[V10C4] Klaus and Lutz
Translated by Jodas 10: A Job for a Con ManFiene, contractor to ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’ was the daughter of Otto and his wife Satie who had been considered dead for the past thirteen years.
The moment Abel acknowledged that fact, Otto’s chair collapsed with a thud as he stood up and ran out the door. As he ran, Otto howled.
“KLAUS!!”
This was bad. Hütter wasted no time in chasing after Otto.
The wounded Headmaster — Klaus Möbius — should have been undergoing treatment on the first floor of the village hall.
Otto dashed down the staircase. He was fast on his feet. While he often had the appearance of an old gatekeeper past his prime, he used to be a member of the Extermination Office. His physical capabilities were head and shoulders above what some old con man could do.
Once he reached the first floor, Otto intended to keep running and barge straight into the room where Headmaster Möbius was. However, before he could make it to the bottom of the staircase, he stopped.
When Hütter caught up, he noticed it as well: where Otto’s gaze was fixed, he heard voices.
“Headmaster, I told you you can’t stand up yet~! Please go back to sleep! Director Treu’s gonna get mad at me~!”
(That voice is Branch Director Meine’s isn’t it? From the Medical Office’s Second Branch?)
She was a somewhat slovenly woman with frizzy hair and glasses.
While she wasn’t the best at nursing at the Medical Office, she must have been assigned to watch over Möbius while the more talented Director Treu had her hands full with other patients.
“Come here Dammer, help me out!”
“Shut up! Don’t order me around you bitch!”
Following Meine was another voice he recognized. This was the man with the X-shaped scar on his face: the Extermination Office’s Dammer.
After finally reaching the bottom of the staircase, Hütter took in the sight that Otto was beholding.
Before them stood Headmaster Möbius, covered in bloody bandages from head to toe and yet looking determined to head to the battlefield once more.
Meine and Dammer held him from either side, trying to persuade him to return to his room.
Anyone could tell just by looking that Möbius was in no shape to be walking around like that. The blood soaking his bandages looked painful, and more concerning were his arms — his right hand was entirely missing from the wrist forward.
This man, who held a talent that any who witnessed it would profess matched those of the Sword Saint, would now no longer be able to wield a sword in the same way ever again.
Despite that, Möbius still had it in him to fight. He forced his stiff muscles to move and dragged his wounded body out of bed.
“Where’s ‘Ignatius, the Severer’? … I need to go exterminate them … I need to kill them as soon as possible…”
“Klaus.”
Otto called Möbius’ name. Just his first name, like he did back when they fought side-by-side.
Möbius’ eyes failed to find a clear focus as he muttered almost like he was sleeptalking.
“Hold on, Lutz. I’ll go kill them. I’ll kill them all. Once I’ve wiped out all of the Monsters…”
Lutz Otto’s face scrunched up.
With an unseemly expression that looked halfway between crying and irate, Otto spoke.
“…Are you saying that once you’ve wiped out all the Monsters, my daughter will go free?”
The life returned to Möbius’ hollow eyes.
If such a cruel reality was awaiting him, perhaps he would have been better off in a daze like he was.
Both Meine and Dammer looked confused as they continued to hold Möbius up. They had no clue what was happening. Otto didn’t even spare a glance to the two of them as his glare fixated on Möbius.
“Why?”
Otto’s voice of condemnation was filled with rage, hatred… and angush.
“Why? … Why did you use Satie and I’s daughter as a sacrifice!? Huh!? TELL ME, MÖBIUS!”
Möbius faltered under the pressure of his visceral shout.
This man wasn’t the type to make excuses. Hütter knew that. Thus, Hütter stepped between the two of them.
The worst-case scenario was Otto letting the rage get the best of him and killing Möbius right here.
To avoid that, the third-rate con man desperately put his mind to work.
“Otto, you were injured in the large-scale attack thirteen years ago, right?”
Otto blanched at Hütter’s statement.
“That’s…”
“You were hurt quite badly, weren’t you? Enough that you had to be carried to safety on the other side of the Wall.”
Möbius was not yet Headmaster at the time of the large-scale attack thirteen years ago.
Both Möbius and Otto, who would have been around thirty at the time, were members of the Extermination Office who lived fighting Monsters day-in and day-out.
When a Monster with an obsession for war lead a horde of underlings to attack the Wedge Tower, there were more casualties than ever before.
“…And in the middle of that situation, the contractor to ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’ died, necessitating a new contractor.”
He wasn’t quite sure of the order in which the various events — The Monster’s attack, Otto’s injury, his wife Satie’s childbirth and death, and the death of Chariclea’s contractor — occurred.
Nevertheless, all of these compounding tragedies took place in reasonably quick succession.
“I can’t speak to the character of the previous Headmaster, but considering how he treated Spiremaster Abel, well, I bet he was a real piece of shit. That previous Headmaster, when he was fretting over the death of Chariclea’s contractor — Spiremaster Abel’s daughter — noticed the baby who’d just been born… and made her, Satie and Otto’s daughter, the next contractor.”
If the wall wasn’t maintained, Monsters would invade the entire Empire. The first to be targeted would be those people who’d taken shelter just on the other side of the wall. Among them was the wounded Otto.
With pity, Hütter cast a glance at Möbius.
“Headmaster Möbius… You couldn’t bear to choose between the lives of your best friend and his daughter, could you?”
Möbius gave neither confirmation nor denial. Instead, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head like a criminal awaiting his punishment.
(It’s a tale as old as time… Unlucky people who have all the talent in the world, but who for whatever reason just keep drawing all the short straws.)
Klaus Möbius was one such man.
He had to worry about his best friend who was gravely wounded and could die at any moment, and then also that friend’s newborn daughter. There was no comparing the values of human lives. It wasn’t unheard of for people to be forced to make cruel decisions by such circumstances.
If he didn’t and the wall was lost, Otto was only one of many who would have died. Möbius didn’t have the luxury of choice.
By forcing Möbius to make a decision when there was no real choice, it was clear how rotten the previous Headmaster was.
He created a situation where Möbius would feel and be bound by the guilt of his choice for the rest of his life.
(…Now that I think about it, I’d always found it weird how this guy ended up being the Headmaster.)
Headmaster Möbius showed no inclination towards power or influence. For someone who was the highest authority at the Wedge Tower, where all forms of magecraft were gathered, he had no real passion for magical research either.
He had always quietly devoted himself to hunting Monsters. He had been more desperate than anyone else to drive the Monsters to extinction.
“…You chose to become Headmaster so there would be no more people like Spiremaster Abel, didn’t you? Then, by wiping out the Monsters, you wanted to make a world where ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’ was no longer necessary… Am I wrong?”
Hütter had no idea what it was like on the day of the large-scale attack. He filled in a lot of the gaps with his imagination, but he felt he was right about the broad strokes of it at least.
Headmaster Möbius spoke up in a quivering voice.
“…Satie told me… to take care of Lutz and her daughter…”
His hollow eyes stared at the spot where his hand was missing.
“So why… Why won’t my hand move?”
Hütter glanced back at Otto.
This man, who had lost his wife, had his daughter stolen, and been betrayed by his best friend, made an expression of resignation. Then, ever so quietly, he whispered.
“… You dumbass.”
The three students from Hütter’s class watched the exchange while hiding behind the staircase.
“Wow, Mr. Hütter’s awesome…”
“Indeed. Thanks to him, I understand the situation.”
Wren and Sevil whispered to each other, then looked at Tia.
Tia couldn’t say anything.
— That girl I hate so much was Otto’s daughter; a sacrifice who maintained the wall at the cost of her life.
— The reason Möbius was trying to wipe out the Monsters was in order to liberate his best friend’s daughter.
(I can kind of understand how Otto is feeling…)
Things might have been so much easier had she been able to give herself into her anger and hatred.
And it wasn’t like she didn’t have those feelings burning away at her heart. However, some emotion she could not swallow found itself stuck in the back of her throat.
Tia understood that humans called this a feeling of ‘resignation.’
(I’m sure if you asked me only a little while ago, I would have said “I don’t care about your sob story!” and cut him down without a thought.)
Even now, half of her still felt that way. But it was clear as well that the other half felt differently.