WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 113

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Path of Dreams (2)

A grim rumor spread through the Sentinel Order.

To the knights, Maximilian had always been terrifyingly cold.

Inside the shell called Empire Point, he had quietly honed himself, like a bird of prey that revealed its true nature only much later.

Even so, seeing him come out of Kairon's office visibly shaken, with Kairon storming out right behind him in equal fury, was enough to put the entire Order on edge.

"...Tiana. You seriously have no idea what happened?"

In the office of first-year Sentinel knight Tiana, Leon tapped her shoulder and asked.

"Ah, damn it, I don't know. How would I kn- no. Not there. Please put it on the window next to that one."

Even while giving instructions to the air conditioner engineers, Tiana listened to Leon chatter on with one hand on the back of his neck.

"Seniors and rookies, everyone keeps coming to me. Asking if something happened to Max."

"...Calling them rookies like that is ridiculous. The Year 0s are only one year behind us."

"Some of them are two or three years younger these days. You know that."

"I don't."

Tiana kept her eyes fixed on the window unit. Leon pressed his lips together.

"Tiana, isn't that thing too expensive?"

The latest invention from Lorenzo Academy. Clean, sleek design and solid performance, but a brutal price tag.

"It is a little expensive, but... the staff said they're dying in this heat. We have to install it. All the seniors and juniors are doing it, so I can't be the only one who doesn't."

Knock knock.

The door opened, and a few senior knights peered in with awkward smiles.

"Hey, Tiana. By any chance, Maximilian-"

"I don't know either."

Tiana answered immediately. They backed off, looking embarrassed.

Leon snorted.

"They ask you too?"

"Yeah. I guess we look close because we're from the same year."

No matter what people thought, "close" was not the word. They were absolutely not the type to open up and talk from the heart.

Even so, their position in the Order was unusual.

They were the only ones from his year who called Maximilian "Max."

"Installation is complete."

"Oh... we're done?"

"Yes."

The engineer gathered his tools.

"Leon, did you install one too? An air conditioner?"

"Why? Aren't we the only ones using window units?"

"Come on, it's not just us. Look. It doesn't damage the interior."

The old cooling units looked clunky to begin with. You had to punch through a wall to connect inside and outside, and they took up a lot of space. Ugly things you mostly saw in banks and government offices.

But this window unit was different. Thin and stylish, almost like part of the interior.

"If you pay extra, they customize it with crystal or something. Nobles are going crazy over it right now. I heard they're paying premiums to get theirs installed first in their mansions."

"Ah... yeah, that makes sense."

"Tiana, how did you get yours so early?"

"I asked Max and he helped me out. I even got a discount. If you ask him, he'll probably help you too."

At Tiana's words, Leon finally understood.

Ah, so that was why everyone came to them whenever anything about Max came up.

"Starting it now."

The engineer pressed the remote.

Sssshhh.

A soft hum, then cold air poured in. Before long, the office felt comfortable.

"Ooooooh!"

The practical officers and clerks, worn out from the heat, clapped. Tiana lifted her brows with a quiet, needless pride.

"...Huh?"

Suddenly one of her clerks looked out and murmured.

"Did the knights come back?"

Outside the window, Maximilian's newest custom transport craft was landing.

"Seriously, why does he change planes like people change bicycles?"

Tiana stared in disbelief. The state-of-the-art model she had seen last time already looked outdated.

* * *

...Berkina, a hidden VVIP private room in a newly opened club.

That was where the triad meeting was held. An emergency meeting of the three biggest powers dividing the territory of the Parmano Cartel.

"...I still don't see why we had to gather like this."

Costa grumbled as he looked at the man across from him.

The boss of bosses, Pellier.

He now sat in a neat suit, calm and composed, but his infamy from the days he drenched Berkina in blood was the stuff of legend.

Even Costa, called Berkina's Mad Dog and the Iron Boar, could not help but tense up in front of him.

"Hey, Pellier. Is there a problem?"

At Costa's question, Pellier's expression hardened.

"Hoo..."

Without a word, he smoked his cigar and stared Costa down. The pressure in that silence, that unmistakable presence, had not changed.

"What you did is the problem."

Pellier exhaled smoke as he spoke. Calm and fury coexisted in his eyes.

"What problem?"

Even then, Costa answered without flinching. He spread both arms wide and swept his gaze around the room.

"What problem is there exactly? Did we die? Is this heaven? Well, it does feel like heaven. Never thought a club like this would open in Berkina."

Pellier's lips twisted soundlessly. For a brief moment, mana rippled with menace. The mercenaries behind Costa reached for their weapons. Pellier's guards also raised their mana.

A killing intent sharp enough to tear flesh filled the VVIP room.

"Hey, hey. What's with you all? Calm down."

Kunta, leader of the third faction, waved his hand.

Costa lifted his brows and continued.

"...Right, Pellier. You know who backs us. The Imperial Guard, the Imperial Guard. Those bastards take our money while feeding off the palace too."

He lowered his voice and sneered.

"And that dead knight bastard was a commoner. Some no-name commoner pretending to be a knight. A minnow you can kill without consequences."

"..."

Pellier listened in silence.

"And do you know where that information leaked from?"

A wet little laugh slipped out.

"The imperial palace. It leaked through the palace. The high-ups didn't like that pathetic commoner poking at their cash lines all the time. We just did some cleanup."

Even so, Pellier's face remained calm. Costa hated that look. That arrogance that said he knew everything, that people like Costa were in the palm of his hand.

Costa's brow twitched.

"So the real issue right now is why you've been glaring at me this whole time."

"...The corpse?"

Pellier asked.

Costa's expression stiffened.

"I heard the corpse disappeared."

"...We confirmed he was dead. Those injuries were never survivable in the first place. He was only barely breathing because of drugs."

A slab of flesh kept barely alive by chemicals, skin flayed, bones carved down, eyes gouged out, reduced to a mangled mass.

"It's nothing. Who would use a corpse like that anyway? The palace already threw him away."

"..."

Tap, tap. Pellier flicked ash from his long-burning cigar and gave his conclusion.

"This round of tribute is doubled. Costa. If you have any conscience, your side covers more. If you cause trouble, you pay cleanup costs."

"What? You fucking-"

Costa cursed, but Pellier stood without listening further.

As he stepped out of the VVIP room, a mercenary asked:

"Boss. Will this really be fine? An imperial knight-"

"It's fine. Everything he said was true. The palace's Imperial Guard won't want anyone finding out they took money from us."

Ashton. That bastard had caused heavy damage to Pellier's large farms too. Costa's method had been reckless, but at least it had felt satisfying.

"A brainless beast like him is easier to use."

Costa had done the dirty work for him, and he had saved time, money, and manpower.

"If anything happens, we just throw him away."

"...Yes, boss."

Pellier adjusted his cuffs and walked down the stairs.

Clack. Clack.

With each step, his shadow stretched longer. Muscles twitched beneath his tailored suit, and from his pitch-black eyes flowed a killing aura no one could take lightly.

Clack. Clack.

A man who had crushed thousands, tens of thousands of rivals and climbed to the top on a mountain of corpses.

That was Pellier Crusio, the man who ruled Berkina's night.

* * *

From the moment the four knights returned from their top-secret trip, a covert special team was formed under Kairon and Maximilian.

It was top secret in the truest sense, so secret even senior knights were not briefed, and a taut warlike tension spread through the Sentinel Order.

Knights, practical officers, clerks, even cleaners, everyone was curious about it.

"Me? Me?"

Leon stared wide-eyed at Maximilian, who had come looking for him.

Maximilian answered briefly.

"Yeah. You."

"What's the mission?"

"Top secret. If you don't want in, quit before hearing it. But once you hear it, you can't refuse."

Leon blinked blankly, then nodded.

"Me? Me?"

Tiana asked the same thing Leon had.

"Yeah. You."

"What's the mission?"

"Top secret. If you don't want in, quit before hearing it. But once you hear it, you can't refuse."

"...Then I'm in."

So the two most dependable first-years were assigned to the team, and three Year 0 knights were recruited as well.

They had selected knights with as little connection to the palace's Imperial Guard as possible.

And then, today.

Rain poured down in heavy summer sheets that evening.

"What, you again?"

Year 0 knights Royce and Dare Tan frowned at the entrance of a building.

"What."

Hanna had appeared in front of them.

Dare Tan rubbed his chin and muttered.

"If she's here, maybe this isn't an important mission..."

Everyone had gathered cautiously in plain clothes, so why was Hanna here?

"Definitely not war, that's for sure."

The meeting place was not the Sentinel Order. If they discussed things there, information could leak to the palace.

Instead, they had been invited to Maximilian's building under the pretext of a dinner.

"Is this really just dinner? Otherwise she wouldn't be here."

"Guess so."

"Hey. You two, get lost."

Royce and Dare Tan kept chattering, and Hanna flipped them off as she walked inside.

"But honestly, admit it. For a commoner, her ability is-"

Royce's chatter cut off as he followed behind her.

In the dim darkness ahead, a round table came into view.

"..."

Kairon and Maximilian were not the only ones there.

More than twenty knights were present, the kind whose names came to mind the moment you saw their faces, and whose faces came to mind the moment you heard their names. Even standing still, they radiated mana pressure. Their presence filled the vast interior. If one had to describe it, it felt like hundreds of tanks packed into one room.

Their hearts tightened instantly.

"What are you doing? Come stand over here."

At Kairon's words, the three Year 0s hurried to a corner.

"Good. Looks like everyone is here."

As Year 0s, they were by far the latest. The trio shut their eyes tight.

Kairon looked over the group and nodded.

"Maximilian. Will you explain?"

Maximilian nodded and stepped forward.

He placed several photos on the panel beside the round table.

"Over ten years ago, a knight joined the Sentinel Order."

Egilon.

A handsome young man in Sentinel uniform.

"His future was bright. He could have lived a prosperous life as a Sentinel knight, a fact everyone acknowledged. But for a greater cause, he left the Order. To devote himself to people in need, in the Empire's lowest places."

Not because he was Izenheim.

Not because he was a spy who stole an identity and enlisted.

And not because Yulian discovered that truth.

As a pure Aran, to care for the weak and vulnerable.

"But."

Maximilian set a large duffel bag on the table. Before the others could brace themselves, he unzipped it immediately.

A groan rippled through the room.

A corpse with the eyes gouged out and skin flayed off. Chest crushed, heart and organs torn out, horrific signs of torture everywhere.

"He came back to us like this."

Maximilian's voice dropped low. The knights' faces hardened cold.

"A mere cartel dared do this to an imperial knight."

Their eyes turned toward Maximilian. Deep, beast-like lines were carved into his expression.

It was likely a face everyone there was seeing for the first time.

"He was our brother."

Every note in his voice was razor-sharp, brimming with killing intent.

"I, Maximilian, as a knight of the Sentinel Order and an Aran of the Empire, believe we must never overlook this insult-"

Maximilian clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white.

"I state that in the strongest possible terms."

...Silence fell.

Aside from scattered sighs and the grinding of teeth, there was no sound.

One knight reached out and laid a hand on Egilon's empty eye socket. Another closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross.

Then Kairon stepped forward.

"Operation codename: Path of Dreams. A large-scale beheading operation against the Parmano Cartel, who dared lay hands on an imperial knight."

In effect, this was a deployment of force large enough to move one full pillar of the Order.

"We."

Kairon circled several points on the map. They were hideouts of cartel capos entrenched along Berkina's border region.

"We destroy them all at once."

A sixth-year knight, Fried, raised his hand and asked:

"Then should we assume an operation time limit of about one week-"

"The time limit,"

Maximilian cut in.

"One day."

Everyone stiffened at his words.

"Within 24 hours, we will crush every last one of them."

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