foundation was rooted in the singular belief that one day they would return to the Empire. It was a deeply ingrained doctrine.
But… was that really all?
She didn’t know.
A sigh escaped her lips as a dull headache began to pulse at her temples. She continued down the corridor.
Ordinarily, she would have headed to the battalion commander’s office by now. Instead, her steps turned elsewhere, toward the brigade commander’s office she’d only recently vacated.
The reason was clear.
The Vanargand mountain range now stood on the brink of an unprecedented crisis.
‘What makes the Dual Numbers truly terrifying isn’t just their raw power, but that some of them exert control over nearby Triple Numbers.’
Five years ago, during the Dust Worm incident, it had led a sweeping formation of nearby Triple Numbers.
If the one they now faced, the Reaper of Ash, possessed similar command over its kin, then the situation could only be described as catastrophic.
‘And yet… we have no way of confirming that.’
Unlike Triple Numbers, who had relatively frequent combat engagements on record, reliable data on Dual Numbers remained sorely lacking.
Had it not been for Rier Yung from the Atonement Order, who, thanks to their archives, managed to identify the creature, they wouldn’t have even known its number or name.
‘No. 98. The Reaper of Ash…’
She had spent the previous night combing through what little documentation she could find, only to come up empty.
And even Sergeant Yung, with all his knowledge, knew no more than she did.
That was why she had resolved to find Ain Krieg.
Not only to push for enhanced fortress defenses, but also to formally request cooperation from him, as a former agent of the Intelligence Bureau.
Knock—!!! Knock—!!!
Before she knew it, she had arrived at his office.
And as always, her voice held not a shred of hesitation.
“Major Günther reporting, Commander.”
However, there was no answer from within.
But the door creaked open nonetheless, revealing a familiar face she recognized immediately.
“Sergeant?”
“You’ve arrived, Major?”
Rier Yung greeted her with a calm, measured voice, as though he had been expecting her all along. He pushed the door open wider, and she stepped inside, her gaze immediately landing on Ain Krieg, seated comfortably on the sofa.
“Ah, you’ve come too, Major.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Now that she thought about it, it wasn’t strange for Sergeant Rier Yung to be here before her.
The situation was what it was.
More than that, he was the fortress’s sole military chaplain.
If anything, it would have been strange had he not been present. With that thought, Arditi Günther nodded, returned the salute, and seated herself across from Krieg.
Fsssh… click—!!!
Almost the instant she sat down, Ain Krieg slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit it without ceremony. A faint smoke drifted through the room, mingling sharp lemon and mint in its scent.
When no one else spoke, she broke the silence.
“Number 98. The Reaper of Ash must be reported to High Command immediately, and we need to request access to any relevant information and support. If that thing has the ability to control Triple Numbers, the fortress could be breached in the worst-case scenario.”
Her words were blunt, grounded in harsh reality.
Fourteen years ago, at least three battalions had survived, enough to stop the Dual Number.
But now? Their circumstances were far bleaker.
“And that’s not all,” she continued. “Out of the forty fixed artillery guns we have stationed for emergency bombardment, only about ten are operational. And even those are running low on shells.”
As she spoke, Ain Krieg lazily tapped the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray whose arrival she hadn’t even noticed.
"You should also point out that the soldiers are running low on ammunition, that we’re missing half our gear, and that even the most basic supply provisions are running empty, Major."
"…Yes, sir."
As someone who had led the brigade in his absence for the past seven years, it was shameful to admit, but at the very least, she was relieved to see that he wasn’t blind to reality.
And so, Arditi Günther, her expression hardening, pressed the issue once more.
"Even the Ministry of Military Affairs won’t sit idly by after hearing that a Dual Number has appeared. If we move fast—"
"Then we can get the supplies, and the reinforcements."
"…Yes, exactly."
Ain Krieg nodded in clear agreement.
But something about it made her uneasy.
She couldn’t explain why, his response had been positive, reassuring even, yet a prickle of anxiety tugged at her the moment she opened her mouth to speak again.
And then, before she could form the words, Ain Krieg stood up from his seat with a tone that was almost lighthearted.
"Then let’s go, Major."
"…Pardon?"
As expected.
"Go where…?"
He gave her a look as if the answer were painfully obvious, motioning toward himself.
"6th Logistics Support Regiment."
For a heartbeat, she genuinely questioned her hearing.
"Supplies we were owed were delayed. That means we collect them, plus interest."
We go ourselves.
And if we have to, we break some heads. Obviously.
༒︎
“Well, that’s how it is, Lieutenant Colonel Dorman.”
Ain Krieg, wearing a look of mild irritation, replaced his cigarette with a thick cigar.
Snip—!!!
He clipped the end cleanly with a cigar cutter, lit it with practiced ease, and exhaled a slow stream of smoke. Across from him, a man with sharp features furrowed his brow and asked:
"…Is this really something that requires the brigade commander to show up in person?"
"If using the honorific’s that hard, don’t bother. What’s with the formalities between classmates?"
Ain Krieg’s jet-black eyes crinkled with a faint smile.
Yet despite the laugh in his voice, his posture couldn’t have been more insolent.
With deliberate nonchalance, he planted his boot squarely on the table, leaned back into his chair, and lounged in a way so relaxed, no, so utterly rude, that even Arditi Günther, standing behind him, was visibly taken aback.
Hoo…!!!
Kotzel Dorman.
He stared at Ain for a long moment before his gaze flicked over to Arditi.
Black hair, and dark eyes.
A face like a wildcat.
Slim, but with a firm, disciplined physique beneath her uniform.
Even the mole beneath her right eye—
…She was still goddamn beautiful.
The thought slipped in before he could stop it.
And then, as if called out by some unseen curse, he met Ain Krieg’s serpentlike gaze and internally spat a silent curse.
'Damn it. Why did I have to get tangled up with this bastard of all people?'
Did he know?
That another senior officer in the Intelligence Bureau had once asked himself the very same question?
With a resigned sigh, Kotzel Dorman clamped a cigar between his own lips and turned to both Arditi and his adjutant.
"You two. Give us the room for a moment."
A brief exchange of glances passed between Günther and the aide before they nodded wordlessly and stepped out.
The door clicked shut behind them, and in the silence that followed, only the faint rustle of shifting fabric and breath remained.
Hooo…!!!
With a deep exhale, Dorman let out a plume of dense, fragrant smoke, then looked straight at Ain Krieg, face now set in grim seriousness.
"I didn't do it."
So—
"Spare me. Damn it."
Hearing that, Ain Krieg offered the same soft smile he always wore.
"That depends entirely on what you do next."
Then, with leisurely ease, he blew several perfect rings of smoke, thicker, deeper, more tangible than any mana cigarette could manage.
"What, do you still like Arditi Günther?"
Kotzel Dorman’s face twisted at the question.
Though not with rage; but, irritatingly, with a flush of red.
END σϝ CHAPTER