Heinrich fell silent before the short letter claiming his brothers would kill him.
He wondered if it was a misdelivered letter, so Heinrich checked the envelope once again.
From a friend, to Heinrich von Schwarz.
Therefore, it couldn't be a misdelivered letter.
"What's the matter? What does it say that has you looking like that?" Kono Lint, noticing Heinrich's hardened expression, asked.
Should he tell him?
That a strange letter had arrived.
But Heinrich folded the letter and tucked it away.
"Ah, no. It's nothing important."
"…Really?"
There was no need to mention it if this letter was someone's malicious prank.
If this letter was indeed sent to warn him of danger, then knowing it alone would be dangerous enough, so there was no need to share it.
"I should go now. I need some rest."
Heinrich gathered the letters, feeling his mood had dampened.
With a rigid expression, he walked through the garrison and returned to his quarters.
After organizing the letters, Heinrich closed the entrance to his quarters, sat in a chair, and stared intently at the letter from an unidentified sender.
It wasn't a misdelivered letter.
And he didn't have any friends who would send such a letter.
It wasn't impossible for it to be a mere prank, as anyone could send a letter to Heinrich.
It was a simple sentence without any proper context, saying his brothers would kill him.
He couldn't believe such a thing.
It would be foolish to believe it.
But still…
"Once this situation is resolved, do you plan to return to Kernstadt?"
If his brothers had started to see him not as a brother but as a rival…
Could it really be impossible for such a thing to happen?
He could dismiss it as a malicious joke, or actually believe it should be that way.
But this letter had presented Heinrich with a possibility he had never considered.
There was no naive belief that his talented younger self would be welcomed back into the family.
However, Heinrich had merely thought that if so, his brothers were trying to use him for their own benefit, using his influence and the influence it would have on the high command.
That was how he had understood it.
But to go as far as killing him…
"What nonsense…"
It couldn't happen.
This couldn't be true.
Even if his position in this war became much stronger, Heinrich didn't think he could become Kernstadt's successor, nor did he have any intention to.
The current heir to the throne, Louise von Schwarz, was also a powerful Swordmaster, continually establishing accomplishments. It wasn't as if she lacked merits.
Both Heinrich and Louise were simply earning achievements.
Moreover, they were in the midst of a war.
This very important war hadn't ended yet, so even if his brothers truly intended to kill him, they wouldn't attempt it now.
Whether this letter was true or not, it would be a matter for after the war.
It had to be that way.
Would it make sense to kill him, one of the powerful forces of the allied army, simply because he posed a threat to the throne at this moment? How dangerous and foolish that would be.
He might not know much about politics or his brothers, but rationally speaking, it was something that should never happen.
Not before overcoming the crisis at hand.
Wouldn't it be foolish to make a choice for the next crisis after that?
However, even in this situation, unnecessary politics and power struggles were taking place.
Heinrich knew people could be foolish.
Even within the army that marched with great purpose, he had seen and experienced the foolish actions of those who looked only a step ahead or too far into the distance.
But still.
His brothers.
His brothers wouldn't.
They wouldn't try to kill him, would they?
That shouldn't be possible.
"Yes, they wouldn't do that..."
Heinrich burned the letter in his hand that had only brought him unnecessary confusion.
He watched the remnants of the letter turn to black ash and scatter with a stern expression on his face.
It was nighttime when everyone had gone to sleep, and it was time for Ellen, who had no night operations, to sleep as well.
For some reason, she had been carrying a cat that seemed to like her for quite some time, and eventually brought it into the barracks.
She had initially intended to return it to the dining hall where it had originally been.
"Since it's a kitten, wouldn't it be nice to stay with it? After all, it's been abandoned..."
Because of Adelia's words, Ellen had hesitated for a while before finally bringing the cat to the barracks.
The cat seemed to struggle for a moment but eventually, as if being pulled in, it entered Ellen's barracks without leaving her arms.
Somehow, her blurred consciousness and heart seemed to have found a bit of stability.
As she removed her ceremonial armor, the cat watched quietly as the armor hung on its stand.
Was it thanks to encountering this strange, small creature that had no business being here?
Ellen found it curious that her hazy consciousness was restored just by the presence of a single cat.
It felt as if she had been caught in an unknown spell.
Anyway, Ellen now thought about washing herself.
She stared at the cat.
She couldn't tell where or how it had come from.
It wasn't particularly dirty, but it was clear that it had been rolling around in the dust of the camp.
Although she had never cared for an animal before, Ellen thought she should wash the cat. The dust couldn't be good for the kitten.
She picked up the cat, which was sitting quietly on the barracks' carpet.
Meow
Holding the softly crying cat, Ellen headed towards the bathroom area of the barracks.
And then, as if it sensed where it was being taken,
Meeeeeow!
"…?"
Meow!
The cat began to struggle in Ellen's arms as if it had an intuition about its fate.
"We need to wash you."
Meow!
"Ah…"
As they entered the bathroom, the cat struggled desperately as if to say it was an absolute no-no, and managed to escape from Ellen's arms.
Ellen watched the cat as it hit the floor and scurried away with its tail between its legs.
Unable to hide properly, the cat was shivering in the corner of the tent with its head buried.
Would it be tormenting the animal to forcibly bathe it when it clearly didn't want to?
Ellen didn't particularly want to hurt the small creature.
"…"
Come to think of it, aren't cats supposed to hate water?
Ellen unbuttoned her shirt, thinking the old saying seemed to be true.
After washing herself in the bathroom, Ellen swiftly picked up the kitten, which was still frightened and hiding in the corner, and placed it on her lap.
While drying her hair with a towel, the kitten sat quietly, shivering.
Was it cold?
Adelia had mentioned that it seemed to be in pain.
Upon closer inspection, its movements were somewhat stiff, as if it were broken.
Unlike the image of a nimble cat, it appeared rather scrawny.
As she dried her hair, the cat slowly got up and stepped down from Ellen's lap, beginning to cry at the entrance of the tent.
Meow
It seemed to be asking for the door to be opened.
Ellen's tent, unlike the others, had a locking mechanism in place.
Thus, neither small animals nor people could easily come and go.
"Do you want to leave...?"
Although it felt strange to speak to an animal, Ellen asked the question.
The cat was said to have been abandoned by its mother, or at least that's what Ellen had heard.
So where could it possibly want to go in the middle of the night? Or maybe it knew a way to return to its mother.
Since she couldn't know what it was thinking, Ellen simply stared intently at the cat.
The black cat stared back at her.
One party remained silent, and the other couldn't speak.
How long did they gaze at each other like that?
The black cat seemed to give up, walking back from the tent entrance toward Ellen, and attempted to jump onto her makeshift bed.
Thud!
Meow!
"!"
However, it seemed unaccustomed to jumping and hit its head on the edge of Ellen's not-so-high makeshift bed before falling off.
"Are you okay...?"
Ellen carefully picked up the pitifully crumpled black cat from the carpet and placed it on her makeshift bed.
A cat that couldn't even jump.
Purr
The cat sat quietly beside Ellen, shivering.
Its appearance seemed almost embarrassed, causing Ellen to stifle a giggle.
Then, she was surprised to realize she had laughed.
Could she laugh at such a trivial matter?
Had she not yet lost her laughter?
Ellen finished drying her hair with the towel and tickled the nape of the trembling, embarrassed cat.
It seemed that the cat had given up on going somewhere and decided to stay in Ellen's tent.
Now that the operation was over, all Ellen had to do was rest.
Proper rest was important. Even if Ellen was strong, the battlefield could snatch her life away in an instant. A restless sleep or inadequate rest would affect her the following day.
The fatigue and flickering consciousness she felt lately were qualitatively different from ordinary tiredness.
Her combat ability was not diminishing, that much was clear.
Even as her consciousness grew dim and her vision blurred, she knew the path her blade must take, and her body moved automatically to strike down her enemies along the optimal route.
The strange feeling of being detached from her own consciousness, as if another being was using her body instead, increased.
For this reason, Ellen felt as if her body had been hijacked by someone, and that someone was wielding her body on her behalf.
For this reason, even though she felt suffocated by fatigue and pressure, her combat ability was not diminishing but rather being strangely elevated.
Turning off the lights and lying down on her makeshift bed, Ellen quietly watched the black cat curled up in front of her face.
The golden eyes of the black cat, and the pupils within, grew larger as they stared back at her in the darkness.
They were very close.
If it had been a person, they would have been close enough to see their own reflections in each other's eyes.
Ellen had never raised an animal before.
Even in her hometown of Rezaira, there were a few houses with dogs, but none with cats.
In Rezaira, animals were generally referred to as prey.
She had never thought about wanting to raise one.
It wasn't that she had never seen a cat before, but this was the first time she had seen one up close like this.
However, today, Ellen reached out to a cat she had never seen before, one that seemed out of place in such a location.
As if it knew something, the cat licked her fingers.
The unfamiliar sensation.
A strangely familiar feeling seemed to awaken something that Ellen was losing.
Before she knew it, she had brought the unfamiliar cat back to her tent, and now it was staring at her from beside her bed.
The cat continued to watch her from the shadows.
Golden eyes.
Eyes that somehow seemed familiar.
For that reason, Ellen felt as though the small animal, which knew nothing, understood her.
Ellen found herself amused at the thought.
"Now I understand why people keep pets... or so it seems."
-...
It's not that they keep them despite not being able to speak.
It's because they can't speak that they keep them.
Because they can project any emotion and feel understood.
Because they can delude themselves into believing they are understood even when they know nothing.
In the moment Ellen felt understood by the cat's eyes, she realized that it was her own desire for understanding that was projected onto it.
The black cat gently rubbed its head against Ellen's face.
It seemed to really understand, even though it was just a delusion that she was being understood.
Ellen gently stroked the cat's head with her hand resting on its back.
It was surprising how such a small being could help her hold onto her fading consciousness.
Her fatigue, the pressure, and the despair seemed to have diminished somewhat.
And so, her mind was now quite clear. Of course, due to fatigue, Ellen's consciousness was gradually sinking into the depths of sleep.
She managed to pull herself together today with the help of that small being, but how long could it last?
She could only receive a small amount of help from such a small existence.
Eventually, it would disappear.
"I don't want... to disappear..."
As Ellen's eyes grew heavy with sleep, she gazed at the cat.
In her fading consciousness.
For some reason, Ellen thought she saw tears well up in the small cat's eyes.
Could cats cry?
Ellen found the thought amusing.
Since when were tears exclusive to humans?
Humans can cry, and humans are ultimately beasts.
Tears must belong to all beasts, not just humans.
So, naturally, cats should be able to cry as well.
However, Ellen didn't know why the cat was crying.
The cat was crying when it should be the person crying.
"Don't... cry..."
Within her fading consciousness, Ellen gently wiped away the tears streaming from the kitten's eyes.
As for being a heavy sleeper or not, Ellen tended to sleep a lot.
Back in her beloved hometown, Ellen was always the child who woke up late, whether she fell asleep early or late.
Nobody scolded her for oversleeping, not her mother, father, or brother.
The little girl who woke up late became the young woman who woke up late.
But it was in the temple that Ellen realized she was a creature of habit.
She could wake up much earlier than her usual bedtime to do morning exercises.
After growing up, she learned that if necessary, she could reduce her sleep and sleep less in situations that required it.
In the temple, she voluntarily reduced her sleep, and now as part of the military, she reduced her sleep out of necessity.
And that wasn't unique to Ellen. Everyone had to start their day early.
As the days grew shorter, Ellen awoke in the dark hours of dawn, needing to head to the command center to receive her mission orders.
Having made the necessary preparations, Ellen donned her inner armor.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
As the armor stand activated, Ellen's ceremonial armor clung to her body, and the seams fit together automatically.
The divine sword of the moon god hung at her waist, and the sun god's cape draped over her shoulders.
Though there were no significant missions for the time being, Ellen was in charge of a constant campaign, always ensuring the safety of the march to the garrison, and eliminating any monsters that appeared.
After receiving her assignment and mission orders at the command center, she set out for the field.
Camping was exceedingly dangerous, so missions were generally completed within a day, but occasionally, they took several days.
Meow
"You must've been disturbed by the noise..."
Ellen watched the black cat, who had seemingly been awakened by the sound of her donning armor, rubbing its eyes and yawning on the bed.
The black cat stared wide-eyed at Ellen, who was now fully armed.
Ellen, clad in her resplendent armor, crouched down in front of the half-awake cat.
Then she gently tickled the cat's neck with her index finger.
"…Unpleasant, isn't it?"
Ellen wondered if the sensation of metal from her gauntlet-covered hand would harm the cat, so she carefully withdrew her hand.
"I have to go."
In just a day, Ellen had grown accustomed to speaking with the cat.
The cat seemed to understand her words and hopped off the bed to land beside Ellen.
Thump!
"…"
The cat, seemingly unaccustomed to jumping, failed to land properly even from the small bed and collapsed onto the ground.
How could it be so clumsy?
Despite its awkwardness, the cat quickly got back on its feet and meowed at the entrance to the tent.
Could it really understand her words?
Ellen couldn't help but have such strange thoughts.
When she unlocked and opened the tent, she saw people who had already started their morning routine, bustling about.
Ellen wasn't the only one who woke up early.
The black cat that emerged from the tent with her meowed by her side.
Meow
As if Ellen was going somewhere, the cat seemed to want to go somewhere too.
As if she could understand the cat's words, Ellen felt as though she could understand what the cat wanted to do.
It was an odd sensation she'd never felt before in her life.
Were cats always such free-spirited animals?
Ellen didn't know much about that aspect.
But like Ellen, the cat seemed to want to go somewhere, even though it didn't appear to be able to run properly.
Whatever it was, she couldn't force it. She didn't have the confidence to take proper care of it anyway.
Ellen looked down at the cat, who gazed up at her, and spoke softly.
"Come back again."
Meow
As if responding to her words, the cat cautiously began to walk away.
Ellen had said she was leaving, but the cat went first.
Even though she'd asked it to return, would it really come back?
That was something she couldn't know.
Even if it was only for a day, having a strange encounter with an unfamiliar cat in her life wasn't a bad thing. It was quite an extraordinary experience.
But if the black cat were to visit her again, that wouldn't be a bad thing either.
With that thought in mind, Ellen walked away.
