The Way to Love in the Place of Dead Chapter 2

The announcement rang out, and Iris, leaning against the wall, asked Aran.

“Well?”

“Can a man without a unit even survive the indignity?”

“Stand with us.”

“Your unit’s in the front. No thanks.”

They divided espers and guides, and unit placement shifted further based on rank.

“Want to come with me then?”

“That’s even more conspicuous.”

Iris was an A-rank esper stationed at the very front, and following Jude the guide would obviously make him stand out too much.

“Then there’s no helping it. See you later.”

After straightening Aran’s crooked tie, Jude waved and disappeared toward his unit.

“I’m going too. You?”

“I’ll stay here.”

“I’m going to tell the Corps Commander you were uncooperative during the ceremony.”

“…”

“You were about to curse but gave up because it was too much trouble, weren’t you?”

Aran closed his eyes and turned away from Iris with an expression that said everything was a hassle.

“Good grief.”

A laugh of disbelief drifted by, and the sound of military boots faded into the distance. Opening his eyes again, Aran began to pass the tedious time watching the emcee and high-ranking directors ascend the platform.

Through the salute to the flag, the national anthem, the induction reports, and on into the inevitably long and empty speech by a retiring officer.

“Never forget that the Pierce Central Center is the core of our military. May conviction and blessings accompany the future of all of you who fight for what you must protect—…”

Thinking he really should have just gone back in to get more sleep, wondering every time why Corps Commander Tato insisted on attendance at the initiation ceremony, Aran lifted his head at a sudden sense of foreboding. Instinct, premonition, or something called the sixth sense in humans was definitely sending him a signal.

A pain like his heart was being wrenched gripped him, an unknown tension burrowing into his skin. There wasn’t even time to ponder the reason or cause.

Because along with a colossal, ear-splitting crash of destruction, a whole building was being obliterated right before his eyes.

∞ ∞ ∞

Inside an iron cage filled with damp moisture and chill air, a man hung bound in chains over a straitjacket.

Except for the gagged mouth, his exposed cheeks and neck were covered in livid bruises, and blood dripped steadily from torn skin where veins stood out as if about to burst.

“Stubborn bastard. Not a single scream.”

“…”

“Let’s see how long you can hold out.”

Even as he writhed in agony, the body clenched its teeth and suppressed its groans. Inside it was the hand of Charles, the <Penetration>-type esper in charge of torture.

For three days now, he had repeatedly thrust his hand into the bound body to seize the stomach and twist it, break ribs, sever muscles, and inflict such shocks. Yet the one being tortured resisted in silence, as if he had lost his voice entirely, without so much as a single groan.

“Mr. Charles. To perform mental manipulation, he needs to be conscious…”

“Not yet. This one’s not so obliging as to pass out from just this.”

When the hand plunged into the abdomen again to tear through, the thrashing and the sound of chains rang out. Amid the silent screams, a composed voice flowed into the prison.

“That’s enough. Charles.”

At the elegant restraint of the woman who stepped inside the iron cage with the light clack of military boot heels, Charles withdrew his hand from the young man’s body.

“Good work.”

As Charles stepped back with a gentlemanly bow, the woman raised her hand and removed the blindfold from the young man.

“Kay. This is our final request. We don’t want to resort to brainwashing you either.”

“…”

“You may not be able to speak, but you should be able to make a sound. If you understand, open your mouth.”

Her hand seized the young man’s jaw.

“Answer me!”

When she pressed on the bruised jaw and cheek, bones grated with an ugly crunch. Still, the young man did not so much as flinch.

“…There’s no helping it, then.”

She gestured to the esper accompanying her.

The esper of the mental manipulation type set foot into the prison thick with the stench of blood, and faced the young man the officer indicated.

“Can you do it?”

“If he’s this far gone… it should be possible.”

The orders given to him typically involved instilling perfect loyalty to Limpus as a soldier into a body and mind weakened by torture. Just as they say the body is a vessel for the mind, the more fractured the body, the easier it was to worm into the psyche. The body before him was in such a wreck it was hard to believe there was any reason left in it, and the unseen insides were undoubtedly nothing but pulp.

‘For humanity.’

Though he had grown more numb than at first, what drove him when the act of meddling with someone’s mind still felt sinful was solely the greater cause that they must win this war for everyone’s sake.

The esper stood before the young man on the verge of losing consciousness. When Charles seized his hair, the young man’s neck twisted and he drew ragged breaths as his eyes slowly opened.

The pupils revealed beneath pitch-black eyelashes were a chillingly vivid red.

Even after three days of torture that must have caused severe external and internal injuries, his wrath alone remained clear. As if representing a mind into which not a single trace of corruption had mixed.

“Hoo.”

The esper steadied his breathing and activated his ability. From the eyes to the brain. He moved his consciousness along the neural pathways. All he had to do was carve out ‘the most precious thing’ lodged deep within his mind, via the hippocampus that managed memory and the amygdala that managed emotion, and replace it with ‘Limpus.’

‘The most precious thing… is it a person.’

Perhaps a mother… no, more like a guardian.

A relationship not bound by blood.

He glimpsed someone with whom he had spent a long time holding hands in the vast desert of Willamere.

A warm, cozy memory rooted just as firmly in his psyche as that tightly clasped hand.

‘If I carefully carve these parts out…’

Just as the esper, intending to replace that spot with Limpus, carefully touched his memories.

“Urgh…”

For the first time in three days, a sound escaped the young man’s mouth.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, but shaking off the neural connection ability already established was not easy.

“Ngh, hngk!”

Watching him thrash his entire body as if all the physical pain until now had meant nothing, Charles flashed a twisted smile. As if taking pleasure in the sight of convulsions that might well have spilled blood right then if not for the gag, his lower half swelled.

Charles, who had been enjoying the bound young man’s agony, soon noticed the esper’s shoulders trembling, as if the young man’s shuddering had somehow spread.

“Khuh… hak, kack!”

The standing body collapsed to the floor in an instant.

“What is…?”

The guard rushed to the fallen esper and turned him over, and everyone in the prison clamped their hands over their noses and mouths. The eyes, nose, mouth—everything inside was hollow, leaving only black holes as if they had been burnt pitch-black.

There was no need to check for a pulse. It was visible to the naked eye that this was no longer a living being.

The guard who tore the gag from Kay’s mouth asked in a voice trembling with rage.

“How did you do that. What are you.”

“Ha, haha… Ahaha!”

Even though he sagged like a corpse, his red eyes alone blazed with such intensity that the dissonance felt terrifying. Any pure admiration for the willpower to protect his mind alone with a shattered body was overwhelmed by the shock of having lost a rare and precious A-rank mental manipulation esper.

“Lieutenant General. What will you do?”

Charles brought the rigid lieutenant general back to reality.

“There’s no other way. If even brainwashing won’t work, we’ve no choice but to threaten.”

“Plan C, then. May I kill him?”

“We’ve suffered a loss, so I’ll take responsibility for that much.”

When the lieutenant general nodded, Charles’s smile deepened, and after ordering the guard to take the body, she exited the prison with unsteady steps.

The iron door closed heavily, leaving only Charles and Kay. Just the two of them.

“I told you. We wanted your voluntary cooperation.”

“I… also told… you clearly. Get lost. For years.”

“Right. Like I said, you can’t reason with a bastard. You’ve got to put a leash on him. Watch closely.”

Charles manipulated the bracelet on his wrist to project a screen into the air.