The Reluctant Imperialist - Chapter 159

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 159

──────

Blizzard

──Somewhere deep in an unknown forest. A mountain gorge so dense with towering trees that the sky vanished behind them, where the smell of rotting grass and the cries of wild beasts echoed with an eerie chill.

“...Wow.”

Someone swallowed dryly and let out a hollow breath.

“Sebestian really is a monster.”

Code name Aquamarine. With his boyish face, he shivered as he recalled the man they had just faced.

“He really is a monster. A complete monster...”

Even their major, the strongest among them, had been helpless. He was overwhelmed and barely escaped alive.

“...Major.”

Aqua’s eyes suddenly turned mournful as he looked at the corpse sprawled beside him.

“Topaz is dead.”

Topaz, one of Gentra’s core members, had died instantly when a stone thrown by Sebestian burst his head open.

“We can replace personnel.”

The major rolled up his sleeve and checked his arm. A mana tattoo ran from his wrist to his heart, but the red glow had worn down heavily during their escape.

His ability was 「Word Spirit」.

Reality manipulation that interfered with the material world through spoken words.

Right before Sebestian’s sword could cut them to pieces, he forced himself and his men to teleport away with a single command.

But great power always demanded a price. The fuel he paid to activate Word Spirit was living force itself. He killed humans, animals, and monsters, extracted their life force, condensed it into blazing red jewels called “Garnet,” and consumed them as fuel.

Garnet equal to hundreds of human lives had been burned up because of Sebestian.

Even so, they had not managed to leave a single scratch on him.

“Let’s go back.”

“Yeah. Ah, but that ruin was such a waste. We found it first.”

“It can’t be helped.”

The major stared toward that place, now impossibly far away.

Over there stood Ebenholtz.

Even if he had stepped back from the battlefield and was slowly growing old, he was still a monster that reached the sky.

* * *

Dawn, with darkness still clinging to it.

I looked up at the night sky, watching clouds drift far beyond the horizon and starlight scatter like mist.

──Tap.

Footsteps approaching behind me pulled me back to reality.

I spoke quietly.

“It is regrettable.”

His feet stopped.

Then he called my name, his voice mixed with bitterness.

“Sir Maximilian Ebenholtz.”

Oswin Mason.

He walked up and stood beside me.

“...Oliver is Aran. You can tell just by looking at him.”

I turned to him. He still had not given up.

“Appearance is a secondary matter. Someone with uncertain birth cannot be trusted. More importantly, Ms. Sarah Muller’s crime of hiding the most critical truth is grave.”

Even though she knew the family tree was meaningless, Sarah hid the truth to protect a son who was not her own.

“This case will become an example that no one may dare defy the Empire’s solemn will.”

Even if a family tree was genuine, the secret of one’s birth could always be traced. Resistance and forgery were meaningless.

“You say that even if he is Aran?”

“Who knows. We will have to verify whether he is Aran or not. Break his neck, then attend the autopsy.”

“How can you call that-”

“However.”

I held out a document to him. It was a list of other people who had attended the night school.

“I will release them.”

Of course, some on the list might not be pure Aran. But at minimum, they were not Izenheim, so they would no longer be tortured or sentenced to death. They would be freed. I promised that.

“On one condition. They leave Zestpol.”

“...Why?”

Oswin’s expression hardened in confusion.

I gave him the formal answer.

“There is no concrete physical evidence that they opposed 「Imperial Civil Law」 at the night school or exchanged seditious conversation. There is not enough to classify them as ideological criminals seeking to overthrow the regime. Above all, their family trees were clearly verified, and they are pure Aran citizens of the Empire.”

I cut down one Izenheim beast and return dozens of innocent youths alive.

“...Do you truly believe this is right?”

Even then, Oswin glared at me with bloodshot eyes.

Because he was kind by nature. Because even in a world like this, he believed in values that might be impossible, like human dignity and legal ideals.

“Aren’t you afraid of how history will judge you one day?”

I watched him in silence. A faint smile spread across my lips.

“Yes. I am not afraid.”

Tilting my head, I stepped closer.

“Professor Oswin. Your morality is light.”

People like him probably thought this way. That they were righteous, fulfilling their era’s duty by standing against unjust power and saving the innocent. That they were saviors whose names would remain in history.

“That is why. You stand in court for Oliver only because he is your student, while turning away from the countless wronged people dying in this era.”

Oswin’s expression shook.

“That is why you are hopelessly lacking. You simply chose someone you felt sympathy for and used him as a tool to display your morality.”

They were wrong.

And because they were wrong, humanity was destroyed.

Their goodwill was only weakness that invited greater evil.

“Then are you pure evil, Maximilian?”

Oswin asked me. His voice carried emotions too tangled to name.

“Think whatever you want. I have no interest in how this world sees me, or how history records me.”

The world barely looks at me. It only sees the surface.

No one can understand my true intent.

“I carry a purpose far heavier than that. So whatever stands in front of it, I cut it down.”

I placed a hand on Oswin’s shoulder.

“As guardians of the Empire, as Aran, and above all... as humanity.”

I stared into his old eyes and murmured.

“What must be abandoned, must be abandoned.”

Smack.

He slapped my hand away.

Then he turned and walked into the darkness, as if he could never agree with my purpose, as if he could not even begin to understand it.

A natural reaction.

“...”

I watched his back and fell into thought.

Someday, I would have to cut down and kill people just as upright as him with my own hands. Under the grand cause of humanity’s survival, I would have to trample their convictions.

“Schatz.”

I called her name. She stepped out from somewhere in my shadow.

“Yes.”

She controlled electromagnetism. Now she could blend perfectly into darkness.

She reflected no light that touched her body. She absorbed it completely and became pitch black, perfect concealment.

The exact opposite of Ebenholtz, who was always transparent.

“Put Oswin and everyone around him who worked this trial under full surveillance. Move with Leo.”

Leo’s accuracy had improved considerably. He could now reliably distinguish even “subspecies.”

“And.”

Oswin Mason himself was not Izenheim.

But among his colleagues, his disciples, and the intellectual circles that shared his cause, Izenheim subspecies that exploited human goodwill would be mixed in naturally.

Therefore.

“We cull every last one.”

Kill them first.

There was no breed more troublesome than Izenheim that knew the law.

“Yes. I will carry it out.”

* * *

Temporary headquarters of the Special Imperial Guard.

“Wow. Thanks to you, I even get one of these. Thanks.”

Lieutenant Colonel Lorentz tapped the document with his finger and gave a dry laugh. It was a summons sent directly by Maximilian.

“You go.”

Lorentz flicked the paper at Captain Hans.

“Oliver or Olive or Oil, whatever. You’re the one who dragged him in, and this mess is your fault, so take responsibility and report to that knight bastard yourself.”

Hans, the guard officer who had led the raid on Oliver’s night school.

“When you go, don’t mention me. I know nothing.”

“...”

“Answer me, bastard.”

“...Yes. Understood.”

He bit his lip, but he could not disobey his superior.

“Get out.”

He turned and walked away with heavy steps.

After crossing an empty corridor in misery, he reached Maximilian’s office.

“Captain Hans Macken.”

Maximilian called his name.

“Yes.”

Hans stood before him, bracing for punishment. Maybe worse.

If he only lost his backing, that was still acceptable. If only he could keep his head attached.

“Raise your head. Anyone can make mistakes.”

“...Pardon?”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. Maximilian’s first line was that unexpected, and he continued in an even softer voice.

“But when enforcing the Empire’s law, everything must be handled with complete accuracy, without a hair of error.”

He slid a sheet of paper toward the frozen Hans.

“In other words, this level of evidence must always be in your hand.”

Hans carefully took the document. It contained Sarah Muller’s hospital records, Oliver Muller’s mother.

‘Miscarriage.’

That one word alone was unclear, but then.

“It was an adoption.”

Hans’s eyes widened as if they might pop out.

“Th-then...”

“It means the family tree was real, but the birth registration itself was fake.”

Maximilian lifted his teacup with an easy smile.

“Th-then...”

Hans looked back and forth between Maximilian sipping tea and the document, then asked cautiously.

“Sir... did you personally find this record?”

Click. Maximilian set down the cup.

“This 「Imperial Civil Law」 must be enforced correctly for the Empire’s Aran.”

His brow twitched as he added in a low voice.

“Can those entrusted with such an important role afford to trip over a single mistake?”

...Was this favor? Mercy? Either way, he had personally done further investigation for them and found this evidence.

Hans forced his shaking legs to hold.

Maximilian said:

“Oliver will be executed. The trial will be handled quietly.”

“Ah, ah, th-then, we...”

Hans swallowed blankly.

“Th-thank you!”

At last, he understood everything Maximilian meant.

“Thank you!”

Maximilian looked down quietly at the man nearly bowing to the floor.

Like this, I needed more livestock. For the cause, I needed hunting hounds willing to carry out necessary evil in place of my hands.

A dog with strong self-assertion like Lorentz had to be cut off, but one as tame as this could be raised.

“You may go.”

“Yes, yes! Thank you!”

Hans left the office with the face of someone who had come back from the dead.

......

Sarah Muller’s confession shattered the courtroom. The false birth registration itself was a major violation of 「Imperial Civil Law」, and a graver crime than ordinary document forgery because it polluted Aran bloodlines. Oliver Muller was sentenced to death in a single day.

“Everyone, prepare.”

Sonnet Kandel attended the imperial prison execution site as both observer and physician.

“The execution will begin shortly.”

Michael Oliver, once her friend, stood there with a hood over his face. The sky behind him was clear.

Though it was winter, it was impossibly blue, without a speck.

Suddenly, old memories bloomed in Sonnet’s mind. Days from long ago came back.

Not this kind of scaffold, but a boy climbing onto their teacher’s small desk, adjusting the lamp, dusting, and helping clean diligently.

A shy child who always studied with bright eyes, yet struggled to say even a single word.

“...”

Sonnet shook her head and brushed away those fragmented memories.

“Prepare execution.”

The executioner spoke. Around fifteen inmates, including Oliver, stepped onto the platforms at once.

“Execute.”

At that one command, bang.

The platforms dropped.

──Thudududuk!

Thick ropes snapped tight around their necks.

──Crack. Creak.

Their bodies fell and their cervical vertebrae snapped. The sound of crushing bones rang out one after another.

Amid that chilling noise, Sonnet observed them.

She watched death.

“Execution complete.”

At the guard’s words, she moved as a doctor. She pressed her fingers to the back of Oliver’s limp neck.

“Michael Oliver.”

Looking at him as he turned cold, she took up the chart.

“December 24, 10:37. Death confirmed.”

She recorded the time. The executioner took the chart and gestured to the back door with his chin.

“Head straight to the autopsy room.”

A required procedure before 「Imperial Civil Law」 took effect, to classify and record the race and bloodline of executed inmates with precision.

Sonnet headed there.

......

A room filled with the smell of cold alcohol and hot blood and flesh. The autopsy room, where scalpels split skin and saw blades crushed bone.

Beyond the transparent wall stood Professor Oswin Mason, specially permitted to observe.

Sonnet picked up a scalpel.

Tzzzzzt.

She opened Oliver’s bleeding chest, exposed the sternum, and confirmed the heart, red and still.

“...”

Its size was noted. Its near-malformed shape was noted.

It was not Aran.

It was the heart of a subspecies.

On top of that, Oliver had been a magic student trained to a fairly high level, so the pattern of mana degeneration carved into the heart’s vessels and muscles was far more grotesque than in ordinary subspecies.

Sonnet lifted the heart. She looked at Oswin through the glass wall. His eyes were fixed on it too.

He was also a mage who had lived with mana all his life. There was no way he did not understand what it meant.

“As expected, a subspecies. That heart is especially filthy.”

A military doctor from the Imperial Guard beside her gave a greasy smile. Sonnet moved to return the heart to the chest cavity.

“Ah, wait. No, you can’t. A subspecies heart must be removed and recovered separately.”

Sonnet wondered why, but did not ask. She set the heart down and left the autopsy room.

Prison break room.

“...Heart.”

There she looked at her own hand, opening and closing it while still feeling the sensation of what she had just touched, when Oswin approached and sat across from her.

Sonnet asked him.

“Professor. How is Ms. Sarah Muller now?”

“...She is resting.”

“I see.”

Sonnet poured black tea from a thermos. Stirring it quietly with a spoon, she looked out the window.

“The Imperial Guard somehow left her alive. They must have felt tricked.”

At that, Oswin gave a bitter smile.

“She nearly got taken. They actually came for her. But.”

At that moment, one document from a certain knight stopped the Imperial Guard’s action.

“Since she raised him her entire life as her biological son, legal kinship is recognized, and therefore under the ‘kinship exception,’ she will not be charged for concealing evidence as the criminal’s mother...”

“I see.”

Sonnet drank her tea. Oswin, still deeply unsettled, tugged at his hair.

“Anyway, now that this is how it turned out, do not worry about Ms. Sarah. Many students survived thanks to her. Those children will care for her in Oliver’s place...”

Oswin could not finish. He bit his trembling lips hard and lowered his face.

Drop. Drop.

A professor well into middle age was crying.

The sobs escaping him were not much different from a child’s.

When people cry or laugh with all their heart, even adults seem to return to childhood.

“Khk... kh...”

“...”

She watched him without emotion.

No particular thoughts came to her.

Ah, the professor is crying.

He cries well.

“Professor.”