Please Forget Me - Chapter 309

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

“I need your advice, Father.”

“I’ll help. Tell me what’s troubling you.”

Around that time, you looked drained. You often sat lost in thought, staring into nothing. I assumed Rupert was tormenting you again over another woman. If only that had been the case, it would have been easier to bear.

“What if I killed one person to save millions… would God forgive me?”

Rupert had forced the idea of assassination on you.

We had infiltrated Leningen to extract information from the command leadership or disrupt their operations. Assassination had never been part of the plan.

At first, I thought headquarters had changed the orders. But that wasn’t it. As it turned out, Rupert had prepared two plans and shown us only one. The other, centered on assassination, had been shown solely to his superiors.

Within the Leningen command, moderates and hardliners were locked in conflict. At the time, the hardliners held power.

Rupert intended to assassinate the hardliner commander, plunge the leadership into chaos, and let that confusion weaken their faction. While they struggled, our forces would push forward at full strength. That was the real plan.

You had been deceived by that bastard once again.

“I’m more cowardly than I look. I don’t have the courage. But if God says this is right… maybe I could find it.”

If I absolved your sin, perhaps God would forgive you. But I wanted you never to commit that sin in the first place.

“Dana, asking for God’s will means you don’t want to do this.”

You’d been struck at the core. Embarrassed, you didn’t know where to look. Perhaps you were ashamed of hesitating when the nation demanded sacrifice.

“Soldiers don’t want to kill either. But they do it anyway, without disobeying orders.”

Why were you saying that? You weren’t responding to me, you were trying to convince yourself. They were clearly Rupert’s words, drilled into your mind.

“It’s their role.”

“Exactly. That’s a soldier’s role. Not a nurse’s. You’re not a soldier—you’re a nurse.”

“…Right. I’m a nurse. I save people.”

You wavered at my words, but only for a moment.

“But now I’m a soldier too. I can’t keep whining forever and keep my hands clean.”

It was as if Rupert had implanted himself inside your head. You spoke mechanically, repeating exactly what he would have said.

“Millions are dying, and I’m hesitating over killing one? Thank you, Father. Talking to you cleared my doubts.”

You stood as if to leave. In desperation, I grabbed your wrist without permission.

“Where’s the guarantee that killing that one person will end the war?”

“But I can’t back down—”

“I care more about you than about millions of lives.”

It was something I should never have said. Not as a priest, not as a war hero, not even as your ‘friend.’ And yet, even as I saw your eyes waver, I didn’t stop.

“If you had killed someone, the war might have ended. Or, I did kill someone. Which do you think you’d regret for the rest of your life?”

“……”

“I don’t want you to live in regret forever.”

“Father…”

“No, then maybe I should want that. Because it’s still better than you dying after being caught attempting an assassination.”

Your face crumpled. When I tugged your wrist, you didn’t pull away, you sank down beside me, drained of strength.

“Rupert wants to die like Godwin, and you’re willing to follow him like Philomena? Is dying on the battlefield your dream too? Were you really that foolish?”

“…No.”

You squeezed your eyes shut as you listened, then finally shook your head. Something collapsed inside you, twisting your expression.

“Philomena—Philomena—I’m sick of that name!”

Philomena knows no fear. Philomena doesn’t cling to her own life. Rupert had compared you to that legendary heroine every time you resisted what he demanded.

“I don’t want to be Philomena! I don’t want to die and I don’t want to kill!”

At last, you spoke honestly. Tears spilled from your tightly shut eyes.

“Hic… what’s wrong with me?”

As soon as you began to cry, you tried to stop, wiping your face. But I caught your hand again.

“Cry as much as you need. It’s okay.”

“Ah…”

At those words, the grief you’d been holding back burst free. Your forehead dropped softly against my shoulder.

I offered it without hesitation. If you’d asked me to give you everything, I would have.

“I don’t want to kill… even enemies… I don’t want to… Injecting poison into someone who thinks I’m there to heal them…”

You confessed then, that moments when a life rested in your hands had always terrified you.

And on days when someone died by your hands, the regret clung to you all day long. That was why you couldn’t sleep without alcohol.

“But at least I was saving lives. Even though I was scared, I endured it. Now they’re telling me to kill. Why does it have to be me? Am I selfish for feeling this way?”

“Not at all. Rupert is selfish for making you do the dirty work because he doesn’t want to stain his own hands. You know that.”

That man had never once stepped into the trenches. He’d always had others fight and die for his glory. I’d wondered why he suddenly wanted to involve himself directly. Of course, he was still using others to become a hero.

“If he wants to be a hero, tell Rupert to carry out the assassination himself.”

Whether he was caught and killed after that, that was entirely his problem.