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LOS 6
He sank into thought once again.
Giles had certainly felt a fleeting sense of happiness while spending time with Lily.
However, he began to feel that these encounters might ultimately bring harm to her.
The revolution was gradually winding down, but there were still those hiding in every corner of the country. The leadership was searching for them with relentless intensity.
In a way, Lily could be seen as one of the leadership's targets.
If her location were discovered...
And if, by some chance, the leadership learned of Lily and ordered Giles himself to arrest her.
A chill ran down his spine.
Is it right for me to keep coming and going from this place? Could her whereabouts be exposed because of me?
“Giles, what are you thinking about again?”
The perceptive Lily asked. Giles responded with nothing but a faint, vague smile. But even that could not last long. Giles still held the status of a revolutionary soldier.
That meant he was someone capable of arresting anyone.
Lily had survived. He had to be satisfied with that fact alone. No matter how he thought about it, continuing to visit this place seemed likely to arouse suspicion.
Giles looked at Lily's back. She now had the strength to live. She had put on weight, and her voice no longer cracked.
This was enough.
He felt it was time to stop visiting.
His reason told him so, but his heart still longed to remain by Lily's side.
“Don’t worry about me, and just focus on this moment.”
He spoke those words not only to Lily, but to himself.
Giles Hessen lowered himself and sat beside Lily. Feeling her presence beside him, he soothed his own lingering attachments.
I hoped she would live; I didn't intend to envision a future with her.
The moment he repeated that to himself, Lily spoke.
“I think I'm lucky to have met you.”
Giles Hessen closed his eyes.
End it here.
Remember that if you get greedy, Lily could be put in danger.
You might be the one to break her with your own hands.
He should have said his goodbyes, but in the end, Giles did not.
It was because he felt that if he put it into words, it would nail the farewell as truly eternal.
-
The day of the operation. Giles eventually boarded the military truck without a wink of sleep. In the dawn, before the darkness had fully faded, his subordinates were all waiting inside the truck.
While Giles stared silently down at the map, his direct adjutant spoke to him.
“How are you feeling?”
“I'm fine.”
“It’s been a while since we’ve headed out on a mission since dawn. When the revolution's execution was at its peak, overnight missions were practically second nature. Now that things have been quiet for a few days, my body is starting to complain.”
Giles ignored the useless chatter his adjutantK unleashed to lighten the mood.
“Is everyone here?”
“Everyone has assembled, without a single person missing.”
“Signal the driver to depart.”
The adjutant pounded his fist against the thick partition separating the driver's seat from the rear area where they sat. With a jolt, the truck began to move.
Their destination was the site of a small village located near the border.
During the era when Beldam ruled Ipswin, the place had been used as a kind of resort for nobles to stay at, due to its beautiful scenery and convenient access to Beldam. Of course, it was known that now, after the revolutionary army had burned all the buildings, only grey ruins remained.
It was not surprising that fugitives had chosen such a place, where no one lived anymore, as a transit point. Mainhebach. As Giles traced the name given by the Beldam people with his finger, he suddenly looked up.
This mission was different from the ones he had handled until now. Giles was far from being a kind man, but he wasn't so cold as to not recognize the faces of his subordinates. These were not the men he usually led. Among them were soldiers he was seeing for the first time.
Harrington's words about it being a "special mission" came to mind. Was that why the army had been reorganized accordingly?
The revolutionary army was like a net hastily and crudely woven together. In short, it was still in the process of organization. When gathered together, if the pieces didn't fit, it was possible for others to fill those gaps.
Above all, Giles had more pressing matters to worry about. Inside the jolting truck, he calmed his churning stomach while reading the file containing the personal details and routes of the targets.
‘Bring them back as corpses if possible.’
He could accept an order to kill.
But why was there a need to specifically transport the corpses?
The land of Ipswin was not particularly vast. They reached their destination in a few hours. Giles stepped off the truck with a sense of relief. The experience of having a dozen or so people crammed into a narrow space, feeling every bump of the poorly paved road, was something he could never get used to, no matter how many times he did it.
According to predictions, the fugitives had only two or three hours left before they completely crossed the border. Giles ordered his subordinates to disperse and search the area.
The end of October. Winter was approaching. Surprisingly, the first snow had already fallen in the Mainhebach region they had to scour.
It was a good sign. Footprints left in the snow would certainly be a great help to the search. At this rate, the possibility of failing the mission was slim.
“Have you ever been rabbit hunting?”
Giles frowned at the adjutant's abrupt question.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Rabbit hunting. I mean, literally, have you ever gone to hunt rabbits?”
“...No.”
“Rabbits are timid animals. But because they are small and nimble, they are quite difficult to catch. If you try to catch them relying blindly on your running skills, you'll often end up empty-handed. As with all hunting, catching a single rabbit requires a strategy.”
Giles decided he would just play along with the adjutant's talk.
“So, what is this strategy?”
“First, you have to find the rabbit hole. Then, you gather people and have them take positions around the hole. Especially in the cold winter, rabbits are bound to hide in their burrows. I told you, didn't I? Rabbits are timid. If you shout together, the startled rabbit will leap out, and that is the moment you must exploit.”
“What does that have to do with this mission?”
“Nothing, really. It's just that searching like this makes me feel as if I've come out for rabbit hunting. The rabbit has just been replaced by a human; in the end, isn't it the same?”
Giles raised his hand to stop the adjutant's pace. There were faint footprints. However, they were certainly not the marks of military boots.
“Charlie, are you sure we are the only personnel covering the northwest?”
“That is correct.”
They were almost there. Just as he was thinking that, the sound of shouting was heard from afar. Bang! Gunshots rang out in succession. Simultaneously, something quickly vanished between the distant trees.
Giles left the adjutant behind and ran straight toward the target. A pitch-black figure was fleeing with all its might. There was no longer any room for doubt. It was a fugitive.
The moment he became certain, Giles drew his pistol and fired. Bang! Bang! The object, which had been growing more distant, collapsed to the ground.
Capturing one didn't mean the situation was over. Giles shouted to the adjutant and began running toward the direction of the noise.
“Charlie, finish it!”
Seeing the commotion, it was clear that something had gone wrong with the mission. Giles threw off his heavy coat, which hindered his running, and sprinted toward his subordinates. They were the ones who had fired the first shots. Had they still not captured the target?
As he got closer, he saw them standing around a fugitive, not knowing what to do. Shoot her! Just shoot her! Even as Giles screamed, they did not follow the order. Anger surged within him at the sight of his subordinates wasting time, unable to capture a mere woman.
The woman, who had been struggling with the subordinates, lunged forward. Those bastards were intentionally sabotaging the mission. Otherwise, such an absurd situation would never have occurred.
“Useless fools!”
Giles ran without pause, chasing the woman who was fleeing while bleeding from her side. His body began to strain, and breathing became difficult. If he lost her now, it was over. Fortunately, thanks to the target being injured, he was able to close the distance relatively easily.
Giles's hand reached the back of the woman's neck. The two of them tumbled together across the snow. The cornered woman resisted with all her strength, but in the end, she could not avoid being pinned to the ground.
Giles pulled away the scarf covering the woman's face. Half of her face was distorted by burns. Since he had already checked the photos in the file, such a thing didn't act as a variable.
The problem, however, was that the quality of the photo in the file had been terrible.
Seeing her in person, he could tell for sure.
Though she was a woman with burns on her face, the other half was still intact. The remaining half of the face of the woman with short-cropped blonde hair belonged to someone he could not possibly fail to recognize.
“...Celeste?”
Mental shock, coupled with confusion, paralyzed his sense of judgment. Why was his sister fleeing in such a state?
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