by SOW
The authorities needed to confine the pretend Wolf Man forever in order to hide Wiltia’s scandal. The victor of the Great War boasted that it was the greatest nation in the world, but it was secretly involved in a massive hoax.
“As for my combat skill... That’s easy to explain.”
Heidrig retrained the gun on Lud and spoke as he slowly approached.
“I wasn’t the Wolf Man, but I was a Werewolf.”
He then fired another shot.
Lud swiftly dodged, but Heidrig hadn’t expected to hit him. Heidrig stepped closer, and when Lud was off-balance from dodging the bullet, he kicked him.
“Ugh!!”
Heidrig’s legs were strong enough to kick the mighty Lud aside.
“The suffering inside prison isn’t physical. It’s mental.”
Without a pause, Heidrig delivered another kick. Because Lud was so much bigger, Heidrig used his legs, which were three times stronger than his arms. It was the right way to fight.
“I had nothing to do all day. I was abandoned in a dark cage. Before long, I no longer sensed the passage of time and thought I had gone mad.”
As he said this, he gave Lud a dose of his varied footwork: a spin kick, forward kick, a knee strike, and a side kick that lifted Lud into the air.
“So the only thing I could do to pass the time was train my body.”
He delivered a kick to Lud’s lower body, and when Lud lost his balance, he switched to a knee strike.
Within his cramped cell, Heidrig’s training had been limited. He did push-ups, squats, back extensions, sit-ups, and used iron bars for chin-ups. Even in such circumstances, his training was very effective.
“I didn’t have a partner to spar with, so I made one up in my head.”
He simulated training with an imaginary opponent. This might have been impossible for someone else, but Heidrig had been in jail for years, and had nothing else to do but focus on his training.
“Waugh!!”
Lud counterattacked and threw a fist, but Heidrig dodged it with a small movement.
This guy’s strong!
Heidrig’s muscle strength was not exceptional and he was nowhere near as strong as Sven or the mechanical soldiers he had once fought. However, he was an expert at dodging attacks by a hair’s breadth, getting close enough to almost touch his opponent, and attacking from a position that prevented his opponent from dodging. He had polished his close-combat skills by training in a cramped prison cell.
“Agh?!”
Heidrig’s offense didn’t slow down. With his elbow, Heidrig delivered a backhand to Lud’s lowered face. When Lud lost his balance, Heidrig threw another kick. That kick was heavy and sharp. Using his heel as a spindle, Heidrig spun in a small circle from which he attacked again.
Lud felt pain cut through the armor of his thick muscles.
Come to think of it, I heard something once.
It was about slaves on the continent south of Europea. To challenge their owners, the slaves developed a martial art, which they disguised as dancing while in their cells.
The reason he doesn’t use his hands is because he was wearing handcuffs.
The reason that Heidrig could dodge with little movement of his hands and legs was because they had been shackled. Heidrig had mastered techniques that became his own martial art.
Furthermore...
“?!”
Suddenly, a gun barrel appeared before Lud’s eyes.
BLAM!!
A bullet was fired. Lud dodged, but just barely.
A shot to the head would be fatal, even from a very old gun. If Lud was focused on the physical fight, Heidrig could still use the gun. There were two bullets left. He shot another, leaving only one.
Heidrig still had the killing shot.
“Tch!”
Lud launched off the ground, jumping back to gain distance.
However, his opponent didn’t let him go. Heidrig didn’t lose his combat stance as he closely dogged his enemy.
“Uh-oh!!”
By the time Lud realized, it was too late. Heidrig swept Lud’s legs from beneath him and he fell to the ground.
“Master!!”
Sven screamed.
His position, in these circumstances, amounted to checkmate. No matter how fast he was, to stand and reassume an attack position required two steps. Heidrig, however, only needed one to pull the trigger of a gun.
Once again, he aimed at Lud. This time, Lud would have no time to dodge. This fight was over.
“..................”
But Heidrig stopped. It was the slightest hesitation, but it was a moment that could make the difference between life and death.
Lud stood, spinning his whole body, and he kicked the gun from Heidrig’s hand, knocking it away.
“Agh!”
Heidrig closed in on his enemy and tried to attack from an inside position, which worked best for him. But that was exactly what Lud was waiting for.
“What the?!”
Instead of moving away or dodging Heidrig, Lud took a half step forward. He placed his fist—the fist on the same side as the foot he had advanced—against Heidrig’s stomach as if to adjust his timing, and then released it with force, applying all his weight.
“Oof!!”
The blunt, forceful attack sunk into Heidrig’s body, and he cried out in pain.
“There was once a man in the east who was in a situation like this.”
Bujitsu was a martial art from the east that Lud had learned. Once upon a time, a martial arts master committed a crime and was imprisoned. The master had invented a technique for channeling his full power by moving just a half step with his hands and feet shackled. Lud had just thrown that attack. It was called the Tiger’s Roar.
“Aaaaagh!”
The attack used Lud’s full weight, and instead of allowing the impact to pass through, it permeated his opponent’s body.
Heidrig kneeled, unable to stand upright.
“I guess I won.”
The Tiger’s Roar had completely immobilized Heidrig. It was impossible for him to fight.
“K-Kill me...”
Heidrig gasped, through his moans.
“Someone must die to finish this.”
“What do you mean?”
“The brass found out that Hilde released me, so if I live, do you know what will happen?”
The Wolf Man had been released from prison without authorization. Since that was known, even if Heidrig returned to prison, Hilde would take responsibility for freeing him. But if the story was that Hilde had pursued and executed the Wolf Man, who had somehow escaped, then she would be safe.
“If someone doesn’t pay, this doesn’t end. Those are the military’s rules.”
If he couldn’t kill Lud, then Heidrig would settle this by sacrificing himself. That was his decision.
“You... Were you trying to protect me?”
Hilde’s tone was incredulous.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t owe you that much! I just... I saw your face.”
The girl who had once been empty could now move forward. She was still unsteady, but she was in better shape than Heidrig, who had soured and shriveled in prison.
“It was as if I was alive but dead at the same time. And then I decided it didn’t matter.”
Heidrig looked at Lud again as he spoke. He didn’t say anything more. But his eyes were pleading for death.
“I cannot satisfy your request.”
Lud rejected his plea.
“I understand your beliefs, but I’m telling you to act against them. If you won’t kill me, that girl over there will.”
“I won’t let Sven do it either. We won’t kill you.”
In a forceful tone, Lud refused even more firmly.
“You’re so stubborn! I...”
“You didn’t kill me either!”
“What?”
Heidrig was shocked by Lud’s words.
“What are you talking about
?”
“You said you were a Werewolf, but that was a lie. You weren’t a Werewolf, but I was.”
The Werewolves were a secret force created by the Principality of Wiltia. Its greatest power was in the training of its soldiers. These soldiers were type three, and were orphans the military trained and educated.
The military selected children with advanced physical abilities and put them through rigorous training to become the Werewolves. The training was so harsh that many died. By design, however, the death rate never exceeded fifty percent.
At the stage known as final testing, two trainees would attempt to kill each other. A child of thirteen years old would kill another child of the same age.
They became soldiers who would perform any order without hesitation. They became true Werewolves.
“You didn’t kill me during the final testing.”
“No way... Were you... that boy?”
Lud had undergone the final testing for the Werewolves. His opponent on that day had been Heidrig.
“No... You’re lying!”
Heidrig shouted in disbelief.
“He wasn’t as big as you!”
“I was still growing.”
Lud had been twelve years old at the time, and smaller than average. He had been bullied when he was younger, so Sophia, who had been like his sister, had often protected him.
“And you didn’t have that scar.”
“That happened later.”
He got the scar on his left cheek toward the end of the war.
“And the boy that day smiled more!”
“That... Well, a lot happened to me.”
His smile. That was the most important thing Lud lost when he became a soldier.
At the final testing, Lud lost the fight. Heidrig was supposed to kill Lud, but he wasn’t able to do it. The military deemed him unfit, so he wasn’t made a Werewolf. Along with the other type-three children, he had been forced to work in the military until his term of service was over.
“I’m alive now because of you. I can never kill you.”
Heidrig hadn’t noticed, but Lud had quickly discovered who Heidrig was.
Lud knew about the Wolf Man. He knew that designation was to hide the existence of the Werewolves, and that the Wolf Man was created at the expense of an innocent man. When he realized it was Heidrig, the boy who once spared his life, Lud hired him as an employee so he might live.
“That wasn’t... for you. I just...”
“You couldn’t bear to kill someone?”
Lud had noticed that Heidrig had never once taken a human life. Just like the incompetent terrorists, Heidrig didn’t smell like a killer. Of those here, only Lud and one other bore the burden of the dirty work of killing many people. And that other one wasn’t Heidrig.
“I let someone die without helping.”
Heidrig spit out the words.
Ten years ago, Heidrig was a homeless child with his younger sister in a slum of Berun, the royal capital. Their parents, who were supposed to protect them, had died long ago. Their days were miserable as they suffered from starvation and cold weather.
His fragile sister wasn’t able to withstand the harsh conditions and grew very ill. Heidrig was desperate to save his sister. He scavenged in junkyards, begged on the streets, and sometimes shoplifted. And whenever he found food, he gave it to his sister.
However, they couldn’t live that way much longer. His sister weakened by the day, like a withering plant. Heidrig was hungry and exhausted. Then a military recruiter appeared.
“Come with me. We’ll give you warm food and a place to live.”
Young Heidrig knew about type-three soldiers. He knew that if he accepted the man’s help, he would have to go to war. But it was much better to have some control over life and death on the battlefield, as long as he escaped starvation right now.
However, one thing bothered him. His younger sister was very sick and could die at any moment.
“Don’t worry. I’ll check your sister into a national hospital. You’ll be apart, but you’ll be able to see each other again before too long.”
On instinct, Heidrig had sensed the man was lying. When they were crawling homeless around the city, no adult had ever cared about them. Some of them even shooed them away as if they were wild dogs.
His sister would probably be abandoned. Her illness made her as useless as trash. If he didn’t stay with her, she wouldn’t last a day. Heidrig knew that. But he had reached his limit.
“Oh... Then there’s nothing to worry about.”
As it was, he and his sister would die on the street. And he didn’t want to die. He wanted to be free, so he allowed himself to be deceived.
An adult from the military had told him not to worry. So he was safe and chose to believe what the recruiter said. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t abandoned his little sister. But he still felt guilty.
“Here, take this. And stay strong.”
He had a biscuit. They always shared. But he gave the whole biscuit to his sister. His sister stared at the biscuit in her hand. Then she smiled with faint sadness. And his sister said, “Thanks, Big Bro!”
“My sister knew that I was giving up on her, but she smiled and said thanks anyway.”
He suspected his sister wanted to say, “Please, forget about me and live.”
But she wasn’t able to. It wasn’t surprising. A child not yet ten years old couldn’t express a wish for her own death. Nonetheless, she had understood that her brother couldn’t keep going as before.
“She thanked me for leaving her, and she thanked me for choosing to live.”
Lud suspected that Heidrig had never killed anyone. But that wasn’t entirely correct. He had killed someone. He had let his sister die. He had killed her in a horrible way.
“Ever since, I haven’t been able to kill anyone.”
It didn’t matter how much he wanted to kill. His body would freeze at the last moment. That’s what happened during the final testing, and it happened in the fight against Lud just now.
When he tried to kill, he saw his sister smile. And, with that smile, she asked him, “Are you trying to lengthen your own life by taking someone else’s? Wasn’t killing me enough?”
“I couldn’t even kill myself. Somewhere in my heart, I believed that imprisonment and becoming the Wolf Man were my punishments. I don’t deserve death. I should burn in Hell.”
After saying this, Heidrig looked up at the night sky.
The dark night had no moon. Like a life with no hope. It may have occurred to him that giving such a life for someone else’s sake would make his sister happy.
“Hey, have you tried my bread? The kind I baked today for the Thanksgiving festival?”
He meant the Maple Autumns, the bread baked in a U-shape.
“They’re shaped like horseshoes. And did you know? A horseshoe is a charm for good luck.”
Long, long ago, when demons were still a scourge in the world, a holy knight appeared and defeated one. The steed that the knight rode smashed the demon’s skull with its hoof, so the horseshoe became a symbol of warding off evil and inviting happiness.
“So I want you to try my bread. And I want the people who eat my bread to be happy.”
At the Thanksgiving festival, the townsfolk enjoyed the Maple Autumns because they tasted delicious, but also because their shape represented the wish for happiness.
“Ridiculous... How can I be happy now?”
Heidrig spoke bitterly.
If he returned to prison, he would be confined until death. If he fled, he would be pursued and would have no refuge anywhere in Wiltia.
“There is a way.”
Sven had a suggestion.
“You could defect to another country, either August or Greyten.”
“What?!”
As Sven explained, Heidrig was at a loss for words.
“Heidrig, the Wolf Man is anathema to both Wiltia and Filbarneu. But there are a lot of countries that hate b
oth nations.”
It was said that the Wolf Man had thrown Filbarneu into chaos and betrayed his mother country of Wiltia.
“But I told you. I’m not the Wolf Man.”
Heidrig shook his head to tell Sven that she didn’t understand, but Sven merely sniffed as if it was Heidrig who didn’t understand.
“It doesn’t matter who you really are. If Wiltia and Filbarneu insist that you’re the Wolf Man, then you are. And that’s all their enemies care about.”
The will of one person is nothing when facing the giant power of a nation. The truth is distorted and falsehoods become reality. Sven was saying that he could use those lies to his benefit.
“Your enemy’s enemy is your friend. You might be a traitor in your own country, but in an enemy country, you’re a hero.”
It was a common occurrence. Recently, a former government minister, who was responsible for many failed policies and verbal gaffes, crossed the sea to an enemy nation and announced, “This country is wonderful compared to my foolish home nation.” But instead of causing a diplomatic crisis, he received medals from the enemy nation.
“You would be treated as a guest of such a nation for the rest of your life.”
A foreign diplomat once said, “The state of affairs in Europea is a great mystery.”
If white could turn black, then one could make black turn white.
“I... never thought about that.”
Heidrig, who felt guilty merely to be alive, would never have considered such a solution.
“That sounds like a good idea. You’ve been through terrible times. This is your chance to take back your life.”
Hilde, who had been listening quietly, encouraged Heidrig.
“But if I escape, what will happen to you?”
Unless she brought back Heidrig or killed Lud, all the blame would fall on Hilde.
“D-Don’t be silly, commoner!”
However, Hilde snapped back as if she had made an important decision.
“Who do you think I am?! I’m Hildegard von Hessen from the noble Hessen family! My pride won’t permit you to worry about me!”
Hilde shouted, her fists, shoulders, and voice trembling, but her gaze remained firm.
“A commoner like you is never, ever allowed to worry about a noble! I’ve not fallen so far that you can fret over me! I will protect you because I’m a noble!”
