Please Forget Me - Chapter 312

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

“Dana, I want you to make a choice that makes you happy.”

“Sniff… I don’t even know why I’m here anymore, or what I’m doing. This isn’t what I wanted…”

You had agreed with my words back then. But the moment I confessed that I loved you, those words must have lost all their purity. After that, you had no reason to take anything I said seriously.

‘Even so, you wouldn’t have wanted to carry out an assassination….’

I imagined you hiding somewhere, drinking alone because you had no one to confide in, then immediately stopped myself.

Comfort was Rupert’s responsibility. If Rupert didn’t comfort you, then that was the consequence of choosing a man like him. I told myself it had nothing to do with me. Or rather, I tried to believe that.

You remember how I once asked you, back when we lived in Eisenthal, whether you had ever killed someone.

I’m sorry I lied and said no. I wanted you never to know about the things that tormented me. Even now, I hope you never recover those memories.

Anyway, I tried not to worry about your emotional suffering. But I believed I had every right to worry about you being discovered. At that time, we were still comrades in the same operation.

“The headquarters suspects poisoning and is investigating several people. Naturally, Dana is among those under scrutiny. That means I’ll be watched as well. Even this meeting is likely being observed.”

After the assassination, Rupert warned Miller and me. So we halted all activity, made up a plausible excuse, abandoned our base, and decided to withdraw to our homeland.

“And when will the two of you withdraw?”

Miller asked the question I wanted to ask.

“Don’t worry. My wife isn’t a coward. She’s smarter than she looks, too. She’ll fool them just fine.”

Rupert said something completely beside the point. Since the objective had already been achieved, we urged him to stop pushing his luck and escape while surveillance was loose, but nothing we said got through to him.

A few days later, Rupert boasted smugly that you had been questioned by the authorities, but they’d found no evidence.

“See? Didn’t I tell you my wife was clever? You think I’d choose just any woman?”

No one doubted you, that wasn’t why we told you to flee. Still, when we suggested withdrawing again while surveillance was lax, he stubbornly refused.

“I’ve built up this much of a position, so what if there was a little suspicion? You expect me to kill one commander and run? Tch. Men with guts this small are why no one achieves infiltration results like mine.”

At the time, Rupert was riding high, convinced he’d successfully destabilized the enemy command. I’m sure he was already dreaming of pushing all the way to the capital and personally beheading Highland’s Emperor or prime minister to end the war in one stroke.

Meanwhile, our army was advancing at a terrifying speed. The front line had been pushed to within two hours by train of the city I’d been stationed in. We decided to escape while we could.

“Early Sunday morning, our forces are scheduled to bomb this area. All agents in the vicinity have been ordered to evacuate within two days.”

One day, after waiting for withdrawal orders, we finally received them along with an air raid notice. The next day, I went to warn Rupert.

“There’ll be an air raid in the Heidenheim region early Sunday morning. Headquarters ordered all agents in Leningen to withdraw. We’re leaving tomorrow. How about coming with us?”

“Together? I appreciate the offer, but Dana feels uncomfortable around you.”

“…Anyway, I’ve delivered the order. I wish you a safe return.”

Whether Rupert lived or died didn’t matter to me. But if he died, your chances of returning home safely would plummet. So I ended up wishing for the safe return of a man I desperately wanted to kill.

Should I have swallowed my pride and tried harder to persuade him?

Even if I had, it probably would’ve backfired on a man who saw me only as a rival. I knew that and yet an uneasy regret lingered all the same.

Early Sunday morning, just days before Christmas, air-raid sirens wailed madly across all of northwestern Highland. By then, I had already left the warned zones and was near the front line.

All that remained was to meet the agent our army had sent and return home.

“I hear the two of them in Leningen didn’t withdraw.”

The next morning, while eating breakfast at a restaurant that served as our rendezvous point, Miller told me about you.

“I see. Still, Lenningen should be outside the bombing range, so…”

I couldn’t bring myself to say they’ll be safe. At the next table, someone unfolded a newspaper whose front page shattered that belief.

Lenningen reduced to ashes in last night’s air raid.

The bombing had been planned for a different region. And yet Lenningen was destroyed.

I asked the agent who’d been sent to facilitate our withdrawal. He already knew.

Circumstances had changed at the last minute, and the bombing zone had been altered. Headquarters approved the strike believing that all agents in the area—including you and Rupert—had already withdrawn.

“Rupert, you stupid bastard!”

I abandoned the withdrawal, cursing Rupert as I raced toward Leningen.