Free Web NovelIn the archives, Frederick was rummaging through documents at a near-frenzied pace.
"Funding sources, funding sources... Which bastard categorized these things like this? By color?"
He clutched a stack of yellowed papers in his hand, the ink faded to the point where the handwriting was almost illegible.
And papers like these were piled into small hills throughout the room.
No, not just small hills.
They were mountain ranges.
Continuous, goddamn mountain ranges.
The entire archive room was about thirty square meters.
In theory, it should have been a spacious area.
In reality, the two of them had almost nowhere to stand.
Document shelves were packed one against another, stacked from the floor to the ceiling.
The gaps between the shelves were stuffed with stray folders.
On top of the folders were piles of loose pages that hadn't been filed.
And on top of the loose pages sat several dusty cardboard boxes.
Inside the boxes were—
More documents.
Frederick felt like he was being buried alive by paper.
"Find anything?" Reinhardt's voice came from behind him.
Frederick looked up and saw Reinhardt standing before another shelf, holding a document with a subtle expression on his face.
"You found it?"
"No." Reinhardt held up the document. "I found a land deed from a hundred and thirty years ago."
"...What?"
"imperial year 273. The deed says a certain Mister Someone purchased this land for thirty silver coins to build a granary."
"What the hell does that have to do with us?"
"Absolutely nothing." Reinhardt tossed the document aside. "But it was stuffed inside an 'Urgent Confidential' folder."
The entire building shook again.
More violently than before.
The document shelves let out creaking groans of protest, and several files slid off the top, fluttering down like autumn leaves.
One of them plastered itself precisely over Frederick's face.
He ripped the paper off his face and glanced down at it.
"Congratulations," Reinhardt said.
"For what?"
"You found a recipe."
Frederick looked at the paper in his hand.
Beef and potato stew.
A detailed list of ingredients.
It even had illustrations.
Drawn quite well, actually.
"If I get the chance, I am definitely going to kill these people."
Frederick crumpled the recipe into a ball and threw it away. "I'm going to kill them all, and then I'll arrange their corpses in alphabetical order just so they can experience what real categorization feels like."
"Too merciful."
Reinhardt didn't even look up. "You should sort their corpses by color too."
Another loud bang echoed from outside.
Then came screams.
Followed by more loud bangs.
It sounded like something was collapsing rhythmically.
The two ignored it completely.
They kept searching.
An order form.
Discarded.
A love letter.
Who the hell puts a love letter in the archives?
Discarded.
A... what is /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ this? A cafeteria menu?
Discarded.
"Is this place an archive or a dump?" Frederick gritted his teeth.
"In a sense," Reinhardt pushed aside a stack of moldy ledgers, "the two are not mutually exclusive."
The building shook again.
A piece of plaster fell from the ceiling and hit Frederick on the shoulder.
He shook his shoulder and continued searching.
"Seriously," he said while flipping through papers, "when Pavela convinced me to join, why didn't I realize there would be parts like this?"
"What were you thinking back then?"
"I was thinking, 'Oh, ending the war sounds cool; there should be plenty of exciting battles and heroic moments.'"
"And then?"
"And then I'm digging through trash."
"Well, welcome to the real world. You can save the dreaming for when you go back to the dorms at night."
Another tremor.
This one was even more violent.
The sound of a crashing collapse came from outside, mingled with one scream after another.
Frederick could even hear someone shouting "Run!"
"Tell me," he asked, "if we don't find anything useful, will Pavela bury us under this pile of trash too?"
"No," Reinhardt said.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because she'd make us sort the trash alphabetically before burying us."
Frederick thought about it and felt it made sense.
Pavela was indeed that kind of person.
He continued searching.
One document, two, three...
Suddenly, his hand stopped.
"Wait."
"Found it?"
Frederick pulled a document out from a dust-covered folder.
A few words were written on the cover.
"Children of Dawn—Summary of Funding Sources".
"Found it," he said.
Reinhardt leaned in.
Their heads came together as they looked at the document.
The first page was a table.
Date, amount, sender, receiving account.
The numbers were huge.
So large that Frederick could hardly believe his eyes.
"Twenty thousand?" He pointed at one row. "A single transfer of twenty thousand. Do you know what that means?"
"It's enough to buy a complete main-line mecha," Reinhardt said. free𝑤ebnovel.com
"And that's just one of them. Look at the dates: fifteen thousand on the third of last month. Twenty thousand on the seventh. Eighteen thousand on the twelfth."
"Look at the senders."
Frederick frowned.
The sender column was filled entirely with codenames.
Iron Crown, Black Eagle, Silver Tree.
"Is this useful?"
"Yes," Reinhardt said. "Codenames can't be traced, but bank accounts are real. If Pavela can give this to—"
*Click.*
The sound of a door opening came from behind them.
A smile curled at the corner of Frederick's mouth.
"Natasha, you've come at just the—"
He turned around.
Then, the smile froze on his face.
At that moment, a bald, hulking man over two meters tall stood dazed at the doorway.
The two sides stared at each other.
Silence.
The man's head was so bald it reflected light.
Frederick could even see his own distorted reflection on that bald head.
It was ugly.
The reflection was ugly.
The hulking man was also ugly.
The man's expression went through a long process of change.
First, blankness.
Then, confusion.
Then, 'Wait, who is this?'
Then, 'Wait, why is someone here?'
Then, 'Wait, should I call for help?'
The whole process lasted about three seconds.
Frederick felt it was the longest three seconds of his life.
"You..." The hulking man finally spoke, his voice like rusting gears, "You goddamn—"
"I think we can talk about this," Frederick said.
The man took a deep breath, his chest swelling like a bellows.
He opened his mouth.
Preparing to let out a roar loud enough to alert the whole building.
Then his eyes rolled back.
A dark shadow flashed behind him.
Noiseless.
Fast as lightning.
Katya's dagger hilt slammed precisely onto that shiny back of the head.
A crisp *thump* rang out.
Like thumping a watermelon.
The man's mouth was still open.
But that roar would never be shouted.
His body stiffened.
His eyes rolled upward.
A trail of drool hung from the corner of his mouth.
Then, he began to fall.
Over two meters tall.
A body built of muscle.
Crashing toward the floor like a wall of flesh.
*Boom!*
The entire archive room shuddered.
The document shelves swayed with it, letting out creaking wails.
One of them finally couldn't take it and tilted forward, slowly and gracefully.
*Clatter—*
A folder slid off the top of the shelf.
It did a few somersaults in the air.
Then, it landed precisely on top of the hulking man's shiny head.
It just stayed there.
Like a hat made of paper.
The three of them watched this scene.
Silence.
"...Nice timing," Reinhardt commented.
"He almost shouted," Katya said, her tone flat. "What were you two doing just now? Flirting?"
"I was showing off my profile," Frederick said. "He didn't seem to appreciate it."
"Were you actually hoping he would?" Reinhardt said.
"Shut up."
Frederick walked over and picked up the folder from the man's bald head.
The bald head was like a display stand now, so shiny it was almost blinding.
He casually flipped open the folder.
Then, his expression changed.
"What is it?" Reinhardt asked.
He walked over and looked at the document in Frederick's hand.
Then, his expression changed too.
...
"Damn."
"They actually dared to do this?"
