Volume 7 Chapter 6 The Last Name
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The door, opened.
The light burned my eyes. To eyes accustomed to the darkness of the Stone chamber, even that faint light stabbed like a blade. I turned my head away in a reflex. Red afterimages swam behind my eyelids.
When I could see again, it was a woman standing at the entrance.
Her ears, were long.
The tips of the ears extending to the sides cast shadows in the dim light. Even though she had a human shape, she was not human.
Beautiful. Skin without a single blemish. Long flaxen hair. Her clear eyes, even in the darkness of the tree shade, held a distinct radiance.
Traditional attire, a curved sword at her waist. The sword was not drawn.
The woman said something.
A short, sharp sound, like exhaling a breath. The way she used her tongue was completely different from the Common tongue. I could not understand a single meaning.
She lowered her gaze to my feet and reached for the rope at my ankles. The moment her white fingers touched it, the knot that should have been tied tightly, slipped undone.
…Only my feet. My hands, remained bound.
The woman took a step back and spoke in faltering Common tongue.
”This way.”
Prompted, I began to walk.
The soil touched the soles of my bare feet. It wasn’t cold stone. It was soft. Damp soil. Roots of grass tickled between my toes.
The moment I looked up, my breath stopped.
Trees.
Giant trees whose canopy I couldn’t see even when looking up stood in dense rows, one after another. Each trunk was thicker than the stone pillars of Nordval’s City Wall. A hundred years wasn’t enough. Hundreds of years, or perhaps even more.
As if to cover the heavens above, even larger leaves filled the sky. There was no sky. Instead, a massive green ceiling.
The air, was different.
The stench of rot from the Magic Forest, the smell of mud and blood during the march, and the smell of oil and soot from the fortress were not here.
The clear air soaked deep into my lungs. As I breathed it in, I had the illusion that the filth inside my chest was being washed away. Birds chirped, and the voices of insects could be heard.
In the Magic Forest, there was no such place. That forest was filled with the stench of rot, miasma, and the smell of death. This place was the exact opposite.
That such a clear place could exist, deep in the Magic Forest.
The woman walked in front. I followed her back.
The distance was about three steps. She didn’t look back. There was no sound to her walking. Even though we stepped on the same soil, I scraped the mud, stepped on branches, and crushed the grass. The woman’s feet didn’t step on anything.
There was no sign of people around. It was too quiet, which was scary in a way.
Buildings began to appear on both sides of the path. Wooden buildings. Walls with heavy beams joined together. Stone foundations.
But, the doors of all of them were warped, vines were eating into the walls, and trees were growing from the gaps in the roofs. It looked like no one had lived there for a long time.
The woman stopped in front of one of the ruined houses.
It was better than the others, but still old. She placed her hand on the heavy wooden door and pushed it open.
”Please.”
Faltering Common tongue. A polite ring to it.
I went inside alone, as prompted.
Dark. It was darker than the Stone chamber. The light shining through the small window made particles of dust float.
The smell of old wood. A dry, somewhat nostalgic smell, different from the damp stone.
It took time for my eyes to adjust.
There was a man in chair.
He didn’t move. He didn’t stand up. He didn’t speak. He just looked at me.
The first thing I understood was the color of his eyes. Black. Black hair, with black eyes. It was not the face of an Empire citizen.
Why, in a place like this. Why, a human?
The man’s gaze was tracing my entire body.
Chest. Torso. Thighs. Legs. Arms. Hands.
I was being appraised.
It was the same as that time. When I was twenty. That man looked at me with eyes that appraised.
’You, do you have a Dowry? ‘
…No. The eyes from back then saw Gold Coin beyond my body.
This man’s eyes were different. I didn’t know what he was looking at. Rather than a quality check, it was like… checking the condition of a broken machine.
……Yes. My eyes, when I inspect a Magic Gun.
I thought that I was now a gun placed on a workbench. Before being disassembled. Checking where it was broken, and where it could still be used.
His gaze stopped on my face. He didn’t move.
The black eyes were looking at my blue eyes.
The silence was heavy. It was different from the silence of the Stone chamber. That one was a silence filled with fear. This one was a waiting silence. Waiting for something of mine.
My throat was dry. The soles of my feet were cold. The rope on my wrists dug in, and the sensation in my fingertips was dull. My knees wouldn’t stop shaking.
”…Come here. Stand there.”
He pointed in front of the desk.
My legs moved. They moved because I was ordered to. Not by my own will.
Three steps. Even though it was only three steps, my knees gave way, and I felt like I would sink with every step. The soles of my bare feet picked up the coldness of the wooden floorboards and the sensation of faint sand grains.
I stood in front of the desk.
Close.
Much closer than before.
The eyes of the man sitting were around my stomach. He was looking up at me. And yet, I felt like I was being looked down upon. Even though he was sitting, this man felt like he was in a higher place.
Because it was closer, I could see the details.
Not a particularly beautiful face. But it was tough. There was something heavy in the depths of his eyes. Not fatigue or hunger, but something harder.
Eyes that had killed a person.
I didn’t know why I thought that. But I knew. A gun that had been fired many times had a different feel. The texture of the metal changed. That unique weight of a tool that had been used extensively.
This man’s eyes were the same as that. He was looking at me without saying anything.
I was standing. In front of the desk. In the place I was ordered to be.
My hands remained tied behind my back. My military uniform was dirty, torn, and soaked with the smell of sweat, mud, and blood. Barefoot.
My hair was matted with oil smoke and sand dust, and soot from days ago was caked on my cheeks.
I was being watched like this, from this close.
My own heart was loud. If he was this close, he might hear it.
Embarrassing. Even though I might die. Thinking it was embarrassing was stupid.
But, I was embarrassed.
To stand before this man, I was too dirty.
”Your name and age? “
My throat constricted.
Name.
I didn’t know how long it had been since I last made a sound. I nodded to Anna in the Stone chamber. That was the last time. I couldn’t make a sound then, either.
My lips were chapped. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. It took effort to peel it off.
”…Twenty-three years old…Erika.”
A rusted sound came from the back of my throat. A raspy voice. It was such a thin, small, dried-out sound that I couldn’t even tell it was my own voice.
After I said it, I realized. I didn’t say my surname. Nor my rank. Or my affiliation.
Just, only my name.
It wasn’t how a soldier should answer. I defied “Don’t speak.” And yet, what came out was just a name.
The name that Mother gave me, just a name.
”…Huh. Erika, is it.”
A moment.
The man’s eyes were watching me.
”Erika…Your affiliation?”
Affiliation.
Words scattered in my head. Like fragments. When I tried to pick them up, they slipped through my fingers.
This man asked for my name. Next, he asked for my affiliation. The order was correct. The order of interrogation.
Interrogation.
The moment I understood that, my spine turned cold. Everything up to this point connected. My comrades were called one by one and didn’t return. Were they asked the same thing? After they answered, what happened to them?
If I answered, would I also disappear? But, what if I didn’t answer?
The man’s eyes didn’t move. He didn’t threaten me either. He just waited.
That “waiting” was scary. It was scarier than being yelled at. Scarier than being hit. The weight of the silence, it all came toward me.
”…Holy Arcadian Empire, Third Corps.”
My mouth opened. It opened.
My voice cut off there. My throat hurt. Even when I tried to swallow saliva, there was nothing to swallow.
”…Magic Technology Unit, affiliation.”
I said it. I said it.
My fingertips were cold. Beyond the rope, my numb fingers were trembling.
”Huh, Magic Technology Unit, eh. So, what is your specialty?”
Specialty.
Technician Chief Kessler’s voice revived. “Don’t talk about the tools. Before your life, the tools will die.”
About the tools. About the technology. If I talked about that, my value would become “technology.” Once I finished spitting out the technology, what would happen to me?
But……if I didn’t answer, what would my value be?
If I had value, it was only in my fingertips. These fingertips that read the circuits of Magic Guns, sensed the purity of Magic Stones, and scraped the scorched catalysts.
If I didn’t answer, I was just a prisoner. What happened to just a prisoner? In the Stone chamber, no one came back.
”…Small arms, maintenance.”
My voice was thin. So thin I couldn’t even hear it myself.
”…Maintenance and repair of Magic Guns.”
I said it. I offered up what the Technician Chief tried to protect.
The depths of my chest shrank coldly.
I’m sorry, Technician Chief Kessler.
”Magic Gun. The smart-ass weapons you guys were going bang-bang with.”
The man cast his gaze to my side, to the empty space. As if thinking about something.
”What is the principle behind how that works?”
My heart leaped.
Principle.
In the back of my head, something groaned. Don’t answer. Don’t answer anymore. If I taught him the principle, there was no going back.
But another voice spoke. A colder, calculating voice.
If I answered, I still had things to say. As long as I had things to say, I could stay alive.
The man’s eyes returned. Black eyes were waiting.
Technician Chief’s voice and my own voice overlapped, colliding inside my chest.
I, opened my mouth.
”…It is not, Magic.”
My raspy voice was mixed with a cough. The back of my throat hurt as if it were tearing.
”Extracting Magic elements from…Magic Stone, and in the phase conversion chamber…changing them to…heat…”
My words trailed off. I understood it in my head. I touched it every day. Every day I disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled it with these hands.
Yet, when I tried to put it into words, they fell apart.
”…With that heat, expanding the gas…pushing out…the bullet…”
I didn’t know if what I was saying was being conveyed properly. My tongue was heavy. I had a fever. My head was fuzzy.
”…Instead of gunpowder, it is fired…by the combustion of Magic elements.”
After I finished saying it, my knees shook.
I spoke of the principle. The Empire’s military secret. To the enemy.
The man listened in silence until I finished speaking.
”So you’re firing bullets by burning Magic elements. Well, just as I imagined.”
He muttered as if convinced, and leaned back into his chair.
”…And so. What did you come to do, deep in the Magic Forest. In my garden?”
My garden.
That word exploded in my head.
This forest. This place. This man’s.
A one-month march. Mud and blood, and names that vanished. A rain of arrows. Monsters. Lines crumbling. Comrades who didn’t return.
All of it, because we stepped into this man’s garden, five thousand people were…….
I felt dizzy. The blood drained from the soles of my feet.
What did I come to do. I came by Empire’s order. I came to kill you. I came to take back your Magic elements.
Is it the truth? I was just maintaining the guns. I just followed orders. I didn’t know anything.
But that was no excuse for the fact that someone died because of those guns.
My knees were at their limit.
”…Orders, sir.”
My voice cracked. I couldn’t stand anymore. But I wasn’t told to sit.
”By Empire’s order…I came, here.”
My throat burned. The back of my eyes were hot.
”…I, nothing, did not know. What is here, or who is here…”
”No good,” I whispered to myself. “I am making excuses. It’s pathetic. But I cannot stop.”
”…Just, a Mechanic,” I said, my voice trembling. “I, was only… fixing guns.”
The end, was almost a whisper.
”Ho, orders? So it isn’t your own will,” the man remarked, his tone clipped and professional. “You’re saying you only came this far because you had no choice?”
The man rose slowly. One step, two steps closer, he stood beside the desk and faced me.
”I have some interest in your specialty, this ‘Magic Gun’ thing. If you speak honestly, I might keep you alive a little longer.”
Those words dropped to the bottom of my chest. Heavy like lead.
Keep me alive a little… after a while, I will be killed.
The man stood. It was different from when he was sitting. He is close. Even with the desk between us, the air has changed.
He is big. Not particularly large in frame. But the presence he emits is massive. The pressure is different. It is not the authority of an officer. It is more fundamental—the rank of a different species as a living being.
If you speak honestly.
A condition. A transaction. Vital information for a sliver of life.
Kessler’s voice grows distant. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
But… I don’t want to die.
”…Yes,” I replied, my voice a thin, raspy sound.
”…I will, talk. Everything I know… is yours.”
My knees are shaking. I bit my back teeth to stop the tears from falling.
I will give up everything. To survive.
In front of this man, I become the lowest traitor. Even if I do.
Because, already. I have no place to return to. Nothing left to protect. No comrades either.
All that remains, is this heart.
”…Very well,” the man said, his voice cold and procedural. “You seem likely to live longer than the others.”
The man approached slowly. Diagonal in front, two more steps away.
”The others, blathering on about ‘barbarians’ or the ‘Empire,’ died spouting useless nonsense, didn’t they?”
Died.
As I thought. I knew it. Even though I knew it, having it put into words is different.
Everyone. Everyone, died.
’Spouting useless nonsense,’ this man said.
A heat flared deep in my chest. It is anger. Without a doubt, it was anger. Karl’s last words. Dietrich’s pride. Useless, he said. But the next moment, that heat went cold.
Because I said I would talk. I said I would tell him everything. I have no right to be angry.
My vision blurs. It is not tears. No tears will come. There is no moisture left in my body. Just the back of my eyes burning, spinning.
The man is close. Two more steps. Close enough for his breath to reach me. Close enough to feel his body heat.
That’s right, Anna.
What happened to Anna? I want to ask. But, I can’t. I am afraid to ask.
The same with Maria. And Heinrich. I always pull back my hand.
”…”
No sound comes out. I don’t even know what I was trying to say.
Just, my lips trembled, and my back teeth chattered. It isn’t cold, but the deep parts of my body are shivering.
I could not look into the man’s eyes, so I looked at the floor. At my own naked, dirty feet.
The man took a step closer, and stood to my side.
”…Hm, ah, that’s right,” he said. “There was a woman before you, too. Anna, was it?”
My mind went blank.
Anna. She grabbed my sleeve. Her fingers were cold.
That Anna. Standing before me. Before this man.
”Anna. That woman, she had a pretty tight mouth, too. But…”
A tight mouth. That sounds like Anna. She never does anything wasteful. She never uses wasteful words.
”Anna is…”
A voice came out. It slipped out. Not of my own will. My throat did it on its own.
But Anna. Only Anna…
”…How, did it end, for Anna?”
I asked.
I cannot take it back now.
”I see. You are Erika, then? Anna mentioned you, you know? She said to spare only your life.”
The man’s gaze scanned me from head to toe.
”Said she didn’t care what happened to herself, or something like that.”
He slowly circled behind me.
”Said she would become my Slave for that. I see, I see. You were that Erika.”
The man circled to the other side and stood next to me. Close enough to reach if he extended a hand.
My knees gave out.
I collapsed. I couldn’t stop it. The dull sound of my knees hitting the floor. The pain comes late.
Why.
Why would Anna. For someone like me.
Anna was strong. She was a person with no waste. A person who could accept things silently.
Slave… in my place.
My vision distorts. No tears. Even though none come, a beast-like sound crawls up from the bottom of my throat.
”Ah… please, stop,” I whimpered.
It didn’t form a voice. It didn’t, but it won’t stop. Still on my knees on the floor, I squeezed out a raspy voice.
”Anna has, nothing to do with this. Anna is, a medic. She knows nothing.”
I raised my face. I looked into the man’s eyes. For the first time, head-on.
”I will tell you everything, I will talk, so please…”
Still on my knees, I bowed my head. My forehead touched the floor. Cold wood. Grains of sand bite into my brow.
I am an idiot. I am such an idiot. This isn’t even a negotiation.
But.
Anything but Anna. Not Anna.
”Don’t misunderstand. No matter what you say, you’ll live only a few days longer at most.”
The man stood directly in front of my collapsed form.
I look up at the man’s face.
At that moment.
In the air in front of me, a black dot floated into view.
”…Eh?”
There is no mistaking it. An ash-black, ugly lead ball. The bullet loaded into a Magic Gun.
It is hanging there, suspended in mid-air, perfectly still.
The lead ball warped, without a sound.
The round lead was stretched out, forming a sharp, conical shape. It is a shape of smooth, efficient murderous intent.
”…Ah,”
My breath, stopped.
The single conical bullet increased to two. Four. Ten, more.
It multiplied in the blink of an eye.
The room, filled up. Above my head, left and right. All of my vision, hundreds, thousands. Countless.
”So this is what you call ‘Magic’?”
Shur, shur-shur-shur…!
They all began spinning at high speed in unison.
The eerie sound of air being shredded overlapped, pressing against my eardrums.
Centering on me and the man, they began to rotate in a circle. A wall of metal. A storm with nowhere to run.
”I can create these infinitely, and fire as many as I want. Do you know what happens then?”
I saw a vision.
The sight of these countless sharp bullets flying all at once.
Hundreds, thousands of Empire soldiers being shot through like paper in an instant.
This isn’t a matter of technology or tactics.
This isn’t sorcery or Magic. This kind of thing…
”Listen well, Erika.”
The moment the man’s low voice rang out, the sound of shredded air suddenly vanished.
The bullets turned to sand, then simply melted away like smoke.
Nothing left behind.
As if nothing had ever been there, only a quiet space remained.
”……Hah, haa…!”
The breath I had forgotten burned my throat. Still collapsed on the floor, I shook my shoulders as I choked.
The words I had been clinging to crumbled like sand in my head.
The structure of a Magic Gun. Empire technology.
Things like that, to this man, had no value whatsoever.
”Anna became my Slave of her own volition. She offered everything to me.”
Still with my forehead on the floor, my teeth were chattering. It won’t stop.
”She told me to tell you that. That is the only thing I will do for you.”
To tell me.
Offering everything.
Becoming a Slave.
Choosing a path to live.
Anna made that her message. Her last words. The same as when she told me to “live” in the Stone chamber. Until the very end, Anna was thinking of…
I raised my face. Slowly. Grains of sand stuck to my forehead fell away.
I can see the man’s face. Dark from the backlighting. But, I can see those black eyes.
”…Thank, you, for telling me,” I managed, my voice cracking like glass.
But, that was all that came out.
Anna. Your words reached me. So I, just like you…
”…Me too,” I whispered.
My throat tightened. Even as it choked, I pushed the words out like spitting up mud.
”…I am, yours, your…”
The words, froze at the bottom of my lungs.
To become a Slave. That is what I was going to say. Just as Anna did.
But my mouth won’t move.
It isn’t fear. If I say those words, I feel like the person I am will completely end.
…No, that’s wrong. Erika Schmidt is already long finished. As a soldier, long ago.
”…I will do, anything. So, please, don’t kill me.”
The most pathetic one is me, after all.
Everyone else died with dignity, but here I am, begging for my life just to survive.
He had been looking straight into my eyes, listening to my broken words.
”Ho. Anything, you say,” he replied. “Do you even understand what it means for you to become my Slave?”
My chin, was grabbed.
With one hand. Lifted up with a pull, a strength that allows no resistance.
”What I keep by my side is only a woman who has sworn eternal love to me. One who has offered body and soul, everything. Can you swear that?”
Eternal love.
Body and soul, offering everything.
The meaning of the words scattered to pieces in my head. Even if I try to pick them up, they slip through my fingers.
Love.
To this person. To someone I met for the first time today. To the person who killed so many of my comrades.
The fingers grabbing my chin are still there. Warm. That warmth confuses my head, which is already hazy from hunger and fever.
Swear love.
Anna did that. To keep me alive, she offered everything to this man.
That surely, is not love. But Anna, she accepted it.
And I.
I don’t know what love is. Can I swear love?
I can’t. It would be a lie.
But. This man’s eyes see through lies.
If I say I can’t swear it, I die.
If I die, what Anna offered will be wasted.
”…I don’t… know what love is,” I said honestly.
”But… if you, desire it…”
The black eyes are peering into the depths of my own.
I cannot look away. I don’t want to.
If I lie here, I will truly become junk.
”…I swear it. My everything is… well, this is all that’s left.”
Such a filthy body. Fingers stained with oil and soot. Cracked nails. Festering wounds. Dried-up tear ducts.
Calling something like this “everything” is so miserable it’s laughable.
But, truly, this was all I had.
Fuh, the hand left my chin.
At the same time, the rope binding my hands behind my back fell away, soundlessly.
”…I see. But talk is cheap.
Now, strip here. Go completely naked. And then, swear your eternal love from the bottom of your heart.”
The rope fell. My wrists, are free.
Blood flows back into my numb fingertips. A throbbing, pulsing pain.
Strip. Naked.
I understand the meaning of the words. I understand them, but my mind is refusing to process it.
In front of this person. Everything.
Now, here. In this brightness.
My hands won’t move. The hands that should have been free.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s scary.
More than anything… I am dirty. I haven’t washed properly in over a month.
Expose a body like this?
But.
I said it myself just a moment ago.
I said I would give them everything.
My hands moved.
My fingers hovered over the buttons of the linen shirt.
My numb fingers shook. That shaking only made me slower.
I took off the shirt.
Underneath, my undergarments peeked out, yellowed with sweat and body fluids.
Thud. The sound of them hitting the floor rang in my ears, sharp and intrusive.1
I reached for the lingerie. My fingers trembled, and I couldn’t untie the strings.
It came undone.
The fabric fell away.
Cold air touched my skin.
Thin, wasted arms. A torso with ribs jutting out.
On my left arm, a jagged burn scar. My legs were covered in scrapes and mottled with bruises.
My chest, thinned and smaller now. The hair at my crotch.
Everything. I had exposed it all. Exposed it, and now it was gone.
I was naked. There was nothing left. No military uniform, no work clothes, no tool bag, no rank, no affiliation. Nothing.
Just the body of a thin, twenty-three-year-old woman.
My knees were knocking together. I wanted to use my arms to cover my chest. I wanted to cover my crotch.
But if I hid myself, it would be a lie. I had said everything.
”I swear it, sir.” Erika said, her voice small and wavering.
He was listening to my vow with a serious gaze.
”To you, sir. My eternal love.”
I said it without understanding the meaning. I didn’t know the meaning of love, nor the meaning of eternity.
Without knowing, I gave him everything.
But it wasn’t a lie.
This—this filthy, thin, scar-covered mess—was my true everything.
When I finished speaking, his gaze softened.
Just a fraction.
It was the first time he had shown me a face like that. Gentle.
”Erika. I shall accept your eternal vow.” Ryuichi replied, his tone firm and direct.
The man held out his right hand, palm upward, at the level of my waist.
”I am Ryuichi. From today on, you will live as my Slave.”
He had a name. He had a name.
It was such an obvious thing, yet it felt strange.
His right hand was extended. Palm up.
I knew what it meant. Even in the Empire, there was a custom of kissing the master’s hand as a sign of loyalty.
I knew of it in theory. A ritual for nobles and their servants. But I had always thought it was a world that had nothing to do with me.
Still on my knees, I looked at the hand he held out.
It wasn’t a large hand. But it was thick. His fingers were broad. It was the hand of a man who worked. Not the hand of an officer. The hand of someone closer to the earth.
I would kiss this hand.
And with that, I would truly, fully belong to him.
I raised my hands. My hands, just freed, still bearing the red-black marks of the ropes. Hands with broken nails. Hands with oil ground deep into the ridges of my fingerprints.
With those hands, I took his.
……It was warm.
The moment I touched that warmth, something within my fingertips crumbled. Something that had been stretched taut for so long.
Since the Stone chamber, or perhaps even longer. Since the day I entered the Magic Forest. Since the morning I left Nortval. Perhaps, even, since that night when I was twenty.
I leaned in. My cracked lips brushed his finger.
A dry sensation. I realized just how chapped my lips were. My frayed skin snagged against his.
”Ryuichi-sama.”
For the first time, I spoke his name.
My voice trembled. My lips trembled against his finger.
”Erika Schmidt is… yours.”
That was all I had to give.
No tears came. I thought they had dried up long ago.
And yet, a single drop fell onto his finger.
Something warm.
I don’t know where it had been hiding in my body. It might have been the very last drop I had.
—
<raw.source>
扉が, 開いた.
差し込む光に瞳が焼ける. Stone chamberの闇に慣れきった目には, その弱い明かりさえ刃みたいに刺さった.
…
”By Empire’s order…I came, here”
喉が焼ける. 目の奥が熱い.
</raw.source>
Summary:
The protagonist, a soldier named Erika, is released from a dark, fearful imprisonment and led into a vibrant, lush forest by an elf-like woman. She is brought to an old, decaying wooden building and presented before an enigmatic man with black eyes who interrogates her. Erika reveals classified Empire secrets regarding Magic Gun technology, realizing that her survival depends on her perceived utility as a technician while grappling with the shame and fear of her current situation.
Erika, a captured mechanic, is interrogated by a powerful, inhuman man who toyed with her by revealing the fate of her friend Anna. Faced with the destruction of her comrades and the pressure of the man’s absolute power, Erika is forced to sacrifice her dignity and humanity to survive. The scene concludes with the antagonist demanding she strip naked to prove her “eternal love” and loyalty to him.
Erika, a broken and physically depleted woman, strips naked to fulfill a vow of total submission to her master, Ryuichi. She performs a ritualistic hand-kissing to solidify her status as his slave. The moment of physical warmth causes her long-strained composure to collapse as she finally accepts her new reality.
—
Trivia:
The protagonist is only twenty-three years old despite her military background.
Erika is a technician for the Magic Technology Unit of the Holy Arcadian Empire.
The man she is meeting claims this area of the Magic Forest as “my garden.”
The protagonist identifies the man’s “murderous” eyes through the specialized knowledge of her trade—the way a tool feels after heavy use.
The protagonist’s comrades from the Empire were called to this place and never returned.
The antagonist displays a supernatural ability to create and manipulate lead bullets, which he dismisses as irrelevant compared to the concept of total submission.
Erika’s internal struggle revolves around her perceived worthlessness and her inability to forgive herself for choosing survival over the honorable death of her peers.
The antagonist maintains a consistent theme of viewing soldiers’ ideologies as “useless nonsense.”
Erika’s physical state is deteriorating, highlighted by her dirty, unwashed body and damaged nerves.
Erika is twenty-three years old.
She mentions having been at the Stone chamber, the Magic Forest, and Nortval.
She was twenty years old during a significant, unnamed night from her past.
Ryuichi’s hands are described as those of a laborer, not an officer.
—
Translation Notes:
Notes:
• Anna – A comrade mentioned in the protagonist’s memory of the Stone chamber. A medic who was captured before Erika; she is remembered as strong, composed, and self-sacrificing, having offered herself as a slave to ensure Erika’s survival.
• Erika – A thin, 23-year-old former Empire mechanic and soldier, now Ryuichi’s traumatized slave. She has blue eyes, long, unkempt dark-golden hair matted with oil and dust, and an emaciated, scarred body with visible ribs and a jagged burn on her left arm. Conditioned to view herself as a replaceable component, she dissociates and grieves fallen comrades, finding her new, submissive reality terrifying.
• Kessler – A deceased master technician and comrade of Erika. A voice or figure from Erika’s past whose presence haunts her memory during the interrogation. The Technician Chief of the Magic Technology Unit who instructed Erika on the maintenance and repair of Magic Guns.
• Dietrich – A deceased comrade of Erika. A fallen comrade whose pride is dismissed by the antagonist.
• Karl – A hunched-back mechanic who worked in the underground workshop alongside Erika, this fallen comrade later died while uttering final words that the antagonist deemed completely worthless.
• Heinrich – A fallen comrade whose death traumatized Erika.
• Maria – A fallen comrade whose death traumatized Erika.
• Schmidt – The surname carried by Erika.
• Ryuichi – A 40-year-old Spirit King with a young, muscular, towering body, short dark hair, black eyes, and a beard, Goshujin-sama retains Japanese past-life memories. Analytical, cold, and commanding, he uses immense mana, gravity, and healing magic to rule. As a ruthless master and savior figure, he possessively controls the Elder’s Manor, an elf village, and Erika, his intimate female companion.
• Ryu – A man with Interdimensional Magic who leads a growing household. He acts as a provider and protector for his slaves, while maintaining a pragmatic and blunt personality.
• Man – A roughneck wearing a hat who participated in a group assault. He suffers the loss of his right arm and later his left arm during an experiment by the protagonist before being stored.
• Mia – The young, deceased daughter of Nier whose tragic fate serves as the primary catalyst for his actions. She is the object of Nier’s immense love, the core motivation for his will to survive, and the driving force behind his entire journey.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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