WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 151

──────

Turning Point

Shaaaaaa-!

A Prozen night under pounding rain. Revision Society members with black hoods pulled low moved quickly through alley after alley.

They swiftly pasted blank sheets onto walls and utility poles.

Nothing was written on them yet, but by tomorrow morning, when sunlight touched them, the special mana ink would react and reveal clear words.

[We solemnly declare the death of Louis Marceau!]

Using security as a pretext, the Socialist Party pushed tax hikes that bled ordinary people dry, then poured that blood into the bellies of incompetent bureaucrats and finance and comprador capital, traitors to the nation. Today’s flames are only the beginning of cleansing corrupt Prozen......

After finishing, the members slipped through the darkness and returned to the office.

The Revision Society’s new base. No more moldy basement club room. Now they rented an entire floor of a proper building.

“From now on, stay hidden whenever possible. No telling when those Socialist Party lackeys will come storming in again.”

“Yes!”

Knock knock.

Then a sudden knock echoed through the room. The members flinched.

“Shh.”

Clara gripped her pistol, strode over, and yanked the door open.

No one was outside. Only a box sat on the floor.

“......”

She brought it inside first.

“Chief, what if it’s a bomb?”

“It’s not.”

It was wrapped in expensive packaging. She opened the lid.

On top were books on mana operation methods. Beneath them were neatly arranged stacks of Prozen livres, imperial dollars, and high-purity mana stones.

“C-Chief! What is all this?”

As the members stared in shock, Clara picked up a note.

[From now on, I will handle the Revision Society’s funding.]

A faint smile slipped out. She pressed it down and closed her eyes for a moment.

She took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts, and straightened her back. Her eyes burned as she swept her gaze across the members and shouted.

“Comrades!”

Her voice rang through the office.

“Louis Marceau’s death was a warning driven into the hearts of those vile Socialist bastards. As the Revision Society, we will no longer stand by and watch this rotten Prozen, this hypocritical shell of a republic! We will not sit by while money-grubbing bastards trample our lives!”

......To be honest, there were not many people in the room.

Only about seven. But Clara lost none of her fire over their small number, and the members looked back at her with fervent eyes.

“With our own hands, with our own blood and sweat, we will cleanse this diseased Prozen completely and forge it into greatness!”

Kwaaaaaaa-

On a night when torrential rain hammered the windows,

in the heart of Prozen, an armed group following someone’s convictions began to take root.

* * *

Prozen’s defense budget tax hike bill was rejected in the end. Louis Marceau’s death by explosion was devastating, but as the Socialist Party faltered, fierce attacks from the other side converged at once.

Through this incident, the Socialist Party fully felt public fury over tax hikes, relations with the eastern state Yursled broke down completely, and Louis Marceau’s plan to build a Grand Anti-Empire Encirclement was decisively delayed.

“......I’m tired.”

I returned from Prozen to the Empire.

But there was no time to rest.

“Sir Knight!”

Knight Order office. The moment I sat in my chair for the first time in a while, a staff officer rushed in with urgent steps and shouted.

“They say a new type of mana stone has been discovered in Zerpa!”

“......”

It was found sooner than I expected.

Why did it have to be that one......

I quietly closed my eyes, then opened them.

“I’m leaving now.”

......

Zerpa, Zeronica Mine. Once collapsed under imperial artillery, now rebuilt with even more advanced equipment deep in its underground shafts.

“Please look, Sir Knight. A strange mana stone that remains liquid at room temperature.”

Engineers from Lorenzo Academy handed me a transparent cylinder filled with blue liquid.

When you sealed the lid and lowered the temperature, it solidified. Opened again, it liquefied.

“Yes. This liquid mana stone has very different properties from existing solid mana stones.”

The engineer pointed to the report, voice bright with excitement.

“Specifically?”

“Mana enriches nature. If we refine this raw liquid, dilute it in water at a fixed ratio, and spread it over soil, the mana binds with microorganisms in the earth and raises soil fertility.”

In the coming war, food would be as vital as weapons, and this room-temperature liquid mana stone would greatly increase the Empire’s agricultural output.

“Keep researching it. And think about efficient transport methods. Also, you and your team will receive bonuses.”

“Y-yes! Thank you!”

Satisfied, I walked out of the shaft.

“Lord Maximilian!”

Under dazzling sunlight, Crown Prince Alonso greeted me with a bright smile.

“Crown Prince Alonso.”

He looked well these days, face full of color. His hair was neat, his accessories polished, but he did not indulge beyond that.

Alonso was a man who knew moderation.

“How has Zerpa been lately?”

“Very peaceful. Very good. But did something happen in the mine? Even from outside, I could feel an unusual energy.”

Alonso peered toward the entrance to Zeronica and asked curiously.

“Yes. We discovered a new type of mana stone that remains liquid at room temperature.”

“......Oh ho?”

Alonso looked impressed, even if he did not fully grasp it.

“Also, deeper underground exploration uncovered many new mana stone veins that had never been detected before.”

Not only room-temperature liquid mana stone, but several large solid mana stone veins as well.

That was thanks to exploration technology advanced by combing through the entire southern Hermes region.

“As the treaty states, profit distribution from the new veins will be carried out exactly at forty percent for Zerpa. And we would like the Ebenholtz side to purchase the full volume of this liquid mana stone exclusively.”

I handed him a contract I had prepared in advance.

“......!”

The Crown Prince’s eyes widened as he took the document. Even his royal forty percent share carried a figure large enough to shock him.

“Considering the friendship between the Empire and Zerpa, this should be a fairly reasonable amount.”

Of course, compared to this mana stone’s potential, I was still buying it cheaply. But by current prewar market prices, it was reasonable enough.

The room-temperature liquid mana stone would reveal its true value only in wartime.

“......”

Alonso looked at me in silence. He held my gaze, then gave a meaningful smile.

“Lord Maximilian.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot approve this contract.”

He said it suddenly and handed the paper back.

“Which part-”

“Here. Out of the forty percent belonging to our royal family, I want to allocate five percent to you personally.”

“......What?”

I blurted it out before I could stop myself.

Alonso waved his hand firmly.

“No, no. This is my sincerity toward the benefactor who saved my life and made Zerpa stronger. I will not accept a refusal.”

“......”

For a moment, I was speechless.

A thought crossed my mind.

Alonso was certainly a good man.

At least for now.

His weakness and incompetence were the issue. He cared more for others than his own house.

“......If that is Your Highness’s will.”

Five percent. Too much, but someday it might be useful.

“I accept your goodwill with gratitude.”

“Good, Lord Maximilian.”

Alonso placed a hand on my shoulder.

“You and I are now no different from blood brothers.”

His eyes were clear. His smile was bright.

Could someone this unblemished really exist in times this chaotic?

Then again, that very impossibility was why he was executed in the previous timeline.

“......Yes.”

But if one day every threat of war and ruin vanished,

could we also live together with pure hearts then?

“Then, Your Highness. Let us announce it to the world officially.”

“Announce what?”

“The firm solidarity and brilliant prosperity of the Empire and the Zerpan monarchy.”

The Republican faction bastards treated the claim that the Empire was exploiting Zerpa like a religion.

They cursed Crown Prince Alonso as an imperial puppet, an idiot traitor who sold out his country.

“Let’s strike the Republican faction psychologically and induce defections.”

But their desperate hope would be buried beneath the song called public sentiment.

Far from collapsing, Zerpa had revived brilliantly. More precisely, only the territory governed by the Royalist faction had.

Zeronica Mine had been rebuilt with cutting-edge facilities. New high-value industries like Terone truffles and premium beef came in, and massive distribution and logistics operations were activated in turn.

In Zerpa’s capital, new banks and companies, all Dieter’s handiwork, had appeared. Next would come road expansion and tunnel construction linking the Empire and Zerpa, creating countless jobs.

And on top of that.

“By the way, Your Highness. We finally confirmed the identity of the true culprit who killed Chief Caddie Lecito while escorting Your Highness.”

In an instant, Alonso’s calm face hardened with anger.

“Who was it.”

His voice dropped heavily.

So Caddie had meant this much to him.

“The name was Opra Shen. Izenheim.”

“......Izenheim?”

“Yes.”

I nodded with deliberate gravity.

“Those subspecies are always the root threat to peace on this continent. They hide among us behind ordinary faces, sow distrust, and ultimately lead everything to ruin.”

“......I see.”

Crown Prince Alonso clenched his teeth, but said no more.

By nature he was soft, too soft to blindly hate any race.

But that was all.

If people around him kept showing him Izenheim crimes, making him feel them, making him hear about them over and over,

one day he would come to hold a cause like mine.

“Crown Prince Alonso.”

To be soft was to be white, and white was always dyed black by people like me.

“Now, please set the press conference schedule.”

......

A press venue was prepared inside the grand banquet hall of the Zerpa Royal Palace.

Unlike before, the place now felt alive. Major imperial media outlets, along with correspondents from the west and east, packed the room.

“......Do you actually enjoy this sort of thing?”

The reporter slouched in the seat right beside me was Alphonse of Jemion Daily, known even in the Empire for his stubbornly critical eye.

“Looting a weak small country and fattening your belly on its blood, I mean.”

He snapped at me while irritably fiddling with his notebook.

“Don’t move your pen too quickly. Open your eyes and watch properly. Or do real field research.”

“......You’ve turned into a full gangster.”

Alphonse clicked his tongue in disapproval, and then.

Kuuuuuuung-

The royal doors opened with a heavy roar, and Zerpa’s direct royal heir, Crown Prince Alonso, entered in commanding form. Countless camera flashes lit his face at once.

“......Ahem.”

Alonso strode up proudly and cleared his throat at the microphone.

“Beloved citizens of Zerpa, and honored guests from every nation gathered here today. I am here to announce a decision that will firmly secure Zerpa’s eternal prosperity and security.”

Pens began racing.

“Our Zerpan monarchy, built on deep trust with the Empire, has agreed to joint development of new veins in Zeronica Mine.”

The non-imperial reporters looked grim. Zerpan intellectuals looked ready to snap their pens.

Naturally.

Because they expected plunder.

“First, the imperial company designated by Zerpa has decided to bear the full cost of reconstructing Zeronica Mine and investing in cutting-edge extraction equipment.”

Twisted smiles appeared on reporters’ faces. Forced loans had long been an imperial method of plunder.

But.

“Through this entire process, Zerpa will owe not one dollar in loans or debt. Mana stones extracted from existing veins will also belong entirely to Zerpa.”

The sneering reporters’ pens stopped cold.

“In return, profits generated from newly explored veins will be divided fairly with the Empire at a sixty-forty ratio, and all key technologies and infrastructure invested will become full Zerpan property after a twenty-year grace period.”

Crown Prince Alonso read the agreement’s details clearly, one by one. As he continued, the hall fell silent.

Zerpan reporters, western and eastern correspondents, even imperial reporters blinked in disbelief.

“Well?”

I asked Alphonse quietly.

“Plunder is the old way. Now the Empire wants coexistence.”

He pushed up his glasses and stammered, unable to believe it.

“......What’s the angle? A side deal?”

“I’ll show only you the original signed contract after this conference.”

Alphonse was respected inside and outside the Empire, thanks to his reporting on the Gennen incident. If he verified it with his own eyes and wrote the story, the whole continent would have no choice but to believe this treaty was genuine.

“This agreement goes beyond securing a stable mana stone supply. It is a cornerstone for deepening and strengthening military and economic solidarity between Zerpa and the Empire.”

Click. Click.

Flashes burst again. The Crown Prince faced the cameras with a smile. His looks were exceptional.

Like me before regression, he had beauty as a talent.

In many ways, he resembled me.

“Now Zerpan citizens will escape hunger, and as for the rebels on the other side-”

Alonso briefly raised his voice.

“It will prove what a pathetic delusion their petty rebellion was! Those who deceived good Zerpan citizens, sparked internal strife with false agitation, and made families shed one another’s blood will never, ever escape the stern judgment of history-!”

For the record, this script was Johann’s work as well.

“Hypocrites who wrapped their lust for power in the name of revolution, turned Zerpa’s mountains and rivers into ash, and sucked the lifeblood from the people! Zerpa will now leave their destructive fantasies behind and advance into a true era of reconstruction and prosperity!”

Ahem. Alonso coughed and adjusted his clothes.

At that moment, I started clapping.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

That was the cue, and loud standing applause thundered through the hall from aides and pro-royal Zerpan reporters.

Clap clap clap clap clap-

I tilted my head and whispered to Alphonse.

“The monarchy that stands with the Empire will prosper......”

My gaze drifted out the window, toward where the Republican faction was surely watching.

“And the Republican faction, stripped of both cause and practical gain...... what can those scraps do now, digging in mountain dirt? They’re just incompetent losers with no wrinkles in their brains, only fantasies about a republic.”

Alphonse turned to me. His face was still blank.

I gave him a faint smile.

“As an additional comment from an imperial-side official that should appear in your article on this treaty.”

Words from an insider. Crucial material. By instinct, he raised his notebook and pen.

“Crown Prince Alonso, who sincerely loves Zerpa’s people, demonstrated dedicated and persistent negotiating power that proved highly effective. While rebels shouted hollow ideals and made brothers spill brothers’ blood, the Crown Prince stood alone before the giant called the Empire and shaved down his own pride to the bone to secure bread for his subjects.”

This way, the Crown Prince would become Zerpa’s great negotiator, support for the pro-imperial monarchy would explode, and the Republican faction would lose all footing.

“Moved by the Crown Prince’s noble character, sincerity, and unyielding boldness...... the Empire finally discovered the path of coexistence.”

“......”

Reporter Alphonse slowly lifted his eyes and looked at Crown Prince Alonso on the podium, smiling brightly like a hero.

“That should do.”

Tap. I placed a hand on Alphonse’s shoulder.

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