WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 163

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Blizzard (5)

Before anyone knew it, the closed hearing was nearing the two-week mark.

In a cramped, dark chamber of the Imperial Palace, Anton Jefren sat through his ratification review.

"I can at least vouch for Anton's upright character."

Most of the witnesses were former Sentinel personnel.

Many had already retired from active duty, or had gone on to work as private knights later in life, and plenty of them still defended Anton.

"Do you remember that brutal battle on the old Western Front? He never retreated once. He stayed at the very front and broke through enemy lines. Countless soldiers lived because they were behind him."

But their defense and moderate opinions were effectively meaningless.

In the end, the real question was whether the Empire's greatest order of iron men, the Sentinel Order, could be entrusted to him. In other words, the issue was Anton's loyalty and ideology.

"...Candidate Anton has often expressed very progressive views without hesitation."

"Since he took office as deputy commander, it is an undeniable fact that discipline among commoner-born knights in the Order has visibly weakened."

Witnesses came and went without end.

Longtime colleagues, and subordinate knights he had personally raised.

Anton listened in silence.

"...Yes. I have known Anton Jefren, the subject of this hearing, for a very long time."

Then Anton looked at an old friend in the witness seat.

Erich von Schultz.

Once, he and Anton had spent entire nights debating imperial reform. Now he wore a palace official's uniform and kept testifying while deliberately avoiding Anton's eyes.

"Then were you also fully aware of the anti-Empire ideas contained in this letter from Candidate Anton?"

The hearing chair asked Erich.

"I have heard him make remarks with that kind of seditious tone from time to time in the past. So to be frank, giving someone like that the title of commander of the Empire's elite knight order is..."

I believe it is extremely dangerous.

Anton forced himself not to hear the last line.

When he closed his eyes and opened them again, the witness had already changed.

Kents Bertem. Back in the chamber again, he threw Anton a contemptuous look.

"Candidate Anton remained single all his life and never married, but it appears he once had a deeply involved lover."

The hearing chair gave a slimy smile, and Kents pressed on Anton's most intimate Achilles heel.

"Seria Martel."

Anton, too, had once loved a woman with all his heart. Someone he had wanted to stay with even if it meant giving up himself.

But.

"You all know this. That name now carries a first-class wanted notice across the entire Empire, as a core executive of the Revolutionary Faction."

Anton felt his heart sink like a lump of iron.

"And also."

Kents tapped the file and added,

"We confirmed hospital records showing she had once been pregnant, and that it ended in miscarriage."

Miscarriage.

As that short word echoed, Anton felt mud closing over him. He accepted the quiet, rising wave.

"Revolution. A man who once shared deep affection and even conceived a child with a wanted criminal trying to overthrow the Empire, does that man truly have the right to protect the Empire's law and order? I honestly cannot say."

They branded the love and wounds of his past, things he had never considered shameful, as filthy disgrace and tore into them.

They dragged through the mud the woman he had loved, and the child who could have been born into this world.

As Anton faltered, the witness changed again.

"Yes. I am Adria, former senior Sentinel knight."

Even in this suffocating place, that familiar name rang clearly in his ears.

Anton quietly raised his head.

"If you ask me about Knight Anton, my answer is this."

No longer here as a Sentinel, but as a private knight, Adria stared at the committee and spoke firmly.

"He separates public duty from private matters better than anyone, and he is a straight, righteous knight who devotes himself solely to the safety of the Empire and its people..."

Her statement went on.

But no one besides Anton listened closely.

"Is that all?"

The hearing chair did not press for specifics. They had likely called Adria only to satisfy procedure.

"..."

Adria looked at Anton with tightly pressed lips. In her eyes, countless unsaid words seemed to flicker.

Anton gave only a faint smile and nodded.

That was enough.

"...Yes. That's all."

Adria rose, looking lonely.

No longer Sentinel, and defeated there herself, she had no power left to support Anton.

Adria left the chamber, and the committee members suddenly adjusted their clothes. They removed their wristwatches and dropped them into a box. They even told Anton to do the same.

The moment Anton handed over his watch, the door opened.

A familiar silhouette stepped inside.

"Knight Maximilian. Please have a seat."

Maximilian von Ebenholtz. Barely three years since being knighted. The youngest man in the room, yet his presence was unusually overwhelming, enough to fill the whole space and spill over.

"I am Maximilian von Ebenholtz."

Maximilian introduced himself, and the chair placed a document on the desk. The committee members passed it to him.

"The reason Knight Maximilian has been called here as a witness is, in fact, very specific. Are you aware of it?"

The chair tapped the file and smiled darkly.

"A report has come in that the mission called 'intellectual ideological verification,' which should have been assigned to Knight Maximilian, in other words the critical task of investigating Candidate Anton's longtime acquaintances and several progressive scholars, was intentionally omitted and blocked at Deputy Commander Anton's level."

A report.

Was this Kairon's scheme, or betrayal by another knight under Anton?

"Please read it."

Maximilian picked up the document the chair indicated.

A mission proposal to track several scholars, mages, and military officers and investigate their movements.

"The palace repeatedly tried to assign these missions directly to Knight Maximilian, but Deputy Commander Anton abused his authority and diverted them to other commoner knights or buried them. That is what the testimony says."

Maximilian met the chair's eyes.

"If this was intentional mission suppression to shield people with seditious ideology, well, I will not bother saying more."

If true, it was serious enough to end not only his chance at command, but his career itself.

"So the question I will ask Knight Maximilian is very direct."

Still, Maximilian did not show the slightest agitation. He only stared steadily at Anton.

"Has Deputy Commander Anton ever informed you of such missions?"

To Anton, the entire room seemed to drift far away. His mouth filled with dry grit. Hot wind coiled around his spine.

"..."

Maximilian said nothing, calm and composed, yet his silence weighed on everyone there.

Anton, and everyone in that room, had felt this kind of air somewhere before.

...Sebestian.

In the end, the son resembled the father.

* * *

Meanwhile, Yelena returned safely from the Empire and went back to her residence.

Her position was People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. It was a key post with real control over public security, intelligence, and policing, and that meant an enormous backlog of work.

"...All that weight for nothing."

Because of threats like possible assassination, she had piled on layer after layer: a tiger-fur coat, high-strength mana armor, mana shielding barriers, poison gas detection artifacts, and more.

She was grunting as she stripped off all that gear when her aide approached and handed over a document.

"Commissar, an important mission order has come down."

"A mission?"

"Yes."

As Yelena read, her expression turned strange.

[Recipient: Yelena Yumanov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Lobrus]

[Sender: Lobrus State Security Committee]

[Knight 'Maximilian von Ebenholtz,' the Empire military's de facto next central power and highest-level figure, is scheduled to make an official visit to Lobrus.

As this individual is a major figure of the Empire, it is appropriate to provide top-level protection and protocol befitting a state guest, while simultaneously activating thorough surveillance and a close counterintelligence net over all his actions.

When Comrade Commissar visited the Empire recently, Knight Ebenholtz personally handled escort and reception to show diplomatic sincerity. Therefore, this reception and close-surveillance mission is hereby ordered to be carried out directly by Comrade Commissar as well.]

The Empire and Lobrus were currently smiling while hiding blades.

So for now, to avoid diplomatic friction, each side was giving the other a level of treatment befitting a state guest.

[...] The General Secretary also judged that, for such a critical mission, no one is more suitable than Commissar Yumanov, who possesses cool and rational judgment [...].]

"Hmm..."

Yelena stared at the name Maximilian von Ebenholtz on the paper.

Well, she had received him, so now it was her turn.

"But is Father still at the Central Palace?"

She folded the document, put it in a drawer, and asked her aide.

"Yes. It appears so."

Whoooooosh.

Suddenly, the gray eastern sleet slapped against the window.

Lobrus winters were brutally cold and barren. In other words, this was a terrible season for sightseeing.

"That is a problem. Lobrus has nowhere as delicious as the Empire's Lilac Vita."

Remembering the food she had at Lilac Vita, she looked out at the raging blizzard.

* * *

Final day of week two of Anton's closed hearing. A cold full moon hung in the night sky.

I stepped out of the palace and looked around. The street was empty, no one in sight. Then I turned toward the opposite exit. Anton was standing there.

Anton looked at me. I looked at him.

Our eyes met, and we replayed the hearing we had just left.

"So the question I will ask Knight Maximilian is very direct. Has Knight Maximilian ever been informed by Deputy Commander Anton of such missions?"

Anton had intentionally excluded me from missions to investigate intellectuals, including his close friend Professor Arnold von Essenbach.

That was clearly true.

And yet.

"Yes. I was informed."

That was how I answered.

In that instant, the air in the chamber seemed to freeze.

It was the first time I had seen Anton flustered.

"I knew."

I did not like the committee trying to use me to trap Anton in their narrative, and more than anything,

this was groundwork for myself.

"But other missions were more important, and from the start I had no room to take on missions like that."

The premise of a closed hearing was strict secrecy. Whatever was said there, lies or truths, all of it rested on the assumption that nothing would leak.

That was why so many people betrayed Anton, but today's transcript would soon be leaked by someone in the palace.

So I needed to manage my image.

Softly, softly.

At some point, with sleet drifting down, Anton kept looking at Maximilian.

The man facing him seemed to be saying something with his eyes.

But Anton could not read those words, and after a brief bow, Maximilian got into the car that had pulled up.

"I, I see. You were informed?"

Watching the car drive away, Anton recalled what Maximilian had said in today's hearing.

"Yes."

"Then, then what do you think of these private letters exchanged by Candidate Anton?"

The committee hurriedly picked up the letters and passed them to Maximilian.

Maximilian read them carefully, but then said,

"Well. These letters can be interpreted in many ways. Deputy Commander Anton may have held seditious ideas against the Empire, but the opposite is also possible, is it not? He may have stayed close to those with seditious ideas in order to monitor and control them."

Maximilian set the letters down.

"To begin with, the contents of these letters are too ambiguous, and this is not a courtroom."

The hearing was not a place for interrogation. Not a place to decide grave right and wrong, or prove criminal guilt.

"But, Knight Maximilian. Look at this abortion record. Candidate Anton's former lover, current wanted criminal Seria Martel."

Then the chair brought up Seria, Anton's former lover.

For the first time, Maximilian's calm expression tightened slightly.

"...That is deeply private."

He looked at the chair and said coldly,

"Private life is private life. It is not a subject for this hearing."

"Even so, Candidate Anton and this Revolutionary Faction executive."

"Conversely, it is fully possible to interpret that the miscarriage led to a complete separation between them."

As he continued, the chamber quieted.

The people who had been shouting so loudly fell silent.

"...Whether someone is fit for the title of commander, in my view, matters more than those things."

Maximilian was swayed by no one.

"In the end, I think it rests on the candidate's character."

Instead, he stated his own view, untouched.

"Can he sacrifice the few for the greater cause. Can he cast away everything of his own for the Empire. Can he coldly cut off his own compassion."

Words spoken while looking straight into my eyes.

"But Deputy Commander Anton is not that kind of person. Deputy Commander himself likely knows this."

Even now, that biting voice seemed to echo faintly in Anton's ears.

"...When you were younger and full of life, before you became deputy commander, you went into the field as a knight and solved cases."

That clearly meant he was unfit.

"You rejoiced with your comrades, and took pride in the juniors who followed you. Back then, more than now."

Anton kept repeating those words to himself.

"You were probably happier."

He could not deny it.

"This position now will only make you suffer more."

Anton Jefren looked up at the night sky and let out a deep sigh.

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