Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter20 (section)

===Beretta’s Journal===

I’ve come to understand so much. And I’ve prepared myself for what’s to come.

It’s currently 9 PM, so 6 hours until our attack begins. I’m writing this in the field camp’s break area. It’s a pretty big collection of troops, so the break area is made up of several tents lined up in a wide space. For now, the fighting force is primarily composed of Allied special forces and an aerial assault unit. They are equipped with aerial tanks, highly-mobile armored trucks, transport vehicles, and more.

I can see the top of my Grazie in the distance. Including the Resistance forces, there are 1500 people here in all, so it’s quite a lot. I can see some with prosthetic arms, I can see some nonhumans, and I can see some people who seem to be Tuners and Busters.

They’re a lively bunch. Earlier, they held a strategy meeting with the leaders of each group. I was given a spot as the Missel heir and I was given a key position in the liberation operation. It helped that I – well, my grandma – was originally sent here as an Ally spy.

That means I really have become my grandma in this army.

This operation will let me kick out the Germans and liberate Paris while using her identity. Part of it is the plan originally developed by Jean Missel – I wish I could have called him grandfather just once.

There are still a lot of details to iron out, but if it goes well, nearly a third of Paris will be destroyed, but the enemy’s main force will be entirely neutralized. To accomplish that, I need to at least arrive at the Eiffel Tower’s Champ de Mars before 5 AM with Phillip’s Third Flame Emperor in hand. The others will lure the enemy’s main force there, where we’ll make short work of them. We’re calling that Operation Flame Glide.

I also proposed some other operations and they were approved too.

I can’t let anyone else know, but I incorporated the three conditions for liberating France into those operations.

The key is securing Paris’s central broadcasting station and preventing the Wort Bombe’s transport plane from taking off.

“If we take the broadcast station and transmit the fight to liberate Paris to the rest of France in real time, won’t the entire country yearn for liberation when we win?”

Everyone agreed with me there, but that had a double purpose for me. Not only would the broadcast spread a spirit of liberation throughout the people of France, but it would also let me proclaim to the country of France that I am Beretta McWild – in other words, my grandma.

A spy apparently provided intel that the transport plane taking off from Paris’s international airport at 5 tomorrow morning – the very one that will drop the Wort Bombe – will be carrying some members of the Geheimnis Agency, who are known as especially dangerous even for Germany. The others said that agency is secretly in command of the entire German military and it would be very dangerous to let them bring information on Paris back to Germany. They like to gather Death Techno, so if they are leaving from Paris, they must have found something here.

So we have to take it back.

I spread out the Wort Bombe document Jean Missel had given me, told them it was in an underground storeroom at Paris’s international airport, and said we needed to both stop that plane and secure the bomb.

Based on my examination of the document, the Wort Bombe does exactly what Jean Missel claimed.

“If we secure the bomb before it’s timed trigger is activated and then we detonate it when France has been liberated and everyone wants to be happy, it might change France for the better.”

The weapon sounds like something from a fairy tale, but everyone seemed both cautious of and curious about it. Unlike a normal bomb, this one emits the power to “distort concepts”.

“Wouldn’t it be safer to detonate it after using the broadcast to inform all of France about Paris’s liberation?”

That suggestion didn’t even come from me. Most of them are still opposed to the idea of detonating it, but since it responds to people’s wills, a lot of them were willing to consider it depending on how things go. But we can discuss that further once we have secured it.

Based on my suggestion and the intel from the spy, they split off a unit to secure the airport.

We never decided what to do with the bomb once we had it, but there was still a chance I could save my grandma.

All the preparations are in place now, so it all comes down to my own will.

France’s liberation is up to me.

If my actions are broadcast across France, it will give the French people a spirit of liberation. At the same time, we can stop the transport plane carrying the bomb from taking off.

That just leaves using the broadcast or something else to prove that France has not truly closed itself off. I only have to announce that I have come from outside and my presence means France is not closed down. It’s a lot like how my grandma came here from America and fought the German occupation because it was wrong. She too was trying to liberate France back then.

I will be doing that in two different ways at once.

And if it is possible, I also want to detonate the Wort Bombe in a good way so she will not be erased from history as a duplicate existence. To do that, I must first win this fight and bring the will of France in a positive direction.

I really hope I can manage that.

I’m sure I can convince everyone to do it. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I won’t let them give up and do nothing.

I mean, even if the bomb is detonated in a good way, that might not actually distort the world in a way that saves my grandma. It might become even worse or it might not change anything at all.

In the end, it’s a gamble.

But taking that gamble is far better than doing nothing at all.

And to make that gamble, I need to take action.

Yes. I realized something important: the origin of my grandma’s Urban Name. It was simple really. The Sword Lady name came from the Missel family’s sword crest on my Grazie’s shoulder armor.

Sword Lady was not an occupation; it was a simple codename based on that crest.

That means she and Phillip were – oh, there’s no use beating around the bush. He was the lover she’s mentioned before. But after seeing him die and hearing his dying words, she fled.

I wonder why that was.

I’m going to read her letter. I want to know so much more about her. So much more about that other version of myself.