Chapter 71

Father (3)

Rrrrrumble...

Josef looked up at the sky, where thunderclouds had gathered.

The weather had been ominous for the past few days.

Judging by the clouds, it wouldn’t have been strange for a blizzard to break out at any moment, yet the snow that actually fell was closer to sleet.

At times, the clouds gathered in one place to an unnatural degree, only for the sky to suddenly clear before turning overcast again.

Even the meteorological observatory says they don’t know the exact cause...

Unpredictable weather was never a good sign.

After all, humanity had already faced the apocalypse once in the form of an ice age.

The matter with Lieutenant General Max remains unresolved, and now even the weather is making me uneasy.

It had been thirteen days since Lieutenant General Max was detained on suspicion of commissioning the murder of his adopted son, Bones.

Even now, no decision had been made regarding his punishment.

Despite the testimonies of the Commander, Plato, and the leader of Team Two, why was his punishment being delayed?

Surely they haven’t noticed something...

He hadn’t left behind so much as a speck of dust as evidence.

He had spoken with the colonel who led Team Two only in person, meaning the colonel had been the sole person who knew of Josef’s involvement.

And Josef had already disposed of the man while disguising his death as suicide.

I heard he even sold out Lieutenant General Max’s name while hanging from the cliff. I truly raised one exceptionally loyal dog.

The man had been loyal, but his handling of the matter had been unsatisfactory.

After all, Bones—Lieutenant General Max’s adopted son—had returned alive.

The original plan had been to kill Bones amid the chaos of the subjugation operation and disguise it as self-defense.

Bones had a foul temper and was easily provoked, so the story should have been that he rebelled against his superior in a fit of rage, pointed his weapon at him, and was killed by defensive fire.

However, during the search, an unexpected situation had apparently occurred in which Team One, where the Commander was located, was ambushed by large-class monsters.

Originally, the colonel should have disposed of Bones discreetly while more than a hundred people were moving together after the search.

Instead, the ten-team formation had been reorganized into five teams, making it impossible to deal with him without being noticed.

Having been ordered to eliminate Bones before the subjugation ended, the colonel must have decided to place him in the reorganized Team Two, lead him somewhere out of sight, and kill him there.

It would have been difficult to handle everything alone with ten team members present, so he must have recruited several of them.

And judging by the fact that Bones and Lucas were still alive, the officers he failed to recruit had probably interfered.

Bones... that boy is tenacious as well.

Bones must have heard directly from the leader of Team Two that Lieutenant General Max had tried to kill him, yet he had remained silent until now.

He had always followed Lieutenant General Max faithfully, so perhaps he didn’t want to betray the man he regarded as his father, even if Max had truly tried to kill him.

Choosing silence instead of denouncing a father he believed had abandoned him was remarkably stubborn.

Just as Josef had raised a dog like the colonel, Max had apparently taken a fine dog into his household as well.

Fortunately, His Excellency, Lord Haydam, and Anton’s son all heard the colonel’s testimony.

Had only the Commander and Haydam heard it, the pro-Daphne faction would have protested fiercely.

But Plato, Anton’s son, had testified alongside them, so no one from either faction doubted the account.

Everyone knew that although Plato frequently acted like a lunatic, he was not the kind of man who would compromise his convictions and give false testimony.

The only evidence was testimony claiming that Lieutenant General Max had ordered the attack.

Still, something is strange.

Josef had ordered the colonel to kill Bones while disguising it as self-defense.

He had never instructed him to frame Lieutenant General Max directly.

Josef had committed the deed with the intention of bringing Max down, but the scenario he wanted was for Lieutenant General Max, enraged by Bones’s death, to shoot the colonel himself.

He had never expected seven valuable officers to die in the process.

Part of the reason he had killed the colonel and disguised it as suicide was because he was furious with the man.

I explicitly warned him that even if something went wrong and he was exposed, he was to claim that Bones had committed insubordination...

The colonel belonged to the pro-Haydam faction, not the pro-Daphne faction.

If he claimed that he had acted merely because Lieutenant General Max threatened him, there was no chance the Commander and Haydam wouldn’t find it suspicious.

Moreover, Lieutenant General Max had nothing to gain from Bones’s death.

So why had that colonel falsely confessed that he tried to kill Bones under Lieutenant General Max’s coercion?

Had he been placed in a situation where he had no choice but to confess that way?

Regardless, now that he has already testified, there is nothing I can do.

Unless other evidence surfaced—no, even if other evidence did surface, the Commander would never suspect him.

Nevertheless, the fact that Lieutenant General Max had still not been punished made Josef increasingly anxious.

At this rate, it almost seemed as though the Commander had no intention of punishing Max at all.

Just then, someone knocked on the office door.

“Come in.”

“Captain.”

His adjutant entered, approached him, and whispered into his ear.

“Lord Haydam is here to see you.”

“Lord Haydam?”

Haydam had never once sought him out first.

And now, of all times, he had come to see him.

Normally, Josef might have rejoiced that the district’s successor had come to visit, believing that an opportunity had arrived.

But to Josef, Haydam felt more like a grim reaper.

It was partly because Josef had a guilty conscience, but the angelic face that had smiled brightly after casually wiping Lieutenant General Bartom’s blood from his cheek had remained in Josef’s mind as a kind of trauma.

No.

If he truly was a grim reaper, there was no point worrying.

Josef couldn’t drive him away simply because his visit was unwelcome, and people said that if one was destined to be beaten, it was better to get it over with quickly.

Even Lord Haydam wouldn’t summarily execute someone who was among His Excellency’s closest aides.

“Lord Haydam has come, yet you’re asking me what to do? Tell him to enter and bring out some tea.”

“Well...”

The adjutant hesitated before speaking even more quietly.

“Second Lieutenant Bones is with him.”

“Second Lieutenant Bones?”

“...What should we do?”

Why had Lord Haydam brought along someone who was supposed to be under protection at the Commander’s residence?

Josef nearly fell into thought once more, but quickly realized this wasn’t the time.

The grim reaper wasn’t merely terrifying—he also had a foul temper.

If Josef left him waiting outside for too long, there was no telling what might happen.

“Show them both in. I’ll prepare the tea myself, so you may leave.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The adjutant left, and shortly afterward, Haydam entered the office with a cheerful smile, accompanied by a haggard-looking Bones.

Upon seeing Haydam’s clear, unblemished face, Josef was inwardly astonished.

They called it the Miracle of the Crevasse, and he truly doesn’t have a single scratch.

How could he have fallen from that cliff and still be perfectly fine?

The eyes staring at him still contained no trace of respect for a fellow human being, and Josef felt a momentary shiver of fear.

What kind of person looks at another human being like that? Who would believe this child is a ten-year-old raised in the slums? Even a monster’s offspring couldn’t radiate such a vicious aura...

He could almost understand why Anton had hastily decided to retire and withdraw from the military.

No, that isn’t it.

Anton was merely a coward who had fled because he feared something might happen to his son.

Josef, meanwhile, dreamed of remaining the Commander’s closest aide for now and becoming Haydam’s adviser in the near future.

He put on a genial smile and welcomed the two of them.

“It has been some time, Lord Haydam. When this old man heard what happened during the subjugation operation, I cannot express how shocked I was. I am truly relieved to see you unharmed.”

“I didn’t realize you were so concerned about me. Since you never visited me in the hospital, I thought you might have forgotten. You are getting older, after all, so perhaps you sometimes forget whether His Excellency even has a child.”

The words were filled with barbs.

However, Josef had learned through observation that if he allowed Haydam to draw him into a verbal exchange, the barbs in his words would become the least of his concerns—he might not even be able to gather his own bones afterward.

So Josef pretended not to understand and laughed good-naturedly.

“I heard that the newly commissioned officers were constantly staying in your hospital room, so I refrained from visiting out of concern that my presence might inconvenience you. I heard you looked after Lord Haydam well while he was hospitalized, didn’t you?”

Naturally shifting the conversation toward Bones, Josef gestured for them to sit instead of standing around.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Second Lieutenant Bones promptly took a seat.

Haydam, however, remained standing and silently stared at Josef, as though deep in thought.

Only when Josef’s lips began to move, ready to offer the seat again, did Haydam finally sit down.

“For now, I suppose.”

He added the ominous words.

Josef struggled not to reveal his agitation as he walked over to the tea service prepared at one side and poured the hot water.

“So, what brings you to see this old man? I was under the impression that Second Lieutenant Bones had been refraining from going outside because of the recent... unfortunate incident.”

“It’s nothing complicated. I was hoping Josef could help us with something.”

He wanted Josef’s... help?

Lord Haydam is asking me for help?

Josef relaxed slightly and prepared three teacups.

“You require my assistance, Lord Haydam?”

“To be precise, it isn’t me. Second Lieutenant Bones here is the one who needs help.”

“Second Lieutenant Bones?”

“Bones, speak freely. You can tell Uncle Josef.”

The words “Uncle Josef” sounded rather pleasant to his ears, and Josef looked at Bones as though willing to grant any request.

Bones flinched in surprise, however, and hesitated to speak.

Josef waited patiently for him to gather the courage to say what he needed.

Only after steaming cups of tea had been placed before all three of them did Bones finally open his mouth.

“I want to testify that my adoptive father... Lieutenant General Max, tried to kill me.”

Josef raised one eyebrow slightly.

He remained silent all this time, and now he has suddenly changed his mind?

Josef glanced at Haydam, but Haydam merely wore a faint smile, as though signaling that the two of them should speak alone from this point forward.

Josef turned his attention back to Bones.

“...Why do you require my assistance to give testimony?”

“I would like you to accompany me while I testify, Captain.”

Hmm.

Asking him to accompany him meant asking for protection so he could testify safely.

It wasn’t particularly strange for Bones to make such a request of Josef.

When there was a possibility that Lieutenant General Max had commissioned his murder, Bones could hardly ask a high-ranking member of the pro-Daphne faction to protect him.

Furthermore, Josef had recently pushed strongly for Bones and Lucas to receive protection at the Commander’s residence.

Bones must have assumed he would gladly help.

“It would not be difficult, but if that is all, why...?”

Josef’s gaze shifted back toward Haydam.

Bones replied as though understanding the unspoken question.

“You’re wondering why I didn’t ask Lord Haydam.”

“That is correct. His Excellency must also know that you and Lord Haydam share a close relationship. There would be no reason for him to refuse to help you.”

“I asked Lord Haydam to speak with His Excellency, but... for some reason, His Excellency appears to believe that Lieutenant General Max is not the culprit.”

Josef felt as though his heart had dropped.

His Excellency believes Max isn’t the culprit...?

He nearly revealed his shock, but managed to maintain his composure and asked in a puzzled tone,

“If Max is not responsible, then who could possibly have done such a thing?”

“Well...”

When Bones failed to answer immediately, Josef grew so anxious that he forgot to lower the teacup in his hand.

He swallowed dryly.

Did they bring Second Lieutenant Bones here because His Excellency suspects me?

This time, even Josef couldn’t wait any longer and asked again.

“Who is it?”

“It is someone in this room.”

Josef unconsciously dropped the teacup he had been holding.