EP.220 The Story of the Past, The Pied Piper of Hamelin - 6
Chief Instructor Nicholas found the camp bringing only his closest adjutant. He had rushed over without caring that this was an extremely dangerous forest, as his clothes and hair were covered in broken twigs and leaves. Judging by his outer appearance alone, he looked like a model educator who put his students' safety first.
The reality was completely different, though.
'Children reduced to wrecks. A meager number left. The beast corpses over there. Was it a success...? But something is strange.'
Seeing the devastated state of the camp, Nicholas urgently approached the cadet who looked the most unharmed. The identity of the girl standing in the spot where I should have been was... Siati, a former combat officer candidate.
"Cadet Siati. Report briefly on what happened."
It seemed she was surprised that Nicholas actually came looking, just as I said. Siati, who was standing blankly, gave Nicholas a formal salute, then cast her gaze down to the ground and mumbled.
"...We set up camp here after drifting apart. But, a pheromone bait was hidden beneath this camp. It was probably a trap made by hunters to catch beasts. When it activated... the enraged beasts attacked us."
Her acting is terribly bad. It's a good thing I told her to just look at the ground and mumble. At the very least, she can pretend she doesn't even have the energy to answer.
'She knows about the bait? Originally, they should have been swept away by the beasts without knowing the reason. No, more importantly. The time hasn't come yet, so why did the bait activate already? Then?'
Nicholas looked around. The blood-stained camp was filled only with traces of death. In particular, the blood splattered on the trees and the haphazardly covered pits that looked like they buried something seemed to tell the whole story of the tragedy that had just occurred.
Enough blood had been spilled as he had planned... but the truly important figure was nowhere to be seen.
'Why can't I see Huey? Don't tell me.'
Consumed by the anxiety that all of this might have been in vain, Nicholas immediately pressed Siati.
"Huey. Where is Cadet Huey?"
Nicholas's attitude of looking for me right from the start without any other words. This alone made it certain. Who this graduation practical exam was prepared for, and who prepared it.
Siati, who was in charge of acting, lost her composure. Her mind bleached white with rage, she glared at Nicholas, forgetting even my advice.
"...Why, why are you calling for him first? How many students are missing right now, some are buried under here! Why does it have to be Huey that you call for first?!"
It was an intense response that deviated from expectations. If Nicholas felt a sense of discord from her attitude, things might get a little difficult.
However, Nicholas was also driven into a psychological corner by the anxiety that his wholehearted plan might have gone up in smoke.
"Isn't that obvious! Huey is...!"
Still, he had enough discernment not to mention anything about the taboo, so Nicholas barely regained his reason and chose his words.
"He is the top of the year, a talent guaranteed admission to the military academy, and the leader of this graduation practical exam. What's the problem with me looking for him for a smooth report?"
"Ha, right. It means it doesn't matter how many of us die...!"
"Cadet Siati! I express my regret for what you have experienced, but you are currently disobeying my order to report. Do not test my patience."
At Nicholas's shouting, Siati bit her lip hard, bowed her head again, and began to say her pre-prepared lines.
"Huey... sacrificed himself for us."
"...Hmm?"
Nicholas was the designer. He prepared this stage, wrote the script, arbitrarily assigned roles, and drew the conclusion of the story.
However, no matter how meticulously he planned, from the moment the curtain rose, he was just a single audience member. Nicholas would want this play to unfold as is, but sometimes a play betrays the designer's expectations and shows something that transcends the script.
Siati delivered the lines we had agreed upon in advance to him, who had jumped onto the stage.
"While we were responding to the sudden beast attack, Huey realized a step ahead that this situation occurred because of the pheromone bait. While investigating the camp, he found the bait somewhere, hugged the box, let out a scream, and ran toward the river. The beasts attacking us... all followed Huey. And we stayed behind to tend to the survivors."
"What...?! Huey became the bait himself?"
"That's right."
Siati gathered her arms behind her back and bowed her head deeply, as if trying to hide her devastated expression. Meanwhile, Nicholas couldn't accept the unexpected situation and trembled.
The play had slipped from his hands. Reality had betrayed his expectations. Nicholas felt a terrible sense of defeat, proportionate to the great expectations he had harbored.
The method Nicholas chose when faced with an ordinarily arriving failure was.
Denial.
"No way! Huey isn't that kind of guy. A cunning guy like Huey would never sacrifice himself for the likes of you!"
"...What?"
"Historia and Lankart. To take first place between those two, simply being outstanding isn't enough! You have to even scheme to bring them to your side and use them. A position you can only reach by acting cunningly while gaining popularity! Huey achieved that. A guy like him would never sacrifice himself for the likes of you!"
Nicholas looked around with bloodshot eyes. The children who had survived until now dared not meet his gaze out of ingrained fear. Because the aura Chief Instructor Nicholas was emitting was that terrifying.
Chief Instructor Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas. Hamelin is only a part of the area he oversees. He is the Chief Instructor who oversees the elementary and middle schools in the southwestern region.
It was no coincidence that Historia and Lankart entered Hamelin at the same time. It was arranged by Chief Instructor Nicholas to bring the two, who had stood out since elementary citizen school, here.
He is a monster who rose to the position of Chief Instructor due to his outstanding abilities, to the point where the upper echelon judged that someone of at least Nicholas's caliber was needed to accurately evaluate students.
His status, abilities, and accumulated experience are on a different level. Even if all the children here advance to the higher military academy, none would reach even the tip of Nicholas's toes.
The children's spirits were crushed by Nicholas's fierce aura, and they lowered their heads. Over them, Nicholas's enraged voice rained down.
"You should have sacrificed yourselves instead! If someone had to die anyway! You should have died in their place! Why did you survive?!"
This was the Chief Instructor who came after they had barely endured a life-threatening crisis. Some children wanted to believe all of this was a terrible nightmare. They rather hoped that the military nation hadn't abandoned them, that there was some misunderstanding.
But the words Nicholas spat out trampled on that sliver of hope.
"So you tried to kill us all! For that one guy Huey?!"
Siati, whose defiance flared up, snapped her head up, but what caught her eyes was Nicholas wearing a chilling smile.
"...Oho. I see. You... have figured out about this test."
A face seemingly half-consumed by madness. As the terrified Siati shrank back, Nicholas twisted his lips and head bizarrely and glanced at the haphazardly covered pit.
"How did you find out? Did you discover a foundation stone while digging a grave for the dead?"
"Y-You think I'll tell you...?"
"I haven't asked 'what' you know yet, Cadet Siati. If you want to deceive someone, erase the facts you know from your mind..."
With that, he gestured to the adjutant following behind him. The adjutant tightly sealed his lips and followed Nicholas.
"Of course. You won't have any use for that teaching anymore, though."
A chilling killing intent was directed at Siati and the other children. Like frightened chicks, the children clustered behind Siati. Their numbers exceeded thirty, but it didn't look like an advantage for them.
"Secric."
"Yes, Chief Instructor."
"I will bury them all. Assist me."
Shing. The adjutant named Secric drew his military saber. The military saber that had been used to give orders to the children changed the direction of its blade and pointed at the children.
Siati, reading the killing intent emanating from the blade, screamed.
"What is this...! Don't tell me, are you planning to kill us all, Chief Instructor?!"
"You were fated to die anyway. The method just became a little more cumbersome."
Nicholas also drew his long sword and answered coldly. Dark Qi starting from the hilt wrapped around the blade like a flame and surged up. To execute the unintended survivors.
The children gradually retreated, but behind them was the river. To escape to the other side, they had to jump into the river or get past Nicholas.
Both were nearly impossible.
"Try running away. If there's a place for that in this military nation, that is."
Nicholas and his adjutant walked toward the children who were hesitantly retreating. Every step was filled with firm killing intent. As he walked like that.
He stepped on a trap.
"It's a surprise, Chief Instructor!"
Just before his weight was placed on that foot, I kicked off the collapsed tent and stood up. Nicholas, startled by the abrupt appearance, couldn't respond to the trap.
Right after, a hidden snare caught his ankle. The snare trap, made to be able to take down even a great-horned deer, captured him....
The difference was that he was a human holding a weapon in his hand.
"Heok!"
The long sword moved with an agility that didn't match its length. Seuk, the snare at ankle height was severed in an instant. The remaining force of the sword slash carved a long line into the ground.
But the trap didn't end with just one.
"Surprise number two."
That snare was connected to something else. The moment the rope was cut, a long log that had been precariously perched fell, aiming for the back of Nicholas's head. Whoosh, a heavy sound was heard.
However, it was an attack too slow for him, who had learned Qi.
"Petty trick."
Quick Draw. The massive log was cut in a single strike. With this, the chain of traps was severed.
If he had dodged to the side or below, he would have experienced Surprises three, four, and five in succession. I didn't expect him to just slash it. I guess a Lieutenant Colonel is still a Lieutenant Colonel even if he's rotten.
"Well, still. I got one thing done."
Flick, swish. I drew my dagger. His adjutant, who was called Secric, spurted blood from his side.
"Cough!"
"Now, now. Lie down for a bit."
The adjutant, who was not as agile in responding as Nicholas, was dragged by the snare and slid right in front of my nose. He instinctively protected his body, but I pushed through his defense and plunged the dagger into his side.
Even if it's weak Qi, Qi is Qi. The blade wedged itself between his collarbones. The blood flowing along the dagger seeped into the dirt... and headed somewhere.
"Y-You, Huey...!"
"Shh. Food for my body. Stay still. If you go and die, the blood won't flow well."
Leaving behind the adjutant who wasn't dead yet but was slowly approaching it, I straightened my dagger and bowed to Nicholas.
"Hello, Chief Instructor Nicholas?"
"How on earth. How. No."
Swish, swish. His gaze darted to me, Siati, and the trap beneath his feet. Grasping something from my smile in that brief moment, he pointed at his own face with a trembling voice.
"...Is that it, Huey. Did you know everything? And made a foolish choice...!"
"A foolish choice? That's a rather strange thing to say."
"You just had to stay still! I committed the taboo, and you only had to take the deaths of the failures while pretending not to know! I took on everything and atoned for it...! How could you refuse that?!"
How could I refuse? Like this.
When I sent a signal, the children who had been hiding below the riverbank all came up at once. Their number was a staggering one hundred and forty. Holding spears made by tying daggers to hastily gathered branches, they joined our side, trembling with anger and fear.
"I refused it in this way."
The children who had multiplied in an instant. Most of them were sending glares of hatred toward Nicholas. Nicholas muttered dumbly.
"You saved... almost all of them."
"Saved almost all of them, you say. Seventeen precious lives died. That's a huge loss for me too."
Nicholas didn't seem to agree with my opinion.
"Seventeen! That's far from enough. Far from it! Your vitality hasn't increased at all!"
"Praise me. Even though my vitality didn't increase much, it's enough to easily lay out a great-horned deer and one adjutant."
I smiled faintly and twirled the blade. The color of the blood congealed on it wasn't much different from the blood shed by the children dying from horns and claws.
Is it the influence of Gluttony? Because I stabbed him directly, it feels like something is seeping into my body. Dark and defiled turbid energy travels through the bio-terminals and rushes into the gaps of my blood vessels.
That energy, if measured in absolute total amount, is negligible... but to me, who originally had only a hair's worth of vitality and mana, it's large enough to be clearly felt.
However.
"Ptooey. Not much. You were boasting over preparing something like this? I'd rather smoke a mana herb. That at least has a taste."
Nicholas couldn't understand the series of events. He couldn't understand the derailed script, nor the very existence of me slipping out from beneath it.
He asked with a bewildered expression.
"Why, Huey?"
"I wonder why, Nicholas?"
"You are weak. With that Qi, with that mana, you can never rise above a certain level. You are outstanding at handling your given abilities, but your innately low vitality and mana will be shackles that bind you time and time again! I was trying to break your shackles!"
Surprisingly, even now, when I had betrayed his trust and stabbed his adjutant... he was earnestly appealing to me. As if it was a waste that a talent like me made a foolish choice.
"To rule over others, a minimum qualification is necessary. That is dignity, and power. No matter how outstanding you are, if you lack power... you can achieve nothing. If it's you, who has realized your limits more than anyone else, you should understand!"
"Of course, I understand. Chief Instructor. How could I not know."
Nicholas was sincere. Even if he was the Chief Instructor, he couldn't commit a taboo with such a light heart. Having observed my abilities for 3 years and grasped what I lacked, he desperately wanted me to become a greater person. For me, for the military nation.
But, that is... No matter how much it's for the nation. It is essentially just a wish directed at another person. Should I call it spare change handed out as charity, after stacking everything for oneself.
An ordinary person would be grateful for even that spare change, but I am a mind reader. I am not moved by scraps of feelings.
"But, Nicholas. You packaged your feelings nicely, but... truthfully, your true feelings only come out when you're sitting safe and sound, with a warm back and a full stomach, right? Isn't your heart too light and petty?"
It is an obvious statement, in a way.
I read minds. The heart doesn't have a unit to measure its size, but still, as a mind reader, I often compared the size or depth of emotions.
As a result, naturally. Nicholas's heart, which was outside the stage, was lighter than even the lingering echo of a single dead child.
But this isn't something that can be explained. Tsk.
Nicholas, who couldn't even understand half of my words, shouted confidently.
"This was also a test for you! For a great national victory, soldiers must be sacrificed! I took a risk and carried this out, but you misjudged out of petty sentiment!"
"Is that so? Then I'll pose a great national victory problem. Is there a law saying only the Chief Instructor can pose problems?"
I walked slowly. The sound of vines and tree roots crunching underfoot could be heard. Due to people moving around frequently these past few days, the terrain had changed drastically from its original state. Broken branches, trampled ground, dug up everywhere, a place full of traps made of ropes.
The odds are sufficient.
"Instead of the tasteless children, please die for me, Nicholas. Offer your blood for me. Then I won't destroy the military nation..."
At least step onto the stage fairly. Try moving me with that much heart.
"Just as much as you are worth, that is."