Even if the Dawn Abandons You - Chapter 34

Judging by the steady steps going straight toward the restaurant, it seemed that it was another tenant.

Entering the restaurant was a very young-looking young man wearing a worn beige shirt and overalls without a coat in this cool weather. His tired face seemed to show more fatigue than vitality, even though he couldn’t have been more than in his early twenties. Upon discovering the people in the restaurant, he bowed his head with a slight sound.

“I’m Andrew Layton.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Layton.”

Andrew Layton was a young man with a name that seemed familiar despite his face being unfamiliar. After exchanging greetings with Anais, Marang, who had joined them, said, ‘Mr. Layton came from Wisteria!’ and cheerfully informed them.

For the first time, Anais felt a strange feeling. This is an area where civil war is in full swing. There are two foreign tenants in the yard whereas the people of Léans are evacuating to other areas?

“I heard you are short-term tenants. Why did both of you come all the way to this dangerous place from Plana and Wisteria?”

“Because it’s dangerous, that’s why we came. Mr. Layton and I are journalists.”

Stephanie replied with a bright smile. At the mention of journalists, Anais, who had been smiling faintly until a moment ago, couldn’t help but freeze. Leon’s lips also stiffened. Anais and Leon’s gazes simultaneously met the young man’s tired face, and in the next moment, they could recall it like a flash.

Andrew Layton, a journalist from Wisteria.

They had seen his name somewhere.

? ? ?

Perhaps hell is not a separate place.

Jacques Garel closed his eyes tightly behind the broken wall, holding the gun close to his chest as he thought. He had always considered himself a brave person rather than a coward, but this time, it was tough to endure.

When he heard the rumors about Colonel Chatelet secretly gathering the revolutionary army and decided to join them, or when he stood at the front of the procession heading towards the palace, protecting the uprising citizens, it wasn’t this terrifying.

Behind him, a deafening roar spread. However, he had gotten used to it. Neither the sound of gunshots he had heard before nor the explosions of grenades. Most of “them” were holding guns, but instead of ordinary bullets, bright masses of light he had never seen before were being shot from those guns.

Jacques watched with his two eyes as his allies hit by those lights screamed in agony. Some others were holding strange weapons like swords, or even non-weapon objects, but they emitted even more tremendous firepower.

Of course, Jacques Garel was a soldier and not ignorant of magic weapons. Nowadays, even non-mages could use magically processed items through mana stones. Although it was only a few times, he had also used a gun with magic enhancements.

But the enemies he was facing now were real mages. Not ordinary people using magically processed weapons, but genuine magicians who poured their own mana into the weapons and cast spells.

Léans was a country where magicians were rare, and neither the government forces nor the Basbourg resistance had deployed significant numbers of combat mages. Therefore, the civil war had mainly focused on regular combat with some magic weapons.

However, after Kladiev’s forces sent a battalion-sized support force, including formal training for magic battalions and aerial battalions, the situation had changed significantly.

The aerial battalion that turned five communes of Belize into a sea of flames without dropping bombs became a source of terror even when not using that level of attack. The magicians from the magic battalion were no different.

Falling from the sky, flying or rising from the ground, there was nothing he wasn’t afraid of. Jacques had always thought of himself as brave, but he had never felt like he could withstand any kind of fear, and this was the type of terror he couldn’t endure. It was different from the fear of death. Once again, a roar erupted from behind. He thought he had died without a chance to react.

And the next moment.

Jacques Garel mistook himself for being in heaven. It was a separate matter from whether he considered himself worthy of going to heaven. What made him feel that way was the unexpected radiance in the brightly lit sky during the daytime, which should have been clear and pale. He instinctively raised his head to look at the sky.

Dozens of blue beams of light were falling from the sky.

The brilliant beams of light struck the ground, and with a thunderous noise, the cries of Kladiev’s troops began to fill the battlefield.

Among the countless beams of light, a woman in a green military uniform with the appearance of an officer seemed to be floating in mid-air, looking down below with her arms folded. Jacques instinctively recognized her as the owner of those blue beams of light. Although he heard her speaking in a foreign language, he couldn’t understand it.

When Jacques showed an expression of not understanding, the officer briefly narrowed her eyes but then appeared to understand the reason, waving her hand around her mouth area. As she did so, a blue magical circle-like thing appeared in the air.

“I am Lieutenant Montgomery of the Fifth Magic Battalion of the Westerian Republic Army. Who is your commanding officer?”

The message conveyed through the magical circle was fluent Léans. Jacques blinked several times and quickly regained his senses.

“Colonel… Colonel Celine Chatelet.”

“I already know that. Where is she?”

“She… she is holding off the resistance on the opposite front…”

“Good. Then you go as you are and tell your commanding officer that the Westerian Republic’s support force has arrived.”

Even while she was talking to Jacques, the blue beams of light continued to rain relentlessly upon Kladiev’s forces. Due to the wind caused by the beams, the hat of an unknown officer flew off. Her platinum blonde hair, which she had tied up, seemed even more brilliant under the light. When Lieutenant Rebecca Montgomery, for that was her name, smiled with a sense of relief, Jacques Garel was mesmerized.

“Kladiev’s forces are our responsibility. Understood?”

“Yes, yes! I understand.”

For a moment, Jacques Garel stupidly stared at her, but then he quickly picked up his gun and large-sized grenades and ran towards the opposite front where Celine Chatelet was supposed to be.

? ? ?

This was a disaster.

Anais was pushed into the large bedroom by Leonard, who insisted on using the living room sofa. Sitting on the bed, she clutched her knees and pressed her forehead against them. It was truly, really a disaster.

The fact that the two tenants on the second floor, who she had only expected to be ordinary civilians without the means to evacuate, turned out to be journalists, made Anais feel extremely anxious. The only consolation was that he wasn’t a Léans journalist, but even that consolation became insignificant in front of Andrew Layton’s name.

Andrew Layton.

He had done something extraordinary, infiltrating the Eastern Tower on “that night” and capturing the dreadful demise of the royal family on film, then publishing it in La Gazette as a Westerian journalist.

Andrew Layton, whom she met in person, was much younger than she thought—he said he was really twenty-one—and seemed lacking in energy in many ways to visit and cover conflict areas in foreign countries. On the other hand, infiltrating that area and sticking a camera in it indicated that there was a great interest in the topic.

Moreover, he most likely still had the original film of that photograph. Just his existence brought back all the anxiety that Anais had momentarily set aside. The anxiety that someone might question the survival of one member of the imperial family.

At least until dinner, things went smoothly. Marang’s cooking was truly delicious, and thanks to Stephanie’s amiable nature, the atmosphere at the table was pleasant enough. However, Anais had to keep her nerves on edge without even realizing whether the delicious food was going into her mouth or her nose.

Andrew Layton was Andrew Layton, but surprisingly, Stefania was a nuisance. Throughout the meal, she showed Leoanard an immense interest, whether as a neighbor or as a journalist, driving Anais half-mad. The conversation that began with ‘You must have gone through so much…’ extended to ‘By the way, your accent is similar to the teacher who taught me Léans. I heard he was from Seine, is Mr. Sardieu also from Seine?’.

The problem wasn’t just the reporters on the second floor. It also concerned Marie as Anais. It wasn’t because the child broke the hearts of the viewers by nibbling and hesitating to eat despite having such delicious food in front of her. Anais knew very well that the sense of loss when losing a family member couldn’t be easily overcome.

When she lost her father, she chose not to stop moving forward, but that was possible because she was eighteen at the time. When she thought about losing her brother, the grief was so deep and profound that no amount of consolation could…

‘You can cry. I came here to say that.’

‘I’m sorry. You can’t easily change your feelings…’

It was simply impossible to overcome.