Chapter 21

Footsteps pounded across the second-floor hallway.

It wasn't hard to guess that the men were the "secret police," the Secret State Police of the Ministry of State Security.

Men who were willing to do all sorts of illegal and dirty things to keep the Duchy of Germania in line.

But there was no need to panic.

The only thing on my mind was how to greet them.

Should I sit by the window or just stand there? Wouldn't it look like I was standing there waiting for them when they finally arrived? It's not like I'm waiting to fire.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to pose and wait like a villain so instead of thinking about it, I just plopped down on the bed and lit a cigarette.

-BANG!

As they stomped through the door, I casually asked.

"...What's going on?"

"We are the secret national police of Germania."

One of the men said in a voice that sounded intimidating and with a hint of sneer.

"We got a report of some suspicious-looking people staying here."

"You'll have to come with us for a while."

Behind them, the old woman shuffles away in bewilderment. I stood and watched her wordlessly. It was then.

"Uh huh, what's going on...?"

Alice, who was supposed to be locked in the closet, stumbled out. She rubbed her eyes like a child, unable to control her sleepiness.

"Ugh, a walking cherry pie...? ...can I eat it?"

"Wait."

I stopped her, dumbfounded, and said, "Have you sold us to the secret police?"

"Oh, no! This is...."

"This is your last chance, Lady Hella. You know better than anyone what will happen to them under the Duchy's secret police laws."

"Are you sure...you're going to drag these innocent young men out and sacrifice them so that you can be relieved of your duties? They've done nothing wrong!"

"They brought this on themselves, ma'am."

"Again this old woman...because of this old woman."

The old woman shut her mouth, unable to say more.

Finally, a secret police officer stalked toward us. I continued to remain silent, restraining Aria from taking action beside me.

Then it happened.

A chill ran down my spine as the suited officer grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and along with it, the smell of rotting flesh assaulted my nostrils.

It wasn't me. I hadn't done anything.

"─Huh?"

The suited secret police didn't understand what had happened.

The man's large, sturdy-looking hands had suddenly become gnarled, wrinkled, and stained with age spots.

His hands were aging rapidly, like a biological clock winding down but the sudden aging didn't stop there.

Before long, his entire body was covered in wrinkles, full of age spots and freckles, and even after his hair fell out and he became a hunched-over old man, the clockwork's mercilessness didn't stop.

Only when his flesh rotted and decayed, and his white bones crumbled, did he end in a scattering of bone dust.

"Heh, Lady Hella, do you know what you're doing-"

The remnant raised its voice, but not for long.

The relentlessly accelerating clock of life had mercilessly taken the man's youth as well. Youth was followed by dawn, and then dawn was followed by death and decay.

"Yes, perhaps you are right."

Superior Command Skill <Life Harvest>.

The crops of youth and life that were harvested were there.

"...I wasn't going to die a pretty death anyway."

There is no longer an old woman facing the twilight of her life. There was a young, childlike-looking girl who was more than Alice in Wonderland.

Her face and a fifth of her body scarred with burns, horribly mutilated.

A warrior girl who bore the name of Hella-the goddess of hell who ruled the underworld in Norse mythology.

"Aren't you guys... surprised?"

"It's not like it's the first time we've seen a Commander."

I replied like it was nobody's business, biting into my cigarette. Aria and Alice at my side were no different.

"Oh, Grandma, you're younger than Alice, so you're my sister from now on, right?"

"─There's more to it than meets the eye, tomboyish young lady."

"You should call Alice big sister!"

"...."

In front of Alice, who is jumping up and down with excitement as if she has found a new friend, the polite Mrs. Hella speaks up in a tone of disbelief.

"I thought you were a little out of the ordinary when you first came to my house."

She sounds like a new person, with a completely different tone and voice.

"Who are you, and are you even-?"

The girl's cold hostility and wariness was now directed at us.

"There's someone I'm looking for."

I shook my head and replied my purpose for coming to this city.

"Someone you're looking for?"

"Last I heard, he was running a bakery on this street-"

When I arrived, the business had already gone out of business. So, I stayed a little longer and was looking for information or clues to investigate further.

"You...."

And it turned out to be closer than I thought.

"What else do you know about him?"

"That he's an unsung hero of this country."

A hero. To the people of this world, that word has a special meaning. I mean, what world doesn't have a hero?

That unsung hero is one of the "heroes from the previous game" that I'm looking for in this city.

A bakery NPC you encounter in a small town in the Duchy of Germania when playing the previous game.

This seemingly ordinary bakery NPC has an Easter egg in the middle of the conversation that suggests he's a "hero from the previous game" with a seemingly meaningful line.

After completing the hero's mission, he becomes a normal, ubiquitous person and goes about his daily life.

I came here with that information as a clue, but when I arrived, the bakery was long gone.

Just when I thought I was going to have to return home with nothing to show for it, the clues kept coming and miraculously connected.

"Amazing, someone still remembers him. Who are you?"

"An old colleague. We had adventures together."

I blurted out. In a sense, it wasn't a lie.

It didn't seem to do any good to tell her who we were, at least until I had the information I needed.

"And how do you know him, do you know him?"

"He is my-."

Hella replied. I was about to reply.

-Boom!

The ground beneath our feet began to shake.

It was like an earthquake but not a real earthquake.

The ground shook, and the second floor beneath my feet gave way.

"What?!"

Alice panicked, her gothic gown's skirt fluttering on the spot.

Unlike me and Aria, who quickly formed a falling stance, Hella caught her as she tumbled back to the first floor.

"Careful, little one!"

"Eh, tsk! Alice is the older sister! You rude thing!"

The aftermath of the earthquake didn't end with the collapse and fall of the second floor. As did Alice's ramblings.

Tsk, tsk, tsk!

Needless to say, the house collapsed. The ground cracked, popped, and crumbled like a turtle's carapace.

At first, I thought it was caused by a spell like Earthquake but it wasn't.

"─"

Even the destruction of an earthquake, ravaging an entire region, is nothing more than the imposing effect of this magic.

Destruction fell upon a peaceful border city in the depths of night.

Unmoved by the screams and devastation that echoed throughout the land, something stirred beyond the cracks and crevices of the broken earth.

By their numbers and the armor they wore I realized what it was.

─Supreme Command, Día de Muertos.

An unfathomable number of the dead are crawling up from the cracks in the earth as if returning from the depths of hell.

"What-?"

Hella opened her mouth and her voice trembled, unable to hide her agitation.

Day of the Dead, the highest level of wide-area command skill, is unfolding here and now.

There was only one way to 'acquire' that skill.

"The <Commander Secret> I have hidden."

And that's not all that was written in the book.

"You didn't think I'd find it, did you, former Senior Leader Hella?"

"Colonel Hydra Waltz...."

The voices spoke at the same time, with no intention of hiding it.

"Actually, it's been a while since I found this. A very, very long time."

"Then why on earth would you-."

"Why?"

A man in an SS uniform, smiling broadly, appeared in the midst of the chaos.

His gait was so leisurely, unaffected by the screams that echoed around him.

"For this very day."

"What?"

"The day you kill two secret police officers, the day you betray your country with your own hands."

The man paused, as if waiting.

"And by the way, what prompted that–a couple of young men you don't even know who live upstairs–you've softened up a lot."

As if he'd been waiting for that, everything moved in unison. Unable to comprehend the situation, Hella asked again, repeating the same words like a parrot.

"Why on earth would you...?"

"Because I wanted to see it. Oh, and I also wanted to see how long you could stand it, a scholarly curiosity."

The man in the SS uniform continues, unperturbed.

"How much longer can you endure, sacrificing all that you are?"

He smiled, a crooked smile that was twisted with sadism.

Seeing that smile, Hella realized that all she had endured, all the pain she had endured, all the endless questioning of herself, had not been for an answer.

It was sadism, perpetrated simply to torment her.

"When you endure and endure and endure, until finally give up all of yourself to become a traitor to your country."

"─"

"When you realize that all of your determination and resolve to abandon even your own family, to give up everything you have, is all for naught─."

The man spread his arms and laughed. There were a number of Waffen-SS soldiers around him, who were not just soldiers as the name implies.

The immortal army boasted by a country of necromancy and military dictatorship, the <<Immortal Battalion>>.

"I wanted to see your face when your last hope is crushed."

The leader of the Corpse Falcons, the duchy's most elite organization of commanders, smiled.

At his side was a female knight wearing black and dark armor who stood silently.