Chapter 63: Armed Negotiations

As declared, Marche was nowhere to be found.

However, the war wasn’t over yet. The Libere Clan was still around.

I don’t know whether they were being used or acting on their own, but it was the other side that picked this fight.

Fine. I’ll go all in.

It’ll make the cleanup easier later.

And more than anything, it’ll help me blow off some steam.

The Libere Clan’s cavalry came into view.

The man leading the charge rode a spider-like creature.

Multiple eyes, many legs—its body was built to show its worth on unstable ground, like rocky mountains. Even so, now clad in armor and gliding smoothly across the plains, it made for quite a sight.

Still, once I shoot and kill it, it’s just meat—an obstacle.

I pull the trigger and reap the life caught beneath my finger.

A bullet slips through the slit in its armor; one of the spider’s compound eyes bursts, and it collapses. The ones behind can’t slow down in time, plunging into chaos.

The ranks jam up. The packed line is hit by the following wave, and the weight and momentum crush them to death.

Apparently, Marche’s company doesn’t handle after-sales service very well. Seems they haven’t passed along what became of their new product.

The Libere Clan, charged up as though they’d only come to pick up an easy victory, hadn’t even spread their troops out. No real caution, either. About three hundred of them.

How many died just now, I wonder?

With that thought, I eject the spent casing. It hits the ground with a clang.

“S1—hit.”

『S2—same.』『S3—hit.』『S4—I put one on target!』

“Confirm front stalled. The lower ranks have opened engagement. We hold position for now. Once the runner arrives, resume sniping—don’t miss.”

『Roger.』『S3—roger.』『Who are you talking to, Ratchet?』

“I’m talking to you, S4.”

I tossed the line out as a joke, and the show-off started making a fuss.

I let out a soft sigh.

Perched on the rocky heights with the Leone Clan’s crack snipers, I had somehow—by consensus or madness—been elevated to leader of the sniper company.

Honestly, giving orders to others doesn’t sit well with me; I’m not used to it and would rather not. Still, since they’d chosen me, I decided to treat it as a good experience and grit my teeth.

―…

Without an electronic tone, Snake Unit rolled up and bumped against me in protest. It was in a slightly sour mood—apparently, it didn’t like having the S2 call sign taken. What a diva.

“All right, just this once. Put up with it.”

―pi

Snake Unit’s eye blinked weakly in reluctant compliance, while, in contrast, Rikan’s infantry roared forward with brutal force and drove screams through the stalled enemy line.

Watching that, I was certain we’d won.

***

The mortar floor was cold and smooth.

When I kicked off the floor, my mechanical left leg gave a high-pitched sound.

The unfamiliar suit was terribly hard to move in, and the choking tightness at my neck—was it because I’d buttoned the collar all the way, or because of the tie drawn too tight?

I was walking down the corridor of a certain building in formal wear.

It was uncomfortable, but Rikan looked worse, so I could still bear it.

Rikan’s suit was stretched to the limit. Straining at every seam. Very, very strained.

To be honest, it was amusing to watch. Still, the thought of having to sit down for a negotiation made me uneasy. Not being used to suits meant they’d rarely had cause to attend situations like this.

I hadn’t, either.

I decided to rely on the cat-eared, glasses-wearing woman who could pull off a career-woman pantsuit.

I looked at her, mulling that over, and caught her eye as she turned.

“Leave it to us.”

She nodded firmly.

“Mm. We’ve got this.”

Rikan nodded the same way.

“—”

The catchlight in the cat-eared glasses’ eyes had died. Her look at us was one of pure exasperation.

I wish she wouldn’t look at me like that. All I’m here for is to play the part—black suit, sunglasses, and, on Rikan’s cue, to take them off and glare. Being neither human nor a member of the Leone Clan, I can’t take part in the negotiation itself.

It’s your fault for not properly training your Young Master.

Well then, let’s hope he learns something from this and grows a little.

A negotiation. Yes—just a negotiation.

They’d been sandwiched, crushed so thoroughly there was no room even to flee, and yet the Libere Clan still wouldn’t surrender.

They’d shown a will to keep fighting. To any eye—even the Libere’s own—defeat was obvious. Still, they held out.

The reason was simple.

Their sponsor wouldn’t allow it.

Three days earlier, trapped between the sponsor and the Leone Clan, the Libere’s representative had come begging, clutching their chieftain’s head as a peace offering and pleading, “Please, help us persuade the sponsor.”

Of course, people swore. “Are you kidding me? I’ll gut them. Who do they think they are?” — that sort of thing came up. But someone needed to find a way to settle this. You can’t wage war forever; forgiveness matters. First, you lick their boots, someone sensible said, and that idea carried the day. Rikan was sent.

I thought it was a mistake in personnel, but even now Rikan, ranked sixth, would only climb higher. The older guard’s advice — “Get used to this sort of thing” — won out.

And lonely little Rikan cooked up that baffling role— “take off your sunglasses and act threatening” —and dragged me into it.

I’m not saying he should die, but I wouldn’t mind if he stubbed his little toe on a corner.

Still, I want Marche’s intel as much as anyone. I’ll use this meeting to press the Libere Clan for answers.

All the same—

I looked around and couldn’t help thinking how different it all felt.

The Leone Clan’s tent-and-camp life is one thing; this glass-fronted building was another. The air-conditioning hummed, the atmosphere more like the time I’d been inside Amatsu Mining’s offices.

This was the sponsor’s territory.

“…”

There was an obvious difference in funding between these people and Rikan’s. If they ever fought a real war, the outcome was clear—

“Rikan, did the Leone Clan do something to these people?”

Even if we’d stepped on someone’s tail, this level of hostility was excessive, wasn’t it?

“Hm… who can say?” Rikan grumbled, tail flicking. “They’re one of the sponsors who gave us a major job before you arrived, but as far as I recall, nothing went wrong at the time…”

He let out a thoughtful growl.

“Well, just being alive can make someone hate you without you ever knowing why. Such is the way of things.”

“How very…”

Bleak, I thought.

I gave a small shrug and followed after Rikan as he walked ahead.

***

The reception room we were shown into looked, by human standards, exactly like a reception room should.

Between this building itself and the interior decor, Tooth seemed to have adopted a distinctly human sense of aesthetics. No—adopted isn’t quite right. It made more sense to say that Tooth had once been human. That felt closer to the truth.

Two black leather sofas faced each other across a glass-topped table.

A painting hung on the wall—an image of the world as it was now, a red and barren earth.

On one sofa, the other party was already seated, waiting.

Rikan and the cat-eared-glasses woman sat opposite them, while I stood behind the two, playing the role of their guard.

The man with the compound eyes looked familiar. He was the representative of the Libere Clan.

Which meant the one sitting beside him had to be the sponsor.

A dog.

A man with the head of a slender hound, the kind that made you think of the wall paintings from ancient Egypt. Far removed from humanity. Sharp fangs. Sharper eyes.

There was no telltale bulge of a gun beneath his jacket, but the black metal rings that adorned his fingers like jewelry were clearly meant for something practical. Their purpose wasn’t hard to guess.

“D.D.,” the dog-faced man said lazily. “I’m here representing my clan for peace negotiations.”

“…”

Hidden behind my sunglasses, I stared at D.D.

That wasn’t how the story went.

The Libere Clan’s claim had been that the war couldn’t end because their sponsor refused to allow it.

But now this man was calling it a peace negotiation.

The tone—no, the color of the situation was completely different from what we’d been told.

That’s what I thought.

But I was wrong.

“Apologize, Leone. Then I’ll call this done.”

“…Hm.”

Something tore—a sound like fabric snapping. It came from Rikan. Must’ve ripped somewhere on his suit.

“This war began with your side’s attack.”

“That’s not untrue.”

“We are the victors.”

“As for Libere… well, that’s true enough.”

“…You’re asking us to apologize to you?”

“Yes. Or are you saying we should apologize to you?”

“We are.”

“Is that so.”

A faint, singeing smell crept through the air.

The scent you get on a battlefield—the metallic tang that hangs over a place where people have just tried to kill one another. Killing intent. That kind of smell.

Give me a break. There are no Monoz around right now, and I’m not wearing a centipede. If this blows up, I’ll be the first to die—before the cat-eared woman, even.

But it didn’t come to that.

“Pity,” D.D. said, in a voice that made clear he didn’t mean it, and rose to his feet.

“…Wait.”

Rikan called, low and trembling with anger, then slowly bowed his head.

“On behalf of the Leone Clan, we apologize for this war.”

“I accept.”

D.D. accepted with an air of condescension and settled back onto the sofa.

And with that, the peace talks were over.

It was a brutally one-sided negotiation, enforced by power, by military might.

I’d done the same thing once before against Amatsu Steelworks. Back then we took the short-term advantage and left the long-term matters to Arawn, who were a tier above both me and our opponents.

I see now.

Is this what negotiation looks like when you’re truly the strong party?

The history of weapons is a history of offense. It’s easier to improve one’s striking power than to harden every defense. An anti-tank missile that can wreck a hundred-million-yen tank can be bought for maybe a twentieth of that price.

So you can assemble attack power.

But while offensive capability might be comparable, endurance is not.

The Leone Clan, with its settlements, families, and whole population, cannot sustain a prolonged war.

Rikan’s four fists creaked. Blood welled from his clenched knuckles. He must be holding himself back from biting—barely keeping it together. Words wouldn’t come from Rikan’s bared fangs.

Kauko-san looked our way. Her ears drooped, as if begging for help.

—There was no choice.

I scratched my head and lifted a hand. D.D. met my gaze.

He tilted his chin as if to say, “Go on, speak.”

“Question,” I said. “Why did you attack the Leone Clan?”

“Before that—are you human?” he replied.

I said nothing and slid off my sunglasses.

“Hmph. I don’t know which family you’re from, but you’ve got sharp eyes.”

It was decided: I was Tooth. I flinched in silence.

“We’ve got a war coming up. Leone was once hired by our future opponent, so we wanted to neutralize them in advance. We knew Leone would be a pain.”

“Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d hired them beforehand yourself?” I asked.

“—That’s the policy right now. Libere and that so-called ‘new weapon’ they sold off just weren’t up to snuff.”

“‘Right now’?”

In other words—

“Hm. You’re sharper than Leone’s brats, it seems. Fine. We’ll get into the details of terms.”

D.D. leaned back on the sofa, arrogant and condescending.

“This was a good war, Leone. We’ll hire you. We’re going to start a war against humans. First thing: cut ties with the humans.”