The Military State was a nation of control.

An obsessive nation that meticulously monitored its roads and trains, with attendants checking every last ticket.

When a military vehicle meant for the wastelands entered a road, the guards stationed there began their inspection with more suspicion than ever.

Had I been alone, I would have abandoned the vehicle somewhere secluded nearby, stowed away on a train or some scheduled service, and taken a long, long detour.

Not that I couldn't do it.

But why put myself through the inconvenience?

To eat delicious bread, was I supposed to till the land myself, put up a scarecrow, water and lovingly tend the crops, then tearfully harvest the golden ears when they ripened, cruelly pound them over and over, mill them into flour, carefully knead the dough, bake it in an oven, and enjoy my meal?

I'd rather just pay for some bread. That was how to make efficient use of the economic structures and systems humanity had created.

In other words:

"You're a captain! Salute. Please proceed!"

Why take an arduous detour when a single living travel pass got me through automatically?

One captain in the driver's seat was all it took. The guard didn't even bother with the passenger seat. There was no point when he was dealing with a captain.

"Ah, this is the life!"

I exclaimed as I leaned back against the backrest.

Captain AB, a Military State communications officer, kept her eyes forward and muttered with a deep scowl.

"Do not make yourself comfortable. Remember your position."

"A petty criminal who's served his time and is heading back to the capital with a Military State captain."

"... That is why I have not placed you under arrest."

The captain spoke without taking her eyes off the road.

"Do not forget. Although your place of work is gone, you remain a suspect in the death of a general. The only reason you are not in custody is that you are accompanying me to Amitengrad. If you make any suspicious moves or attempt to leave without permission along the way, I will arrest you immediately."

Captain AB, who had lived the life of a golem, spoke just as rigidly even in a body of soft flesh. Whatever. I propped my feet up on the dashboard, gave a long yawn, and addressed her.

"Then you should have handed me over to that guard back there. I'd have let him take me away."

As I spoke, I sneaked a look at her thoughts.

The answer that surfaced in the captain's head was as follows:

'Outside the [Windowless Room], communications officers must not disclose their assigned duties or their position as communications officers. This is an ironclad rule for those who handle all manner of classified intelligence. Transferring a prisoner's custody requires an account of the circumstances, which would require me to disclose my position. A contradiction...'

"... That is classified."

The captain neatly organized the information in her head while declaring it classified out loud. Was that a communications officer thing?

At any rate, she was so easy to read that asking questions was rewarding. I asked another.

"And why go all the way to Amitengrad? You could just go to a nearby military base. Or contact someone. Why isn't a communications officer communicating?"

'If unavoidable circumstances damage the [Windowless Room] or require its occupant to leave, all forms of communication with that officer are severed due to the risk of classified information leaking. The same applies to me. I am prohibited from contacting other communications officers.'

The Windowless Room was essentially an enormous twin gem, much like the ones Callis and Lieutenant General Ebon had used.

If a communications officer's room was damaged and its interior exposed, a signal went to the Military State, and every communications officer was notified immediately.

Then all communication with the officer in question was cut off completely to prevent any further information leaks. After all, the officer might have been taken prisoner by the Resistance or an enemy nation.

To have that restriction lifted, the officer had to return to headquarters in Amitengrad within two weeks.

Having recalled all that information solely in her head, the captain answered a beat later.

"... That is classified."

For classified information, it was awfully well organized. I'd read it all without even trying.

"Fine, it's classified, but why do you keep pausing before you answer?"

'To avoid any possible information leakage, it is better to leave a consistent interval before every answer rather than respond immediately. In extreme situations, even a brief delay in responding can provide information.'

"... That is classified."

What exemplary conduct. From a mind reader's perspective, there couldn't be an easier subject. It felt like I'd found an instruction manual that brought up the relevant section whenever I spoke.

I read Captain AB with the fascination of someone observing a curious creature.

She really was a curious book.

An encyclopedia of sorts. She was full of unrelated information that existed purely to pass through her. On top of that, she had no personal "life," so the book branched off haphazardly, with no central thread.

What little she did have consisted entirely of trifles like communications officer regulations and ninety-nine ways to cook with canned food.

Beyond that, her few memories were conversations with other communications officers or things she'd glimpsed through a golem's eyes. The experiences that made her who she was were extraordinarily transparent.

The Military State really was something. It used people like components in a machine.

'In fact, the moment this man discovered the Windowless Room, I should have taken poison and killed myself... But he saved my life. Why on earth did he save me? I cannot understand it.'

Why? For revenge, of course.

Revenge on the bastards who'd locked me up. That was all I had on my mind right now.

And naturally, that included the Military State. An ordinary little citizen like me was far too petty to forgive an enemy, even if that enemy was an entire country.

This woman in particular was a communications officer who handled all kinds of Military State secrets. If I kept her close and extracted information, something useful was bound to turn up.

Perhaps I could even coax her into taking my side.

'... This man knows I am a communications officer. A grievous blunder. What... should I do?'

Stray thoughts entered the captain's head, and their effect was immediate. The automobile, which ought to have been following the straight road, started swerving wildly from side to side.

My feet, still propped up in front of me, banged against one side and then the other. Ah, so this was why they told you to sit properly in a vehicle!

No, she could just drive properly! I clutched the handle and screamed.

"Aaaah! Watch your driving!"

"...!"

"It's even scarier that this is what happens when you're concentrating without saying a word! Move over! I'll drive instead!"

"Nega...tive...! I am... escorting you...! So I must... hold... the wheel...!"

"No, please! I'll go wherever you tell me! Just let me drive! Stop the car first!"

At my shout, the captain turned her head toward me.

"I didn't catch that...? Did you say to press the right pedal to stop?"

"That's the accelerator! All right, I'm sorry! I won't distract you, so watch the road!"

Only after all that lurching and swaying did the steering wheel finally settle down. I heaved a sigh of relief and sat up properly.

"Be honest. This is your first time driving an automobile, isn't it?"

"Negative. I am familiar with operating vehicles. Golems sometimes require transportation, so I have learned to operate a variety of vehicles..."

I read her thoughts, and she wasn't lying. Why was that actually true?

"What? Really? Then that was a psychological issue..."

"... In a golem's body."

"Suddenly I'm worried."

In other words, it was all indirect experience, wasn't it? Didn't that mean she couldn't do it properly in her actual body?

Well, still. She was a synchronized type. If she moved the same way she did as a golem, she ought to have a rough feel for it...

"An accident would not be a problem. A golem need only be recovered and repaired."

"We're in our real bodies right now! You and I both have warm bodies with blood running through them! We'll actually die if we crash, so slow down!"

The captain suddenly raised her head and exclaimed.

"My real... body? Ah, affirmative! I am currently in my own body! I am experiencing dizziness from the swaying!"

"Never mind how you sound like you only just realized that. Fine, but could you please find some way to feel alive that doesn't involve shaking the car?!"

The only consolations were that this road wasn't particularly difficult to navigate, and that once it ended, I wouldn't have to witness the captain's atrocious driving anymore.

One of the Military State's seven great inventions, the pinnacle of civil engineering and the Military State's greatest achievement, wrought through the miracle of earth arts, would be waiting for us.

The meta-conveyor belt.

And so the captain and I traveled on, our lives in peril until we reached the end of the road.

Land that flowed like a river. The meta-conveyor belt.

A marvel that astounded anyone setting foot in the Military State for the first time, a synthesis of civil engineering, earth arts, and magical engineering. The Military State's great artery.

A masterpiece into which the blood and sweat of hundreds of thousands had quite literally been ground.

It sounded grand, but the reality was simple.

It was a giant conveyor belt that circled half the country and handled most of the Military State's freight.

The ground itself moved at a constant speed.

Faster than you might expect, too. It could carry you from one end to the other in three days.

It crossed the Military State to the coast, then made a broad loop northward and returned, carrying all manner of cargo, luggage, and people. It flowed majestically onward as ever, unloading and taking on fresh loads wherever needed.

A vast bloodstream circulating through half the Military State.

The flowing earth that had earned the Earth Sage her epithet, Rolling Earth Arrives. This immense, unceasing current silently and steadily carried people and goods in one direction.

The meta-conveyor belt's northeastern terminal.

Here, the swiftly flowing tributary split into ten streams, slowing to precisely one-tenth of its original speed.

An enormous container followed one of those streams toward an unloading point.

Detecting its movement, a cargo searchlight illuminated the container, and a huge crane hung with thick chains swung its head around. Its movements sent creaking noises far into the distance. It was so immense it might as well have been part of the landscape.

RRRRUMBLE.

Hooks on chains caught the container riding the meta-conveyor belt. The chains pulled taut in unison, gradually bringing the enormous container to a halt as the ground flowed beneath it.

SCREEECH.

It scraped against the ground. At the same time, the crane stretched upward, lifting the ponderous container.

The crane's steel body rattled. That was how tremendous the container's weight was.

But a thunder wheel almost as enormous turned backward with a harsh metallic din, the chains and cables wound around it screaming as they pulled taut. The chains grinding against one another sounded just like rolling thunder.

And so the freight, packed into a container somewhere far away and transported here, reached the terminal and left the conveyor belt. The crane holding the container twisted in another direction. The building-sized container swung from its chains with a tangible presence even in the darkness.

An overwhelming spectacle merely to behold.

Of course...

"Move it! Hurry up!"

At the inspector's orders, the exhausted convict laborers who'd attached the chains to the container ran against the belt's flow.

Having clung to the moving container to fasten its chains, they now had to dismantle it, remove its contents, and carry them away.

Deliverymen with automobiles or ordinary horse-drawn wagons stood packed together, waiting. Once the convict laborers set the goods down, they would collect them and deliver them throughout the region.

To factories, or to various other facilities.

The same scene played out all across the terminal. Countless convict laborers were needed to keep this enormous logistics system running. All of them must have been arrested somewhere or other. Their fragile flesh and blood bustled between steel-bodied machines and the flowing earth.

If the Military State was steel, they were its lubricant.

The convict laborers of a cruel nation, wedged between its gears to prevent damage and keep the machine turning.

Whether cargo or person, anything boarding the meta-conveyor belt had to have its precise destination registered. Otherwise, it would keep circulating around the Military State and obstruct traffic.

The captain, however, whose very identity was classified, presented classified documents rather than explaining herself. Flustered, the clerk went to report to a superior.

A short while later, the captain and I were summoned to the terminal's administrative office.

"I am Colonel Kalparus, chief administrator of the northeastern terminal."

The man who had summoned us was middle-aged, with an imposing mustache.

As befitted the Military State's foremost facility, even the man in charge of this office was no ordinary figure. Not a general's adjutant, but a full-fledged colonel who had proudly earned his rank through his own strength.

Only because this was the northeastern terminal, practically out in the hinterlands, was its administrator a colonel. Generals oversaw the terminals in major cities. That was how important the meta-conveyor belt, the Military State's great artery, was.

"Captain. You said this was a classified operation? I assume you have written orders?"

"Here they are, sir."

The captain snapped off a salute, took the orders from inside her uniform, and handed them over. The colonel read them with a stern expression.

"A two-week deadline from the breaking of the seal. Four days elapsed. Level 4 classified. Cooperation requested from officials concerned. Hmm. I'd have to be a general to know the details. That's the trouble with not wearing a star."

Grumbling, the colonel handed the orders back. The captain respectfully accepted them with both hands, then tucked them under her arm and waited for him to speak.

"All right, understood. I'll authorize you to use the 'pedestrian lane.' It's late today, so collect the necessary equipment tomorrow before you leave."

"Thank you, Colonel. However, every moment counts for my mission. Could we not depart today?"

"Searchlights or no, the terminal is dangerous at night. A two-week deadline isn't that pressing. Give yourself a day."

The colonel glanced at the wound on the captain's head and added,

"You don't seem to be in the best of health, either."

With him showing such consideration, there was no way the captain could refuse. Besides, he wasn't wrong.

All sorts of accidents were bound to happen at a terminal where ten streams merged into one. You could get caught between containers that weren't scheduled to stop here as they merged along their streams, for instance, and end up ground meat. Or a chain hook could catch you by the scruff of your neck.

Daylight was safer for traveling. Unable to read the thoughts of inanimate objects, I wholeheartedly agreed.

"... Thank you for your concern."

The captain acquiesced. Now the colonel's gaze turned to me.

Unlike the captain, whose uniform was still immaculate even after the journey, I wore only a shabby shirt and looked like a complete layabout.

The colonel drew his thick eyebrows closer together.

"... So who is this man, accompanying you on a classified operation? Your lover?"

At the unexpected remark, the captain's eyes widened fiercely.

'Negative! This man is a suspect. I am merely escorting him to Amitengrad!'

But she couldn't explain any of that.

Communications officers' duties and positions were classified. That was why they were given the rank of captain, nominal though it might be.

The fact that she was a communications officer could only be disclosed through communications. Explaining the circumstances to the colonel here would itself constitute a leak of classified information.

Besides, the charges against me were rather dubious to begin with.

'... Although the charge has yet to be proven.'

They suspected me of bringing down a general, but if I had the ability or desire to kill one, would I meekly accompany the captain to the capital?

Remove those suspicions, and I was an ordinary convict laborer. One who could no longer work because his workplace had been "turned upside down."

... Whew. Thank goodness the captain hadn't seen anything else through the golem's eyes. I ought to thank the Regressor for smashing it ahead of time.

'I could list the suspicions, but that is beyond my authority. Furthermore, they concern matters I am not permitted to discuss...!'

As the captain wrestled with her dilemma, unable to speak, the colonel's eyes narrowed at the lack of an answer. His suspicion was directed at me.

And she called this keeping secrets. Tsk.

There was no helping it. I tapped the captain on the shoulder and whispered just loudly enough for the colonel to barely hear.

"What are you doing? Hurry up and tell him! Tell him I'm your big brother!"

Might as well use a false identity.

The captain's eyes went wide at my unexpected move, and she glared at me. All sorts of thoughts spilled from those blue eyes.

'Negative! Negative! What false report is this convict laborer making?! But denying it would also constitute a partial leak of classified information...! An impasse!'

Ignoring the thoughts I heard, I feigned urgency, patting the captain's shoulder and fussing about.

"What are you hesitating for, Bee? Tell him already! He's looking at me like I'm suspicious—!"

'Bee?! Who? Does he mean me?'

As the flustered captain fidgeted helplessly,

"You there!"

The colonel delivered a stern rebuke to me instead. I jumped and turned to him, and he clicked his tongue with a scowl.

"Tsk. The personal information of anyone on a classified operation is also classified. Even if concealing your family relationship would be pointless, should an older brother really be so loose-lipped?"

"Oh, s-sorry, sir."

"What is your citizen level?"

"L-Level 1, sir..."

'Negative! This petty criminal is actually Level 0! Even his claim to Level 1 is fraudulent!'

But the colonel couldn't read the captain's mind. Looking down at me, he clicked his tongue loudly and barked,

"Tsk. So far behind your younger sister. You wouldn't even have been able to board the meta-conveyor belt without her! Though I suppose that's why you're tagging along!"

"Y-Yes, sir."

"Enough. Just don't hold your sister back! I'm letting this slide, but anywhere else, you'd have been arrested on the spot!"

Having sternly reprimanded me, the colonel waved us away. We bowed our heads and hurried out of his office.

The captain didn't say a word as we were led to our assigned quarters.

Instead, the moment we opened the door and went inside, she grabbed me by the collar.