Chapter 41
All that remained was the emptiness from the shattered hope that my father might still be alive.
As I spoke absentmindedly, Johannes slowly opened his mouth.
“They say it was a young man who impersonated Sergeant Prim. He reportedly paid the hotel a significant amount of money.”
Johannes continued explaining what he had discovered.
Fortunately, there was nothing dangerous inside the room—just the letter.
He speculated that whoever it was either wanted to confirm something by meeting me or simply disliked me.
I had considered the possibility that someone was merely pretending to be my father. Still, perhaps because I’d hoped otherwise, this whole incident did nothing to lessen my sorrow.
I looked around the empty room and replied,
“I’m sorry for deceiving you and coming all this way. But no matter how I think about it… it really felt like my father was alive…”
“I told you already. Sergeant Prim’s body was—”
“I know. I know that too… but… the body was so decomposed, and we weren’t even sure the letter was truly from him.”
I still hadn’t been able to throw the letter away, and the image of my father’s corpse kept flickering in my mind.
The face was so disfigured that I could hardly recognize it. I hadn’t even been able to clearly identify the crooked fingers. So how could I be certain it was my father?
“That’s why… I can’t let go of this doubt until I find out who really sent this letter.”
“If you want, I can help you find whoever sent it. But—”
“Could you just trust me a little?”
Johannes raised an eyebrow.
He probably meant to say I shouldn’t get my hopes up. But I didn’t want to start off with such negativity.
When I shook my head quietly, Johannes gave a resigned nod. Then he gently placed a hand on my shoulder.
“For now, we should get out of here. The search is done, and we didn’t find anything else suspicious, but there’s no harm in being cautious. Let’s take some time to think things over.”
And so, having gained nothing, I boarded the train back to Müssen with Johannes.
It was an unusually foggy day.
Not a good day for battle, nor for sailing.
On days like this, it was an unspoken rule not to initiate attacks, since friendly casualties were also more likely.
Johannes was on the deck of a ship floating in the middle of the ocean, smoking a cigarette. It was a rare moment of rest.
At least until a clueless sailor interrupted him.
“You smoke this kind of cigarette too, Commander?”
A middle-aged naval officer approached, speaking to Johannes as he smoked with his eyes half-closed.
His face had weathered with age, but his kind eyes and high-bridged nose suggested he had once been quite handsome.
That was about all the impression Johannes got—nothing remarkable.
“Mind if I smoke here too?”
Johannes didn’t answer.
The man’s easygoing approach to striking up a conversation and smoking with the commander on deck was amusing, but that was it.
The man seemed to take Johannes’ silence as agreement and began smoking beside him from time to time, sharing stories that Johannes didn’t really care to know.
“You have no idea how beautiful my daughter is. She received dozens of marriage proposals recently. But here I am, stuck out at war while she’s alone…”
Sometimes he boasted about his daughter, other times he lamented. Sighs became a regular sound.
After a few repetitions, Johannes finally checked the man’s name on his uniform and issued a warning.
“Isaac… Sergeant Prim. I’m not out here to listen to your complaints.”
“Ah, my apologies. I’ve just been thinking about my daughter a lot lately. If I were to die out here in battle, what would become of her… all alone…”
Despite Johannes’ sharp words, Sergeant Prim kept smiling and behaved as he always did.
Eventually, Johannes had to concede. He gave the man a few words of comfort.
“You don’t need to worry. We’ll all return alive.”
“You think so?”
There wasn’t a trace of hope in Sergeant Prim’s voice as he asked.
Johannes wondered if perhaps from the very moment the man had approached him, Sergeant Prim had already resigned himself to not surviving the war.
Still, he answered without revealing that thought.
“…Of course.”
Everyone knew the tides of war were turning against Dochilia. They all suspected defeat was inevitable.
But voicing that aloud would only demoralize the troops.
“You’re right. I should try my best to survive—for my daughter.”
By the time Johannes had gotten used to ending his days listening to Sergeant Prim’s mundane stories, tragedy struck.
Just when his green eyes began to lose their vitality, Isaac Prim collapsed from illness.
The train bound for Müssen was quiet.
I sat staring at Johannes’s profile. He was gazing out the window, his expression unreadable.
Suddenly, I noticed a scratch on his right cheek.
“You’re hurt?”
I asked without thinking. Johannes turned to look at me, his brows furrowed in confusion.
“Your cheek… there’s a scratch. Right here.”
I pointed near his cheek.
“…Ah. It’s nothing. Just grazed it on something briefly.”
And that was the end of the conversation.
The train rolled on for a while longer. Just as we neared Müssen, the carriage suddenly jolted violently.
Screech. The loud sound of the brakes filled the air, and the train came to a halt in the middle of the tracks.
I stumbled in my seat, unable to keep my balance, but Johannes, seated across from me, caught my arm. Thanks to him, I avoided making a fool of myself.
“Thank…”
I didn’t even have the strength to properly thank him before chaos erupted outside.
The train wasn’t moving again, so people started pouring out of their compartments.
Johannes rose from his seat. He scanned the scene outside with sharp eyes before opening the compartment door.
“I should go check what’s going on. Will you be alright?”
“Yes, of course. Go ahead.”
Maybe it was just a mechanical issue.
I watched him leave with a calm expression, but it wasn’t long before things escalated.
Screams rang out from every direction.
When I peeked into the hallway, smoke was creeping into the train, growing thicker by the second. People began coughing and scrambling to evacuate.
Where’s Johannes? Where’s Ahin?
Ahin had boarded a different compartment from us. He might not even be aware of what’s going on.
I covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve and quickly made my way toward the compartment where Ahin had been.
Luckily, it seemed he had already escaped—he wasn’t at his seat. People were still pushing and shoving their way out.
I had to get out quickly, too. If the train really was on fire, it wouldn’t be strange for it to explode at any moment.
Just as I finally managed to get a clear view through the crowd—
“This way.”
A man I didn’t recognize grabbed my wrist. He pulled me along, and I barely managed to get off the train.
“Thank—”
I turned to thank him, but fell silent when I saw his face.
The man, wearing a suspicious hood, was staring intently at me.
“Duchess Schultz?”
His lips curled into a grin beneath the hood. I sensed something was wrong and tried to flee—
Thud. A sharp pain shot through the back of my head as a dull sound rang in my ears.
That was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness.
