A few days later, Imperial Army Western Front Command.
The enormous railway terminal was filled with steel, steam, and the heat given off by tens of thousands of soldiers.
Hiss—!
With a deafening whistle, the imperial train came to a stop at the platform.
I rose from my seat, straightening my clothes.
“We’ve arrived.”
“I’ll get the luggage, sir.”
Sidney responded at once. She rose onto her tiptoes to take down the bags from the rack.
“Hng…!”
A moan escaped her lips at that moment. Her legs trembled ever so slightly, and the muscles of her buttocks tensed sharply—visible even through her clothes.
‘Status analysis.’
[Name: Sidney Wellesley]
[Condition: Foreign-object sensation, shame]
[Special Note: ‘Training device’ inserted.]
The anal plug I had given her last night seemed to have been inserted properly.
She soon lowered the luggage bag.
“Isn’t it heavy, Ellie?”
“…I’m fine. Please leave it to me.”
‘Diligent as ever.’
She seemed intent on continuing to play the role of the perfect maid on the outside.
“Then let’s go.”
I stepped off the train first. Imperial soldiers were already lined up on the platform.
“Salute!”
The soldiers raised their hands in salute with a thunderous cheer. At the end of the formation stood a familiar man.
“Welcome, Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger! Or should I call you His Excellency, the Empire’s diplomat, now?”
It was Major General Wilhelm von Falkenheim, commander of the 1st Armored Division. He greeted me with a hearty laugh.
“I heard the report. They say you’ve been turning conference halls upside down with nothing but the tip of your tongue. His Majesty the Emperor is positively grinning from ear to ear.”
“You flatter me, General. I merely set up a game that could be won, as was my duty as a soldier.”
“Such modesty!”
Falkenheim clapped me on the shoulder several times before setting off ahead of me.
“Good, let’s head to headquarters. My staff have been waiting until their necks stretched.”
*
The command headquarters’ operations room.
“Let’s get to the point.”
With a large map spread across the wall behind him, Falkenheim began the briefing.
“His Majesty’s imperial decree has arrived. It’s called ‘Operation Peacekeeping for the Establishment of a Provisional Government of the Republic.’ Quite grandiose, wouldn’t you say?”
He grinned. The tip of the baton in his hand traced the Imperial Army’s encirclement of the Republic, marked by red arrows around its capital, Elancia.
“It’s called peacekeeping, but in reality, it’s an operation to occupy the capital. And they’re preparing for urban warfare.”
This time, the tip of the baton pointed toward the outskirts of Elancia.
“The problem is here. The Elancia defensive line—Fort Saint-Denis. An impregnable fortress they spent a hundred years painstakingly constructing.”
Fort Saint-Denis.
The Republic’s pride and joy, an unconquerable fortress. It was a massive concrete mass guarding the gateway into Elancia.
“We can’t enter Elancia without breaking through that. But if we attack it head-on, even our armored division will be reduced to scrap metal.”
Falkenheim stared directly at me.
“You must have a way, don’t you?”
Every eye in the room turned toward me. Their gazes were filled with a mixture of expectation and trust.
“A way… can be made.”
I answered confidently.
“However, I’ll need a few supplies.”
“Supplies? Name them. Tanks? Artillery? Or bombers?”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“Loudspeakers. Very large and very noisy ones.”
“……Loudspeakers?”
Falkenheim looked perplexed.
“And please prepare plenty of shells for scattering leaflets. A bundle of paper can be more frightening than a bullet.”
The key to conquering Elancia was the battle for public opinion. We had to exploit the Republic’s divided political situation to its absolute limit.
Rather than shoot the enemy dead, we had to make them collapse on their own. After all, the thirty thousand gold pieces I had spent were probably ripening quite nicely inside Elancia by now.
“Ah, and one more thing.”
I added:
“I need to bring along a personal guest.”
“A guest?”
“Yes. An expert who is absolutely essential to bringing down the fortress.”
Someone who knew the Republic’s internal situation better than anyone and could provoke their fears.
“Lieutenant General Henri de Dubois.”
The former commander of the Republic’s 2nd Army Corps, captured at Soissons.
“No one knows better how to achieve victory than a defeated general.”
*
The Republic’s capital, Elancia.
The city once called the jewel of the continent had been transformed into a horrific sight.
The roadside trees along the once-glamorous Champs-Élysées had been cut down for firewood, while the boutique windows had been smashed and painted messily with red revolutionary slogans.
[Death to the bourgeoisie!]
[Drive out the imperialists!]
Machine-gun emplacements built from sandbags and barbed wire had taken the place of elegant cafés, and the corpses of so-called reactionaries drifted down the riverside where romantic lovers had once strolled.
“Mother… I’m hungry….”
“Shh! Be quiet. We’re finished if they hear us.”
In a corner of an alley, a mother and daughter in clothes streaked with grime hurriedly hid after rummaging through a garbage bin.
In the distance, an armed patrol wearing red armbands passed by. They looked more like a mob than regular soldiers, but madness gleamed in their eyes.
“Comrades! How is the purge going?”
the patrol leader shouted.
“We summarily executed ten reactionary bastards suspected of being Imperial spies in Sector Three! We also arrested several hoarders who had been hiding bread!”
“Good work! There is nowhere for the bourgeois rats to hide in Elancia!”
They stopped random passersby and examined their palms. Anyone whose hands were soft or lacked calluses was branded a parasite who had never worked, then dragged away after being struck with rifle butts.
People’s tribunals were being held in every square. Yesterday, the mayor had been put on the guillotine. Today, it was the bank president’s turn. Tomorrow, a general would take his place.
Fear.
That was the only law ruling Elancia now.
*
Back at Imperial Army Western Front Command.
I sat in a neatly arranged reception room.
Clack.
Sidney arrived at just the right moment and set a wineglass on the table. I took a sip of the fragrant liquid as I waited for the ‘guest’ who would soon arrive.
The captured commander of the Republic’s 2nd Army Corps. Henri de Dubois, once hailed as a hero of the Republic.
Creeeak—
But the figure who entered when the reception room door opened was far removed from anything resembling a hero.
“……Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger?”
His beard was unkempt, his complexion haggard. The epaulettes had been torn from his uniform, and the fabric was old and frayed. The Imperial prisoner-of-war camp’s treatment could hardly be called poor, but defeat and worry for his homeland seemed to have gnawed at him from within.
I indicated the sofa opposite me with a nod.
“Please, sit down, General.”
He glared at me with eyes full of wariness, then dropped heavily into the seat.
“Did you summon me to mock me, Jaeger?”
“Of course not. There is nothing more undignified than a victor mocking the defeated.”
I gestured to Sidney with my eyes. She approached carefully and set a wineglass before Dubois as well.
Clink.
“Please, have a drink. I went to some trouble to obtain it, thinking you might be missing the taste of home.”
Henri glared at it suspiciously, then lifted the glass with trembling hands. After tasting it, he murmured:
“……This is wine from the southern Republic.”
“That’s right.”
“…There’s no need to say how good the wine from my homeland is.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
Henri’s expression eased slightly. The effort I had put into preparing this had paid off.
“General. You did not surrender at Soissons out of cowardice. You did it to keep your men from being sent to their deaths.”
I set down my glass and brought up the real subject. Sidney, who had been waiting nearby, carried over a stack of newspapers on a silver tray.
“But it seems Elancia doesn’t see it that way.”
Thump.
She placed the newspaper beside Henri’s plate. It was the People’s Daily, published in Elancia.
[Defeated General Henri! Incompetence Hidden Behind Noble Privilege!]
[The Truth Behind the Destruction of the 2nd Army Corps: The Commander’s Cowardly Flight and the Sacrifice of the Soldiers]
Henri’s gaze locked onto the headlines. His hands began to tremble violently.
“T-This… what is….”
“That’s how the revolutionary government appeases the public. Someone has to take responsibility, after all. The dead cannot speak, and a prisoner cannot defend himself. A perfect scapegoat, wouldn’t you say?”
I swirled my wineglass and continued.
“This is the Republic you risked your life to defend, General. And your reward is nothing but the disgrace of being branded a traitor.”
“It’s a lie! I… I fought to the very end, at least! If it hadn’t been for that insane, unbelievable maneuver of yours…!”
“I know. I know, and so do your men.”
I leaned forward.
“But do the citizens of Elancia know that? In their eyes, as they set fire to your estate and incite them by calling your family reactionaries…”
Henri’s face turned ashen.
“You are nothing more than an incompetent defeated general. The perfect political scapegoat.”
Honor. He had lived his entire life as a soldier. For a general who had thought of resisting to the end rather than fleeing even when Soissons was ambushed, the loss of his honor was a torment worse than death.
‘Status analysis.’
[Name: Henri de Dubois]
[Condition: Anger, injustice, betrayal]
A crack had appeared. I did not let the opportunity slip away.
“Ellie, pour the general some more wine.”
Sidney carefully moved her legs as she approached. The wine bottle tilted, and glug, glug, glug. The red liquid rose with an unusually loud sound.
Henri downed the glass in a single gulp. He was not savoring the taste, but trying to soothe his insides, which felt as though they were burning.