by SOW
“Don’t call me this late, you dimwit!”
He yelled at the operator, but then he realized that the voice on the phone was shaking.
“The caller says she is in the Schutzstaffel.”
“What?”
Shylock understood because he did business with the military industry in the royal capital, Berun. However, he felt mild disgust at the Schutzstaffel for discovering where he was and calling him this late.
“Put it through.”
After a moment, the voice changed.
“Sorry to bother you at this hour, Chairman Shylock.”
The voice was a child’s... No, a woman’s. Either way, the caller was young.
“Can you come to Organbaelz right away? Do you know the mine there? Baelz Mine. I’m sure you know it. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Her tone was high-handed, if polite enough, and it didn’t hold an ounce of respect for the person to whom she was talking. Instead, she was being polite for the sake of appearances, which further jangled Shylock’s nerves. It was feigned courtesy.
“Save your sleep-talking for when you’re asleep!”
The best way to handle someone like this was to completely shut her down.
Shylock answered curtly and was about to hang up. But the woman’s next words stopped him from moving.
“Your grandson will die.”
“What are you talking about?”
Shylock didn’t know that his underlings had tried to set fire to Tockerbrot, and that the Schutzstaffel had kidnapped Jacob.
His face broke out in a sweat.
“You want me to explain? The child you were trying to get hold of with your absurd sideshow is now in our hands!”
The woman on the phone was no longer pretending to be polite. The malice in her tone was clear. Shylock restrained himself from making another angry outburst. Without a doubt, this woman was dangerous. His instincts as an experienced businessman warned him against speaking to her any further.
“Don’t you trust me? Then I’ll let him speak!”
Shylock heard a faint voice through the receiver.
“Stop... Stop...”
A weak voice... a child’s voice and then a kicking sound. There was no doubt that it was Jacob. He must have refused an order to beg for pity, so the woman on the phone had kicked him to make him scream.
“I understand.”
Shylock was not free to make any other choice.
“I already gave you the location. I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but don’t tell anyone, and come alone. If you break this promise... well, you know.”
Cruel laughter inflected her voice. She was enjoying herself. She was forcing someone to act against their will and obey her.
And that gives some people more pleasure than any drug.
This woman...!
However, Shylock sensed something that was even darker behind her cruelty. Someone who found pleasure in making others surrender had a past in which someone had made her surrender. Whether it was through money, authority or violence, someone had once broken her heart. She tended her scars by watching others tremble in fear and humiliation.
“Let me ask you one question. What is your name?”
The woman on the phone paused for a moment at Shylock’s question. Either she didn’t want to answer, was questioning whether she should answer, or perhaps wanted to answer. She had already come close to identifying herself when she disclosed that she was from the Schutzstaffel. If she didn’t want to reveal her name, she could just come up with a false one. The simplest way was to say, “You don’t need to know,” and hang up the phone. However, after pausing, she answered.
“Hildegard von Hessen. And I’m someone to whom the likes of you ordinarily isn’t allowed to speak!”
Chapter 6: The Crimson Hawk
They somehow managed to put out the fire at Tockerbrot. They prevented the whole building from burning down, but the shop, part of the storage area, and the oven were all destroyed, so Tockerbrot was unable to open for business.
That the townsfolk helped in battling the fire was a blessed relief. Of course, they were trying to save their own houses too, but many of them tried to comfort Lud and Sven for this misfortune after the fire was extinguished. They had treated Lud as an outsider for a long time, and he had felt isolated, but their kindness healed his scars a little.
“Mr. Langart, are you all right?”
Jacob’s mother, Charlotte, was among them.
“Is everyone at the shop safe? Um, what about my son?”
That was the foremost question on her mind. However, her guilt over the trouble her family had caused Lud made her choose her words with care.
“Um, to tell you the truth...”
Lud was hesitant to explain.
“Jacob has been kidnapped...”
“What?! Was it Shylock? Did he use force to...”
It would have been much better if it had been Shylock. If Shylock had Jacob, he wouldn’t kill or even harm him.
“No, it wasn’t Shylock.”
The kidnappers had used a gun and a knife in critically injuring Shylock’s two minions. Although the kidnappers most likely had a reason to keep Jacob alive, there was no need to keep him safe from bodily harm. People don’t die from losing an arm, a leg or an eye.
“I don’t know who did it.”
Even worse, Lud and Sven didn’t know who their opponents were, what their intentions were, or why they had kidnapped Jacob. So, they couldn’t think about countermeasures.
“How did this happen? Why?!”
Charlotte collapsed and started to cry.
“I shouldn’t have let you keep him.”
Charlotte had not tried to bring Jacob home when she found out he was living at Tockerbrot. She had remained silent, without taking any action.
“I wish you had just lost quietly!”
She had believed that a small-town bakery like Tockerbrot would quickly lose to the big capitalist, Shylock, and that Jacob would reluctantly give in and obey his grandfather.
“Isn’t that why I gave him those goggles? I thought finally Jacob had someone to take him in!”
“Charlotte, did you always plan on letting him go?”
Jacob’s goggles were a remembrance of his father. As long as he continued wearing them, a relative of his father might recognize him. And that person might give Jacob a better life than he had in this limited, rural area where people laughed at him as the son of a prostitute. The goggles had been the last hope, thought up after great anguish, of a mother who couldn’t make her son happy on her own.
“I’m... sorry.”
As Lud tried to apologize, he made a fist so tight that his nails dug into his skin. Instead of feeling frustrated or angry, he was ashamed of his shortcomings.
“You don’t need to apologize, Master.”
Sven appeared, having returned from leaving Faran and Poracho in the hospital. Organbaelz was a mining town, so its medical facilities were well equipped given the size of the community. The hospital was ready to treat serious injuries caused by accidents like cave-ins.
“How are those two?”
“Well, they’ll survive somehow... But that’s not important.”
Those two thugs had tried to burn down her beloved Lud’s shop, so Sven had not taken the trouble of seeing them to the hospital to save their lives. She had done it because they were important evidence.
“I examined the bullets removed from their bodies, as well as the knife wounds. The knife was for military use and the bullets were the same type used by the Wiltian armed forces.”
The responsible party wasn’t a gang, the mafia or even terrorists. Only the military would use such special equipment.
“That means... the culprits are military.”
“But I don’t know if they’re active or retired soldiers.”
Sven added quietly to Lud’s speculation. Many unscrupulous people would steal equipment from the military when retiring.
“But... why?”
“I checked with the hotel at Saupunkt. Shylock is not in his room.”
Charlotte was confused, so Sven added this clue, which anyone would understand.
“A wealthy man who thought he had no surviving family discovered he has a grandson. That wealthy man becomes obsessed with his grandson and... Well, what do you think would happen?”
This disturbance involved wicked people who would kidnap for ransom and wouldn’t hesitate to kill.
“What you’re saying is ticking me off! Why are you blaming Master?! This is all because...”
Tockerbrot’s fire occurred because there were people who wanted Shylock’s money. Lud had innocently been caught up in it, so he had no reason to apologize.
“Sven, that’s enough.”
Lud restrained Sven, who was raising her voice. He didn’t want to accuse either Charlotte or Shylock. If he did, it would mean accusing Jacob, too. However, that wasn’t the only reason Lud had stopped Sven.
“Charlotte... To be honest, you didn’t want to let Jacob go, did you?”
“—!”
Charlotte’s eyes widened in surprise at Lud’s words. Her face clearly answered yes.
“And, to be honest, you wanted to tell Shylock that Jacob isn’t his grandson, didn’t you?”
The goggles would have just provided an occasion to do so. She could have claimed that she found them or received them as a gift. Shylock knew that Jacob was his grandson because Charlotte had admitted it in the first place.
“Well then, why didn’t you refuse from the beginning?”
“She didn’t know what to do.” Lud answered Sven, who was frowning in confusion.
It didn’t matter if Shylock was considered a merchant of death or a crooked businessman, there was no doubt that he was one of the richest people in Wiltia, and perhaps in the world. Jacob’s life would be better with him than at a half-bankrupt repair shop.
The foundation for happiness varies. If someone were to ask if she had acted for her child’s sake, it would be difficult to claim with pretty words that she kept her child in a life of poverty out of motherly love.
“Deep down, you wanted Jacob to stay with you, but you also wished for his happiness. You didn’t know how to choose, so you decided to let matters take their own course.”
Charlotte had wanted both to let him go and to keep him. Both desires were genuine. That’s why she had worried and suffered.
“Humans can’t easily make sense of everything.”
“Humans...”
Lud’s casual words unexpectedly tore at Sven’s heart. She felt that he said that because she wasn’t human, and therefore couldn’t understand Charlotte’s feelings.
“Um, Master...? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sven had to ask that even if it meant interrupting, and Lud replied as if admonishing her.
“Nothing. It’s just common sense. But you understand too, don’t you?”
“Um... Uh...”
Sven was shocked but immediately understood. She had come to Lud in human form for his sake, to make him happy. Her willingness to die for him was unchanged. However, if that moment ever came... She would suffer. She would cry. She would yearn to be with him longer. She would long to talk with him more. Desperate to share even a little more time with him, she would weep.
This woman... Charlotte is like me.
Finally, Sven understood how Charlotte felt. So, she could no longer accuse her.
“After all, Jacob feels the same. He’s a child, but he’s not childish. It would be great if he could just be honest and say he wants to stay with his mother, but...”
The corners of Lud’s mouth bent slightly. It was his way of forming a wry smile. Charlotte turned to Lud.
“Mr. Langart, did you know all this? Is that why you protected him?”
“The adults around Jacob were rushing his decision. They didn’t give him time to face his own feelings. And after all... he’s my friend.”
Lud held no grudge against Charlotte for the burning of his shop. This incident, indirectly caused by Jacob’s grandfather, had threatened Lud’s life, but he couldn’t hate the man. Without Charlotte and Shylock, Lud wouldn’t have met Jacob, his first friend in town.
“Charlotte...”
Lud sat down and took her by the shoulders.
“Wait a little. I will rescue Jacob.”
He stared into her eyes to convey his determination.
“Um...”
Charlotte was confused, and her cheeks blushed a little.
“Um, Mr. Langart? I heard that you were a pilot.”
“I was. Did Jacob tell you?”
Lud didn’t go out of his way to talk about his time in the military, but he probably mentioned it to Jacob at some point.
“I knew it. All pilots have eyes like yours. You resemble Jacob’s father a little.”
“Was he a Hunter Unit pilot?”
Lud was surprised at the coincidences the world held.
“Yes. He was always laughing at his own boring jokes. But when I was pregnant with Jacob, he told me seriously that it would all work out, and I should leave everything to him.”
Other customers who had relationships with her only said, “It must be someone else’s child!”
“When women become pregnant in a place like that, many choose abortion. And I couldn’t quit because I had to pay the brothel back for the advance it gave the broker who had deceived me and sent me there.”
However, one man had declared proudly that the child was his, and had created a path forward for that new life. He had produced money out of nowhere and bought her freedom from her patron, before arranging for her return to Pelfe, which had not yet been annexed.
“When we said good-bye for the last time, he had the same look in his eyes that you have, as he promised to come back to me. He gave me those goggles, saying they were precious to him.”
A different kind of tears now formed in Charlotte’s eyes. She may have given those goggles to Jacob in the hope of his father finding him.
“The initials written on the goggles are SS, but I don’t know anyone with those initials.”
More than one thousand Hunter Units were created during the war. Even Lud couldn’t think of anyone who might be Jacob’s father.
“Master... hold on a second. You said the initials were from actual names, but the military records contained aliases.”
“Oh, that’s right!”
When Sven pointed it out, Lud remembered that they had used fake names.
“His name was Erich Blitzdonner!”
“What?!”
Lud and Sven froze with surprise when Charlotte said the name.
“Blitzdonner... Major Blitzdonner?!”
“I believe so... It’s not a common name.”
Lud and Sven had been surprised to learn that Jacob was Shylock’s grandson, but from the viewpoint of a former Hunter Unit pilot and a former Hunter Unit, this news was a much bigger shock.
“Um, was he well-known?”
Now Charlotte sounded stunned, too.
“He was more than well-known! There was no one among the Hunter Units who didn’t know the name Major Blitzdonner! Textbooks on the history of modern warfare mention his name!”
Many ace pilots had fought on the battlefields of the Great European War. Lud had been called the Silver Wolf and his superior officer Sophia had been called the Devil’s Black Spear. But they were younger, and had been active later in the Great War.
By contrast, Blitzdonner had been a hero in the first half of the war. He was called the Crimson Hawk. As the name suggested, he piloted a Hunter Unit painted bright red, and his combat prowess was praised as that of a warrior god.
“And, um, the battle of Ledinbrauner...”
“Yes. That was truly mind-boggling.”
August—the nation opposing Wiltia—had developed autonomic tanks to combat the Hunter Units. August had attacked with 50 such tanks,
which had also been used more recently against Lud and Sven. This fight would demonstrate the military might of the August federation’s technology, a fight upon which the nation’s pride rested, and a fight it must not lose.
However, Blitzdonner destroyed all fifty autonomic tanks with one Hunter Unit.
“Is that... um... really good?”
Charlotte wasn’t in the military, so she couldn’t grasp how awe-inspiring this achievement was, but she did understand that Blitzdonner had been an outstanding pilot. She was taken aback, however, to see the stunned faces of Lud and Sven.
“Actually, it wouldn’t have been so strange if he had risen to a higher rank, but...”
“Yes, his behavior was somewhat...”
Lud and Sven responded uncomfortably. Blitzdonner was undeniably skilled, but his personality was eccentric.
“His success in battle was so great that they ran out of medals and had to make more.”
“But that resulted in more trouble, didn’t it?”
“When I heard about it, I was speechless.”
Blitzdonner’s accomplishments were so unparalleled that the highest medal available wasn’t enough, so the military created a special honor, in consultation with the royal family. It was a lavish article, worked with gold and diamonds. Blitzdonner was the only soldier to receive it during the ten-year war.
“And then he sold the medal.”
“I heard he boasted that he gave it in payment for a debt.”
The royal family and the military had been furious. Any further misbehavior and he would have been arrested for the crime of contempt for the royal family. After that, Blitzdonner was never promoted again. He should have risen another few ranks, but he remained a major.
“Oh, but that was...”
As Lud spoke, he realized something.
“That was about 11 years ago, so perhaps...”
He remembered what Charlotte had said earlier. Blitzdonner had covered Charlotte’s debt to free her from the brothel.
“I see... That’s why the major sold his medal.”
For soldiers, medals are proud symbols. But, in this case, there was someone he wanted to protect even if he had to forfeit his medal and suffer enormous reproach.
“Um, did Erich really die?”
