Chapter 12 : Chapter 12
Chapter 12
To Instructor Kain, from Adjutant Sigrid.
You must already know the full truth.
The tragic truth of what happened during the Ashen Cinder Battle.
The reason I had to kill the boy named Jubik, and everything that happened with Garsha in the stone village of Kragdon.
What should I have done?
No matter how many times I ask myself, no answer comes.
Where did it all go wrong, and what should I have corrected first?
Should I never have entered that village in the first place? Or if I had prevented Lord Berian and Jubik from growing close, would this tragedy never have occurred? If I had not killed the subordinate who witnessed everything, would the situation be better than it is now?
I truly do not know.
Even if I were to return to the past, I feel that I would make the same mistakes again.
What should I have done? I honestly do not know.
However, I believe I now know what must be done going forward.
Instructor, please place all the blame for every tragedy that occurred during the Ashen Cinder Battle upon me.
Please lie, and say that I was the one who killed Jubik and Garsha.
By doing so, allow Sir Dalmon and Lord Berian to quietly place the blame on me.
Please make them believe that all responsibility lay with me, so that Sir Dalmon and Lord Berian no longer blame themselves.
So that Sir Dalmon and Lord Berian may suffer no longer.
Instructor, I sincerely ask that you grant this request.
By the time this letter reaches you, I will no longer belong to this world.
I intend to embrace all of those sins and atone through death.
I do not know whether this can truly be called atonement, but even so.
P.S. I sincerely apologize for my rudeness during my meeting with Sir Dalmon.
However, please understand that it was an action taken for Sir Dalmon’s sake.
***
“The Kingdom Army provides small accommodations for unmarried adjutants. They are called the ‘Unmarried Adjutants’ Quarters,’ and Adjutant Sigrid is staying there.”
“Is there a chance that he went out?”
“Sigrid is not the type to enjoy going out. Even when he was off duty, or even granted leave, he would stay in his quarters reading books.”
Following those words, we arrived at the military district where the Unmarried Adjutants’ Quarters were gathered.
Because Mr. Berian was a mage affiliated with the Kingdom Army, we were able to enter without difficulty.
Please let Sigrid be here.
More precisely, I hoped that he was still alive.
There was no time to hesitate. We ran until my breath rose to my throat, arriving in front of the quarters where Adjutant Sigrid was staying.
“Huff, huff…!”
I hurriedly caught my breath, then took a deep inhale.
The smell of emotions.
A dense stench of emotions was leaking through the crack in the door.
There were many kinds. Despair, depression, sorrow… anger and helplessness.
So many negative emotions were mixed together, giving off a foul and dreadful odor.
“Adjutant Sigrid is inside!”
As soon as I shouted, Mr. Berian roughly grabbed the doorknob and twisted it.
CLICK, CLICK!
But the door did not open.
It was firmly locked. Mr. Berian’s face turned pale, and he began pounding on the door.
“Sigrid, Sigrid! Open the door! What are you doing in there?”
“Adjutant Sigrid, please open the door!”
BANG, BANG, BANG!
It was futile.
No matter how hard I kicked, the door would not break.
Even when I curled my body and slammed into it with all my strength, the door remained intact.
I was flustered. I was not weak by any measure.
I had intended to break it, yet the door did not even budge.
At that moment, Mr. Berian spoke in a trembling voice.
“A protective spell… For safety reasons, adjutant quarters are enchanted with protective magic.”
If a protective spell was in place, breaking the door by physical means was close to impossible.
“We should call the administrator and get the key—”
“If we do that, it will be too late!”
Mr. Berian was right. We had already spent a great deal of time getting here.
If we delayed any further, there was no telling what might happen.
If we called the administrator to open the door, there was a high chance that we would be met with Adjutant Sigrid’s corpse.
Should we break a window? No, the windows would also be protected by magic. Protective magic can be broken by magic, so should we call Erisa? That was not a good option either.
Whether we called the administrator or Erisa, the delay would be the same.
Just what are we supposed to do?
Helplessness washed over me.
“I… I will.”
Mr. Berian spoke in a shaking voice.
“I will open it with magic.”
“What? But—!”
WHOOSH!
At that moment, a small spark ignited at Mr. Berian’s fingertips.
I could not help but be shocked. Mr. Berian suffered from Fire Phobia and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Was he not in a state where he could not use magic? I had heard that not only fire magic, but other forms of magic as well, were difficult for him to use properly.
As expected, the flame that had been as large as a fist shrank to the size of a fingernail, and fear filled Mr. Berian’s face.
“Hah, hah, hah.”
“Mr. Berian, if you push yourself too hard—”
“No…!”
Mr. Berian shook his head.
His complexion was deathly pale. His eyes were unfocused, and his entire body was trembling.
Perhaps because he had forced himself to use magic, blood vessels had burst, and bloody tears were streaming down his face.
Anyone could see that his condition was terrible.
If he continued to force himself to use magic, it was obvious that he would break.
“Mr. Berian, we should call the administrator instead—”
“I have to.”
CRACK.
Mr. Berian bit down on his lip.
“I have to. If I do not want to lose anyone else…!”
With blood flowing from his lips and bloody tears from his eyes, Mr. Berian’s face was a mess.
His trembling arms and legs looked as though they might collapse at any moment.
Only his eyes were alive.
A flame named courage was blazing within them.
WHOOSH!
The spark, which had looked as though it would go out at any moment, suddenly grew enormous.
A massive flame, large enough to easily swallow a person whole.
“Guh… GRAAAH…!”
With a shout, Mr. Berian hurled the flames at the tightly closed door.
BOOOOM!
With a sound close to an explosion, the door burned away completely.
I had never seen anything like it in my life.
No matter how powerful the fire magic, it should not be able to burn something away so cleanly.
At the very least, there should have been residue such as ash.
Yet now, there was not even a trace of cinders left. It was as if it had vanished entirely.
Perhaps, in the process of overcoming his Fire Phobia, Mr. Berian’s magic had advanced to a new level.
Of course, this was not the time to admire it.
Mr. Berian and I immediately rushed into the room.
“Ah…”
Mr. Berian, who entered first, let out a groan.
The first thing we saw was a chair. A chair toppled over in the center of the room.
Above it, a rope… no, a bootlace, and Adjutant Sigrid hanging by his neck.
Seeing that sight, I felt relief.
Because he was not dead yet.
SLASH!
Using the dagger I had brought for this very purpose, I cut the bootlace.
THUD. With a dull sound, Adjutant Sigrid’s body fell to the floor.
I immediately checked his condition.
No breathing. His pulse is weak.
Still, his condition was better than expected.
Perhaps because we ran here as soon as we saw the suicide note, or perhaps because Adjutant Sigrid was a soldier.
Soldiers and knights of this world had bodies sturdy enough to be called superhuman.
“Adjutant Sigrid is alive. I will administer first aid, so Mr. Berian, please contact the nearest hospital.”
“Y-yes!”
Mr. Berian hurried out of the room.
After securing the airway, I continued administering first aid, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
How much time passed like that?
“Cough—!”
With a ragged gasp, Adjutant Sigrid’s body jerked.
***
To state the conclusion first, Adjutant Sigrid survived.
The moment he regained breathing through emergency treatment, medical staff from the hospital Mr. Berian had contacted arrived.
Adjutant Sigrid received professional treatment at the hospital, including healing magic, and as a result, he survived.
“How is your condition?”
I was visiting Adjutant Sigrid in the hospital.
It had been three days since he attempted suicide.
“It is not very good. I seem to have developed quite a few aftereffects.”
Thanks to the swift emergency treatment, there were no severe aftereffects.
However, he was left with minor complications such as a sprain to the neck muscles, airway damage, and sensory impairment in his fingers due to brain injury.
“Is there any chance the aftereffects will heal?”
“They said that with healing magic and diligent rehabilitation, I might recover to some extent, but I will never be the same as before.”
“I suppose healing magic is not omnipotent either.”
“In a way, this is for the best. I feel relieved.”
Adjutant Sigrid spoke calmly, his tone gentle.
It was completely different from when I had met him together with Sir Dalmon before.
The sharp reaction he showed back then was probably not Adjutant Sigrid’s true nature.
At the time, he must have been forced to react sensitively in order to conceal the truth of the Ashen Cinder Battle, or more precisely, for the sake of Sir Dalmon and Mr. Berian.
Just as he had written in his suicide note.
“Once the lawsuit is over, I will not be able to remain in the army anyway.”
“If the lawsuit concludes favorably—”
“Even if it concludes favorably, the army will find some excuse to push me out.”
There was a sense of resignation in Adjutant Sigrid’s voice.
That was highly likely.
Mr. Berian, Sir Dalmon, and Adjutant Sigrid.
All three were currently entangled in a lawsuit.
The Kingdom Army’s northern campaign had long been the subject of heavy criticism.
It was said that they had been blinded by the resources buried in the north, or more precisely, by performance metrics, and had recklessly driven the army into war.
Especially after the Ashen Cinder Battle, public criticism reached its peak.
Not only had the Kingdom Army’s main forces been captured by the Orc Empire, but significant losses had also occurred during the process of rescuing the prisoners.
Amid all that, Adjutant Sigrid’s suicide attempt occurred, and his suicide note was made public.
As the concealed truth of the Ashen Cinder Battle came to light, the Kingdom Army’s leadership attempted to punish Adjutant Sigrid, Sir Dalmon, and Mr. Berian for treason.
They cited the handing over of military secrets to the enemy, and the killing of subordinates to conceal the truth.
Their intention was obvious.
They wanted to divert public criticism away from the northern campaign and the Ashen Cinder Battle.
They would claim that the heavy losses were not due to the incompetence of the military leadership.
They would insist that it was because Mr. Berian, Sir Dalmon, and Adjutant Sigrid had interacted with the enemy.
“Well, it does not look like the lawsuit will conclude favorably in the first place.”
“That is the situation for now.”
“By the way… has Mr. Berian been holding up?”
When Mr. Berian burned down the locked door with fire magic, he recovered his memories in the process of overcoming his Fire Phobia.
Even so, he did not remember everything from that time.
He barely remembered that he had killed Jubik, the tragedy between Dalmon and Garsha, and that he had indiscriminately unleashed fire magic to destroy the evidence.
That was also why the lawsuit was leaning against Mr. Berian, Sir Dalmon, and Adjutant Sigrid.
Mr. Berian’s memories were still incomplete, and the other soldiers who had participated in the Ashen Cinder Battle did not know the full details either.
Because Adjutant Sigrid had cleverly concealed the truth of the battle, the full sequence of events remained even more obscure.
As a result, only the provocative charge of “treason” was being highlighted.
The Kingdom Army leadership even claimed that Mr. Berian, Sir Dalmon, and Adjutant Sigrid had been spies colluding with the Orc Empire Army for a long time.
“Mr. Berian is enduring it well. He does receive some help from medication from time to time.”
“…I.”
Adjutant Sigrid’s voice was heavy with dejection.
“I should have done better…”
“As you wrote in your suicide note, Mr. Sigrid, you did your best.”
“…Was it really my best? If the lawsuit ends and treason is confirmed, not only me, but Mr. Berian as well, and Sir Dalmon too…”
I could understand his worry.
If the lawsuit continued as it was and treason was recognized, all three would be sentenced to prison, and that sentence would not be short.
“I believe I mentioned this before, but I once conducted something called hypnotherapy with Mr. Berian.”
“What? Ah, yes… Was it a treatment that drew out unconscious memories through some kind of magic?”
“Yes. Thanks to hypnotherapy, I was able to learn the truth of the Ashen Cinder Battle.”
As he listened to me, Adjutant Sigrid’s expression gradually grew blank.
“Hypnotherapy is conducted at a special counseling office.”
“But why are you telling me this…?”
“There is a special function at the counseling office. An automatic recording function.”
I took out the magitech disc that contained Mr. Berian’s voice was recorded during hypnotherapy.
In other words, it contained the truth and full account of the Ashen Cinder Battle as Mr. Berian had seen and experienced it.
“I intend to do my best as well.”