"Strictly speaking—" Conrad Coetzes said. "—Our actions can be considered a felony to a certain extent."

Carlil replied without looking up, "There is no provision in Imperial law that the Legion is not allowed to add regulations on the selection of new soldiers. ”

"But you call it the twentieth operation."

"It's not an operation, but it's not much different from an operation, they need to bleed, they are injured, they are in pain, the difference is that the surgeon and the patient are themselves, that's all. Again, it's a much better idea than a weird ritual that causes sleepwalking, Conrad. ”

Conrad Coetzes nodded and agreed with Carlil's statement.

He was one of the only two promoters of this matter, and I am afraid that no one can know the answer to the question of whether it is really because he has an opinion on the name of the twentieth operation, or whether he wants to use this reason to open other topics.

The Lord of Midnight has now learned some special skills, and he has no one to teach him, he has no teachers - he can keep his face shut, and hide all his emotions like a box thrown into his heart.

Is it so good?

Conrad Coetzes doesn't have an answer, but he doesn't care about it right now.

He leaned against the wall behind Carlil, rubbing his back against the cold wall, feeling a long-lost comfort. The war is over, and the outcome can still be divided into the 'good' side. That's enough, and Koz doesn't expect much.

He squinted as he watched Carlil write line after line on the blank paper, and couldn't help but ask, "When did you become proficient in this?" ”

"What's the matter?"

"Write the file."

Coates shrugged, knowing that Carlil could tell by the disturbance of the air what he was doing right now.

"You look like another Robert when you write these documents."

"Have you ever seen him write papers?"

"No, he always uses a datapad."

"Then I-"

Carlil turned his head and slipped a pen into Conrad Coetze's hand.

—not another Robert Kiliman, but a professional libicologist who was even older than him. Now it's your turn, Conrad, and since you're done with the meeting and you're going to come here to talk to me, let's talk while we're correcting the papers. ”

“.”

"Why, don't you want to?"

"I thought I would get a little rest after a war."

"If the Lord of the Legion wants to rest, then rest."

Carlil smiled slightly, resting one hand on the back of his chair and shaking his head.

"Paperwork isn't going to run away with long legs anyway, is it? It doesn't matter if you write it or not, they're all there, so you can go and rest, Conrad. ”

"What do you mean I can go to rest?" Coetzes raised half of his eyebrows, which made his expression look somewhat intriguing. "I'm the Lord of the Legion, Carlil, and if I want to rest, I can rest."

"yes."

"yes?"

"Yes, you can rest if you want." Carlil nodded with a smirk. "Then let's rest."

“.”

Conrad Coetzes wordlessly walked around him and came across the table. He pulled out the full-size chair, sat down in silence, and began to do the paperwork as Carlile did.

Frankly, his handwriting was beautiful enough that Carlil knew it was born from Fogham at a glance, but Conrad Coetzes wrote very quickly, which resulted in many lines connecting between words.

And they are not soft.

They're not curved arcs, they even look a little as straight as a knife blade, very much in Conrad Coetzes' personal style.

Very difficult to understand.

"Conrad, I have to say, your font, although very personal, has also caused a lot of trouble for our clerical officer." Carlil tapped his fingers on the table. "Several times they even had to come to me."

The tip of Conrad Coetze's pen froze.

"What are they looking for you?"

"Drinking tea, chatting, studying how many fingers bent others can cause more pain — what do you think?" Carlil asked with a smile. "What do you think they're looking for me for?"

"A ring finger or index finger is better."

"Ah, I think it's better to bend four fingers at once, and then break them back in, but what do you think they're here for me?"

Conrad Coetzes wordlessly put down the pen in his hand and pouted sullenly: "I have long said that I will implement a paperless office, Robert has assigned a batch of data boards to us, but you have to ask for paper documents in this matter."

"What I just said was long before you wanted to go paperless, Conrad. Moreover, it is quite normal to use paper documents in this matter. ”

Carlil shook his head, his dark eyes calm. He wore a long-sleeved blouse in dark blue and a black-and-gray waistcoat over it today—standard office attire from a tailor who had traveled with the Emperor Dream.

Before this expedition, he gave Carlil several pieces of clothing of different styles and purposes, without asking for anything in return, not even saying why.

"Paper files are cumbersome to store, and they're not as easy or quick to find as a datapad, but even the Ultramarines haven't eliminated it, so think about why, Conrad."

"I don't want to."

"Huh?"

"I don't want to go right now. Ponder. Conrad Coetzes said. I just want to get back to Nostramo quickly, Karil, and then I'm going to conscript, and then, I'm going to-"

He paused strangely, pursed his lips, said nothing, and turned his gaze to the ground. It's like silence, and it's like thinking. Carlil stared at him silently, waiting for what was to come, and Coetzes didn't let him down.

"—it seems too early to say that." Conrad Coetze said in a tone that was completely unrelated to his own. "Nostramo is still not suitable for conscription right now."

He came to a conclusion and overturned his thoughts, and he controlled himself with reason, while Carlil sighed imperceptibly.

"So," he said slowly. "When do you think the right time is right, Conrad?"

"I don't have an answer either." The giant, who had just said that he didn't want to think, thoughtfully put his right hand on his cheek.

He stared at the table and began to chase the lightning lines on it with his eyes - everyone has a different habit when it comes to thinking, and this is Conrad Coetze's habit, which comes from a long time ago.

It comes from the days when he crouched on a gargoyle and waited for a man named Karil Lohals to tell him what to do, and he would chase the figures and vehicles on the ground with his eyes while thinking about things that didn't matter.

At the time, they didn't know what was hidden in the gloomy skies of Nostramo, and they didn't know who they really were.

They hunt together for many nights, and the two monsters cause one horrific tragedy after another, and the corpses of their victims can even fill the streets of Quintus.

And now?

Conrad Coetzes burst out laughing harshly, abruptly, but it was normal for him to be revealed—he was handsome, out of place and inappropriately to put it mildly, even as beautiful as he was, the best proof of being an imperial creature.

But he himself has turned this beauty into a temperament mixed with danger, which is not visible on weekdays, and only really shows itself at a few times and in front of a few people.

"I don't have an answer, Carlil." The Lord of Midnight chuckled and shook his head, a smile that bordered on mockery. But who is he mocking?

Carlil also has no answer to this.

"Sometimes, I feel like I've changed." Conrad Coetzes smiled without a smile. "There are other times when I ask myself silently in the bottom of my mind – is it good to just leave Nostramo and go to war?"

"I know the need for the Great Expedition, and I know I shouldn't think that way, but it's hard to convince yourself to do the right thing, Carlile."

He looked at the giant who was very similar to him, and spoke softly, his dark eyes staring at each other tightly: "How did you do that?" ”

"To do what?"

"Always do the right thing."

"I've never done that, Conrad." Carlil told him calmly.

"I've made a lot of mistakes, some of which I still haunt now, and some of which have served as a warning to myself. No one can do the right thing all the time, and those who force themselves to do so are all monsters without exception. Bigotry is a curse on us of some kind, and anyone can be paranoid in some way. Like me, I'm used to turning things into riddles and telling them, as well as carrying everything on my shoulders most of the time. Or the Emperor, he-"

Carlil couldn't help but smile: "-We won't talk about him." ”

"Why?"

"Are you really asking, or are you going to keep this going and twist it into an awkward chat that makes fun of your father?"

Coetze, who had been exposed to his true intentions, was not annoyed, but smiled and picked up the quill and continued to write. After a few minutes, he finished his writing, handed the document to Carlil, and walked out of the room.

Carlil watched him walk away, lowered his head, and began to read.

He saw that the words Konrad Coetzes had written at the beginning had been drawn with his own hand, and that there were four lines of small print underneath the blank space of the document. The font has changed, and the characters are no longer continuous from one to another, making it very easy to distinguish.

"We all have unfinished business, father."

"I could just be a killer, a vicious assassin, but I realized I couldn't do that. If our crimes are not judged, our killing is meaningless. I used to dislike being changed, and I was even a little resistant to wearing the clothes Vogram gave me. But now, I realized, I had to change. ”

"If I don't change, more people will be brutally changed by this world."

"Let's go back to Nostramo, let's change it first."

The update is complete, and a new volume will be opened tomorrow, and Sevita and others will appear.

By the way, let's talk a little bit from the heart.

This month's data has fallen, and I have to die on my own, so I don't have to wash it. I've read everyone's comments, and in short, thank you all for seeing here, and I'll try to make this story wonderful again.

Plus, the shattered steel soul next door is on the shelves! Check it out! If anyone doesn't know, this is the one who raised Peturabo! It's a great time.

(End of chapter)