9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 214 - Salvation (1)

I met Damier’s eyes.

“Long time no see. Did you come to kill me?”

“No.”

“Then to die?”

“……”

Damier’s eyes had changed somewhat. The dry, emotionless black eyes now sparkled with a strange light.

“I’m going to die soon.”

He said it again.

“I know. Because of the canil. But so what?”

My right cheek tingled and finally began to sting painfully. I always get like this when I’m scared. I wanted to scratch it, but both arms were bound so I couldn’t move at all, which was incredibly annoying.

“So what’s your business? Should I get revenge for you after you die?”

“Against whom?”

“Who else—the people who made you that way. Supreme Leader Kruger, The Ferint Commander, Dr. Moritz Riepen. Oh, Dr. Riepen is already dead. Anyway.”

Damier’s lips twitched as if he wanted to smile.

“Did you know? The origin of Ferint.”

“I know, I heard it from Johann. You’re artificial humans. Should I call you the ultimate weapon to sound cooler?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I tell you when I’m in this state?”

“……”

Hearing it, that makes sense. Irrefutable. That’s what he must be thinking.

“Anyway, stop beating around the bush and spill it. You’re dying soon, so why did you come to me? It’s not to kill me, and surely you’re not planning to die in front of me? Please spare me from that. I don’t want to see any more horrible scenes like that.”

Damier stared at me blankly, then shook his head.

“I don’t know either. I just had nothing to do before dying.”

“So you came to me? After infiltrating here at the risk of being caught and executed? Ha, really. I really am a man burdened with many sins.”

A real hollow laugh escaped me. Damier, this bastard really was a hopeless human being. I already knew that, but I felt it keenly all over again.

“I already received punishment.”

Damier answered calmly.

“Punishment? For what?”

“For desertion. From the eastern front.”

“But how are you standing here fine? You wouldn’t have gone undetected after deserting. Ferint hasn’t fallen that low.”

“Are you asking what the punishment was?”

“Yeah.”

I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth.

Damier told me about the punishment. No, hearing it, it was more like torture than punishment.

Ferint artificially inflated then compressed their innate mana springs, disrupting the flow of magic power. When the body’s circulation pathways are forcibly blocked, mana accumulates in the heart, causing extreme pain. If it goes on too long, the heart eventually bursts and kills them.

“It’s worse than burning pain. The punishment lasted three days, so I didn’t die.”

“Enough, stop. I’m glad you survived… I guess. I don’t know how you feel about it.”

“I think it was good that I didn’t die and came here.”

“Don’t go that far. Before closing your eyes, it would have been nice to see something like mountains or the sea, pretty scenery. Not someone gloomy like me.”

I deliberately threw out a meaningless joke. If I didn’t, my heated brain felt like it would explode.

“Well, since you came anyway, tell me what’s happening outside. How have you been? Is the world at peace?”

“I fought on the eastern front.”

When I asked drowsily, Damier also relaxed a bit and answered calmly.

“Schufaben was defeated. Many Ferint died too—”

“Wait, we lost? Are you sure?”

“I heard from Johann Werner. The high command determined they could no longer continue the war and demanded the Supreme Leader end it.”

“Huh?!”

My eyes nearly popped out. If my body hadn’t been tied up, I might have jumped about a meter high.

“You met Johann? Ah, right, so that’s how you learned the secret of your birth. That bastard Johann, he was helping out quite well even while pretending not to. Hmm, but if Johann was moving to this extent…”

A thrill ran from my head to my toes, flowing down my spine.

“…this country must have completely awakened. Right? Everyone got angry and rose up?”

Damier nodded.

“Civil war broke out. The protesters seized guns and are fighting the capital defense forces.”

“What about the White Raven Order?”

“They’re using the broadcasting station as their base and helping the protesters.”

“Smart. So what’s the Supreme Leader doing? Besides deploying the military.”

“No one knows.”

Damier’s voice quietly settled.

“Ferint should know.”

“We don’t know. We don’t even know where the Supreme Leader is.”

“……”

His whereabouts unknown. What is that bastard thinking?

“Then Ferint, you guys are…”

“If the protesters get close, we’ll go out to kill them.”

“Right, protecting the Supreme Leader is your mission.”

My chest felt tight. The moment I’d been waiting for had arrived, but my heart was beating like crazy. My brain was spinning frantically, and I couldn’t calm down from anxiety.

“Hah…”

Looking at Damier, who only answered questions while maintaining silence, I didn’t know what to do.

“Damier.”

I called him in a deeply sunken voice.

“Before, you asked me why I live.”

“I did.”

He had asked that on the battlefield.

“You remember I answered that I live because I can’t die. That wasn’t the truth. But it wasn’t a lie either.”

“……”

“I don’t care if I die, but I’m staying alive for revenge. I absolutely can’t die until I tear Kruger apart. Conversely, if I could just do that, I have no attachment to living. So I’m asking, Damier. Are you really okay with dying? Isn’t there something you absolutely want to accomplish before dying?”

“……”

Damier stared at me with his black pupils for a long time.

“It bothers me.”

“What does?”

“You, as a person.”

He reached out as if to strangle me. Blue mana swirled around the abnormally protruding veins. The writhing veins looked threatening as they pulsed uncontrollably.

“I don’t want to think. Thinking only brings suffering. But when I face you, I keep thinking.”

“Heh.”

When had Damier ever opened up his inner thoughts like this? It was both funny and sad. But.

“Damier, I think you’re misunderstanding something, but it wasn’t me who made you think. It was you yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me be straight with you, alright? In this kind of country, born as someone’s tool, slaughtering your own kind like crazy and accumulating evil karma, suffering from drugs, constantly being brainwashed into loyalty, then dying and being discarded like trash.

Living like that while feeling no sense of wrongness—that would make you an idiot. If you couldn’t break free from brainwashing no matter how much someone stirred you up from the side, that person’s fate would end right there.”

“……”

“Did I try to manipulate other Ferint? I would have gotten my neck cut off ages ago or been imprisoned after reaching Kruger’s ears. Do you think I go around flapping my mouth to just anyone?

You were originally a person capable of thinking for yourself. A bird that could break out of its shell! So the one who breathed free will into the person called Damier wasn’t me—it was you, you Damier.”

What did Damier think after hearing my lengthy words? I don’t know.

Boom!

In the flowing silence, a faint cannon sound came from somewhere. I felt a slight vibration too.

To hear sounds from the outside in this deep underground prison. No ordinary commotion must be happening above.

Damier, who had been standing silently for a while, drew his sword and approached.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Blue light flashed from the sword.

“So I’ll just do what I want to do.”

He swung his sword lightly.

Clang!

The light beam extending from the sword struck my right wrist hard.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

And then in turn my left wrist, right ankle, left ankle.

“Ugh!”

The shackles split in half and broke, and I fell heavily to the floor. The drug pack that had been my lifeline was pulled out, and blood flowed from my wrist.

“Huff, huff…”

Damier’s legs buckled. Seeing him clutch his heart and grimace, it must be side effects from unleashing mana all at once.

“You’re cutting your lifespan like that…”

“Leave now.”

Damier pulled a syringe from inside his uniform and jabbed it deep into his wounded arm.

“There’s no time.”

“What about you? You’re not planning to die here, are you? Even if you die, do it somewhere more comfortable.”

“I won’t die, so hurry!”

Blue energy began circulating through Damier’s body. When he swung his sword, the heavy stone door burst open as if hit by a strong wind.

“I’ll clear the path.”

When Damier stomped once, mana strong enough for even me to feel spread out. His body shot forward and out the door.

I followed him at a run. A blue flame-wrapped figure was racing toward the far end of the dark corridor.

Beep beep beep!

Beep beep beep!

“Escape! Escap—! Gaaah!”

The civil servant at the end of the corridor who had been frantically pressing the emergency alarm after seeing Damier was torn to pieces. I ran through the corridor scattered with blood and flesh. Damier was already so far ahead he was barely visible.

“Cough! Cough! Gah!”

It had been too long since I’d done any physical activity, so my lungs felt like they were going to burst. Internal bleeding must have occurred because I tasted metal on my tongue. No, was that blood sprayed by the corpses scattered around?

As I passed by, I checked each face, but fortunately I didn’t see any civil servants from my line.

‘How can there not be a single one? Don’t tell me they were purged.’

I continued coughing and spitting as I escaped the underground and climbed the long staircase.

“Huuurgh, running… out of breath…”

This body was definitely ruined.

What’s the point of occasionally exercising and quitting drinking and smoking to recover, when it gets reset periodically like this?

Gasping, stumbling and swaying, I grabbed the walls and climbed the stairs. The continuous screams and alarms pierced my ears, making my head confused.

When I finally passed through the thick trail of blood and emerged outside the building, the open grassland tickled my ankles and the cold winter sky hurt my eyes.

And the repeated cannon fire and gunshots. When I turned my head toward where the sounds were coming from, cannons positioned at the edge of the aerial fortress were firing bombs toward the ground.

‘Those crazy bastards.’

I didn’t even have the strength to curse out loud, and my knees nearly buckled as I almost collapsed.

“Don’t fall.”

Damier suddenly appeared from behind like a ghost and caught me.

“Huff, you…”

“What will you do?”

He spoke dryly while pointing ahead. Before I knew it, Ferint in fluttering white uniforms were approaching from across the vast grassland. Behind them were mages in blue cloaks.

“What, they went to the ground!”

“Stopping your escape comes first.”

Fortunate despite the misfortune. If cannons weren’t enough and Ferint had been deployed too, all the citizens of Lüdelheim would have been slaughtered.

“What is the meaning of this?”

It was Commander Michael. The same cold, unchanging face. Damier didn’t respond. Of course, neither did I.

I could ask whether he knew where the Supreme Leader was, mock him for why he was loyal to someone who treated him like a toy. But he wasn’t someone that would work on.

“Come out, Secretary Redan. You might get hurt if you’re caught up in the fighting.”

The commander gestured emotionlessly.

“Ah, but I’d actually prefer that. Do you know what would happen to your master if I got hurt?”

Ferint can’t touch me. Whether they know the truth or not doesn’t matter. Either way, Kruger would have ordered them to keep me alive at all costs.

“Are you thinking of betraying His Excellency the Supreme Leader?”

Look at him immediately dropping to informal speech. I surveyed the surroundings and forced my lips into a grin.

“Betrayal is a word you use for people on the same side. When was I ever on the same boat as that bastard Kruger?”

“……”

Even though I had insulted the beloved Supreme Leader, there was no change in Commander Michael’s expressionless face. No, maybe he just didn’t have any thoughts to begin with. He nodded to Damier.

“Hand over the secretary.”

“I’m no longer Ferint.”

Damier answered in a firm voice and unleashed his mana. It was so powerful that my whole body tingled as if electrocuted.

“Kaaaahhh!”

In the tense standoff, a familiar cry came from somewhere. For a moment, my dazed brain snapped awake.

Maybe, just maybe.

This time too, it might be good to try gambling.

“Damier. Drop me.”

“Catch him.”

The moment I whispered barely audibly, Commander Michael calmly gave his order.

After that, I couldn’t quite grasp what happened. What’s certain is that the mages shot some kind of light-made lasso toward me. The moment the lasso wrapped around my body like a living thing, Damier swung his sword. The blue mana erupting from his sword shattered the lasso like glass.

Whoooosh!

And with the sound of air tearing, he pushed me away.