Raiden thought that maybe Theo, who was stationed in a base in Sankt Jeder, knew where Lena was, but the answer he got from the other side of the Resonance was bad news.
“They took Annette, too…?”
“If nothing else, they’re not on my base. I think they’re in the army HQ, but I can’t make up a reason to get permission to go there, and I don’t know anyone there who could check… Did Lena and Annette get in touch with you guys?”
“No… And it’s got Shin on edge. And I’ll be honest, it’s getting annoying.”
It wasn’t entirely terrible because Shin knew better than to let it show in front of the other members, but since he didn’t care about appearances around Raiden, he made no effort to hide his feelings there. Anju being depressed over Dustin was one thing, but he kept his composure in front of Kurena, probably as some last bastion of pride. Albeit, Kurena did notice his foul mood and was worried about him.
“What is he, some anxious pet dog?” Theo laughed, amused. “I kind of wish I could be there to see Shin like that.”
Owing to their long acquaintance, he came up with a very fitting metaphor.
“I guess I know how he feels, though. Seeing Annette get taken away like that makes me worried, too. Thinking back on it now pisses me off.”
“Huh. I didn’t know you two got along that well.”
“We really don’t. God, why does everyone keep saying that…?”
Theo seemed to be on good terms with his colleagues in his new base, and apparently, it was painfully obvious to their eyes, too.
Theo then took a breath and hushed his voice.
“…But for how much it ticks me off, I’m starting to think doing that to them might have been the right idea. Looking at things now.”
“Mm?”
“The town next to your base already got evacuated, so you wouldn’t notice, but… Over here in Sankt Jeder, the atmosphere both at the base and in town is pretty horrible.”
✦ ✦ ✦
As he spoke, Theo glanced at the end of the hall, glaring at a few soldiers who looked like they had something to say. He didn’t care if they were scrutinizing his friendship with Annette or treating him as a wiretap for being Eighty-Six. Following the wiretap incident, the criticism directed at the government after the first large-scale offensive was turned at the Republic citizens and the Alba.
“With so many soldiers dead and refugees coming in, everyone’s pointing fingers at one another, looking for someone to blame. It’s annoying. They’re running their mouths about the Strike Package, too, saying you should just go beat the Morpho already. They basically want ten Shins, and ten of Anju, Kurena, and you, basically ten of every Processor to come and clean things up. And Lena, His Highness, and Colonel Grethe.”
“Theo, chill. Especially with Vika. Imagine having to handle ten of him—it’d be a nightmare.”
“Just add ten of the priest and the Open Sea clans, and it’d be perfect… Anyway, stuff like this is why Republic people like Annette are better off not being on this base. Everyone’s in a frenzy, and they’d definitely lash out at her.”
“…Was the Morpho bombardment that bad?” Raiden asked, lowering his voice.
“The bombardment on its own wasn’t that bad; it’s just that on top of there being a lot of refugees, now there are people who voluntarily evacuated and are fleeing here. People’s discontent and opposition to them is pretty big.”
“Mm? Why are they opposing the people who evacuated?”
It would make sense if it was the evacuees who were showing discontent, but before that thought could reach Raiden’s lips, he sighed. That made sense. Theo hadn’t assumed this would happen, either.
“All the people who lived here to begin with won’t stop arguing…! They complain about them not knowing the language or how to read signs, or about how the stores are all crowded with people, or how all the libraries and parks are getting turned into shelters. Basically, they’re saying all these people are being a bother and should go away. It’s gotten to the point where they started saying the frontier people’s accents sound weird and that they look poor and dirty. And all the evacuees don’t like hearing that, so you get more fights and arguments.”
And fights and arguments meant more people got injured, be it the civilians who started the fights, the evacuees being picked on, or just unrelated people who happened to be around.
And even if not for any of these reasons, the residents of the capital felt that their daily peace was being disturbed by these refugees.
“People feel like their family’s livelihood is in danger, so even here at the base, lots of people end up seeing the refugees—and honestly at this point, all the people from the territories and the frontier—as criminals and pests. I’ve heard some people say outright that the government should mobilize the army to drive these farmers and foreigners out to the frontier.”
It felt like the Federacy, and the world at large, were being irrevocably…warped into something else.
✦ ✦ ✦
The army’s transport network being in a state of chaos due to disorderly evacuee traffic and the subsequent reduction in the front lines’ ability to fight; the drop in production; and the clashes between the capital and central territories’ citizens with the refugees.
“…This is what they were going for,” Yatrai grumbled bitterly.
There were a lot of question marks behind the Morpho bombardment. With the development of the Kampf Pfau, the Morpho’s original purpose for development—launching concentrated attacks on fortifications and enemy camps—became difficult to accomplish. This made the railway guns just oversize, expensive decorations that only took up space, but instead, the Legion relegated them for a much more sinister method of attack.
“The Legion made another vicious play. Using the Empire’s weakness against it.”
The Federacy and its predecessor, the Giadian Empire, were multiethnic countries. This meant its people had different races, different cultures, and spoke different tongues. On top of the disparity between the Empire’s ruling class and the people, there were countless other fractures in its society.
In addition to the citizens and the Vargus, there were city people and farmers, the center and the periphery, conquering races and subjugated ones. For many years, the Empire had been divided into many small groups. This was intentional on the nobility’s side, to keep the people from joining hands and rebelling.
The Empire becoming the Federacy gave everyone the title of “citizen,” which masked those divisions. But those divisions were only hidden, not gone, and now they were rearing their ugly head again. The people of the capital eyed the outdated, uneducated people of the frontier areas with disgust and scorn. They, in turn, were furious and suspicious of the capital’s people for living in comfort and luxury that was an entirely different world from the simple life in their hometowns.
And while that might have been a coincidence, the supply deficiency brought on by the front lines falling back coincided with the influx of evacuees—it was nightmarish timing. People sought reasons and causes for all the bad things that happened in their lives, and tying these people they had to welcome into their lives with those problems looked like clear and simple causality.
…Much like how terrible the timing of the Actaeon attacks was, but at least those concluded quietly with the girls’ deaths, and the military’s top brass were forced to hold back on disclosing the truth of what happened until the citizens calmed down somewhat.
Yatrai sighed in annoyance.
During Zelene’s questioning, they were able to confirm which members of the royal faction’s leaders were made into Shepherds. Much to his surprise, the prime minister and the generals under him weren’t integrated into the Legion. Moreover, despite there being multiple commander units, they weren’t members of the Imperial faction. Instead, they were only area commanders in that base.
So if nothing else, this attack wasn’t orchestrated by generals from the Imperial faction. And at the same time, a civilian or Eighty-Six Shepherd—most of which were child soldiers—could not have come up with such a plan.
At best, Eighty-Six Shepherds knew how to lead a single armored division, making it hard to imagine they would understand the intricacies of wide, military-scale supply lines. It was doubtful if they even had a proper grasp of lines of communication, to say nothing of the weakness of a large, multicultural, and fractured society.
So if the Legion knew this and fired the way they did intentionally…
“It must have been a soldier, and a high-ranking one from a nearby country…”
Yatrai was a child when the war began, meaning he didn’t know high-ranking commanders from his own country, to say nothing of another’s.
His black eyes glinted as he glared at the blue glow of the holo-screen.
“…Who is this?”