Ch.510Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS

When living in a rush, moments where you finish the day without even looking up become more frequent.

This is not due to the vast distance between the sky and humans, but because we’ve lost the leisure to spare even a moment to look up at the sky.

Therefore, the gloomy sky is not to blame.

Depression is born from harshness and weariness hidden behind dark clouds, from breathlessness where even a few seconds are difficult to grasp.

Under the gray-tinged sky and city. The reflection in a puddle overlaps with the city behind, melting into gray.

I hurried my steps, adjusting my suit while wearing earphones.

Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS

Around the time Zamria Federation’s chaotic political situation began to stabilize, the numerous injuries obtained on the Moritani continent gradually faded.

However, injuries may fade but never completely disappear. They remain as symbols too faint to see, settling in every corner of body and mind.

As the month-long investigation petered out, I was given some time.

This was a signal that while I couldn’t work as a defense attaché for a while due to the controversy I’d caused, I should prepare to go abroad again soon in some capacity. It could be considered a kind of vacation.

I suddenly went out into the streets.

The city in peak season is full of vitality.

Foreigners who look like tourists at a glance, citizens enjoying and consuming the bustling downtown.

Shops focus on attracting customers to make a profit, and merchants draw in tourists with brief foreign phrases.

Some people capture exotic scenery as memories with magic cameras. Thankfully, no one was streaming on TikTok or Instagram Live.

Whether domestic or foreign, I’d always felt irritated whenever encountering tourists wandering through busy streets with selfie sticks. I’d had too many headaches because of those jerks broadcasting others’ faces without blurring them.

This neighborhood was relatively good to live in because such people were absent. That’s precisely why I could venture into the streets without feeling burdened.

As I pushed through the crowd, I heard various sounds. The busyness of voices calling someone, the hustle of arranging market stalls, occasional foreign languages.

My eyes darted among passersby with a strange mix of expectation and disappointment, rising and falling like a roller coaster, wondering if I might find someone I knew. When my eyes met with a foreigner who had been staring at me thinking I was part of their group, they politely apologized in brief Abasian, “I was mistaken, sorry.”

That simple apology carried a subtly familiar accent. Since it happened to be a language I’d learned, I naturally opened my mouth to reply.

“Tú no te preocupes. (Don’t worry about it.)”

I waved to the foreigner. Pushed away by the crowd, they quickly disappeared into the distance.

After this brief encounter, I looked around as the tourist vanished from sight. The streets near the station were littered with vehicles, magic enforcement equipment, and road reflectors.

After briefly scanning the third eyes reflecting various angles, I moved back into the crowd. Domestic and foreign passengers poured out from a train that had just arrived, descending the stairs in clusters. This allowed me to rest on a plaza bench for a while.

“……”

Though it was a fleeting moment, the rest extended quite long. Countless gazes scanned people whenever automatic doors opened, and among them, the shouts of those who found their companions could be heard clearly from a distance.

Between side mirrors and road reflectors, I gazed at the crowd lined up at the station entrance, rolled my eyes left and right, then got up from the bench and walked toward an alley.

Among the sounds of dress shoes, splashing noises mixed in as someone stepped in puddles. Occasionally, footsteps that didn’t quite match blended in, but I didn’t bother to question it.

The not-so-short alleyway was sparsely populated, in contrast to the plaza just a couple of buildings away.

Perhaps that’s why.

The footsteps seem to echo particularly loudly.

“Hmm.”

Rolling just my eyeballs, I turned the corner and went deeper inside.

With sneakers following behind.

*

As I turned the corner, a faint magic light flickered on.

The sneakers that had been splashing through puddles suddenly stopped moving.

The alley was dark.

Pastel-toned twilight clouds were visible here and there between tall and short buildings. The shadows of buildings leaning against each other cast deep darkness in the alley.

The darkness was profound due to the irregular external structures scattered about, and so was the alley.

“……”

The stopped sneakers didn’t move at all. They just stood still as if nailed to the spot.

As a pair of eyes looked around—

-Poke.

A sharp, hard object gently pressed against my side.

It was right after that when a short voice brushed past my ear in the shadow of the gray urban landscape.

“This is the rib cage.”

It was a finger.

To be more precise, it was an index finger, and it was accurately pointing between the ribs.

“This is where the lungs and heart are located. If you stab accurately, you can take someone out with one strike from behind. Even with a knife, if you aim well, you can hit the heart.”

Of course, you shouldn’t stab just once. If someone goes to the emergency room with a knife stuck in their heart, a thoracic surgeon can save them without much difficulty.

To make sure they’re finished, you need to stab multiple times.

That way, blood vessels and organs all turn to rags.

And they die from excessive bleeding before long.

“Be wary of attacks from behind. Especially right after turning a corner. If you get stabbed in the ribs or neck, even doctors can’t save you.”

“…Wouldn’t severing the carotid artery cause instant death anyway?”

“That’s exactly why I’m telling you to be careful.”

The intelligence officer withdrew his finger after poking the soft side repeatedly. The intelligence officer candidate, covered in goosebumps, shuddered and couldn’t help but make a fuss.

“Ugh, that’s cruel…”

“How can someone preparing to join an intelligence agency make such a fuss over this? You’ll learn all of this stuff when you get to the company anyway.”

“Still, how can you talk so casually about stabbing between ribs?”

“You think we only poke ribs? We poke collarbones, livers, medulla oblongata, trachea, carotid arteries, and temples too. You’ll learn all this when you join anyway, so you might as well know in advance.”

Ugh—

She shuddered as if covered in goosebumps, just like her iPhone that rang without fail at 7 AM every morning.

Frederick, exasperated, let out a hollow laugh and continued with an incredulous tone.

“Why make such a fuss over this, Camilla? You should be getting used to it by now.”

It was a playful rebuke.

Camilla, who had been rubbing her side, couldn’t help but raise her voice in protest.

“I’m not used to it at all!”

“Oh my— I’m sure you’re not. Of course, of course.”

Frederick smiled mischievously as he brushed off her words. It was a truly infuriating smile.

After barely calming her boiling insides and rubbing her flushed ears, Camilla blurted out:

“Anyway. Since I’ve been caught, hurry up and point out what I did wrong.”

“I was planning to give you a post-action review anyway. But before that…”

Frederick paused briefly, then smiled gently and greeted her.

“It’s nice to see you, Camilla.”

It’s been a while.

*

After ditching my roommates who made a fuss about me meeting a woman, I met Camilla in a secluded back alley.

It was our first reunion in nearly a month.

Right after the small event in the Zamria Federation called “Delivering Democracy” (read: military intervention) ended, the Abas government, thoroughly frightened, summoned me back, forcing us to separate.

Of course, being merely summoned back to my home country, my companions could have come to Abas to meet me if they wanted, but the problem was that I had been ordered not to contact anyone outside during the investigation period. More precisely, the committee had issued the order.

So I was isolated for nearly a month while being investigated, and only now had I become a free person able to meet my companions like this.

“I’m really glad to see you. Wow, it’s been so long…”

I muttered contentedly while drinking my coffee. Even the bitter acidity tasted sweet due to my happy mood. I felt truly good.

“You must have had a hard time with the investigation. Seeing that you couldn’t contact anyone for a month, were you under some kind of detention?”

“Not quite detention, but my external contacts were restricted.”

“Wow… That’s serious indeed.”

Camilla added her comments while slurping her drink filled with caramel.

The reason she came all the way here was none other than me. As soon as I sensed I might get a vacation (or not), I contacted everyone.

I had hoped to take a break together with everyone since I had returned to my home country, but sadly, they were all busy, so Camilla came to meet me as their representative.

I savored the crema with settled sugar and continued speaking.

“You’re still in Zamria, right?”

“Yes.”

Without even wiping the white foam from her lips, Camilla immediately responded.

“I plan to stay at least until the local situation stabilizes.”

“It must be pretty bad.”

“Well, there was a coup. It will naturally take time for the destabilized political situation to return to normal.”

As she said, my companions were still staying in the Zamria Federation. The aftermath of the rebellion led by officers from the Archini tribe continued to cause chaos in the region.

Particularly, the power vacuum created by the ousting of the military government exacerbated the confusion.

“With Kasim and his group gone, many political factions are now in conflict. As Frederick knows… conflicts in the third world usually involve complex interests.”

“Fragmentation is the basis of civil wars and conflicts in that region.”

A major tribe has fallen.

The leadership that led the rebellion has been arrested, and the former president has fled abroad and can’t even return home, so the vacant position of power has inevitably become a target for everyone.

From minor tribes that have been watching for opportunities to mid-sized tribes with some influence—political groups in the Zamria Federation (naturally including the military and warlords) were probably flaring their nostrils by now.

Of course, ousting the rebels didn’t bring only negative results.

“Still, it’s fortunate that Kasim was arrested quickly. The military almost took over the entire federation, right? If we had been a little late, the administration would have completely fallen.”

That was true.

The military government of the Zamria Federation (2nd regime), barely a week old, had failed to seize the government. More precisely, they were in the process of gradually occupying it.

Why had they failed to seize the government even after nearly a week? This was because Kasim and his group were “coup forces that seized power through rebellion.”

In normal situations, coup forces are groups that gain no one’s support. Unless the leader has ruined the country and destroyed public sentiment, rebellion gains neither support nor legitimacy.

(There are cases where coup forces gained support because the leader truly ran the country into the ground. Romania’s Ceaușescu and Egypt’s Farouk I are representative examples of such terrible leaders.)

Although the former president of the Zamria Federation was both an idiot and a dictator, he was at least a leader with some legitimacy as he was elected (through rigged elections). But Kasim and the rebel forces were rebels who seized the capital in just four hours and took power, without presenting any cause that would gain nationwide support.

Why would government officials follow such fools?

Government department officials coolly ignored orders to pledge loyalty, and federal congressmen representing the legislature even staged a sit-in at the parliament building with guns.

Even within the military, commanders who disapproved of the coup or had poor relations with Kasim’s group were arrested by military police and illegally detained.

The executive, legislative, judicial branches, and the military were all united in praying to Mother Earth: “Please send those armed gangsters to hell!”

Whether their desperate prayers reached the gods or not, within just a week, we stormed the presidential palace and expelled the coup forces in a reverse military rebellion.

Although the country was somewhat ruined, the entire population of the Zamria Federation, excited beyond measure, was enjoying a festive atmosphere.

(Of course, there are expert opinions—from those in international politics/defense diplomacy security intelligence—that this could also turn into a funeral.)

I nodded proudly and said:

“My situational judgment was spot on, right?”

“Well…”

Camilla, sipping her drink, glanced at me with a sour expression.

“I agree that your judgment was good… but honestly, the idea of storming the presidential palace still seems too radical even now.”

“……”

I just blinked at her expressing such a negative opinion. Wait, why is she saying this when she was the one who jumped out of the tank shouting “For liberty!” and beating up rebels?

It was a terribly hypocritical attitude. The kind of hypocrisy shown by European colonialist imperialists (the root of all evil in world history) who started a war because the Qing army dumped opium into the sea.

“…Ugh, is shamelessness a unique British cultural trait?”

“What?!”

“I mean… you enjoyed it thoroughly and now you’re saying something completely different.”

“Want to taste some fire? I’ve been practicing a new technique and would like to test it. Come out wearing armor, quickly.”

“Wait a moment. That’s not fair…”

After a brief, calm “discussion”…

Having barely stopped our live show, we tried to regain peace of mind. We were companions on the same boat, for better or worse. And it wasn’t the first time we’d had such nutritionally void jokes and arguments.

Camilla shook her head gently with a pleasant smile and drank her sweet beverage. I drained my espresso in one go and smacked my lips.

“Anyway, we can hear about the local situation later.”

“Yes! Now tell me about what’s been happening with you, quickly. Everyone is curious about Frederick’s news.”

“I was going to tell you even without your urging.”

Really, no need to be so impatient.

As I put down my empty espresso cup, she finished sucking up her drink in the blink of an eye. She took me out of the coffee shop, and I pulled out my gloves to avoid the chilly wind.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been to Abas, right?”

“Yes!”

Glancing at my watch, I saw it was just the right time. A good time for dinner.

Looking up, I smiled and suggested:

“Since you’ve come after a long time, why don’t you rest a bit and enjoy some delicious food?”

“Oh, sounds good! Let’s talk over dinner!”

Camilla jumped up and down like a child, saying she’d love to. Putting work talk aside for now, she urged us to go eat right away, with an extremely excited expression.

“Yes, let’s go.”

And so I took her, smiling brightly, toward the capital’s downtown area.