WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 11

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My House and I (2)

The Order headquarters was buzzing over news that had spread belatedly.

Rookie knight Maximilian had killed a child. The child was a suspect in a noble's murder, but the dead noble had a notoriously foul reputation.

Honestly, he was the sort who deserved to die a hundred times over. Media outlets across the Empire latched onto that point.

"......How strange."

In the Sentinel Order's training hall, the rookie Leon wiped down a practice sword and thought about Max.

He had never been the standout type. He had been the same way at Empire Point, the knight academy. There were clear factions there, and Max had enough backing to make himself a leader any time he wanted. Even so, he had never joined one. He had never formed one either. At first, Leon had thought, So he does not even want to get mixed up with idiots.

That was not it.

Max was softer than expected. Still, he did not come off as purely kind.

He was not the type to trample others, but he hated being ignored or having his pride hurt......

In some ways, he was a very ordinary, small-time kind of man.

Awkward as it was to say, he was one of countless "nobles who do not feel like nobles" in this Empire.

"Twelve years old. Three years younger than the last one."

Tiana, Leon's sparring partner, flicked her sword and muttered.

"Maybe there was madness hidden under all that weakness. Guys like that go insane once they snap."

Leon wiped his sweat and gave a small laugh. A strange curiosity flickered across his soft features.

"Max did seem crazy sometimes."

He was the type who rarely got angry, but bottled everything up until he exploded and lost it.

"Still, Max is ahead of us. I am jealous."

"Jealous of what? The media are in a frenzy right now."

Tiana tossed a towel at Leon.

"He did not have to kill the kid. You know how sharp those pen-pushers are these days. It was his first day, so he probably got overexcited for no reason. Bet he regrets it now."

"...You think?"

"I am telling you."

The two drank water and left the training hall.

"If it had been us, upper management would have gone berserk too. But because it's Ebenholtz... uh, Loyalty!"

"Loyalty!"

They were climbing the stairs in the corridor when they ran into senior knights. Both of them hurriedly saluted.

"Oh, good work. Tiana and Leon, right?"

"Yes, sir."

It was Kairon and Yulian. Kairon had a sly, snake-like look, and beside him stood Yulian, model-handsome, Max's assigned senior. At a glance, Yulian and Max looked somewhat alike.

Yulian nodded at them.

"Keep up the good work."

"Yessir!"

The senior knights went into the underground sparring hall, and the two rookies headed up to the first floor.

Right then, they spotted Max standing in front of the elevator.

"Max! Max! I heard the news. Congrats."

Leon walked over with forced cheer. Max only gave a small nod.

"Yeah."

"Where are you going?"

The elevator doors opened just then. Max stepped in and answered.

"The deputy commander's office called me."

* * *

Knock knock.

I knocked on the door to Deputy Commander Anton's office. A voice inside soon told me to come in.

When I opened the door, Anton was seated at his desk. He looked at me and smiled gently.

"Good to see you, rookie knight Maximilian."

"Loyalty."

"Come in."

I walked up and stood before his desk.

"You resolved a very large case in your first week."

He tapped a few newspapers on his desk with his finger. The headlines were split into opposite extremes.

[Ebenholtz's rising star punishes a vicious criminal!]

[Cold-blooded knight points his blade at a child, controversy over excessive force]

[Was the noble killer really a child? An investigation process lacking transparency...]

"Many people doubt us. They call even what they saw with their own eyes fabrication."

A lot of media outlets were hostile to the Order. Before my regression, I had hated them too, but the Emperor's scheming had been behind it.

Public opinion was being manipulated to shift the center of power from the Order to the Imperial Guard.

"The grand jury has also been confirmed. I heard you did not refuse the hearing."

"Yes."

The grand jury was scheduled for next month. Anton gave a bitter smile.

"Maximilian. I know the burden on your shoulders. The name Ebenholtz is dazzling beyond measure. The weight of your house, the world's expectations...... those things crush a person. But you do not need to push yourself too hard. Even if you take one step a day, you can still reach your destination."

I looked at Anton. He was a self-made man. He came from a fallen noble line close to commoner status, yet he had climbed to this position through skill alone.

"Yes. I will engrave your words deep in my heart."

Anton Jefren was a warm man. A clearly good man. Someone who leaned neither toward the Empire nor toward the Revolution, and only tried to walk the right path.

But in this era, with war clouds thickening, people like Anton were not needed. He certainly deserved respect, but the role of deputy commander did not suit him.

"As a reward, fifty thousand dollars will be added to your annual knight budget."

Every knight received a fixed annual operations budget. For rookies, the base was three hundred thousand dollars. Senior knights with strong records could manage two to three million, or even more.

Knights used that budget for things like hiring informants and covering mission expenses.

"Thank you, Deputy Commander-nim."

"Do you have anything else you wish to say?"

"No. I am fine."

"Then you may go."

"Loyalty."

I backed out of the deputy commander's office. I retraced my steps, got in the elevator, and went down to the second floor.

That was when it happened.

"Max!"

Someone called my name. I turned.

A group of noble-born knights stood there. Five or six of them, all from Kairon's faction.

The same men who had destroyed Anton and taken over the Order before my regression.

"Max. What did the deputy commander say? Tell us."

"Yeah, did he say anything special? You know...... related to Ebenholtz."

They were wary of me. More precisely, they feared a possible alliance between Anton and Ebenholtz.

Anton had only one weak point: his origins and background.

"Max. If that old man Anton said something strange to you......"

"Max. Whatever you heard in there, tell us......"

"Max, hey. You remember us drinking together there, right? I can set up another round......"

Max. Max. Hey, Max. Oi, Max.

Hearing them toss my name around as they pleased made me sick.

"- Max?"

I cut them off and asked coldly.

"When did I ever give you permission to call me that?"

"...Huh?"

I had to become the most loyal man in the Empire. To wipe out an alien species, I had to.

But that did not mean I wanted to stand with this trash gnawing away at the Empire. That would only turn the least bad choice I had made back into the worst one.

"My name is Maximilian, and this is not Empire Point, where we used to loiter around together."

"..."

The knights fell silent for a moment.

"Watch how you address me. We are all knights here, regardless of seniority."

I walked past them and headed to my office.

Old memories surfaced for a moment. The days when I had been treated like a pushover, a stupid noble.

"I should have realized sooner."

Even now, those bastards still called me like I was some house dog, but you were not the same as me.

I was not the same as you.

I was Duke Sebestian's son, the rightful eldest heir of Ebenholtz.

You and I had been different from the moment we were born, and Freya had been right.

I should never have stepped outside Ebenholtz.

Because I was Ebenholtz itself.

I stood in a position where I could do what had to be done.

* * *

How did a knight's day begin, and how did missions proceed?

I had completed my first mission with my assigned senior, Yulian, but a senior was only a senior. Every duty in the Sentinel Order was systematically managed through the central computer's 「 Mission Management System 」.

Click.

I turned on the office computer. The interface appeared.

[Sentinel Mission Management System]

On one side of the screen, countless incidents reported in real time from across the Empire kept rising like alerts.

Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding-

The categories varied: monster appearances, rebel activity, vicious crimes, unsolved cases, and more. Cases were graded by severity and urgency.

These countless missions were assigned to individual knights by a specific algorithm. The top priority was expertise.

Past mission records, training results, personal specialties, all that data was used to assess expertise.

For example, knights who had focused on hunting monsters, or knights specialized in agent assassinations and intelligence work, were prioritized for related missions.

Of course, they were only recommendations, so if you did not want one, you could reject it. Not every mission found a perfectly matched owner either.

For general cases where expertise was harder to judge, knights could personally select some missions from the list and volunteer.

That was why rookies were still in the process of finding their specialty.

Click.

Among the mission tabs, I clicked "Most Wanted List." The screen filled with vicious-looking composites and red warning text.

I skimmed through their code names.

"...?"

Then one caught my eye: "Head-Eater." A grotesque serial killer said to have devoured only the heads of Imperials.

The attached crime scene photos were horrific. Every victim's body was mutilated above the neck beyond recognition. The torn surfaces were ragged, like they had been ripped apart by a beast's bite.

"Wait."

Suddenly, Jacob's final appearance flashed through my mind.

Crrrack-!

His mouth had split past human limits, tearing all the way to his ears. Inside, sharp teeth writhed with mana.

“Who is this one called Lexi, the one coming to offer you her heart?”

I had asked Jacob that, and he had exploded in fury and revealed his true form.

Was Lexi that precious to him?

But the child I killed in the park had been different.

Right before I cut off that child's neck, I had whispered something.

“I know who you are. Are you still waiting for Lexi?”

The child showed no agitation at all. It only looked at me with a faint smile and never revealed its true identity. It died while keeping the form of a weak child.

To protect its own kind.

"...Lexi."

I murmured the name.

Jacob had not reacted because I understood an alien language. He had lost his mind over the name of his own kind, Lexi.

They placed top priority on keeping their species hidden from humans. So much that they willingly accepted even their own deaths.

But there were clear individual differences in personality and emotion. Jacob had especially treasured one specific individual, Lexi.

By Izenheim standards, maybe he had been a "very weak" one.

That was why he fell for provocation, exposed himself, and died by my hand.

"Head-Eater."

I looked back at "Head-Eater" on the screen.

[Sentinel Order Mission Management System]

[Knight Status: Year 0 Maximilian von Ebenholtz]

[Mission Code: C-077]

[Mission Type: Wanted Criminal Tracking and Processing]

[Target: Head-Eater (Unidentified)]

I pressed Accept.

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