The Combat Baker and the Automaton Waitress Volume 7 Page 3

  “Here.”

  Lud gave Miroslav a cup that he had warmed with hot water, then poured in coffee.

  “We usually have a waitress serve coffee. She can make better coffee than this.”

  Lud spoke as he handed over the cup.

  “...............”

  Miroslav remained silent. The warmth of the cup had somewhat calmed his shaky fingers.

  “Hey, why don’t you call this off? If you keep this up, you’ll damage your health.”

  Lud spoke when he noticed Miroslav’s tension easing. He was maintaining the appearance of caring for Miroslav. But in fact, Lud genuinely cared about the man at this moment.

  Miroslav wasn’t a good man to anyone. But he wasn’t a deplorable, worthless man either. He was just a small-time crook confused about what he wanted. He had time left to redo his life. But more than anything...

  “You said my bread tastes good, right? So I won’t stand for any more moping!”

  “But...”

  “It’s all right. If you throw down your weapon and go outside without a fight, they won’t shoot you.”

  Ironically, throngs of journalists had come because they believed Miroslav was the last of the terrorists who had disturbed the royal capital. The police wouldn’t shoot him in front of the media.

  “And I’ll testify at the trial that you weren’t violent toward the children. You were just confused and pushed into a bad spot. After all, you didn’t shoot anyone, did you?”

  “No...”

  If Miroslav didn’t fire a shot, that alone would lessen his sentence.

  “Don’t worry. You can still do your life over.”

  Lud patiently attempted to convince Miroslav, but his effort didn’t bring him any closer to his objective.

  “How am I supposed to survive after getting out of prison?”

  Miroslav mumbled bitterly.

  “It’s over. At this stage, I’m already in checkmate. There ain’t no second chance in life!!”

  He shouted and pressed the gun in his hand to his temple.

  “No, Miroslav!”

  Lud raised his voice to stop him. However, calling Miroslav’s name didn’t have compelling force this time.

  “Sorry for all the trouble... I should’ve done this a long time ago!!”

  Miroslav had chosen to kill only himself. It was the least he could do to repay Lud. His hand was trembling, his fingers shaking. However, his finger was still capable of pulling a trigger.

  “Stop!!”

  Lud jumped toward Miroslav. As the two men struggled, a gunshot rang out.

  “Huh? What?”

  “Lud!”

  Jacob and Milly, who were asleep, jumped at the sound. And then...

  “Master!”

  They heard another voice. The silver-haired girl, Sven, flew down from the ceiling.

  “Sven? Huh? How did you get in here?!”

  “I jumped onto the roof, ripped it away, and snuck into the attic!”

  Sven explained as though it was nothing special.

  After sneaking into the attic, she looked for a chance to rescue Lud and the others. But before that happened, she heard a gunshot and plunged in without further thought.

  “Master, are you hurt?”

  Lud and Miroslav had been struggling, but now they weren’t moving. More accurately, Lud had suppressed Miroslav, covering and immobilizing him.

  “W-Why? Why?!”

  Miroslav was stunned and spoke weakly. Blood was pooling beneath them.

  “No...”

  Sven was speechless.

  That wasn’t Miroslav’s blood. It came from Lud, who was struck by the bullet when the gun accidentally went off as he tried to stop Miroslav.

  “Master?! Nooooo!!”

  Lud’s injury was a trillion times more painful to Sven than her own death would be. Even worse, Lud had fallen and wasn’t moving.

  “Ouch...”

  Or so she thought... but then he slowly rose.

  “Miroslav, are you all right? You mustn’t be hasty!”

  He reproached Miroslav, but blood was streaming from his body. The criminal was more important to him than his own wound.

  “Master, we have to stop the bleeding! We’ll treat you! Sterilize it!! Medic!! Medic!!”

  Lud was calm, but Sven was panicked and perplexed enough for two people.

  “You... Your injury... Are you okay?!”

  “Uh... yeah.”

  Lud finally noticed.

  “It didn’t hit a vital organ. So it should be no problem.”

  “No, no, no...”

  Blood had drained from the confused shooter, making him paler than Lud, who was actually bleeding.

  “Why... you... Why are you being so kind to me? I damaged your shop!”

  Miroslav found it hard to understand Lud’s behavior.

  “Well... it’s hard to explain.”

  As if embarrassed, Lud scratched his head.

  “That rye bread you ate will be sweeter and tastier after a few days.”

  “Really?”

  People assume bread tastes better immediately after baking, but some bread gains flavor with time.

  “And while I don’t have the ingredients right now, if you make a sandwich with salmon, onion and an olive-oil sauce, it’s absolutely mouth-watering. And I can make better coffee.”

  Lud wasn’t good at smiling. Even now his face looked angry. However, his tone was like a parent talking about a child he had lovingly raised.

  “I want anyone who says my bread is delicious to be able to say it’s delicious again. So, for my sake, please don’t do anything reckless.”

  “All right...”

  Miroslav dropped his gun as if he had lost all his strength. The sound of metal dropping on the floor resounded throughout the shop.

  “Grah! I don’t care about you!! Move outta the away!”

  However, this waitress who loved her master more than anything didn’t care one whit about that.

  “Oof!”

  She kicked Miroslav away and lifted Lud’s large frame more than two heads taller than her own.

  “S-Sven? Huh? What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean what am I doing?! You have to see a doctor! So we’re going to the hospital!”

  “No, it isn’t that serious.”

  Lud was a former soldier. His job had once been on the battlefield, where bullets constantly whizzed back and forth, so he had suffered gunshots more than once. Based on his experience, he determined that the injury from a shell of this caliber was no threat to his life. And he was correct.

  However, that wasn’t the issue for Sven. Even if the wound had been no bigger than a hair’s width, it was a tragedy that her beloved master was injured.

  “Graaah!”

  She kicked open the door of the shop—the door she usually opened and closed so carefully—as if trying to break it. Normally, she wouldn’t do this because the shop was Lud’s treasure. However, her loyalty to him was so great that she would damage what Lud treasured without reserve if it meant saving him.

  “W-What?!”

  “What happened?!”

  “I heard a gunshot! Is anyone injured?”

  “Uh, hey... you?”

  The eyes of the police and media around the shop were astounded at the sight of the silver-haired girl suddenly appearing with a large man in her arms.

  “Where’s a doctor?!” Sven yelled at the gawkers.

  “Um, what are you going to do now, Mister?”

  The criminal Miroslav was left in the shop, and Jacob was worried about him.

  “I think... I’ll turn myself in.”

  Just when he was desperate enough to choose death, Sven had appeared and told him she didn’t care about him at all, and that had broken his will in yet a new way. Thus, the incident at Tockerbrot came to an end. But no one, not even Lud or Sven, was aware that this was just a forerunner to the real crisis ahead.

  Chapter 2: Raising the Alarm r />
  “I’m not sure how to put this, but... Lud, you’re amazing!”

  Inside Tockerbrot, a few days after the hostage incident, Marlene—the nun from the church atop the hill—was both impressed and appalled. The bakery had finally returned to regular business hours.

  “You got shot, didn’t you? So why are you back at work just three days later?”

  When Miroslav barricaded himself inside Tockerbrot, Lud had struggled with him and received a gunshot in his side. But now he was hard at work baking bread in the oven room as if nothing had happened.

  “Well, I guess I’m training myself.”

  Lud answered Marlene with a wry smile.

  He made that face for two reasons. One was that Marlene had been stunned at his strong body instead of praising it. Another was that he had lost more of his edge than he realized.

  I thought I could stop Miroslav before he fired.

  Lud should have been able to stop a confused punk from taking a shot, and it was disturbing that he hadn’t. He had considered the risk of an accidental shot, but he thought he would be able to seize control first—or least dodge the bullet. Lud was the former ace pilot known as the Silver Wolf, and before that he was a special ops soldier called a Werewolf, so he shouldn’t have been injured that way.

  If Genitz were still alive, he’d be so shocked his jaw would hit the floor! During his time as a special ops soldier, Genitz had used Lud as his right hand man. If Genitz were here, he would shake his head at Lud in disgust.

  However, Lud’s grim smile now wasn’t from sadness over losing his edge. Rather, it was joy. He was losing his skills as a soldier, which was evidence that Lud Langart was becoming a baker. But he found it ironic how this incident confirmed it.

  “Forget about me. How’s Milly?”

  A criminal with a gun had taken her hostage. Such a frightening incident wouldn’t be easy for a fourteen-year-old girl.

  “Oh, she’s fine. She’s eating and sleeping fine, but she’s worried about you.”

  It appeared that Lud’s concern was unnecessary. Marlene answered as if she found something funny.

  “I heard Jacob is fine, too. Our children are tough!”

  Jacob had also been a hostage, and he had missed school to take care of his mother, who was more upset and exhausted than Jacob.

  “I’ve caused trouble for those two.”

  Lud didn’t care about getting hurt, but it was a different story when it came to others.

  “Don’t say that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Marlene attempted to cheer him up, but it wasn’t that easy.

  “It’s not about who’s to blame and who isn’t. The problem is how an adult like me endangers children when I’m around them.”

  Lud was full of remorse that his attention to protecting others had dulled along with his instincts as a soldier.

  “Hey now...”

  Marlene now wore a different but equally astounded look.

  “Isn’t there someone else you should be even more concerned about?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean Sven. Ever since that day, she’s seemed down. Surely you’ve noticed.”

  When Lud had been carried to the hospital on the night of the hostage incident, Sven watched over him the whole time. Lud had been right that his injury was not life-threatening. However, surgery was necessary to remove the bullet. Afterward, as he slept under anesthesia, Sven sat beside him with a pained expression on her face.

  “She blames herself for injuring her ‘precious master.’”

  “But she didn’t do anything wrong!!”

  Lud raised his voice in surprise.

  “But this isn’t about who’s to blame and who isn’t, right?”

  “Urgh...”

  Lud was speechless hearing Marlene repeat what he had just said.

  “You two have surprisingly similar natures.”

  Marlene was grinning, and Lud could only reply with a troubled look.

  “Yeah, that might be true.”

  Sven wasn’t human. She was a humanoid Hunter Unit. An android. Moreover, her creator had given her the artificial intelligence of the Hunter Unit that Lud had once piloted. That A.I. had belonged to mass-produced weapons, but this unit had gained a heart. And meeting Lud had given birth to that heart.

  Sven’s heart grew in the soil that was Lud. For that reason, the two often thought and reacted in the same way. There was no way for Marlene to know this, but she sensed it anyway. She was surprisingly insightful.

  “What should I tell her?”

  If Lud was in Sven’s place, he would feel worse if the person he was concerned about tried to reassure him, or said he hadn’t done anything wrong. Because then he would know he had made that person worry. And Sven might feel the same way.

  “Well, in that case...”

  Before the servant of God could give him her valuable advice, the door of Tockerbrot blasted open.

  “Master!!”

  It was Sven—the very person they were discussing.

  “Oh! Sven... um...”

  There is a saying: ‘Speak of a wolf and he’ll appear.’ Nevertheless, her perfect timing took Lud aback.

  “We’ve got a problem!”

  She had urgent news. It was a sticky problem, so finding a solution would be difficult.

  At Bengabaer Officer’s School, located in a distant corner of a district next to Berun, the royal capital of the Principality of Wiltia...

  The school was built long ago so the children of provincial nobles could learn etiquette and acquire a general education before going to the royal capital. But times had changed and it was currently a school for young cadets.

  “This is already my seventh school...”

  Just today, Hildegard von Hessen—or Hilde for short—had transferred to this officer’s school. She mumbled as she gazed out the window.

  “I hope this time I can at least stay a month!”

  After Genitz’s rebellion, Hilde had been passed from one school to another, starting with Dangoltinoza Officer’s School. And that wasn’t because she had done anything wrong.

  “Tch! Why are there so many weird problems everywhere?!”

  She hadn’t done anything herself, but every time she transferred to a new school, internal problems surfaced leading to that school’s closure, temporarily or permanently.

  “Really! There are problems all over! Like students organizing on-campus gambling and illegal loans! And teachers acting like pimps and discriminating against female students based on where they were born! And people establishing the political arm of a new cult!”

  “Yeah, they should dedicate their time to studying!”

  Since long ago, schools have been closed worlds. That seclusion was to preserve a place where the youth could develop neutral and fair-minded thinking without influence from outside ideas. When they emerged, they would be able to judge things calmly and rationally.

  Inside their fences, people consciously avoid interference from outside. And that isn’t necessarily a problem. Or, that is how things should be. However, that seclusion also makes it difficult for problems inside those fences to rise to the surface. Meanwhile, the darkness haunting such places only deepens.

  In the east, there was a heretical practice called ‘kodoku.’ This was a ritual for creating brutal creatures with high concentrations of poison by sealing several poisonous animals in a pot and making them eat each other. Something similar sometimes occurs in schools.

  “So...”

  Only now did Hilde look at the friend who had casually joined her as she talked to herself.

  “Lillie, you’re too close.”

  Hilde chided Lillie, even though she knew Lillie was unlikely to correct herself.

  “Huh? How so?”

  “Is there any other word for it when your arm is around mine, your head is on my shoulder, and your cheek is pressed against mine?!”

  Without Hilde noticing, Lillie had taken her arm and press
ed close.

  Lillie was a friend Hilde had met at her first school, before all the subsequent transfers. Since then, every time Hilde moved, Lillie followed her to the next school, attended the same class, and even sat next to her.

  “Lillie... how do you manage to follow me every single time?”

  This time, too, Lillie had shown up at Bengabaer Officer’s School. Hilde was no longer surprised.

  “Let’s see... maybe a good phrase to describe it would be the power of love.”

  Joyfully, Lillie answered Hilde.

  “Oh, okay...”

  And Hilde no longer had the strength to argue. She didn’t know it, but the embassy of Yamato, a nation allied with Wiltia, had sent Lillie to covertly inspect educational facilities in the Principality of Wiltia. This was the official and top secret explanation.

  The actual reason, however, was to cultivate a personality in Lillie. She wasn’t human. Just like Sven—aka Svelgen Avei—Lillie was a humanoid Hunter Unit.

  Meeting Hilde truly had been a coincidence. However, that coincidence had awakened Lillie’s heart. And the trigger had been her love for Hilde.

  “Never mind why your seat is next to mine, but why is your room next to mine?!”

  For the most part, all the students lived in dormitories, since this was an officer’s school. It was unusual, but each student at the school had an individual room, and Lillie had moved into the one next to Hilde’s.

  “Someone else was living there until the day before I moved in.”

  “Yeah! We switched rooms!”

  “Switched? But... how?!”

  “I asked, like, super hard!”

  “You just asked?”

  Hilde found it hard to believe, but Lillie didn’t appear to be lying.

  Lillie had politely and respectfully pleaded with the student living there to exchange rooms. When the girl had rudely refused with a flat-out “No,” Lillie had used her bare hands to bend a metal pipe she just happened to be carrying, before asking again. It had been very close to intimidation and a threat, but it was indubitably a means of persuasion.

  “Okay, whatever. But why was there a hole in the wall this morning?”

  “Oh, did I wake you up? Sorry.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  Lillie’s answer evaded Hilde’s point.