Free Web NovelThis was not alarmist talk.
It was the exact wording from an internal assessment report of the General Staff Department.
One evening, Eleanor relayed this sentence to Pavela in a very # Nоvеlight # calm tone.
They were sitting in the study of the manor at the time. The fire in the fireplace burned fiercely, and Eleanor held a cup of black tea in her hand.
"Our army is actually nearing its limit."
Eleanor said.
"There is almost no room for error. Once a single crucial war decision goes wrong—it doesn't even have to be a catastrophic blunder, just a misjudgment, a delay in reinforcements, an interruption of a supply line—it could trigger a chain reaction."
She set down her teacup, her ice-blue eyes reflecting the firelight.
"And then, total collapse."
Pavela remembered she hadn't said anything at the time.
She just watched the leaping flames in the fireplace, thinking to herself—how similar this was to the situation over in Usar.
Two nations, two armies, two steam engines on the verge of falling apart, both gritting their teeth and charging forward, both gambling that the other would fall first.
And the domestic economies were already severely held hostage by the military-industrial complex.
Factories produced shells instead of farm tools, railways transported munitions instead of grain, young men rotted in trenches instead of laboring in fields.
Prices rose, wages did not, the black market swelled, and public resentment accumulated.
Perilously unstable.
Therefore, the Imperial Army General Staff Department was already seeking an armistice.
They had calculated it; the cost of continuing the fight had already exceeded any potential gains.
They needed a dignified exit, a ceasefire condition acceptable to both sides, a bargaining chip to keep the Empire from looking too bad at the negotiating table.
But the Institute disagreed.
The Institute had its own spokespeople in the Imperial Parliament, its own voting bloc, its own interest network cultivated over decades.
They didn't need soldiers from the front lines to return alive; they just needed the machinery of war to keep running.
The two forces were evenly matched in the Imperial Parliament.
The pro-war faction and the pro-peace faction were locked in a tight deadlock. Every vote on the war budget was a gamble on a knife's edge.
Neither could overwhelm the other. Neither could convince the other.
In the end, it could only be left unresolved.
The war continued.
Soldiers continued to die.
The steam engines continued to burn.
The two nations continued to grind each other down along that blood-soaked, perpetually frozen defense line.
This was the full picture Pavela had pieced together over the month since becoming a foster daughter of the Schwartz Family.
And now, she stood in this pitch-black alley, her foot pinning down a member of the Fire of Freedom, a corpse killed by the Fire of Freedom lying three meters away. Only one question churned over and over in her mind.
What was the Fire of Freedom doing?
She looked down at Igor.
He had stopped struggling, lying quietly on the gravel-strewn ground, his breathing even and restrained.
A smart man.
He knew that in this situation, being quiet was more useful than struggling.
She glanced again at the young man's corpse.
An informant for the Imperial Security Bureau.
An information broker.
His throat had been slit in the alley by people from the Fire of Freedom.
And then?
Stage the scene, forge military boot prints, arrange the materials for the frame-up.
Make everything look like the Imperial Army General Staff Department had sent someone to silence him.
Pavela mentally ran through this chain of logic from start to finish.
Kill the Security Bureau informant.
Frame the Army General Staff Department.
The Security Bureau discovers the informant is dead, follows the 'clues' left at the scene, and traces it to the Army.
The trust rift between the Security Bureau and the Army deepens, their relationship deteriorates.
The Army's political allies within the Empire begin to waver.
The Army's influence in Parliament is weakened.
And what does weakening the Army's influence mean?
It means the pro-peace faction loses its most important pillar.
It means the pro-war faction, led by the Institute, will gain the upper hand in Parliament.
It means the possibility of an armistice becomes even more remote.
It means the war will continue.
Pavela closed her eyes.
Snowflakes landed on her eyelashes, cold, melting at a touch.
She turned this conclusion over in her mind several times, trying to find a flaw, a variable she had missed, a possibility that could point this chain of logic in another direction.
There was none.
The logic held.
There might be other objectives, like diverting the attention of the Security Bureau and the Army General Staff Department, or weakening the Security Bureau's control over Eisenburg.
But one thing was certain.
The Fire of Freedom—this organization that had recruited countless people like Pavel, weary of slaughter, under the banner of 'ending the war'—was, by its actions, objectively prolonging this war.
She opened her eyes.
Igor shifted slightly under her foot.
He was adjusting his posture so the gravel wouldn't dig so painfully into his face.
"You killed the Security Bureau informant."
Pavela spoke.
"Framed the Army General Staff Department."
Igor said nothing.
"The Security Bureau will investigate, the Gendarmerie will intervene, the Army will get dragged in, the pro-peace faction's foundation in Parliament will be shaken."
"And then the war will continue."
The alley was quiet for a long time.
So long that a thin layer of snow accumulated on Igor's back.
"...You know too much."
Igor's voice came muffled from the ground.
Carrying a trace of bitterness.
"I know just enough."
Pavela said.
Her voice still held little inflection, but the pressure from her foot increased slightly.
"Enough to see that what you're doing now is completely different from what you told me back then."
"Now, tell me."
"What is the objective of the Fire of Freedom's operation in Eisenburg?"
Igor's face was pressed against the gravel ground, the sharp edge of a stone digging painfully into his left cheek.
His mind was racing.
He also wanted to struggle again, to try and break free.
But the placement of that foot was too precise; any unnecessary movement might cost him his cervical spine.
So all he could do now was think.
The other person was from Usar.
The other person knew 'Bone Lock'.
The other person had said, 'what you told me back then'.
"Me".
Not 'told us', nor 'told your people', but 'told me'.
First person. Singular.
This meant the information didn't come from an external source, nor was it learned through intercepted communications or interrogated prisoners.
The other person was one of their own.
Or had been.
Igor quickly filtered through the list of organization members he knew.
It wasn't many.
The single-line contact system ensured each person only had access to a limited number of nodes.
Within the branch in the Empire, he only knew his superior, his subordinate, and a few peers he'd had to meet due to mission requirements.
But the clue of 'Bone Lock' narrowed the scope to an extremely small circle.
This technique wasn't something just anyone could learn.
It was only passed down within a specific lineage inside the organization.
The person who taught him and Natasha this technique was an old man with the codename 'Blacksmith'.
The Blacksmith had said he'd only taught it to three groups of people.
The first group were several core members from the organization's early days. Most were already dead.
The second group were Igor and Natasha.
The third group—
The Blacksmith hadn't said who the third group was.
Igor's thoughts lingered on this vague direction for a second before being interrupted by a more pressing question.
The other person knew the Fire of Freedom's goal.
The other person knew what the organization had 'promised back then'.
The other person knew that current actions differed from what was said back then. freewёbnoνel.com
This meant the other person wasn't just an ordinary peripheral member.
Ordinary peripheral members wouldn't know the organization's strategic direction, much less that this direction had shifted.
The other person's rank wasn't low.
At least similar to his, perhaps even higher.
But why would a high-ranking organization member appear deep within the heart of the Victorian Empire?
Why would they be wandering the alleys of Eisenburg in a cloak?
Why would they question him in a tone that sounded almost personal, saying 'it's different from what was said back then'?
Unless—
This person had left the organization.
Or the organization believed this person was already dead.
