* * *
It was during the world war in the past, around the time when the Peace Allied Forces were about to land on the mainland.
Masera, barely a young man, participated in operations to track down, capture, or kill spies who had infiltrated neutral countries.
“We must annihilate all those devilish Frozen Empire bastards.”
The people of the ‘Frozen Empire,’ who would later lose their name and be called the Defeated Empire, were treated as war criminals who had committed atrocities.
He entered an ordinary house in full gear.
“Plea-Please, spare me!”
A blonde Rutemian woman, holding a baby, fled towards the crib with a pale face.
Unlike Masera, who lowered his gun, Lieutenant General Lev still aimed at the woman.
The woman instinctively bent down to protect the baby.
“Please, just spare the baby. Please… God…”
Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
Under the military helmet, Masera’s eyes widened.
The sobbing woman slumped down powerlessly. She leaned against the wall, still holding the baby, and her breath eventually stopped.
In the silence, only the baby’s cries, having lost its mother, remained.
“God? In war, the one with the gun is God.”
Lieutenant General Lev kicked a toy on the floor and muttered indifferently.
Masera pushed the rifle slung over his shoulder back, knelt down, and carefully picked up the baby in the woman’s arms.
The baby stopped crying as soon as he was held and smiled brightly at Masera.
“Leave it. Whether it dies here or goes to an orphanage, it’s its fault for being born to parents who are war criminals.”
He laid the baby in the crib as ordered by his superior.
Masera’s eyes, dyed a deep purple, were still fixed on the baby.
It was obvious that if he didn’t leave, even the baby would be killed.
As he left the room, he looked back several times until the baby’s cries faded away.
Lieutenant General Lev’s eyes, as he looked at the ordinary woman and baby that could be seen anywhere, were filled with contempt, as if looking at an inferior being.
When people want to hate someone, they try to find a reason and justify it. Especially if it’s that child, who was born with a reason to be hated…
‘But is the child guilty? Is it just a means of punishment?’
Because the spy from the enemy country will suffer as a husband and the child’s father.
Sin and punishment, the chain of hatred.
It was at this moment, not during the extreme training, the abuse of young boy soldiers, or the times he had almost died, that Masera began to feel disillusioned with his long military life.
* * *
Masera stood before Lieutenant General Lev with the same feeling he had back then.
“Do you think that’s a justification for moving the military?”
Lieutenant General Lev had not approved Masera’s request for operational permission to locate the Organization and the proof that Princess Cynthia was alive.
‘Justification…’
Masera murmured inwardly.
Lieutenant General Lev frowned, puffing out pipe smoke.
“According to the official will, you will receive the inheritance. What’s the problem? You know very well that the Princess is a dangerous figure who could undermine the national system in the future.”
Masera’s eyes gradually cooled down. It was a disrespectful look that he would never dare to show to his superior.
“Is there any evidence of that?”
“Princess Cynthia has been secretly contacting the upper echelons of the Organization under the guise of orphanage volunteer work. There is even evidence that she received a new ID and travel pass with the intention of defecting. Therefore, the conclusion is that the Princess is a spy trying to rebuild the Defeated Empire with the help of the Organization leader.”
The evidence was nothing more than a plausible suspicion, but the Lieutenant General shamelessly raised his chin.
“The higher-ups have already agreed. This means that even if you find Princess Cynthia, your mission and duty is to eliminate her.”
“I refuse.”
At his words, uttered without any hesitation, the Lieutenant General looked dumbfounded.
“You’re going to disobey?”
“Yes.”
“Is it true that you’ve become obsessed with a woman and turned into a royalist, as the rumors say? I’ve been accommodating you, considering your reputation as a war hero.”
“I didn’t want to become a war hero.”
“Then why did you enlist and participate in the war? Why did you fight so fiercely that you earned such an undeserved title?”
The Lieutenant General questioned him in an agitated tone, but Masera still had a blank face.
“There’s no great reason, I was just hungry.”
“…What?”
“You seem to like justifications, Lieutenant General.”
Masera already knew very well that he had packaged his ambition to become the next Minister of National Defense with plausible patriotism.
“Seeing that even such a simple motive is recognized as a national hero, I suppose your justification was worse than a child’s hunger.”
The Lieutenant General’s face was contorted with anger.
Soon, the military police rushed in at the Lieutenant General’s call.
Despite the numerous guns pointed at him, Masera’s face remained calm.
Lieutenant General Lev clicked his tongue and shook the ashes from his pipe.
“At this point, it’s clear that you’re an accomplice of Princess Cynthia. To think you would betray the country that raised a stateless refugee orphan and gave you the honor of a war hero in this way.”
The Lieutenant General made an unpleasant expression and gave instructions to the military police.
“No need to be polite. Detain him and use any means necessary to get a confession.”
* * *
Late at night, Masera, dressed in prison clothes, sat in a cell, staring at the clock beyond the bars.
He looked at the moving second hand and recalled the code that Princess Cynthia had sent.
The codes she usually mumbled in her sleep were varied, similar to the codes of the Allied Forces and other countries, or completely new.
This was impossible unless one knew the codes of each country.
As she had told him before, a pigeon meant ‘hostage’ and a mask meant ‘Organization,’ so the will he was seeing now was a lie forced by the Organization, and the instruction to find him was the real content.
Besides, if you read only the first letters, it blatantly said, ‘I’ve been caught.’
Moreover, Captain Declan had found the area where the engraved precious metal and wedding ring were traded, and she was definitely there.
‘I never thought I’d use the gift with the engraving for tracking like this.’
Did she know my intentions from the beginning?
Masera rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and had one question.
Could someone who grew up as a maid in the countryside really do this?
The same was true of her fluent foreign language skills.
The pilgrimage route was a place visited by people from all over the world, and at that time, Cynthia was talking and laughing with people from various countries.
He had only watched from afar, pretending to be indifferent, and hadn’t thought much of it.
‘Anyone would suspect Cynthia of being a professional spy.’
Masera closed his eyes and pondered.
“Was it when I was seventeen? I was taking a class on a saint who made prophecies and came up with the hypothesis that ‘a person’s soul can carry memories of a parallel world through a medium.’ But then such a person actually appeared. It’s my Princess.”
Suddenly, he remembered the crazy words of General Noah Rothschild that he had heard at the Allied Forces meeting before.
“Aren’t the saints who gave oracles in the Middle Ages the same kind? If they said they came from another world or the future, they would be burned at the stake, so they just said it was God’s word. It’s an invincible card that no one can refute.”
He was such an eccentric man that he didn’t think much of it at the time…
Come to think of it, ‘explaining things that are impossible to explain logically by saying it’s God’s will’ was consistent with what Cynthia had told Helene.
“Cynthia said something incomprehensible, that she had a job saving people in her past life.”
‘Could it be…’
It was hard to believe, but if his assumption was correct, all the questions were answered.
Masera was convinced that she was not a spy, but a ‘soul that had carried memories of a parallel world through some medium.’
It was an extremely logical and realistic judgment.
“You were so proud of yourself for succeeding despite being a lowly bastard, serves you right.”
At that moment, while he was lost in thought, Lieutenant General Lev appeared, swaggering.
He looked like he had been waiting for this moment to mock and insult him to his heart’s content. Because he hadn’t been able to treat him as badly as before since Masera had been recognized for his achievements.
“I’ll personally torture you in the interrogation room, considering your reputation. You’re a dog I raised, so you should be grateful, right?”
Regardless, Masera was carefully observing his uniform as he headed to the interrogation room.
“That’s right. You’re giving me the justification for formally proposing a suppression operation and being detained, and you’ve even given me people to consider your reputation.”
“What…”
As soon as Lieutenant General Lev frowned and turned around, a heavy blow rang out.
Masera grabbed his hair and dragged him into the soundproof interrogation room.
“You bastard! How dare you commit insubordination?!”
The Lieutenant General, barely regaining his senses, spat out his broken teeth and snarled.
“There’s no way to escape the kill order even if you run away, so why are you doing this crazy thing? You’ll regret it… Keuk!”
But even that spirit quickly subsided in the face of the logic of power.
“This is normal for me.”
“Were you aiming for the throne? If so, I’ll cover up what happened today, so stop now…”
Masera, grabbing his collar, looked at him closely. The pupils of his eyes, filled with madness, were completely open.
Masera raised his fist, letting out a chillingly subdued voice.
“I just miss my wife.”
* * *
A few moments later, the interrogation room door creaked open.
The Lieutenant General, in his underwear and covered in blood, was slumped against the wall, unconscious.
Soon, Masera, dressed in his uniform instead of prison clothes, walked out, buttoning his sleeve cuffs.
Captain Carlton, looking down at the fallen military police officers sleeping at the end of the corridor and the mugs rolling on the floor, shrugged at Masera.
“I accidentally put sleeping pills in the coffee. You’re responsible if my medical license gets revoked.”
As soon as they left the back door of the detention center with him, a car was visible.
Brigadier General Steve, sitting in the passenger seat, glared at Masera with a grumpy expression.
“Don’t get the wrong idea that I’m on your side. I’m an opportunist, and I’m doing this to find evidence that you smuggled weapons to the Organization and to remove Lieutenant General Lev so I can become the next candidate for Minister of National Defense. If this operation succeeds, my promotion is guaranteed.”
“Brigadier General Steve is a shy boy and has a very long excuse. Why isn’t Brigadier General Vicente running and walking? I want a damn quick start.”
Grand Princess Charlotte, sitting in the driver’s seat, urged in Rutemian, which she had just started learning.
I love what Charlotte said so very much. XD