Episode 15
Sasha Grayson came again the next day and requested a meeting with Isaac.
It was something he had not expected. He had refused her quite firmly in his own way, and in the end had shown a spectacle that was nothing short of a disgrace, so he had assumed she would find him pathetic and never come looking for him again.
Isaac rejected her request for a meeting without a moment’s hesitation. And before long, through Private Iseun, who had entered the break room, he was able to hear news of her.
Sasha had visited accompanied by the Major’s wife, unlike the previous day. Thus, after being refused the meeting, instead of returning immediately, she had conversed for a few minutes with the Major’s wife in the Major’s office before leaving, or so he heard.
It was nothing worth mentioning. However, because the protagonist of the story was who she was, that trivial news of her visit caused a stir among parts of the 4th Infantry Regiment.
Sasha Grayson was already a figure of interest. She was a new face in this Lance Field, which was full of faces so familiar they were sickening, and she was young and beautiful. From her very first visit, she had caused a stir not only in Lance Field but in the regiment itself.
Once the officers, who would casually flirt with the maidens of Lance Field, found out who she was, their interest in her grew especially immense.
Isaac himself was of a slightly different sort, but the regiment was full of second and third sons who had been pushed out by their eldest brothers and had no choice but to enlist.
What the appearance of Sasha Grayson—young, attractive, and even wealthy—meant to them was something everyone could guess without needing a long explanation.
The news that she had repeatedly requested meetings with their fearsome superior, Isaac Pinscher, was no significant obstacle to them.
On the contrary, since Isaac appeared indifferent to her, they regarded this as a golden opportunity.
Having heard Private Iseun’s account, Isaac snorted.
“Pathetic bastards. If they catch my eye, I’ll have them scrubbing toilets with cleaning brushes for a week straight.”
Isaac muttered darkly, more grimly than necessary, without realizing it. Only Private Iseun, who had relayed the story, flinched as if regretting that he had bothered telling him.
Isaac returned to his room, reeking of gun oil, and compulsively disassembled and cleaned his firearm. He cleaned and cleaned it again.
Isaac recalled Sasha Grayson, who had been looking at him the previous day with a bewildered face.
That woman’s face, which, rather than glaring at him after falling hard on her backside, had looked up at him as if flustered.
And even after seeing that, she had asked him to marry her.
No, rather, that was precisely why she had asked him to marry her. Because he had shown himself to look so easy to take advantage of!
At any rate, from the moment he received her absurd marriage proposal, Isaac had been unable to endure the surge of not only distrust but also inexplicable resentment.
“It has to be you.”
Those words, which she had offered in her own way to gain his favor, saying that it had to be him beyond the mere alignment of their interests, instead fanned his resentment.
His anxiety began to rise again. Without realizing it, Isaac tapped the edge of his desk restlessly, then picked up the trash bin again and spat out something that could have been gastric fluid or saliva.
He could not even define exactly what the cause of that resentment was.
However, Isaac realized that as he looked at her slender face showing him favor, he had naturally overlaid it with several faces that he had found not merely unwelcome but had wanted to kill.
Isaac, who had been compulsively cleaning his firearm until his calloused fingertips swelled red, only stopped that self-harming behavior when he heard a knock.
“The Major is calling for you, Captain.”
＊＊＊
As Isaac walked to the Major’s office, he recalled in turn the faces of those who had shown him unearned favor.
His half-brother, Edmund.
Licht Weil, who had been his senior during his cadet days.
And General Chaston, the commander of the proud special forces unit he had once been part of.
Every one of them had shown him excessive favor he had not asked for, acted as though his existence was unique to them, and in the end isolated him and took everything from him.
They were the ones responsible for instilling in him a deep-rooted distrust of people.
That ugly line-up of people had overlapped with her.
Isaac realized that he had vented his anger on her for no reason due to a victim complex caused by them, and that he had shown such an unsightly display because of the resentment that welled up as he unwittingly overlapped her with them.
“I called you to have some tea comfortably. You were cooped up in your room cleaning your gun, weren’t you?”
Upon entering the office, Major Wells muttered as if stating the obvious and offered him a seat on the sofa.
Isaac sat across from him with a displeased expression and drank his tea.
Only a short while ago, Sasha Grayson had been here with the Major’s wife.
Without realizing it, Isaac shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Miss Grayson is quite a fine person. Don’t you agree?”
At the Major’s words, one of Isaac’s eyebrows shot up. His restless fidgeting, as if sitting on a cushion of needles, also stopped.
“For someone from the city, she isn’t haughty at all. My wife sings her praises every day. Hmm. Today she was even thinking of introducing her to the maidens of Lance Field.”
“…….”
“Mr. Hampshire’s son has come following my sister, too. Hmm. Isn’t it obvious? Like the lazy blockheads around here, it seems he has an eye for women as well.”
Isaac set down his tea.
“I’ll be going.”
“Don’t go, sit down. Pinscher. Hmm?”
The Major took a cigar from his pocket and held it out to him.
When Isaac shook his head, the Major next took out a small jackknife and cut the end of the cigar into a round cross-section.
“You can’t stay here forever.”
Following the sound of lighting it, soon the pungent and sour smoke of the cigar filled the air.
At the Major’s words, Isaac’s face hardened even further.
“If you called me to say such things, I’ll be going.”
“I have no choice because of my body, but you don’t.”
The Major continued speaking without minding that Isaac was rising from his seat. He raised his left leg, which still bore aftereffects from the injury he had sustained in the previous battle.
Isaac looked silently at the Major’s left leg. Isaac had been there at the scene where he lost that left leg.
The former comrade and superior, who had once screamed as blood gushed from one leg, was now looking at Isaac with a somehow detached expression.
“I hear General Chaston will be receiving a medal from His Majesty the King soon. And yet you, who rendered the greatest merit, are cooped up here in this 4th Infantry Regiment.”
“Major.”
“Isaac, you know it too. From the moment you were transferred here, your future was already blocked off. Far from being rewarded for your merits, you’ll be handling other men’s messes here until you grow old.”
The Major spoke in a composed tone and exhaled a puff.
A hazy, pungent smoke filled the space between them once more.
“You need to go back to your family. That’s what’s right.”
“…….”
“I’ve also heard about that ridiculous condition your grandmother set.”
“……So.”
Tap, tap. Isaac tapped the sofa armrest nervously and glared at the Major grimly.
“Are you trying to tell me that I am in no position to dare refuse her?”
“‘Dare’? That’s not what I meant. Well, I must say it does feel quite excessive that a woman as excellent as Miss Grayson has taken a liking to you.”
The Major snickered, speaking in a joking tone.
“What I mean is, don’t keep wasting time and make your decision quickly. Rumors are circulating that the officers here will be replaced in large numbers before long. It’s obvious. They’ll be General Chaston’s people.”
Cigar smoke swirled before his eyes again. Isaac gazed into the distance with an expressionless face.
Within a few months, the General’s people would come rushing in here.
That General, who had framed him and shoved him into this place, would fill it with his own people.
Ah. The purpose was obvious.
It was a threat.
You open your mouth and you’ll see. Don’t you dare think of speaking the truth of that day. He intended to have his people block Isaac’s breath at every turn.
There was nowhere left to run.
Then it was right to choose the side that was slightly less suffocating.
That was a survival strategy.
His instincts as a soldier were telling him that it was the proper judgment.