WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 129

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The Face of the Empire (2)

Click. Hanna opened her bag and tucked bundles of imperial dollars deep inside her coat.

Five million dollars was her ammunition, a sum she had never even seen in her life. With this much money, she could at least avoid dying, and more importantly,

"......"

This was the shabby office in Bolska she had first rented. She came back trusting the saying, "It's Darkest Beneath the Lamp," but someone had already expected this visit.

[The eagle is chasing the rat. Even though the rat did nothing wrong.]

It was Leon's handwriting. He had left that sentence before he departed.

So this means some high-ranking bastard is trying to frame me?

Hanna's expression turned cold.

"They siphoned off Gigantes goods."

Gigantes. According to intel from the broker who had already been murdered, the weapons those men had sold so far were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A serious crime.

They had stolen that much national tax revenue, and that many people had bled for it.

It was clearly an act against the Empire. Which meant she had a duty to catch them and crush them.

But suspicion alone was not enough. She needed to know exactly who was behind this, and where and how Gigantes weapons had leaked out.

"If I back off, I die."

A cornered rat bit the cat. No, a mystery cat had already thrown the first punch out of nowhere. She only had a chance to live if she bit back.

She had no time to complain about how things had suddenly gotten this bad.

Maybe weakness itself was the crime.

"......"

Hanna stared at the terminal in silence. She had taken it from the dead weapon dealers. These men were probably nothing more than tails too.

They probably had no clue whose weapons they were really selling.

Click.

She turned it on deliberately. She checked every internal message. Nothing that could clearly be called evidence, but there was one suspicious contact: [CODE A].

She called it.

Ring-ring, ring-ring, clack.

Someone answered.

-......

No words came through, but instinct rang sharp in her temples.

"You people skimmed Gigantes weapons, didn't you?"

-......

"You thought I wouldn't find out?"

She was trying to provoke him and squeeze out information.

"And you pull this kind of scheme against an active knight? Didn't you see the Path of Dreams operation?"

-......

"If you get caught, every one of you gets executed. You know that?"

Still no answer.

"Do you, you son of a bitch?"

“Young one. Watch your mouth.”

The Imperial language was fluent. Even his tone screamed imperial noble.

“When you were told to come in, you should have come in. Why are you refusing to show up?”

"Would you show up if you were me? There's a bonanza here, you fuck. You traitorous bastard."

Hanna licked her lips.

I'm not some clueless idiot.

If she had gone where they told her to go, she would have taken the fall exactly as planned.

“The Order definitely gave you a return order. You are the one disobeying. The longer this mutiny drags on, the traitor will be you.”

"Fuck off! Dumbass."

“Foolish. Then again, why am I even speaking with lowborn filth.”

"Do you even have a mother?"

Hanna was a commoner who had clawed her way through a backwater. She did not lose this kind of verbal brawl.

“......Vulgar to the core. Still, I will give you a chance. Return now. This is a domain a commoner like you cannot and must not interfere with. I will end it at dismissal.”

His voice was revolting.

But he was stalling too, probably trying to trace her location.

"Yeah, screw your dismissal. I'd rather kill myself."

How hard had she worked to become a knight? Even if she died, she would not let it go.

"I can see your face. Bet your scalp's bald as hell, moron!"

Hanna hung up immediately. She tossed the terminal onto the desk.

Then she climbed down through the window and hid in the bushes, watching the office entrance.

Creeeak.

As expected, not even five minutes passed before several black vans rolled in with their engines kept low. Men got out and moved inside.

They had taken the bait.

The bastards raided the empty office, grabbed the dealer's terminal, then got back in their vehicles.

Vroooom!

The vans pulled out. Hanna moved at once and tailed them. She ran straight toward where they were heading.

Vroooooom-

The cars picked up speed, but a knight did not fall behind. The body of an Imperial elite, built to push human physical ability to its absolute limit.

Mana-reinforced heart and lungs let her hound speeding vehicles, and Maximilian's camouflage armor shifted color with the environment, erasing her presence completely.

Tap tap tap tap!

She ran for a long time, leaving the city and charging down the coastal road. Her breath scraped her throat, but she did not stop.

Shaaahhh.

At last, rough waves and the salty smell of the sea hit her.

Near a coastal cliff. Through the fog, buildings loomed that looked like abandoned factories stitched together in a messy cluster.

"......"

This was it.

Hanna steadied her ragged breath and glared at the buildings.

"Haa......"

Her heart pounded like it would explode.

Could she do this alone? No one would help her, and there had to be countless enemies inside.

She was scared. She was terrified. She was tense.

Still, she had to do it.

"......For the Empire."

As Hanna Usar, a commoner girl born with nothing in some backwater, who had dared to dream the huge, shameless dream of becoming a knight, then fought desperately and made it real.

As a proper blade and sentinel who had to carve out the parasites eating the Empire alive.

"If I want to live, I have to do it."

Hanna gripped her sword tight.

If she wanted to survive, she could never let go of the blade she had taken up.

* * *

In an audience room stamped with the Imperial Palace crest, a certain noble slowly sank into an antique chair.

"This is the report from Bolska. It seems that commoner knight intends to go in there."

Creak. Feeling the fine velvet under his fingers, the man smiled deeply.

"Excellent. She is saving us effort on her own."

His finger tapped the table.

"Preparation?"

"It is complete."

His adjutant held out a document envelope.

"From this point on, Hanna Usar will become a Revolutionary Faction spy trying to overthrow the Empire. A cancer that infiltrated the Order from childhood with twisted ideology."

There was plenty of evidence. Statements from her hometown, plus proof of Gigantes weapon smuggling and Revolutionary Faction directives that would be found on a corpse.

"This will be good for the Order too."

The Order needed results these days, so they would pile on other things as well. They had plenty of hidden criminals saved up for days like this.

Greater transparency in the Order itself, recovery of authority, rise in status.

For the price of kicking out one commoner, the gains would be enormous.

"I am sorry to say this, but......"

At that moment, the adjutant hesitated, then spoke.

"There is also a personal grudge. During the previous Path of Dreams operation, that knight interrogated my uncle."

"......A commoner? Your uncle?"

"Yes. I heard she dared to treat a noble like a criminal and insult him."

The man let out a short laugh, full of contempt.

"What a rotten age."

He ground his cigar into the ashtray. The ember collapsed and faded into ash.

"At some point, this country's most important hierarchy collapsed."

The Empire had become this mess because people who did not know their place had dared to crawl upward, and because they ignored tradition and did whatever they wanted.

As a high noble, he had a duty to set it right.

"Enmil. What do you think is the essence of the Empire?"

He asked in a low voice. The adjutant only blinked, unsure.

"Strength. The strong annex the weak, the great swallow the lowly. The weak are trampled to establish order, and chaos is never tolerated."

His name was Julius Valentin von Arensburg, one of the direct blood descendants of a royal line that had merged into the Empire centuries ago.

"What that means is simple. We cannot sit and watch some commoner wave a sword and stab nobles."

* * *

Kairon had moved.

His new location was von Kleinschmidt Street, Capital Arcadia District 3.

It was only two blocks from the Ebenholtz mansion. Maximilian's residence was visible at a glance. After steadily buying land around the estate at high prices, then expanding it, he had built the place into something that was nearly a castle.

Kairon was a man who could smell power like scent. Moving closer to where the heir of Ebenholtz lived, shortening physical distance, that too was politics.

"......Fetch."

He even kept a dog now. He threw a disc in the garden, and an Aran Shepherd shot forward and snatched it from the air.

Top bloodline.

"Good."

Woof-woof.

When he praised and petted the dog, it loved it. It seemed as smart as its price tag.

"Sir Knight. You have visitors."

At that moment, his butler approached and informed him.

"Who is it? I had no appointment."

"Woof!"

"They say they are from a direct agency under the Imperial Palace."

"Woof."

Kairon's brow twitched.

Direct agency. The Palace's shadow, and lately recognized as a new axis of power.

"......Let's go."

"Woof!"

When he entered the drawing room, two agents in neat suits greeted him.

"Sir Kairon. Forgive our rudeness. We came without notice......"

"It is fine. Give me the point."

"Ah, yes."

One agent took out a thick envelope and placed it on the table.

"This concerns 0-year knight Hanna Usar."

Kairon opened it.

Inside was a pile of evidence. Letters claiming Hanna had colluded with the Revolutionary Faction, fake ledgers claiming she embezzled weapons-smuggling money, witness statements from close associates saying she had held anti-Empire beliefs since childhood.

"......Is this true?"

Kairon asked, pretending surprise. The agent nodded with a grim expression, also acting.

"Yes. It is. We are deeply shocked as well. A Sentinel knight committing such a terrible crime."

Then he lowered his voice.

"Please take this credit now, Sir Kairon. We will help you handle it quietly so it does not damage Sentinel's status."

"You know this already. Rootless commoners like this are ticking bombs that cause trouble sooner or later. Lucky we found it early."

Kairon idly touched the papers. In his head, the picture formed.

A few days ago, Hanna Usar had refused a return order from above.

That was all Kairon knew right now, but high-ranking people's dirty secrets were probably tied to it.

"Hm."

So they wanted to remove Hanna, and they were asking him to bury the case.

"0-year, Hanna Usar......"

This commoner's talent was exceptional. She had set records even at Empire Point.

Her skill might already have exceeded Kairon or Yulian at the same age, but without backing, she was only a pawn on a chessboard. Refusing a return order was too much grandstanding for a 0-year knight.

If he threw away this one knight, what would he gain?

"Next year is the commander election, isn't it."

The agent murmured quietly.

Soon winter would pass and spring would come.

In the year when his seniority increased by one, everything would be decided.

"We may have to congratulate you in advance."

Those smiling words from direct agency agents, for some reason, rubbed Kairon the wrong way.

* * *

Maximilian von Albrecht Ebenholtz.

That was my name.

All my agents worked under that name, moved for that name, and at times bled in place of that name.

"......"

I looked at Gale across from me. Even after entering my office, he had hesitated for a long time before pulling out a top-secret investigation file and placing it on my desk.

"I am not sure asking you for help is right."

Gale spoke, suspicion plain on his face.

The Sentinel Order quietly had commoner-born members too. Over the last five years, status discrimination had intensified, so new recruits had almost dried up, but after Anton became deputy commander, third and fourth factions quietly kept themselves alive through personal connections.

They lived lives thoroughly excluded from politics.

Not because they had no interest in politics, but because they knew the moment they stepped in, they would be excluded.

"Why are you being so cautious, Senior Knight?"

"A commoner is only a commoner."

No matter how hard they tried to avoid politics, the rotten Empire dragged them into muddy water.

...Or they rushed in themselves to grab a lifeline.

"Look."

Gale handed me records of arms smuggling he had investigated in secret.

I unfolded them and compared them with my own information. Like gears meshing, blank spaces filled in.

"When I first took this case, I thought it was just arms smuggling."

Maybe from the moment this operation moved forward, pressure had started pouring in from all sides.

"Hanna Usar is in Bolska right now."

"Yes. I hate to say this, but... she refused the return order and is digging in."

Gale gave an awkward cough.

"Couldn't you bring her back now and at least wrap this up with suspension?"

I fell into thought for a moment.

The most important things in an organization were ideology and trust.

I did not trust Gale. I was not naive enough to accept everything he handed me.

But I trusted Leon. I knew his noble side and his honesty, and the hatred and cruelty hidden beneath his warm face.

In that sense, Hanna was someone I did not know at all.

Before regression, she had been one of many commoners whose talent died before it could bloom.

"You know this too."

Gale spoke softly.

"You must have seen countless commoners around you try to climb the ladder and fall to their deaths."

How cruel the Empire was to people without backing. How cold this country was to commoners starting from the bottom.

From the very top, I had watched them fall and die more times than I could count.

"For a commoner with nothing, talent is only a curse."

That was an undeniable fact.

Because I was on the opposite side of commoners.

Even now, I was wary of Hanna's talent.

As the heir of a prestigious house, as one of the Empire's most powerful and wealthy men, I could not ignore the chance that one day her blade might turn toward me.

Could she stray from my ideology, conviction, and cause, then betray the nation because she was a commoner?

"Yes. I understand."

I closed the file and nodded.

"Please see yourself out."

Either way, thanks to them, my questions had been resolved.

Now only my decision remained: where and how I would move.

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