Chapter 21

At Aethlyn’s question, the sergeant stopped cutting his steak.

Keeping his eyes on the meat, he answered,

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“Why was the Fenrir Detachment stationed at Kran Trench?”

“…”

“Kran is on the front line, but it isn’t that important of a strategic position, is it?”

His knife stopped again.

The sergeant looked silently across the table at Aethlyn.

One of his thick brows lifted slightly, as if asking,

‘Why are you suddenly asking that?’

Aethlyn gave a casual shrug.

“Right. There must be reasons you can’t disclose. You don’t have to answer.”

“Yes.”

He resumed cutting his steak.

Aethlyn brought up another topic.

“When the Fenrir Detachment leaves Kran Trench…”

“…”

“I doubt we’ll ever meet again.”

“…”

The man remained silent.

“When I get back to Estaria and tell my friends from the military academy that I met the Fenrir Detachment, none of them will believe me. And if I tell them I even spent my leave having dinner with a Wildman sergeant…”

She smiled as she poured herself more wine.

“They’ll probably think I’m making the whole thing up.”

“…”

“They might even assume I took part in some grand operation.”

She laughed softly.

“When all I really did was help assault a single trench.”

The sound of his knife stopped once more.

“…You’re probably right.”

“Hm?”

“You probably won’t ever see me again, Second Lieutenant.”

“…?”

“Unless you’re incredibly unlucky. The soldiers don’t dislike us because they think we’re bad luck for no reason.”

People had a saying about Wildman special forces.

The butcher’s knife.

The last resort, brought out only to solve problems that ordinary armies couldn’t handle.

Seeing a Wildman special forces unit on the battlefield meant something filthy and horrific was about to happen.

That was why the soldiers had trembled whenever they saw members of the Fenrir Detachment.

As he finished slicing the meat, the sergeant spoke indifferently.

Aethlyn forced down her unease and tried to laugh it off.

“Come on. Why would you think the soldiers disliked you? Even my platoon kept pestering you to teach them close-quarters combat.”

“It wasn’t because they liked me.”

“If surviving requires it, they’d learn from the Imperial Army too.”

“…Don’t you think you’re putting yourself down too much? Plenty of soldiers genuinely like you.”

The sergeant’s already sharp eyes became even colder.

“Didn’t you read my personnel record?”

This time, Aethlyn’s own knife stopped.

She quietly studied the man sitting across from her.

He had curled the corners of his mouth into something resembling a smile.

Or rather…

He was merely performing the expression of smiling.

Before she could understand why it felt so unnatural, she heard him speak.

“Operation Frozen Fortress.”

The operation where they were said to have survived by eating enemy prisoners inside a frozen fortress.

Aethlyn slowly set down her knife and fork.

The meat she’d just been eating suddenly tasted revolting.

“Aren’t you curious what really happened during that operation, Second Lieutenant?”

“…Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?”

Sergeant Gennadi Vilev wiped his mouth with a napkin.

Then he spoke with complete bluntness.

“We’re never going to meet again anyway.”

“So ask me.”

“I’ll answer.”

Aethlyn was caught completely off guard.

For a moment she wondered if it was a joke.

But the subject was far too disturbing for that.

“I’ll pass.”

“I’m not curious.”

“I see.”

“That’s strange.”

Tilting his head slightly, the sergeant continued,

“Every human officer I’ve met without exception has wanted to know.”

Clenching her jaw, Aethlyn replied firmly,

“So what? Why should I be curious about something that won’t do me any good to know?”

The conversation became increasingly unpleasant, like swallowing sand.

Even though the sergeant had to know exactly how uncomfortable she was becoming, he remained perfectly composed.

If anything, the more rigid Aethlyn became, the more relaxed he looked.

“Why wouldn’t it do you any good?”

“…What?”

“Knowledge is always useful.”

“It helps you survive.”

“For example…”

Sergeant Gennadi Vilev stared quietly into the wine in his glass.

Then he continued slowly.

“If you knew what happened during Operation Frozen Fortress…”

“It might help if you were ever surrounded for a long siege.”

“Hah.”

Aethlyn let out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“Help how?”

“So I’d learn that when things get desperate enough, I should start eating people? What invaluable advice.”

“I never said we ate people.”

For a moment, Aethlyn was speechless.

“So… you already knew.”

Knew what?

She asked herself.

‘What exactly did I already know?’

The rumors?

Or the truth?

The sergeant turned to face her.

Their eyes met across the table.

Aethlyn suddenly felt as though she’d returned to the moment they first met.

She felt completely at a loss.

Yet there was no anger in the werewolf’s golden eyes.

No hatred.

No malice.

He was simply looking at her calmly.

And somehow…

That unsettled her far more.

“…I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

Hadn’t everything been perfectly fine just moments ago?

Aethlyn could only stare at him in confusion.

Sergeant Gennadi Vilev tilted his head slightly to the left.

“What I’m trying to say…”

“…is that you and I are not the same.”

The moment he finished speaking, he reached inside his coat and drew out a blade.

It was the curved saber he always carried.

Startled, Aethlyn instinctively tensed.

But without drawing it from its leather scabbard, he simply laid it beside the restaurant’s silver knife.

“Look.”

“Just as these two blades are different…”

Like a butcher’s knife…

…and a restaurant knife.

“We’re different.”

“Our purpose.”

“Our appearance.”

“Our sharpness.”

“Our value.”

“Everything is different.”

“…”

“So we’ll probably never meet again.”

“Unless you’re unbelievably unlucky, Second Lieutenant.”

As though nothing significant had been said, the man calmly slipped the sheathed curved saber back into his coat.

Then he simply resumed eating his steak.

Aethlyn sat there, staring blankly at him.

It felt as though someone had suddenly dumped a bucket of cold water over her.

The sense of familiarity she had been building on her own until now collapsed like a sandcastle struck by the tide.

She still couldn’t understand what he had meant by bringing up Operation Frozen Fortress.

Was he trying to assert dominance?

Was he mocking an arrogant Magic Army officer?

Or was it, somehow, sincere advice without a trace of ill intent?

But there was one message Aethlyn understood perfectly.

‘Don’t cross the line. You and I belong to different worlds.’

Her mouth itched to argue back.

She wanted to crush the werewolf sitting across from her with a clever, convincing retort.

No…

It didn’t even have to be clever.

‘You and I are both soldiers.’

Before arriving in Parieri, she had said something similar to the coachman.

“Wildmen are people too. They’re part of the Morning Star Alliance. And he’s one of my men.”

So shouldn’t she simply give him the same answer?

‘You and I serve the same Estan military.’

That was all she had to say.

It was simple.

Words were easy enough to say, weren’t they?

Yet all that escaped between her parted lips was a sigh.

Nothing she wanted to say ever became words.

The worst part was that Aethlyn knew exactly why she couldn’t answer.

Because there were questions she could never bring herself to ask him.

‘Did you really… eat people during Operation Frozen Fortress?’

‘What happened in those classified operations?’

‘How much Imperial Army loot have you sold?’

‘Do you eventually get used to killing people?’

‘How have you managed not to lose your mind here?’

Questions like those.

She couldn’t ask them.

Because…

She didn’t want to know.

After finishing that deeply uncomfortable dinner, Aethlyn washed up and lay down in bed.

Her thoughts refused to settle.

She kept replaying the dinner in her mind—the awkward way it had ended.

The sergeant’s calm face as he spoke words she couldn’t tell were insults or advice.

Fragments of the evening drifted aimlessly through her thoughts.

‘…Should I have gotten angry?’