WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 127

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A Fake Play (4)

Riiiing──

In a suite at the finest hotel in Bolska, Hanna's terminal started ringing.

"Ah, so loud."

Bolska had stronger mana waves than the Empire. Because of that, terminal sounds came out painfully sharp.

"Ugh... yes. This is Harmush."

She got out of bed and took the call. She kept her voice clear, using the tone of the merchant Harmush.

“Have you been sleeping?”

The voice on the other end was rough. It was the weapons dealer she had met last time.

"Who's this, this early in the morning?"

“I'll give you the meeting location. But there's no 'bread.' Only 'scrap metal.'”

Code words. Bread meant illegal synthetic mana stones. Scrap metal meant untraceable weapons.

Hanna clicked her tongue, pretending to be disappointed.

"...Hmm. That's a problem if there's no bread. We'll need to renegotiate."

“Don't say stupid things. You think we don't know the Empire's situation?”

The man let out a mocking snort.

“If moving weapons in got harder, then prices go up. That's market logic, right? We're both busy, so let's keep this clean and honest. We all know bread was just an excuse.”

Hanna hid her smile and gave a fake cough.

"...Well, first, yes. Let's talk in person. The goods are solid, right?"

“Of course.”

He rattled off the meeting place and time, then hung up.

Hanna put her terminal down and let out a long sigh.

"Ah, these damn bastards. How did they figure that out? Do they have ties in the Empire or what."

Still acting, she took a shower, changed into a suit, put on thick-rimmed glasses, smoothed her curled hair, and left the hotel.

"Whew."

It was broad daylight in Bolska. The meeting point was a shabby commercial building in the middle of downtown.

She climbed the stairs and stopped in front of a steel door on the third floor.

Knock knock-

She knocked, waited, and got no response.

"..."

Did she get the address wrong?

Hanna went back downstairs and checked it again.

"This is right."

She climbed back up.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

She knocked several more times, irritated, and then the door creaked open on its own.

It had never been locked.

"...?"

A fishy metallic smell leaked through the crack.

Drip, drip. Red liquid ran over the threshold.

Blood.

"!"

Hanna instantly drew up her mana. She gripped the dagger inside her coat and lowered her stance.

"...Who's in there?!"

Silence. No answer came back.

She took a deep breath and threw the door wide open.

"..."

The whole room was slick with blood. She swallowed hard and scanned the scene.

The man and woman from yesterday. The broker who had been our informant. Their guards.

All of them were sprawled across the floor. Throats slit, hearts pierced.

Hanna grabbed her hair. It felt like the back of her neck had seized up.

"What the hell is this..."

Who did this? We were supposed to be the only side that knew about this deal.

Could there have been more than one wiretap? Or an internal split?

She forced down the confusion and collected evidence first. From the bodies and bags, she took everything: terminals, wallets, documents, all of it.

"Still warm."

The corpses still had heat, and rigor had not set in. It meant they had been killed recently.

-BAAANG!

The door suddenly flew open.

"Hands up!"

"Don't move!"

Uniformed police burst in, shouting, pistols and long blades in hand.

"I, I didn't do it!"

Hanna shouted on reflex.

"It wasn't me! I just got here!"

"What are you saying, shut up! Drop your weapon and get on the floor!"

The police had no intention of listening. From the start, they could not even communicate in the same language.

"Get down! Move and we'll cut you down!"

At that moment, Hanna knew.

The survival instinct she had honed as a country bumpkin rang a warning bell.

If she stayed, she died.

She kicked off the floor immediately.

"Ah, shit!"

"Get her!"

"Shoot! Shoot her!"

Bang! Bang bang!

Muzzles flashed. Hanna did not dodge. Instead, she wrapped her whole body in Aura Guard.

Thunk! Thududung!

The bullets bounced off an invisible barrier. The officers' eyes went wide.

She took that opening and kicked the nearest one in the jaw.

Agh!

The officer crashed to the floor with a scream. Hanna considered swinging her dagger, but she could not cause civilian casualties. She rushed the window instead.

Crash!

She smashed through the glass and threw herself out. Third floor height, no hesitation. She was already used to drops like this.

Thud.

She landed with a roll and sprinted straight into the alleys.

"Catch her!"

"Call for backup! Murder suspect is fleeing!"

Whistles and shouts poured in behind her.

"Ah, damn it, what a headache..."

Hanna gritted her teeth and ran.

* * *

All suspects in the Royal Opera House terror case were arrested.

The moment they sensed the operation had failed, they blew up their hideout, but the price of tearing up the script was brutal. They did not have enough time to clean up, so unavoidable evidence was left in the wreckage.

The police secured it all, and by knight authority, I transferred every piece of evidence to my office.

"Terror in the middle of the Empire, seriously... thank you for your work, Sir Knight! And all of you officers too! Loyalty!"

Normally, the Police Bureau would have hated that move. Instead, they welcomed it and handed over the full investigative materials. That was thanks to the generous dining support, activity funds, and bonuses I provided.

Performance mattered to police, yes. Rewards mattered more. They were Imperial subjects living in the same world.

For the record, money from a knight was not solicitation or bribery. Legally speaking.

"Sir Knight. These weapons are suspicious."

In the middle of the office investigation, an operations officer suddenly handed me photos of evidence. Rifles recovered from the blast site.

"There were spells installed inside the weapons, using mana stones as catalysts."

A personal identification spell designed to destroy the weapon when the owner died or when it left their body.

Still, no world existed where spells like that worked perfectly every time. Spell error and misfire were an age-old tradition.

"These are the ones we obtained because the spell did not trigger. Three rifles total..."

The officer placed the actual guns on my desk. I picked one up.

Heavy in the hand. Crude finish. Many parts were modified, but several original components had familiar shapes.

"...Gigantes."

"Yes. That's right."

The officer nodded. They were improved models based on old Gigantes rifles.

I stared at the barrel, then looked up.

"There's no way Gigantes, already buried, came back."

Gigantes had collapsed completely with help from the Revolutionary Faction. Production lines had stopped, and blueprints were gone.

Then where had these come from?

"Someone siphoned them out."

If I guessed the scenario, it was from an external warehouse or a port tied to Gigantes.

Then some bastards used the terror chaos as cover, marked intact weapons as total losses with Gigantes, and siphoned them out.

"Yes. At that time, all Gigantes stock and inventory were processed as total losses."

Blind weapons that no longer existed on paper.

"...Ha."

A dry laugh escaped me.

Because of me, many palace nobles could not claim compensation for their Gigantes investment losses. Some of them, or some faction, sold siphoned weapons to make up those losses. Those weapons circled the continent and ended up in terrorists' hands.

Only a powerful high noble house could pull something like this off. At minimum, it had to be a group with direct access to Gigantes inventory control.

"Trace every flow of these weapons. Thoroughly."

Whether they stood above Ebenholtz or below it, I would find out once we crossed them.

"Yes. Understood."

The officer withdrew, and a little later:

"Sir Knight. Mr. Leonard has arrived for witness questioning."

Leonard had come to the Order.

......

I looked at Leonard in the interrogation room.

He looked settled. As if he had already accepted the ending, resigned and calm.

"Good to see you."

I laid out the evidence first.

Among the captured Revolutionary Faction members, many were opera house staff. I extracted and presented everything: document records showing their movements, letter fragments burned but not fully destroyed, and more.

"I do not know whether radicals planned terror against the opera house, or whether the opera house itself was a den of radicals."

Under pale light, Leonard's handsome features stood out. Black roots showed through, as if his original hair color had been black.

"Seventeen armed assailants were killed, thirty-two civilians were injured, and seven died."

Civilian casualties. Leonard let out a pained groan.

"Leonard, you are still only a witness, but most opera house affiliates will be executed, and you may be included."

His eyes shook. He stayed silent for a moment, then opened his mouth like he had made up his mind.

"...I will die."

He meant he would take responsibility himself.

"I planned the terror attack, and everything was done under my orders."

He delivered it calmly. Even this ordinary acting was first-rate.

"So I will take full responsibility. But let me make one thing clear. We never intended to kill people. Those puppets, those killing machines, were not our work."

Leonard was a brilliant actor. There was no lie in how he bet his life to protect his comrades.

I set a letter down in front of him.

"Your father sent me a letter. I heard he threw out the son who chose acting, but it seems he did not abandon you completely."

His family had already started moving. Almost begging.

"...Please ignore it."

Leonard bit his lip and let out a thin sigh.

"I already gave up the path my family wanted. So please, I dare ask that they do not get entangled with me."

I watched Leonard. He was a good actor. Maybe the kind of great actor that would never appear again in my lifetime.

I knew little about theater, but I was not blind.

To be honest, he was the first person after my regression to surprise me through art. More than that, Justine wanted him alive.

"Hmm..."

Princess Justine.

As I said before, she was dangerous.

Possibly the most dangerous person on this continent.

Among countless war criminals, scholars studied Justine almost as much as the Emperor, and their testimony was consistent: paranoia and suspicion.

An obsession with racism and extermination.

A one-line summary was this: an aberration born in the demonic pit called the Imperial Palace.

Before Leonard died, Justine had suspected countless retainers and houses and wiped them out. After his death, she focused on purging eastern races and subspecies.

So I could not fall out of her favor.

"...'That person'..."

For that reason, this could not be helped.

I gave Leonard only one sentence.

"She would not wish for your death."

"..."

Leonard said nothing. For a long while, under flickering light, he stared at me.

Without a word, his eyes held mine for a long time, then-

"...Sir Knight. Do you love her?"

It was absurd nonsense out of nowhere.

My brow furrowed.

"What, who are you talking about."

"Her."

Leonard's face was sincere.

I asked back in disbelief.

"...Then let me ask instead. Mr. Leonard, do you admire her?"

The play had been fake, but had the actor's feelings been real?

He kept his mouth shut for a moment. Then he swallowed and gave a bitter smile.

"I... was not honest about my feelings."

He looked up at the ceiling.

"I knew she watched me. Sometimes from the balcony seats, sometimes from the general seats, I knew those jewel-like eyes. But."

Leonard lowered his head and looked at me again.

"Only now do I understand."

His eyes held longing and admiration, thick envy and jealousy, and helpless acceptance.

"More than me, a man like you-"

He pointed at me and smiled, open and relieved.

"can protect her happiness for much longer."

"...I do not know what crazy thing you are saying right now, but-"

"Sir Knight, you know it too. The Imperial Palace is a cruel place."

A sigh slipped through Leonard's teeth.

"I saw her, actually, when she was very young."

He lowered his voice, as if pulling up a distant memory.

"It was by chance. A lonely girl hiding by herself at a palace banquet."

"...What?"

This was a story I did not know.

Thinking about it, Leonard came from a prestigious house.

His family was also tied deeply to the palace, so it was entirely possible he had met the princess before.

"We spoke then. She said she liked singing. She probably does not remember."

"..."

I forced my mouth shut before it could fall open.

Keep your composure, Maximilian.

"That one meeting, that memory, lodged in my soul. Her voice kept circling in my head."

Leonard had originally trained to become a knight.

Yet the reason he gave up knighthood and turned his back on his family had been simple: pure love.

"I wanted to stay by her side by any means. Because I knew the chaos of the palace."

Now I felt like I finally understood what happened before regression.

There had been an Izenheim scheme, yes, but Leonard was still a man who was bound to be assassinated. His feelings for the princess were too deep, too pure.

He had fallen in love with someone he should never have desired, someone far too dangerous.

His cause had never been revolution.

"..."

And now Leonard stared at me in silence. His gaze was heavy. It was as if he was saying, if you are beside her, then I can accept it. The thought was absurdly suffocating.

I shook my head.

"...Do not misunderstand. Feelings are useless. This is about necessity. She wants to hear your singing."

I cut off this love story and returned to the point.

"Yes. I understand."

He seemed to treat my words as excuses anyway.

"Look at this roster."

I had filtered out everyone in the Revolutionary Faction who was not Izenheim.

"I will sentence these people to prison terms for administrative and security negligence."

Leonard's eyes widened.

"...Is that possible?"

"Yes. To clear your charges, there is no other way."

To the speechless man, I said:

"Instead, cut ties with people like this from now on."

Leonard had never been Revolutionary Faction in the first place. He had just gotten swept up by that play.

A man who loved the princess could not be a revolutionary trying to overthrow the Empire.

"At least stay away from people with impure ideology. Focus only on art, and do only what you can do."

Leonard lowered his head deeply. I could not see his expression, but it did not look like acting.

"That is probably all she wants."

* * *

After the questioning ended, Leonard came out by the rear gate of the Order.

A car cut across and blocked him. The window rolled down, and a fierce-looking man leaned out.

It was the guard knight, Yanik.

"Get in."

Leonard got into the passenger seat without resistance.

Heavy silence filled the car.

Leonard looked into the rearview mirror. A robed silhouette, sunk in shadow, sat in the back. Probably Her Highness.

"Look ahead."

Tap.

Yanik twisted the mirror and blocked the line of sight.

"From now on, answer only with the truth."

Yanik growled his question.

"What did Maximilian say?"

Leonard closed his mouth for a moment.

What should he tell her?

His own crime? The level of punishment? Or...

"Talk."

Yanik pressed him. Leonard glanced out the window.

Rows of roadside trees stretched under the curtain of night. Above them, lights flickered like distant stars.

He smiled bitterly and spoke.

"...A pure and devoted heart."

"What? What kind of heart?"

Yanik asked, baffled, but Leonard continued seriously.

"It felt like he was speaking that kind of feeling to me."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

He remembered Maximilian's cold stare in the interrogation room.

"Of course, the words he spoke were nothing like that. Dry, cold, and businesslike..."

Leonard felt he had come to understand who Maximilian was.

People called him a butcher, a monster, a hero.

But to Leonard:

"Maximilian studied opera he did not even know for her, imported works, and tried to bring new spectacles like musicals into the Empire."

All of that effort, just for one person's joy.

For one person's happiness.

"And because that person wishes it... he is trying to forgive a man like me and put me back on stage."

The words Maximilian had told him brushed past his ears again.

Leonard's voice trembled.

"If I were him, I would have killed me."

A rival in love.

A man who stole the gaze of the woman you loved.

Someone reason alone could never handle.

"But he did not."

The man his beloved wanted saved, Maximilian sent him away alive, without even a trace of jealousy.

"He was an admirable man."

That was Leonard's true heart.

"That is all I have to say."

Maximilian had said many things to him, but all of them were for Justine.

So this answer was the most correct one.

Silence settled in the car. The princess still said nothing.

Leonard could not tell what she was thinking, or what expression she wore.

"...Get out."

Yanik gestured outside. Leonard bowed his head and opened the door.

Just as he was about to step out-

"When the opera house is repaired."

The princess's voice came from behind.

"I will be looking forward to it."

It was forgiveness. A promise of one more chance.

Leonard's eyes turned red.

"...Yes. Thank you. I will focus only on myself."

He bowed deeply.

He got out of the car and stood there blankly, watching the car leave.

Then a voice rose in him like song lyrics.

'From now on, cut ties with people like that. At least stay away from those with impure ideology. Focus only on art, and do only what you can do.'

Advice to do only what I can do.

I failed to do that, hurt countless civilians, and even put her in danger.

I gained a new life from Maximilian, the man I had scorned as a pig-like noble.

"What... was I trying to do."

I, who hated the Empire after being swept up by seditious thought,

I, who tried to win her heart even through acts like this,

now felt so pathetic that there was nothing I could do.

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