WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 105

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What Literature Is (2)

In Zerpa, the Durkon Legion stationed on Alcantara Road protected the Empire's supply convoys.

On the surface, it was tedious work. For troops famous as elites, it could feel unsatisfying.

But in return, Maximilian's gratuity payments were distributed along the way.

Durkon's rank and file received bundles filled with premium refreshments, snacks, and daily necessities, while officers received envelopes of bonus pay.

Schweitzer himself had no greed for money, but his subordinates were different.

"Stay sharp! If anyone hesitates on the password, shoot them on the spot!"

The effect was immediate. Durkon, already known for the harshest discipline in the Empire, held its defensive posture like an iron wall.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Kai Han received the imperial supply columns inside the capital.

Bang! Boom!

The supply unit entered the capital in flashy fashion, even firing ceremonial rounds into the air. It had been Maximilian's idea, or more precisely, Johann's.

"We will handle distribution."

Lieutenant Colonel Han notified the Royalist generals. They offered no open objection.

Still, no one could let their guard down.

Those men would find some backdoor way to siphon supplies off.

"Your Highness, this is the food that will be distributed to civilians."

"...Will it really be distributed like this?"

Crown Prince Alonso asked again, his dry lips trembling.

"Yes. It will be distributed exactly as shown."

"Ha... haha."

Alonso put a hand to his forehead and gave a plain, almost disbelieving laugh.

Lieutenant Colonel Han lowered his voice.

"Sir Knight Maximilian overextended himself to prepare this, for Your Highness."

"I know. I know. As expected, Sir Knight Maximilian is..."

The Crown Prince spoke the knight's name with formal respect, and genuine regard.

Han did not bother correcting his form of address.

"...The people will be overjoyed. They might eat until they choke."

Wartime distribution was divided by grade.

Grade 1, core personnel such as heavy laborers, combat troops, and repair workers: bread, meat, soup, and a protein-heavy diet including pepper.

Grade 2, lighter-duty workers and office staff: bread, soup, potatoes, and other grains.

Grade 3, ordinary citizens, clerks, and shop workers: bread and soup.

Grade 4, non-workers, the elderly and weak, and vagrants: one loaf of bread.

Compared to Zerpa's old rations, the menu looked so much better that the Crown Prince could only stare in admiration.

"For distribution, we would like to review Zerpa's administrative registry and place it under our control. Do we have your permission?"

"Ah, of course."

Ration slips would be issued according to the names listed in Zerpa's registry, then distribution would proceed.

But one problem remained.

Enemies within, the monarchy's corrupt generals.

As for how to "deal with" them...

Maximilian himself might have to step in later.

"Truly, this is beautiful."

In any case, the Crown Prince was moved.

Once distribution began, Zerpa's soldiers and citizens would likely feel the same.

"By the way, Your Highness, your Imperial sounds as fluent as an Aran native."

Lieutenant Colonel Han asked with a faint smile.

The Crown Prince nodded gently.

"I visited the Empire when I was young. For royalty, Imperial is basic education."

"In that case."

Han pulled a book from his coat and offered it.

Its black cover had the title stamped in gold foil.

"Would you like to read it? It came from the Imperial center with the supplies."

The supply bundles from the Empire had included several books, and this one in particular was getting an excellent response from the troops.

"Baltaras...?"

The Crown Prince stroked the luxurious cover and opened the first page.

* * *

...A trend had spread through the imperial center.

It was a single book, 「Baltaras」.

"Ha... this is driving me crazy."

A quiet afternoon.

Ashton, former Sentinel and now an independent private knight, was also savoring each line and feeling it deeply.

"How did a book like this come out of the center..."

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary love story, but it was nothing like that.

If anything, it was more aching and realistic than any other romance.

A genius did not care about censorship.

Honestly, it was shocking that this book had passed censorship at all.

"Hey! Egilon!"

Someone called him. Ashton sighed and closed the book.

He got up sluggishly and looked over.

"Egilon! How's the farm situation?!"

This was the Empire's southeastern border zone. A massive Parmano Cartel farm cultivating black poppy, the main ingredient of the narcotic Archia.

"Hey! Egilon! I asked if anything happened?!"

A cartel executive shouted from the top of a jeep.

Knight Ashton, also known as cartel undercover operative Egilon, jerked his chin toward the farm.

"You can see it. It's quiet."

"Good. Then let's switch shifts!"

The southeastern border was a mixed-language region where the eastern nation's tongue, Berkina's, was used alongside others. They traded rough-dialect jokes and piled out of the jeep.

Armed cartel guards.

They were no ordinary thugs. The cartel employed mercenaries who handled swords as well as guns, some with skills beyond active-duty knights.

"Good work."

"Yeah, good shift, Egilon, you cocksucker."

"Fuck off."

Ashton raised his middle finger and walked away from the farm.

Cartel executives and defense personnel picked up swords and firearms.

Then the sun set, and the farm was slowly buried in pitch-black darkness.

That quiet, peaceful air...

Bang!

In an instant, it was torn apart.

With the gunshot, sparks spread.

Clang! Craaang! Ratatatat!

The sharp ringing of blade against blade.

You motherfucker! Kill him! Die! Ugh, aaaaagh!

Blood sprayed, screams burst out.

Slice. Shrrk.

Steel cut flesh. Severed body parts rolled across the ground.

Scrrrape.

Bit by bit, the chaos settled. As silence slowly returned to the area...

Whooosh.

A field fire began to roar.

Hundreds of thousands of pyeong of farmland, raw material for narcotics, was swallowed by red flames and burned to ash...

Step.

A knight's combat boot struck the road. A man with blond hair and gold eyes stood before the swaying wall of fire. Moonlight lit his hard jawline.

He rubbed the rough stubble on his face and looked up at the night sky.

"Ah, Sir Knight Yulian!"

In the imperial southeast, a deputy director from the Narcotics Enforcement Bureau ran up in a rush.

"Thank you for your hard work."

Yulian nodded quietly.

It was a narcotics farm purge. An operation to wipe out black poppy, the source material for high-purity Archia.

"Wow. How much money was all this worth? Tens of millions of dollars, right?"

The deputy muttered idle nonsense, but Yulian fell into silent thought.

Narcotics made people forget life.

Did people seek drugs because life was hard?

If so, was the problem the people who sought drugs, the people who made them, or the groups that ground people down into ruin?

Whichever way he looked at it, no clear answer came.

"By the way... Sir Knight. Have you read this book?"

The deputy pulled a book from his coat.

「Baltaras」.

"It's a complete craze these days. My daughter nagged me so much to read it, so I did, and it was insanely good. But that bastard Dyke... Ah, just in case, if you haven't read-"

Yulian took out the same book from his own coat.

"Oh, of course."

"Reading is my hobby. Dyke is a son of a bitch."

"Hahaha, of course. Just what I'd expect from you, Sir Knight. No way someone like you wouldn't read a masterpiece like this."

"I think I know who Baltaras was modeled after."

"Huh? The model? Ah, yourself?"

The deputy started spouting nonsense. Yulian's brow creased slightly.

"Ah, no? While I was reading, I kept thinking of you, Sir Knight Yulian."

"Baltaras is not worn down like me."

There was only one man who matched Baltaras's description.

"Handle cleanup properly."

"Ah, yes sir. Leave it to me. Honestly, there's nothing to clean up anyway. We burned it all."

As Yulian turned away, he opened the book. On page seventeen, Ashton had hidden a coded message.

This operation had been a joint effort by Ashton and Yulian.

The two had worked the same investigations for a long time, as old comrades.

To make the Empire more just, to erase the drug cartels that harmed the Empire...

Yulian stared at the burning farm and clenched 「Baltaras」 tightly.

"..."

Yet which side was truly "just"?

He still had not found that answer.

* * *

Two weeks after Baltaras's release.

The novel 「Baltaras」 sent ripples across the Empire. Young noble ladies fell for Baltaras, the tragic protagonist, while corrupt nobles pretended to sink into deep thought.

Strangely, none of them seemed to think they themselves were Dyke, Baltaras's enemy.

Still, Baltaras was not only entertainment. It also carried propaganda.

Aran supremacy ran through the whole story, and though Baltaras was betrayed by imperial nobles, the force that directly killed him in the end was the barbarians of the eastern front.

Johann's first work held literature, art, and propaganda at once.

Then what influence could it have on the spirit of the times?

It was still impossible to predict.

I should not expect too much.

I only hoped it would help the laws I wanted to propose later.

"Hm."

One afternoon.

I came to the Order a little late and picked up a newspaper as usual.

[A Noble Called 「Baltaras」 Sweeps the Empire.]

[A Noble Who Does Not Exist Roams the Empire...]

I was scanning the headlines with satisfaction when,

Knock knock, slam!

The knock came, and the door opened at the same time.

Yulian.

For him, it was an extremely unusual, abrupt visit.

"Sir Knight Yulian. What is it?"

Instead of answering, Yulian sat in the chair across from me.

"...Max."

"Yes."

"As a knight, I want to formally request your support."

Yulian asked me for help.

That was surprising.

"Hmm..."

First I gauged the timing in my head.

A crisis that could hit Yulian around now. The cases he had been pursuing personally.

The Parmano Cartel.

The imperial southeast. The Empire's worst and largest narcotics organization, running wild along borderlands where law and order did not reach.

"...Do you know Parmano?"

"The cartel, yes."

"A comrade who infiltrated them was carrying out a very dangerous mission. We lost contact."

Yulian continued in an even tone.

"We got a rough fix on his last position, but..."

As always, he stayed composed.

That was exactly like Yulian, calm at death's door, in prison, even with execution right in front of him.

"I cannot handle the scale alone. I need people I can trust, and operation funds."

Yulian was incorruptible. He spent every reward and salary on orphanages or poor relief, so he would be badly short on money for his own operations.

"Yes."

I answered without hesitation.

"I volunteer."

Drugs were poison that sickened the Empire.

And behind those spreading that poison, without a doubt.

Izenheim would be involved.

"Go on ahead first. I will prepare."

So this was, if anything, exactly the "case" I had been waiting for.

Yulian had lost to the cartel in the past.

I would not let it end that way.

...

Kairon leaned against the office window and closed his eyes.

Dark moonlight slipped through the gap and lit his face. A drop gathered at the corner of his eye and rolled down.

Baltaras.

Every one of his words and sentences carried weight. Even in his tragic end, there was noble meaning.

"...Haa. Hk."

The posture, the bearing, everything a noble ought to follow.

It might have been the first time in a long while that he had been drenched in such pure emotion.

"Hk... khup."

He steadied his swelling emotions. After collecting himself, he left the office.

"Hoo..."

He took a deep breath and pressed the elevator button.

Ding.

Inside the opening elevator stood a knight who had already boarded. It was Senior Knight Adria.

She too held a black-covered book.

"You read it too?"

"Yes. Looks like you cried, Sir Knight Kairon."

"Me? No chance."

"You've got tear marks."

"...A book like this doesn't suit you."

Kairon glanced at Adria and gave a dry laugh. Adria gave a small nod.

"True. I understood the noble duty Baltaras talked about. But in the end, the theme of the whole book was narrow. It cast one side as the enemy."

"You crazy woman. Shut your mouth. How dare you."

"...Even if it's just the two of us, isn't that too harsh? I still thought the storyline itself was really fun. A romance that's hard to get in the Empire-"

Ding.

Just then, the elevator arrived. They hurried down to the parking garage.

Kairon hated dealing with women. She probably felt the same way.

"Heading out now?"

At the sudden voice, they turned.

And the moment they saw the man who had appeared from nowhere,

"..."

Kairon's eyes widened. So did Adria's.

In their ears, Baltaras's description played again.

[Even in darkness, his golden eyes never lost their light. His clean blond hair always shone brilliantly. His uniform was always perfect, without a speck of dust, and his behavior and bearing never once slipped...]

"Take care."

He got into the car and drove off without another word. Even his most ordinary movement was flawless. Adria and Kairon stared blankly after him.

"...Huh."

They were stunned.

A knight like Baltaras, at least outwardly a perfect match...

had been working in the same place all along.

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