Ch.56Request Log #007 – The Weight of Life (6)

If I could hear the magic that manipulates senses and creates illusions, it made sense why I wasn’t affected by that Frenchman’s magic.

The magic spreads through voice. I only smelled the mana when he let out his desperate, booming scream, and the area where people died was within earshot of his voice.

When the death magic erupted, he twisted his own senses to hear nothing and see nothing.

It’s just a hypothesis for now. If this is true, then anyone who was asleep within range of that scream shouldn’t have been affected.

Either way, he won’t be using death magic here. Not unless he has the ability to numb the senses of every dwarf living here. And magicians don’t have that kind of power.

If such magicians existed, who in the world would spend money raising armies? They could just station about ten such magicians, put up a small sign labeled “final line of defense,” and be done with it.

The orc who came out to receive a delivery today was a new variable. Judging by her physique, she looked like a war veteran, but do orcs live in Germany too? Orcs mainly lived in Russian territory.

And even though they withdrew midway, the Russian Empire also fought against the dwarves. Though Russia is no longer an empire now. But this isn’t a major issue either.

Whatever her origin or race, there were plenty of people doing the same job as me. I wasn’t here as a war veteran but as Michael Husband, detective.

Dawn is breaking. Now the apartments with lights still on disappear, and a stillness descends as if the entire Littlehold has fallen asleep except for me.

It was warm during the day, but at night, the wind still carried a chill. With no one around to see, I comfortably lit a cigarette. Ah, during a stakeout, one cigarette becomes so desperately needed.

After taking a drag, feeling the acrid smoke mix with the night air, I exhale and then stamp it out.

Just as I’m thinking I should head back, I hear a human voice from the entrance of the parking lot. Did someone see me? I quietly hide beside my car and load my gun.

“Is someone there?”

It was the voice of the orc I met at the door. Damn, was she still awake at this hour? I had confirmed that the lights were out and that there was no sound coming from inside the house.

If I wanted to shoot, now would be perfect, while I’m still out of her line of sight. Even with a silencer, firing in such an open space would mean many people would hear the sound.

I don’t need to imagine how much the police station’s phones would ring if silenced gunshots were heard in the early dawn. The orc quietly crosses the parking lot, walking toward me.

This time, I didn’t think I could get away with pretending to be slow-witted. This was Littlehold, where most residents were dwarves, and it was strange for a delivery person I met in the afternoon to still be in the parking lot at dawn.

Moreover, that orc was quite sensitive.

“I can tell your race by the height of your cigarette. You’re human, aren’t you? You’re already completely exposed, so come out with your head held high.”

With dignity, she says. For me, dignity means using every method available. I can hear her footsteps getting closer.

“If you’re after Frida, I won’t let you go. I’ll kill you. She’s going to restore the wounded pride of our people. She’ll start by breaking the noses of you bastards who humiliated us.”

Yet none of her companions are pure-blooded dwarves. The mixed-blood magician was literally mixed-blood, and this orc, judging by her German accent, seems to be from Germany but isn’t a dwarf.

There was no reason to keep hiding. I move a couple of cars back from mine and lean against someone else’s car as I speak.

“Right, a girl who pretends to be a war veteran without ever setting foot in the Great War is the hope of your people. And the way to find that hope is to kill all civilians.”

The orc explodes when her dogmatic beliefs are pointed out. She starts shouting in a booming, orc-like voice.

“You Americans are the enemy! You’re being deceived by those goblin bastards! That’s why you were pushed and incited to fight us! They stabbed us in the back, and now they’ll stab you too!”

Nonsense. Did I join the military to participate in the Great War because of goblins, or was it because of my personal ambition and youthful desire for honor?

“Do they really believe such nonsense in Germany? If goblins could make you lose the war and make us join in, wouldn’t it be better to bow your heads to them? They could manipulate the world at will, couldn’t they?”

“It’s because we don’t want that to happen that we’re here! We will liberate everyone! We fought in the trenches, and while we may fear the Doppel, we don’t fear humans.”

People trapped in their beliefs are more impossible to reason with than the dead. I still felt a connection with the dead poet, but nothing connected me to these nationalist bastards.

I make my decision. Whether someone hears the gunshot and calls the police or whatever happens, I’ll deal with it. I can still collect the bounty even for a corpse. Though I’m not sure if they’ll pay it.

I slowly walk out from behind the car. My eyes, adjusted to the darkness, could clearly see the orc, but the orc, whose eyes hadn’t fully adjusted, seemed to only see my silhouette.

The orc also had a gun in her hand. It didn’t have a silencer, but I could clearly see her finger on the trigger, pointing it straight at me. I make the first offer.

“Let’s put down our guns and resolve this. You don’t want the police coming all the way here, do you?”

I whisper to her. People who spout nonsense about dignity often fall for this kind of talk.

This one seems to be a real war veteran… It was a method I often used when quietly encountering an enemy in no man’s land, where a misplaced gunshot could turn both sides into sieves from machine gun fire.

Of course, it was also a promise that was betrayed as often as it was used.

“You’re a contractor. Fine, let’s do that. Put it down slowly. We’ll put them down together. From the way you talk, you seem like a war veteran with nowhere to turn, so you’ve probably done this before.”

As I pretend to lower my gun first, she slowly lowers hers, and when she hears the sound of my gun’s muzzle—actually, the silencer at the end of the muzzle—touching the ground, she completely lowers her gun.

I immediately straighten up. Before she can grab the lowered gun, I aim at the back of her hand and pull the trigger. With a silent gunshot, the smell of gunpowder spreads.

“Ugh… you goblin bastard!”

Orcs tend to have blood rush to their heads easily. When she starts running without even trying to pick up the gun with her other hand, I shoot her knee.

I shouldn’t shoot the face. If I put a bullet in the face, I often wouldn’t get paid a penny because they’d say, “It’s hard to tell if this is the wanted criminal with a bullet in the face.”

The orc loses balance and falls forward from the heavy impact of the bullet. Lights start turning on in the surrounding houses. The orc must know it’s too late now to go back for the gun or to charge at me.

As I approach to fire one last shot to the back of her head, leaving the face recognizable, the orc, knowing it’s too late to either flee or fight, screams out.

“Frida! Frida! Wake up! Run away! Don’t die without value… gah, aaargh!”

Ah, making a wise choice. I decide to postpone killing her immediately and instead step on her intact hand that’s trying to crawl along the floor with my steel-plated boot heel. I crush her finger joints.

Whether this additional noise is added or not, the police will come. The orc’s ugly scream echoes, and lights turn on in the first floor of the apartment. I hope this orc and that mixed-blood were close enough.

Yes, they seem to have been quite close. As a human figure rises behind the lit window, I immediately pull the trigger, and whatever had risen inside falls.

I thought the job was done, but… belatedly, I smell the ozone-like stench. Did she not rise herself but raise something in her place? The only person who should be in the house is the madwoman, so who could it be?

My senses begin to distort. As I see another figure rising over the window, I adjust to my trembling and shaking vision and pull the trigger at the next target. I miss.

Was it just an illusion from the beginning? I tried to restore my senses by tapping between my eyes with my free hand. I’m not sure if it’s working.

“No! Duck, Frida! Use the spirit!”

The orc started shouting, enduring even the pain of her crushed fingers to somehow protect the mixed-blood kid. She spits out whatever nobility she has left for her stupid ideology.

A response comes from inside the apartment. Words that make it sound like I’m trying to assassinate a perfectly decent and honorable person.

“I can’t cast magic if I can’t see! Let Angela go, you filthy Doppel! She’s the one who brought me here, do you think I’ll let you kill her like a dog?!”

“Run away, I said!”

What touching friendship. If they weren’t just stupid things trapped in stupid ideologies, I might have shed a tear. No, that wouldn’t have happened.

The orc at my feet raises her head and bites my ankle. Literally with all her might, as if she’s determined to make the mixed-blood magician escape even if she dies from a gunshot while struggling like this.

Unfortunately, this body, which received twice the vitality and twice the strength, didn’t easily give up its flesh. The feeling of teeth digging in made my hand twitch, preventing me from shooting, so I immediately kick to shake off the orc.

I pull the trigger three times in succession at the shaken orc’s chest. After those three gunshots, the body that had been moving alive until just now made no sound.

“No, Angela! You… you…”

There was fear rising in the mixed-blood magician’s voice. Did you expect some honorable and grand death while doing this kind of thing? If so, that would be asking too much.

As a large human figure tries to rise from inside the room, I lift the dead orc’s body to use as a shield. She won’t shoot this.

The mixed-blood starts to let out a frenzied howl. Carrying around a war spirit with a machine gun on its head and a madwoman who uses death magic, and she’s enraged by this?

The Germans always did this. They were the kind of people who would spray poison gas and then send letters of protest because we used shotguns.

As that precarious standoff continued, I heard the sound of angels cutting through the wind, responding to the call. I heard the flapping of their golden-crafted wings, which sparkled even in just the starlight and moonlight.

“Everyone put your hands up! You in the parking lot too! And inside the apartment! We’ll shoot if you don’t comply!”

Got them. Now that the angels have arrived, those inside are just rats in a trap.

I shout without raising my gun toward the angels. There’s no need to show hostility to those who will do the dirty work for me.

“Be careful! That woman inside the apartment has a war spirit with her! I’m a detective! These are the illegal immigrants you’ve been chasing!”

The angels take interest at the mention of illegal immigrants. Since it was important enough for the God-President to dispatch investigators directly, they land in front of me. They shield me with their golden-crafted wings.

I didn’t know if the angels’ bodies could block machine gun fire, but it was more reassuring than taking bullets with my own body. Only then do I lower my gun as they wish. They nod and look toward the apartment.

“Order your spirit to stay still! The God-President personally ordered us to be on alert for this criminal, so we’ll shoot the moment you hesitate!”

The mixed-blood magician is now cornered. She won’t be able to fend off the angels with just sense-distorting magic. She’d need to cast magic while looking at them, but there were already four angels who had flown here.

I wanted to kill the mixed-blood bitch myself, but it might be better to hand her over alive and receive more bounty. As the situation became increasingly unfavorable, a sobbing voice began to sound from inside the window.

“Help, help me! I’m, I’m working for my homeland! I need to wake up Americans from the evil clutches of the goblins! You’re weak! Weak! I need to clean up all the lives that have lost their value by being tainted by goblins… and bring back a country that can be friends with us, healthy and strong…”

The only speech the angels liked was the God-President’s. Their submachine guns began to spit fire, and the interior of the first floor of the apartment became a honeycomb.

In the end, the mixed-blood didn’t even think to shoot us with the war spirit. Her beliefs were stupid, she lacked the will to make decisions, and she was just indecisive about everything.

Yet she had no hesitation in killing people, like a child standing on the boundary between purity and cruelty. No, unlike a child, she had no purity. She was like a collection of the worst temperaments.

As I slowly rise while still on guard, I hear a voice starting from inside the apartment, along with the painful groaning of the war spirit.

“Why, why does no one understand this grand vision! Traitors! Every one of you is a traitor! Traitors who sold the future for goblin money! Worthless lives! You’re not even dwarves! All worthless lives must be disposed of… Charles!”

What a crazy woman. Are you trying to use death magic here in Littlehold, full of your beloved dwarf compatriots?

Moreover, the dwarves who might not have been affected by the magic if they were asleep were now awake from the gunshots.

I was at fault for not anticipating how deeply that woman was immersed in this stupid ideology.

That mixed-blood kid wasn’t just standing the war spirit there in case things went wrong, regardless of compatriots or whatever—she was hiding behind it.

Before the madwoman’s howl and the death-summoning magic could erupt, I shouted to the angel police in front of me.

“Cover your ears! And try to endure by thinking about something! If you can’t endure, it’s magic that kills! Got it?”

From inside the window, the madwoman’s crying and sounds of suffering begin to echo again.

The angel officers fired more bullets, but the war spirit was still protecting them.

The spirit, denied even the modest wish to stand on the front lines until death like ordinary war spirits and used as a bullet shield, made a sad sound. It screamed like the war spirits of the Somme and Verdun.

And finally, the madwoman’s crying turns into a scream. Whether she was trying to somehow endure the eruption of death magic, at least we had more time to prepare than last time.

“No! Don’t make me remember! Ugh, gaaah, aaaagh! Remember the Somme! Remember Verdun! See what I have seen!”

The angels in front of me begin to stiffen with their guns in hand. The chill of death I had felt once before began to climb up my ankle. The only death that carried warmth was truly The Morrígan.