Episode 28: Red Star (6)
Carrying Astier, I left the corpse disposal site and entered a warehouse we’d prepared as a hideout.
A single worn lantern flickered, the chill of the night air lingering. I carefully laid Astier on the ground.
Beneath her black robe, her wounds still bled. I steadied my breathing, recalling the northern front.
Battles there lasted days, and proper treatment was a luxury.
Many died from untreated wounds or infection.
In my first deployment, countless perished without care.
I survived often thanks to comrades’ makeshift aid.
In the special forces, I relied heavily on Crim’s help.
After her death, I applied what she’d taught me. With practiced hands, I retrieved my tools.
“Take off your clothes. I need to stitch the wound.”
“…Understood.”
Astier hesitated briefly before nodding. She silently lifted her robe, exposing the wound.
Blood-soaked bandages clung to reddened skin. I threaded a needle.
Stitching wounds was second nature from the battlefield—speed and precision were vital. But facing Astier’s body, my hands faltered slightly.
“You’re lucky it missed your heart,” I said.
The needle pierced her flesh, feeling like wet paper. Astier clenched her teeth, motionless, sweat beading at her eyes.
Her face betrayed the pain she endured, yet she entrusted her body to me, eyes closed, silent.
“Must hurt a lot,” I remarked.
“Is there… anyone who doesn’t feel this?” she replied.
“Rarely.”
As I stitched, my eyes traced her body—scarred, layered with old and new marks, just like mine after eleven years of crossing death’s threshold.
The sound of thread through flesh filled the silence. I broke it first.
“…Always get hurt like this?”
She didn’t answer. Finishing the stitches and cutting the thread, I spoke again.
“When interrogating Esren, you kept avoiding his gaze. He said you could’ve stabbed him but didn’t.”
She inhaled softly. I waited, but she didn’t respond.
“Did you hesitate against an enemy? No, let me rephrase—why do you hesitate?”
It was a foolish question, I realized. Why hesitate? Anyone would feel reluctant to kill another human.
Even I, once a modern man, nearly died hesitating early on. Astier stayed silent for a moment before answering quietly.
“…I was afraid. Afraid I might be wrong. That I misjudged them.”
“Wrong about what?”
She reached toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know their lives—what they wanted, what drove them. Killing someone without knowing anything about them…”
She stared at her hands—clean of blood or dirt, yet she tried to shake something off. Her shoulders trembled faintly, a mix of fear and guilt.
“…It’s impossible for me.”
Her words stopped my hands. I set the needle down carefully.
“If you don’t kill, you might die instead,” I said.
“Even so… it’s better than being wrong.”
I couldn’t understand her. It was undeniable that Astier was more virtuous than someone like Esren. Yet she’d rather die than kill?
“He killed dozens. He didn’t deserve to live.”
“Maybe… but to someone, he might’ve been a father.”
“So?”
“I’m… always afraid of being wrong.”
Her voice trembled, fading softly.
“I can’t be sure if condemning someone is just,” she said.
“Even if someone’s father destroyed another family?”
“Yes. They may deserve their punishment. But I’m not precise enough, nor qualified, to deliver it.”
Sinners deserved consequences, but she believed she couldn’t be the one to deliver them.
“Do people have the right to judge others? Without knowing everything about them… can we really say they deserve death? If justice is just a tally of victims, that’s not morality—it’s arithmetic.”
Could I, a human, truly judge another?
Did I have the ability to weigh someone’s sins?
Were my actions on the northern front—killing bandits to survive—any different?
I’d killed for my own desires, not for justice.
My goals were simple, personal. What I’d done wasn’t judgment or punishment—it was survival.
Astier looked at me with a pale face, her calm gray-blue eyes holding a strange, soothing quality.
“Even if they’re the worst villain in the world, if there’s the slightest chance they could change… I don’t have the right to deny that possibility.”
People are always changing, never stagnant, constantly moving forward and evolving.
That capacity for change is what makes humans human, holding the potential for growth.
“Do all humans really have that potential?” I asked.
Her eyes trembled, unblinking. The lantern’s flame flickered in the dark, her voice low.
“Three years ago, I killed a criminal.”
Her gaze drifted to the past, far from the present—a painful memory that had become a nightmare.
Three years ago, Astier executed a criminal who’d killed her comrade.
It wasn’t personal revenge; the man was illegally distributing a special drug.
She felt no regret—only relief, even believing she’d delivered justice.
Recovering the drugs was straightforward.
She thought nothing would remain at his home.
But there was a child, asking for their father’s whereabouts.
What did Astier feel, seeing that child clutching a ragged teddy bear?
“The child held a tattered bear, crying because their father didn’t come home for their birthday.”
Her hands shook. Her lips, her eyes—every muscle expressing emotion trembled. She took a breath.
“The child was innocent. But… because of me, they were left alone.”
I watched her silently. For the first time, her regret and sorrow surfaced on her face.
The child’s words echoed: “Daddy promised he’d come for my birthday.”
Astier could offer no response. You can’t bring back the dead.
Later, she learned the man had quit crime when his child was born, only returning to it out of desperation.
She tried rationalizing—he was a criminal, after all. But it changed nothing. The child lost their only parent, left alone. The child bore no sin. Condemning them for their father’s blood was impossible for Astier.
She took the child in, lying that their father sent her—a vile lie that made her sick, but she kept it up, hoping it would comfort the child and herself.
I listened to her confession, understanding her reasoning but struggling to fully accept it. After a silent moment, I spoke quietly.
“Where’s the child now?”
Astier blinked, half-surprised, as if she hadn’t expected the question.
“…In the capital, with a friend of mine.”
“You and your friend are their guardians?”
“I asked my friend to help, but I’m their real guardian.”
“Then why are you trying to die?”
She clamped her mouth shut. I pressed on without hesitation.
“You tend to attach grand words like ‘judgment’ or ‘punishment’ to killing. But killing doesn’t carry such lofty meaning.”
Killing can’t be dressed up with grand justifications. Nor does it mean every life is sacred and mustn’t be taken—I’m no philanthropist.
“Pick one: die or atone.”
Her story felt like a reflection of her inner conflict. Perhaps she wanted to die. Her values and logic were contradictory.
“But I wonder if your death would mean anything.”
Good and evil aren’t arithmetic. The sins of killing can’t be forgiven—not because the act is unforgivable, but because the one to forgive you is gone. All you can do is bear it until your final moment.
“Don’t die. Don’t try to.”
Astier was a good person. Her hesitation and anguish, yet pressing forward, proved her humanity. Most wouldn’t do that.
“Whether soon or late, everyone dies eventually. So live now.”
I stood, leaving her behind.
“Where… where are you going?” she asked.
“To the dukedom. I’m going alone.”
Feeling the draft through the door, I added,
“Disobeying orders means confinement.”
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