Officially, Major Tanya Degurechaff died a war criminal's death, a name consigned to history along with the Empire that created her. Unofficially, she lives on—traded away like a piece of classified hardware, the last currency a defeated nation has left to spend. Her knowledge of the Empire's captured nuclear arsenal is the only thing standing between her and the hangman's noose, and Lieutenant General Zettour has made the calculation without sentiment: a dead hero is worthless, but a living sec
Silver, Posthumous Deal - The Cage of Surveillance — The Corpse Kept in the Private Residence, and the Old General's Remorse
The spring warmth had finally begun to reach the imperial capital of Berunstadt.
Colonel Lergen von Waldstein sat in the study of his home, clutching a single order document in his hand. Outside the window, befitting an upscale residential district in the northern suburbs, well-tended roadside trees swayed with fresh green leaves. The birdsong was almost eerily peaceful.
(Keep a monster, is it.)
The document might as well have said exactly that. The official wording was "protective custody and surveillance of a former Imperial military officer legally deceased," but the reality was to confine her in this private residence, monitor her, and hide her existence from the outside world.
His stomach throbbed with a sharp pain.
Lergen pressed his left hand against his gut and heaved a deep sigh. Barely twenty years old, and the title of practical administrator for postwar affairs was far too heavy a burden. On top of that, now he was to be the handler of the Silver Reaper.
(Why me?)
He already knew the answer. Because Lieutenant General Zettour von Stauffenberg had named him. The cunning old schemer, utterly indifferent to a young man's stomach pains, had chosen the most manageable pawn.
"Colonel, your guest has arrived."
There was a knock at the study door, and an elderly servant poked his head in.
"...Ah, understood. Show her in."
Lergen slipped the order document into his desk drawer and straightened his military collar. Suppressing the pain in his stomach, he squared his shoulders.
Before long, footsteps echoed from the entrance hall. Light, small footsteps. They stopped just outside the study.
The door opened.
Standing there was a petite girl, silver curls swaying at her shoulders. Her crystalline blue eyes gazed straight at Lergen. Perhaps from her military days, her posture was ramrod straight.
Tanya Degurechaff.
Once hailed as the star of the Imperial Mage Aerial Corps, now a woman who was dead on paper.
"It has been a while, Colonel."
She spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.
"...Yes. Come in."
The moment Tanya entered the study, her blue eyes darted restlessly about.
(The study is roughly twelve tatami mats in size. Desk position, number of windows, bookshelf arrangement. The door lock is an old type that latches from the inside. Window locks are brass. Two windows facing the garden, one facing the corridor.)
Her gaze swept every corner of the room with speed. Like a beast searching for prey.
(This room—for an intrusion from outside, the garden-side window would be most efficient. But the wall is about two and a half meters high. The garden foliage provides poor visibility.)
In mere seconds, Tanya had committed the structure of this room to memory.
Lergen quietly observed the movement of her eyes.
(What is this girl thinking right now?)
He understood clearly that Tanya was no ordinary war criminal. The silence she had shown in that courtroom, and her powers of observation in this very moment—all of it was calculated.
"Have a seat."
Lergen gestured to the chair across from his desk.
Tanya sat without protest. Her back remained perfectly straight.
"From now on, you will live in this house. You understand that."
"Yes, I understand."
"You are forbidden from going outside. Contact with the outside world is also completely prohibited. You will not be permitted to set one foot off these grounds."
"House arrest, then."
"...That's what it amounts to."
As he spoke, Lergen felt his own words ring hollow. It wasn't to protect her, nor to punish her. She was simply being locked away here for the convenience of the state.
"Colonel."
Tanya spoke quietly.
"May I confirm one thing?"
"...What is it?"
"What I can see from my room's window is the garden, correct? That garden's foliage is impeccably maintained—quite splendid."
For a moment, Lergen didn't understand what she was getting at.
"With hedges at that height, it's difficult to see in from outside, and from within, one can hardly see what's happening outside either. It's an inconvenient structure for surveillance."
She continued calmly.
"However, if the purpose is to monitor me, it may actually be quite convenient. The fact that my actions cannot be seen from outside means I, too, need not concern myself with outside surveillance."
Lergen finally understood the cold calculation behind her words.
(This girl, while being the one surveilled, already possesses the perspective of the surveillant.)
He felt an indescribable chill.
"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing. I merely thought I should familiarize myself with the structure of the home I'll be staying in for the foreseeable future."
Tanya smiled faintly.
"I do dislike inefficiency, after all."
That was her catchphrase.
---
Several days later.
Lieutenant General Zettour von Stauffenberg visited the private residence.
The old general, his salt-and-pepper hair swept back, wearing thin silver-rimmed spectacles, bore an old saber scar on his left cheek. In his hand, as always, a pipe. His very presence in the room seemed to fill it with the scent of political maneuvering.
"Well now, Colonel. You seem to have lost some weight."
"Thanks to Your Excellency, my stomach hasn't had a moment's rest."
Lergen answered bitterly.
"Haha, my apologies for that. But your stomach pains aren't solely my doing, I suspect."
Zettour laughed as he settled onto the sofa in the reception room.
"How is she?"
"...How, meaning?"
"Is she bored?"
"She's bored, I'm sure. But she doesn't seem to leave boredom as boredom."
Lergen looked out the window, toward Tanya's room facing the garden.
"She had the entire structure of this house mapped out on the first day. The blind spots in the garden foliage, the height of the walls, even the servants' work schedules."
"Ho."
Behind Zettour's spectacles, an intellectual light flickered.
"Just as expected. Even inside a cage, she observes the outside of the cage. No—perhaps I should say she observes the cage itself."
"Your Excellency holds her in high regard, then?"
"Regard is too mild a word. I fear her. And at the same time, I have expectations of her."
Zettour put his pipe to his lips and lit it. Smoke rose quietly.
"I'll meet with her. Lend me a room."
---
Tanya's room.
She stood by the window, gazing at the garden. A knock came, and she turned.
"Hello there, Major Degurechaff. It's been a while."
Zettour entered the room.
"Lieutenant General. I'm glad to see you're well."
Tanya spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.
"You survived. But that was for the state's convenience. If you must hate someone, hate me."
Zettour cut straight to the point.
"Hatred is an inefficient emotion in a survival strategy. Your Excellency's scheming saved my life. That, too, is a fact."
Tanya answered coldly.
"You truly are fascinating. And truly dangerous."
Zettour stared intently into her blue eyes.
"I turned a captured nuclear weapon into a diplomatic card. I used your life as bargaining material between great powers. That is my sin."
He quietly, but clearly, acknowledged his own scheming.
"And I will bear that sin myself. I intend to choose the path of being tried as an accomplice before an international tribunal."
Tanya coldly observed his words.
(This old man is confessing his sins to me and foretelling his own judgment. Is that atonement, or is it using me as a pawn once more?)
Inside her mind, calculations to gauge Zettour's true intent spun at high speed.
"Whatever path Your Excellency chooses is none of my concern. But allow me to confirm one thing."
"What is it?"
"The fact that I survived. That is, for me, my only weapon. Your Excellency left that weapon with me. Is that atonement toward me, or is it a stone laid for someday using me again?"
Her voice was cold as ice.
Zettour was silent for a while.
"...Someday, you will surpass me. You will fully turn to the side that uses others. I fear that. And at the same time, I anticipate it."
He drew deeply on his pipe.
"My answer is: both. It is atonement, and it is also a stone laid. Which way you tip is up to you."
Tanya etched his words into the depths of her heart.
(This old man sees me not as a pawn, but as an equal—or something greater. That means I have utility.)
"An interesting answer. I'll take it under advisement."
She smiled faintly.
---
After Zettour left.
Tanya stood by the window, gazing at the scenery outside.
Five hundred meters around the private residence.
Her senses had already picked out multiple surveillance points.
(Outside the garden hedge. The shadow of that roadside tree. The attic of the house across the street. That window—the curtains are drawn, yet there's a slight gap. The street vendor. That man sells fruit while keeping his gaze constantly fixed on this house.)
She did not move. Without shifting a single step from the window, she continued observing the outside world.
(The spacing between rooftops. The blind spots in the foliage. The surveillance shifts' changeover times. The rhythm of carriage traffic.)
Inside her mind, the layout of the surveillance network was being constructed as a precise map.
(Humiliating. Boring. But this surveillance network will someday become my communications network.)
Her blue eyes took on a cold gleam.
(Being surveilled—a passive situation. I will convert it into the active work of mapping an intelligence network. That is the beginning of my battle.)
Tanya looked at her reflection in the window glass.
Silver hair. Blue eyes. A small body.
(I am dead on paper. But here, I am most certainly alive.)
She placed a hand over her chest.
(Inside this cage of surveillance, I will survive. And someday, without fail—)
---
At dinner.
Lergen and Tanya sat facing each other across a large dining table.
The meal the servant brought was simple but warm. Bread, soup, vegetable stew. Amid the postwar shortages, it was more than sufficient fare.
Tanya took a sip of soup, then tore off a small piece of bread and brought it to her mouth.
(The taste isn't bad. But I have no appetite.)
On the battlefield, she had forgotten how to enjoy food. No—even before that, the habit of mechanically ingesting only the nutrients necessary to survive had been seared into her body.
Lergen glanced at the way she ate.
She had barely eaten. She'd taken only three bites of bread. More than half the soup remained.
"It's troubling when you make a sick person's face."
Lergen said bluntly.
"A sick person's face—what exactly does that look like?"
"The face you're making right now. Pale, lifeless. If my surveillance subject collapses, the paperwork is a nuisance."
Grumbling, he placed half of his own bread on Tanya's plate.
"...I don't have such a small appetite."
"If you can eat, then eat. Leaving it is far more trouble."
Lergen took a sip of his own soup.
Tanya stared at the bread placed before her.
(The more this man worries, the worse his mouth gets. That's his clumsy way of being kind.)
She slowly brought the bread to her mouth.
(I should record this warmth. In my survival strategy, this man's clumsiness is information with utility value.)
She told herself so.
---
Late at night.
Unable to sleep, Tanya went out into the garden.
Moonlight bathed the garden in pale blue. The spring night wind was still cold.
She walked barefoot across the lawn. The cool sensation traveled up through the soles of her feet.
(The surveillance eyes are still there. But at this hour, just after a shift change, vigilance is thin.)
She stopped in the center of the garden and looked up at the moon.
Her silver hair reflected the moonlight, glowing faintly.
That was when—
"...And here I wondered who it was."
A voice came from behind her.
She turned to see Lergen standing there, wearing only his military jacket thrown over his shoulders. In his hand, a pistol.
"...Colonel. What brings you out at this hour?"
"That's my line. What are you doing alone at th
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