My Beloved, Whom I Desire to Kill - 318

Seven out of ten times, Patricia missed the target by aiming either too high or too far ahead. Moreover, it felt as if the bomber’s descent speed was faster than before.

It was as if all previous passes had merely been trial runs to time the strike, and the pilot had finally found their rhythm. If they missed this time, it was truly over.

However, there wasn’t enough time to explain or persuade her. The bomber, having cleared the clouds and started skimming over the lake, would soon reach the 330-degree point Patricia had set.

—I only survived because I know that killing machine well. Please, just trust my gut once!

My fiancé is inside that dam. My life is riding on this last shot.

She knew she would become the pathetic woman—the one who put her man before her comrades—that the 111th Battalion members despised, yet she was about to make an emotional plea when Patricia turned her back on Giselle and faced the front, towards the cannon’s aim. She then shouted the aiming point again to the gunners, who had nervously watched them while precisely adjusting the barrel according to their commander’s instructions.

—Direction three-three-zero, elevation two degrees further down!

She had trusted Giselle.

—Thank you!

There was no time for further gratitude or emotion.

—Load! Fire!

Giselle did not fire immediately. She followed the steeply descending bomber with her eyes, and the instant her gut screamed, she pulled the trigger.

CRASH!

The shell, spitting fire from the barrel, flew in an arc toward the black reaper that was tearing the soul of its listeners with a chilling funeral dirge as it lunged toward the dam.

To be a soldier was to vow to die for one’s country. But Edwin had made no such vow. The man who never wanted to be a soldier again had followed the woman he loved down an unwanted path and now faced the reaper.

Even if he were to leave her side forever soon, Giselle would not blame Edwin. She would hate herself for dragging him to that grave. To the very end.

Was life, like a train nearing its final stop, slowing down the closer it came to ceasing? As the two aircraft slowly traversed the void before her, Giselle pressed her lips to the four-leaf clover she had been clutching in her left hand.

Please, grant me luck.

—Jump!

At Edwin’s shout, the soldiers helping the wounded ran desperately down the path along the crest of the dam. He, too, lifted the private struggling to get up in the tower’s corner and stepped out through the arch. But he couldn’t take another step.

The bomber’s siren was crossed by the sound of a shell slicing a long path through the sky. A strange premonition gave him goosebumps, and he turned his head in that direction.

A streak of light flew and struck the fuselage of the bomber charging directly at him. Edwin had witnessed countless anti-aircraft barrages in battle, but this was the first time he had seen a direct hit on an enemy plane.

BOOM!

Just as his vision started to turn red, he retreated, hiding inside the tower, and reversed his command.

—Get down!

The enemy aircraft, directly hit by the anti-aircraft round, exploded in mid-air along with the bombs it carried, raining fragments everywhere. When the ringing in his ears from the shockwave and the downpour of wreckage finally ceased, dark red ash, laced with embers, drifted slowly on the wind like petals, fluttering into the tower.

It was like a foul spring.

The pungent smell of aviation fuel and burnt gunpowder was also present. Edwin sweetly inhaled the breath scented with death, grateful to the nameless sharpshooter who had saved him.

He was so grateful that he decided that if he made it back alive, he would recommend the person for a military decoration and, as a man, invite the savior as a guest of honor to his wedding.

His instructor at the training camp had once said:

The goal of anti-aircraft artillery is not to shoot down an aircraft with a single shell but to lay down a dense net of fire and hope the enemy gets caught in it. Hitting an enemy plane with a single shot—and with the shell itself, not just the shrapnel—was like a hole-in-one on a golf course.

—Huh? Oh! It’s a hit!

—No way!

As the enemy plane charging the dam exploded in a fireball in mid-air, everyone jumped up in celebration, yet the person who caused this miracle just stood there, stunned.

Patricia grabbed Giselle, who couldn’t believe the once-in-a-lifetime record she had just set, and vigorously pounded her on the back with her large palm. It was an aggressive expression of gratitude.

—You should have joined the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Corps!

—That’s what I said!

Giselle finally snapped out of her daze and vented her long-held resentment into the air.

—Edwin Eccleston! Said I’d shake just hearing a fighter plane and asked what kind of anti-aircraft gunner I could be? Say that again, would you!

She had finally shown the man who was sure she couldn’t do it what she was capable of. By saving him.

It felt like an old knot of frustration in her chest had sweetly melted away, leaving her relieved. And not just because she had successfully proven her ability.

She had killed the reaper that had hovered over her head her entire life. Now, that mere chunk of scrap metal was no longer terrifying.

Giselle’s morale soared. She felt as if she could shoot down anything that flew.

Fortunately, yet disappointingly, no more bombers appeared. Even the enemy fighter formations seemed to be retreating; the sky was emptying.

Now, all that remained was for Edwin to emerge from the dam for the situation to be over. If he was safe, she felt like grabbing the tail end of the night and popping a bottle of champagne with him. If such a thing even existed at this military base in the middle of nowhere.

WHIIIRRR! CRASH!

At that moment, an uninvited celebratory cannon fired first.

It had been sent by the enemy.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

Edwin acknowledged the private first class, who was still murmuring words of thanks even while being loaded into the evacuation vehicle on a stretcher. Only then did he feel that his duty was complete.

Meanwhile, the duties of others were still ongoing. Gunfire and artillery continued to boom relentlessly somewhere in the dark forest. As the air battle ended, the ground war began.

A report came through the field commander’s radio under the tent. It was the good news that the enemy troops trying to escape via seaplane and their pilot had been captured alive.

One signal corpsman was trying to raise the anti-aircraft battery on the mountain. Enemy shelling had poured down on that position starting just around the time Edwin had fully escaped the dam.

It stopped when their side located the origin and began counter-fire, but the damage sustained must have been severe, as there was no response from above. As he watched the medical team drive an empty vehicle towards the position, a heavily armed major approached him, smelling of gunpowder.

—Colonel.

It was one of the officers who had been trapped with him in the dam. He had charged off to clean up the enemy right after escaping and seemed to have finished his task. The major extended his hand to shake Edwin’s.

—Thank you, sir. Thanks to you, most of our unit members were able to return safely.

Though there were countless twists and turns, tonight’s battle was concluding in a victory for the Mercian forces. The officer finished his thanks and returned to his unit. With no subordinates to command here, Edwin thought of Giselle.

She listened to me.

Giselle was nowhere in sight. If she had made it this far, she would have rushed over immediately to check if he was hurt, and then proceeded to rage at him like a maniac.

Only then did the tension break, and the fatigue he hadn’t felt until now rushed over him all at once. He slumped into an empty chair and closed his eyes, when the speaker on the radio crackled.

– Casualties at the anti-aircraft position. One dead, five seriously wounded, two minor injuries.

The enemy must have poured fire in retaliation, completely devastating the position to the extent that neither the air-raid shelter nor the trenches could offer adequate protection. The heroes who had struck the final bomber had met a tragic end.

Edwin waited, fighting off sleep, until they arrived at the field hospital so he could express his gratitude, whether to the dead or the living. Soon after, the ambulance arrived.

—You all worked hard.

He first offered a handshake and encouragement to the two soldiers who walked off the vehicle on their own but were still visibly shaking. When he told them he was the very person they had saved, their shell-shocked faces seemed to regain focus, then they burst into tears. The impact of the shelling must have been extreme.

Edwin hugged and comforted them one by one, then moved toward the wounded being carried on stretchers. He recognized a female officer being treated by the military doctor; she was covered in blood, seemingly from shrapnel wounds.

—Patricia Warren?

Focus briefly returned to her hazy eyes, which had been half-closed and staring into the air. Patricia Warren’s eyes snapped open, and she moved her torn lips, uttering a metallic rasp.

—Giselle…

—…What?

—What… happened to Giselle?

—Giselle was there?

—Is she dead?

Edwin immediately ran to the truck carrying the deceased and dug through the body bags of the casualties the medics had just transferred, opening them.