Ch.61006 Investigation Record – In Search of the Clues to Sorcery (2)

“Ah, but… may I ask why? Usually journalists only seek out veterans around Armistice Day.”

His words made me shrink back involuntarily. He probably knew why journalists only started flooding veterans with interview requests around Armistice Day.

Veterans’ stories sell best around Armistice Day, and people were more interested in other things than a war that ended five years ago. Things like Hollywood movies.

So I decided not to make excuses. I was inspired by someone’s story, and I was simply following that story—nothing more, nothing less.

“I honestly just want to know more. It felt like stories were disappearing while we were only scratching the surface about the war. All stories are volatile, after all.”

Sometimes this explanation feels futile. If all stories are volatile and every person’s story will eventually disappear, then trying to preserve them might seem foolish.

But this belief was what kept me going even while the newspaper was being threatened by the mafia. No matter how foolish it might seem, I couldn’t abandon the words that kept me moving forward.

Gerard, sitting across from me, smiled warmly as his lips curled upward. My sincerity seemed to have reached him. Sometimes sincerity did work, though flattery was usually more effective.

“That’s a good sentiment. It’s always a pleasure to meet someone who doesn’t compromise on truth.”

I bit my lip at his words. The only results of my uncompromising nature were carrying a gun in my coat and watching the situation spiral downward.

Should I be honest again? Yes, let’s go with honesty again. Lies taste best when mixed with truth, but sincerity only has value when shown without even the slightest impurity.

“I can’t say I don’t compromise. I’m constantly wavering. Anxious, unsteady, accomplishing nothing… That’s how I see myself.”

I pulled him a step closer to me by opening up. Showing vulnerability usually didn’t help, but right now it seemed like the best approach.

He shook his head. His relaxed expression and open heart made him care about others. In other words… until then, we had been people who didn’t care about others.

Should I try to see the good side, like in the elven proverb? No, probably not. Everyone tried to see only the good side and missed what the Argonne Invincibles were hiding.

The thought of cutting away the limbs and head of a story like a butcher, leaving only the presentable torso, made the elven proverb about always seeing the good side fade from my mind.

“Nothing could make me happier than meeting someone who doesn’t lie in this city. Ah, shall we talk more after you’ve eaten?”

Dining with someone who had completely opened up and relaxed was incredibly comfortable. I was grateful to be an elf who could be satisfied with just one bowl of soup. Soon coffee arrived, and he gradually began his story.

Since he was slow to answer during the meal, as if carefully choosing his words, the beginning of his speech was clean. Clean enough that I could quote him verbatim.

“The Great War feels distant now, but if there’s one thing I can say for certain… it was hell. Everywhere. You find yourself asking what we could have possibly done to deserve so many deaths, and a few days later, you find out. In such a place, finding humanity becomes something to be grateful for.”

Though his story began somberly, a smile soon appeared on his face. Light emphasizes shadow. Shadow emphasizes light. I recalled what I’d learned when studying photography.

“Remember those people who came from the mainland to make donuts for us? The first one I got was a flour lump that was burnt because they fried it wrong… Ah, that was the most delicious donut I’ve ever had in my life.”

His war stories continued naturally. From how tired he was of eating canned ham in the trenches to the point where he could remember the taste just by seeing a can, he shared human and unpretentious stories.

I didn’t ask about the Argonne Invincibles. I felt the story would come up soon, and after sharing war stories that no one had cared about for a long time, he naturally steered the conversation.

“While it’s nice to find humanity on the battlefield, the battlefield is still war. Eventually, you face reality. A comrade you were sharing donuts with just yesterday falls during a charge, and another comrade who used to bribe the stretcher-bearers with cigarettes and rations gets sniped and dies in the trench without even making it onto a stretcher…”

Could I call this a common, volatile story when everyone has one? I just listened quietly.

“Those dwarf bastards were thorough. They’d unleash an incredible barrage—one artillery shell for every five magic rounds—before charging, and naturally we had orders to hold position so we couldn’t retreat. Just when all that talk of humanity on the battlefield was becoming meaningless… several flares burst overhead.”

He was using gestures as he spoke, trying to convey even a fraction of what he felt at the time. I could sense how overwhelming it had been.

“We were waiting for the dwarves to reach our trench. They couldn’t shell us if their own troops were mixed in. And then I heard voices saying, ‘Reinforcements have arrived. The Argonne Invincibles are here.’ Or maybe it was something like, ‘You’ve been struggling this much against those short dwarf bastards?'”

I listened quietly, wanting to close my eyes and imagine it, when he continued with something important.

“Anyway, after they cleared our trench, I approached them during a brief rest period to offer cigarettes as thanks, but our warlock-soldier grabbed my wrist. He shook his head. I don’t know why, but he was afraid.”

Did the warlock-soldier recognize something? If so, meeting the warlock-soldier from his unit might provide a clue.

“Meanwhile, the Argonne Invincibles started charging again, and I confronted our warlock. I said something like, ‘Come on, we should at least thank them for saving our lives.’ The warlock said something strange. He asked if I knew what those men had done to become like that.”

I swallowed as I listened, feeling like I could reach out and touch the truth.

“So I told him it didn’t matter. I said, ‘Who cares what they did? They came running to help us when we were about to be slaughtered with our communication lines cut and no way to request support.’ He couldn’t say anything to that, since his life had also been saved by the Argonne Invincibles.”

It was quite ambiguous. The warlock-soldier seemed to know something terrible enough to discourage expressions of gratitude, yet what they did was noble. Which side was the truth?

Or perhaps both sides were true. Did they refuse to shy away from terrible deeds for the sake of noble causes? If so, there would be no reason to hide it so thoroughly. Most people wouldn’t care about ordinary misdeeds.

Even knowing they had used magic to become so strong, my view of them as heroes hadn’t diminished in the slightest.

“Then I should contact him too. I can’t just hear one person’s story. Ah, perhaps you have his contact information…?”

Unlike Gerard, who had simply shared his heroic tale, I saw a path forward. Having already opened up to me and shared his Great War stories, he didn’t question my intention to approach the warlock-soldier.

“I could give you his contact information, but I could also call and introduce you. You know how it is with magic users. They’re clearly divided between those who trust and those who don’t. You probably couldn’t even find him without an introduction from someone he trusts. There’s a public phone nearby…”

“There should be one nearby!”

It was the perfect time to leave the restaurant. We exited the building together and headed to a nearby phone booth. He inserted two pennies and dialed a number.

I saw the number but didn’t memorize it. Sometimes you shouldn’t know something until someone tells you, even if you could figure it out.

After a brief silence, the call disconnected, and he sighed as if this were a familiar occurrence before dialing again. This time, it seemed someone answered.

“Hey, Samuel. Can’t you answer on the first try? It’s Gerard. I want to introduce you to a journalist…”

The call seemed to disconnect again as he pulled the receiver away from his ear. Compared to this veteran who was easy to persuade because he knew me, this person would be much more difficult to convince.

As he searched for more coins, I paid for this call instead. I wondered if anyone would question why coins were piling up in the public phone today.

Gerard thanked me with a brief smile before dialing again. This time the connection seemed to hold.

“She’s a good person, so don’t hang up. Actually, the journalist probably speaks better than I do. Would you like to talk to her directly?”

Grateful that he hadn’t hung up yet, I took the phone from his hand. Though I hadn’t received permission to use it for this purpose, I knew what to say to convince the warlock-soldier.

I wouldn’t need many words. Just one sentence would do. I took the receiver and stepped into the phone booth. I gestured for him to step back a bit, as if asking him to wait, and whispered into the receiver.

“I know they weren’t baptized with the blood of lambs.”

The person on the other end, who had maintained silence as if uninterested in whatever I might say, as if just listening to humor a former comrade, was clearly shaken.

Though the phone’s static made it difficult to hear clearly, I could hear him exhale sharply after hearing my words. My elven senses always guided me well.

Only then did I hear his voice for the first time. It was so weak it sounded like an informant worried about being overheard.

“A story I shouted about that no one would believe, and suddenly someone appears claiming to know? Even for a journalist, that would be difficult to discover…”

This man was anxious. He was anxious about whether what he believed was true. What he saw was probably the truth, though I couldn’t imagine how terrible it might have been.

“I’ve earned some trust from those people. There are things you can see when you’re close. I don’t despise them to the point of not wanting to say a word of thanks, like you do. I just want to know what happened… and confirm it. Are you willing to talk now?”

Another brief silence followed. But this time, the call wasn’t disconnected.

“Just the two of us. If you promise not to bring anyone else, I’ll give you my address. No waiting outside my house either. I’ll… tolerate having them parked outside where I can’t hear any voices.”

This wasn’t particularly unfriendly. I’d had sources who covered their faces and only agreed to meet after searching all my belongings and conducting body searches due to extreme paranoia.

“I promise. As for the time…”

I was thinking about scheduling for tomorrow or the day after, but he cried out almost desperately. He seemed to think I was the only person who could prove his beliefs. I could understand his urgency.

“Now!”

He gave me his address, and I smiled at Gerard, who was giving me a look that said “that guy’s a bit eccentric,” before hanging up and heading to the address in Paulina’s car.

It was a quiet wealthy suburb outside New York. Though “warlock” and “wealthy” didn’t immediately seem to go together, I tried not to be prejudiced. He was someone who could tell me the truth.

Passing houses enjoying their pleasant evenings in the glow of this golden age, I arrived at a house covered with “No Trespassing” and “Private Property” signs. I rang the doorbell.

After an unpleasantly loud doorbell sound, a figure emerged from deep inside the house, quite far from the door. After cautiously looking around, he hurried toward me.

His clothes were neat, at least. In clean, unwrinkled casual attire with a well-maintained mustache, he might have appeared charming if not for his anxious expression.

But what I saw now was a person plagued by fear and anxiety. His eyes, which showed no dark circles as if he had been living without worry until now, were bloodshot.

“Come in. You, lawyer, stay there. If anyone approaches you, you may enter the house, but I’ll be watching.”

He rolled up his sleeve to reveal his bare forearm. Several magical sigils, triangles with eye shapes in the center, were drawn on his arm like traces of measles. Wasn’t that the symbol of the God-President?

Following his instructions, I left Paulina outside and entered his house. It was a mansion but not luxurious. There seemed to be no staff, as the house smelled of dust, and the portraits on the walls had faded.

He led me upstairs to the only room that didn’t smell of dust.

He patted a guest sofa, indicating I should sit, then rolled up his sleeve again and made the magical sigils on his arm glow.

“Yes, yes… I can see everything… No one’s here. No one.”

Was it some kind of magic that allowed him to see the invisible? He didn’t explain his magic, and I knew nothing about it.

I briefly considered how to persuade someone like this. I could share his anxiety, or since he said no one would listen no matter how much he shouted, I could promise to be his voice as a journalist if I learned the truth.

As I was choosing my approach like a craftsman selecting tools, he couldn’t bear the silence and began to confess. It seemed he didn’t care who it was, as long as someone believed him.

“Since you only mention that it wasn’t lamb’s blood, you don’t know exactly what happened, do you? Let me tell you. I’ll tell you everything, so try not to go mad. They used people as sacrifices! They performed magic by sacrificing humans, and those sacrificed humans are attached to their bodies. Have you ever taken their picture?”

Though startled, I shook my head. He then pulled out a bundle of photographs from a drawer and threw them in front of me.

They were all blurry photos. No, that’s not right. Looking at the backgrounds, the focus was correct, but only the faces appeared blurred, as if shaken.

Every face was unrecognizably blurred in the photos. I remembered that the Professor, one of the Argonne Invincibles, had said that photos of him didn’t turn out properly.

Fighting back nausea, I looked at him. I could feel my own gaze wavering. He anxiously looked around before continuing his story.

“They might come for me. They’re ashamed and won’t let their disgrace be exposed! What they used was a Connection Ritual. It’s magic that connects a dead sacrifice to a living person, and the living person who receives the magic gains the power of the dead sacrifice.”

Gaining the power of the sacrifice explained their doubled abilities all too well. My nausea intensified.

“Gaining that power is just a side effect. The important thing is that if they’re harmed in any way, half of that harm is shared with the sacrifice. Since half the damage goes to the dead sacrifice, it’s essentially halved. Now do you understand why they’re so strong?”

He fixed his gaze on me with a desperate expression. Though he looked dejected, as if worried about my reaction, he desperately continued to pour out words.

He took out a book called “Platinum Branch,” which I had also seen at the Veterans’ Association, and showed me the section on Connection Rituals, trying to make me understand.

“I know this is painful to understand and remember. But, but you must remember. Keep listening. Usually, it’s done by baptizing with the sacrifice’s blood, typically using chickens or lambs. With chickens, it lasts half a day; with lambs, a week. Are they still suffering from the magic?”

I nodded with difficulty. Chickens last half a day, lambs a week… Then there was only one kind of sacrifice that could sustain the magic for over five years.