WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 167

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Agent Extraction (1)

Lobrus's capital. Yelena's mansion, where the cold wind still howled.

"...He was blown up?"

"Yes. That's correct."

Yelena frowned as she listened to her adjutant's urgent report. One of her People's Commissars, Boris, had been killed in a mysterious explosion.

"So now a lot of people are being called to the Winter Palace. They say they're looking for whoever was behind the assassination..."

At that moment, a bad feeling crossed Yelena's mind. Boris was dead, that much was certain. But for an investigation, was there really any reason to summon everyone to the Winter Palace-

Bang!

The residence door flew open, and a rush of footsteps poured in. Yelena and her adjutant turned.

They were Lobrus Adversaries.

"Commissar Yelena."

Her face hardened as she looked them over.

"This is an emergency summons from the Winter Palace."

Forcing herself to stay calm, Yelena asked, "A summons? At this hour? For what reason?"

"An emergency inquiry into Commissioner Boris's assassination. Come with us."

It was exactly what her adjutant had just told her, and the Adversaries' eyes gleamed with killing intent.

The doubts flickering in her mind hardened into certainty.

"Fine. Wait outside."

"No."

An Adversary cut her off and stepped forward.

"You must come with us right now."

At that arrogant tone, Yelena let out a cold snort.

"If the Winter Palace is calling me, where the General Secretary and my father are, then at least let me change first."

She gestured at herself. She was still in a silk slip.

"You expect me to go out like this? Seriously?"

"..."

Even the Adversaries hesitated for a moment, reading each other's faces.

In that brief pause, Yelena went up to her bedroom. She opened the wardrobe and put on a military coat infused with protective magic.

Then she noticed a sheet of parchment in the corner.

"..."

The mana communication parchment Maximilian had left behind.

She hesitated briefly, then tucked it deep inside her coat.

"Commissar. Let's go now."

The Adversaries had already followed her upstairs.

"Fine. Let's go."

Yelena left the room and walked down the residence corridor with them.

The many guards and servants who should have been protecting the mansion were nowhere to be seen. There was not even a trace. Had they already been cleaned out?

"Is my father at the Winter Palace too?"

"Yes. He is."

Yelena's expression froze for a moment. A bitter taste spread through her mouth like rot.

Maybe because those words alone told her what had happened to her father.

"I got a letter three days ago. He said everything was fine."

The Adversaries kept their eyes forward and said nothing. Yelena quietly closed her eyes. She slipped a hand into her military coat pocket. Her fingers found a grenade and a smoke bomb.

Yelena pushed mana into them, amplifying their power dozens of times over.

Crackle-

Sparks snapped inside. The Adversaries' eyes widened, and Yelena smiled brightly.

Kwooooom!

The grenade exploded from inside her military coat. The Adversaries were thrown back, and thick smoke billowed up, swallowing everything around them. Yelena used the opening to run, anywhere she could.

* * *

...Time passed on the continent. Before anyone noticed, winter broke and spring came on warm winds.

The Imperial Palace publicly announced the newly created post of Executive Affairs Minister. Kents Bertem had been selected as the first appointment.

Inside the Knight Orders, rumors spread that the ongoing closed hearing had a very warm atmosphere, unlike what happened during Anton Jefren's.

Meanwhile, I came to Lorenzo Academy. I had received good news.

"You've arrived, Sir Knight."

In the lab, Headmaster Lorenzo greeted me first. Today, his face looked strangely gaunt.

"This is the completed prototype helmet."

He carefully set it on the table: a black helmet with smooth curves.

"We implemented it almost exactly as you requested..."

I picked up the helmet. As I examined its shape, I nodded in satisfaction.

What is the most important thing for a knight on the battlefield?

A weapon to tear enemies apart? A spherical Aura Guard to cancel bombardment? Perfect strategy and tactics? Or mana itself, wielded by the knight?

None of those.

From my memories of the previous regression, the greatest weakness a human knight carries on the battlefield, the one thing that absolutely must be controlled, is emotion.

"This helmet blocks vision. More precisely, it reconstructs visual information."

Lorenzo pointed at the visor as he explained.

"It erases all human detail: the enemy's face, expression, even the color of their blood. All of it. What remains is only a simple target object made of condensed red and blue heat and mana."

"Sound works the same way, right?"

"Yes. It was designed so only allied communications and tactically necessary noise reach the ears."

You see disrupted heat flow instead of a dying face, and hear footsteps and gunfire instead of voices and screams.

"...Try it on."

I gladly put the helmet on. In an instant, the surrounding noise fell away. Lorenzo in front of me was no longer human, only a thermal mass.

I smiled and took the helmet off.

"Excellent."

On top of that, I am writing a new knight engagement doctrine to be introduced at Empire Point.

The top principle is this: leave the field immediately after combat ends.

Partly, this minimizes exposure of knights as an asymmetric force. But fundamentally, it keeps knights from having time to witness the slaughter they carried out with their own eyes.

"...But, Sir Knight."

Suddenly, Lorenzo's voice grew heavy.

"Since the Imperial Civil Law took effect... quite a lot of students and researchers have confessed their identities."

I looked at Lorenzo. Unable to meet my eyes, he lowered his head.

"What should we do with them-"

"Write up the list and send it to me."

"..."

Lorenzo's body shook. I patted his shoulder, reassuring him.

"Headmaster Lorenzo."

"...Yes."

"Do not worry too much. In the end, everything comes down to practical benefit for the Empire, and I trust your judgment and conscience very much."

I softened my tone. Lorenzo finally raised his eyes and met mine.

"If there are students or researchers of heterogeneous bloodline with talent you truly value, there is no need to drive them out. You may keep them here as useful tools and as assets of the Empire."

Lorenzo looked surprised.

To begin with, Lorenzo Academy was not an official university or public office, so it did not violate the law anyway.

"That is practical benefit. With the exception of one subspecies bloodline."

"...You mean Izenheim."

"Yes."

Lorenzo seemed to feel a scholar's curiosity at my consistency on this point.

"May I ask... why you reject only Izenheim so harshly?"

I looked at him quietly.

For a moment, I closed my eyes, then opened them.

"They are..."

My words stopped.

Silence settled.

If I spoke this truth out loud, could he believe me?

Could he understand what I meant?

"Because they are humanity's enemy, and one day they will destroy humanity."

Lorenzo stared blankly, then gave an awkward smile and dry-coughed.

That reaction made me realize it once again.

No one can believe me, and no one can know me.

In the end, I have to walk this road alone.

I had already accepted that solitude, so it did not frighten me.

It only tempers my mission into something sharper.

Rustle.

At that moment, parchment sounded inside my coat.

I pulled it out.

[It seems there may be a disruption in caviar supply, so I would like to ask for help.]

I simply smiled at the rather humorous sentence.

* * *

Wheeeeeeeen, wheeeeeeeen-

A piercing siren covered all of Lobrus's capital.

[Attention, citizens.]

Heavily armed military police were deployed across the streets at once. Secret police in plain clothes and Adversaries trampled daily life while searching homes.

[An emergency decree has been enacted for national security.]

Yelena was not their only target. They were hunting thought criminals, political criminals, and high-ranking officials, prosecutors, Party Central Committee members, and Politburo members the General Secretary and Zerof wanted purged...

[Citizens, if you discover anyone showing suspicious behavior, report them immediately.]

A cramped inn room.

Bzzzt, crackle!

A voice came from an old radio on the table.

[House head Kirov Yumanov of House Yumanov, who plotted to overthrow the state, was executed at dawn today.]

Yelena leaned against the wall and looked out through the crack in the window.

Had her father's neck already been on the guillotine even while she was having dinner with Maximilian at Lilac Vita?

She had been too naive.

Too incompetent.

[Kirov Yumanov exploited the people's tax money and sold national assets to foreign states, among other crimes...]

Those bastards were dressing up filthy acts of treason her father never committed, embezzlement, exploitation, and more, reading them out one after another.

[His Excellency the General Secretary will never tolerate these corrupt forces that suck the blood of the people...]

Click.

Yelena turned the radio off. She looked up at the moon hanging over Lobrus's sky and bit down hard.

"A way..."

She could not see one.

No matter how much she thought, she could not find any way to survive and escape this place.

...Whoooooosh.

Moonlight slipped in with the cold wind. In that light, as she quietly felt through the dark.

Bang bang!

The inn room door shook as if it would break apart.

“Inspection.”

Bang bang!

“We know you're inside. Open the door right now.”

Bang bang!

“If you don't open it, we'll break it down.”

The sound of them about to smash the door grew closer.

Yelena threw on her dark coat and jumped out the window.

"Stop!"

But the men searching the alley caught her trail. Gun barrels flashed toward her all at once.

Bang! Bang bang bang!

She knocked the shots away with mana. One bullet grazed her ankle, but she endured the pain and ran through the alley. She turned through one maze-like path after another.

But space was limited, and the enemy was nearly endless.

"..."

She reached a dead end. As Yelena clenched her teeth, she heard,

Step. Step.

Footsteps not far away.

Step. Step.

Matching that steady rhythm, slowly.

Step. Step.

A new figure appeared around the corner.

The moment Yelena glared and gripped the dagger at her waist,

"Shh."

The man raised a finger to his lips. A strange reaction. Yelena looked at him more closely.

A man in Lobrus uniform. He looked at her and removed his hat. The black hair now fully visible was unfamiliar, but below it,

those steady golden eyes and that face were clearly someone she had seen before.

"Looks like caviar supply really did get disrupted."

Murmuring that, Maximilian walked toward her and, without a trace of hesitation, swung his dagger.

Snip.

He cut her long hair short, almost like a man's, then cuffed her wrists.

It happened so fast she had no time to flinch. As if he had prepared all of it long ago...

"You held out well to make it this far."

With a faint smile, Maximilian raised the parchment.

"This parchment resonates with tiny mana waves when we get close enough to each other. Thanks to that, finding you was very easy. Follow me."

He walked with Yelena as if escorting a detainee. A few soldiers approached and questioned him, but in fluent Lobrusian he answered that she was a pickpocket and sent them away.

"Get in."

Outside the alley, he shoved her into a prepared military vehicle.

Yelena let out a disbelieving laugh.

"How did you even get these things?"

"Lobrus is an enemy state. This level of intelligence is basic."

Vroooom.

He got into the driver's seat and drove the vehicle himself.

"But this mission won't be easy. You're too famous, Ms. Yelena."

That was exactly why she could not understand. The single line she had written on the parchment, a line he could have ignored with no consequence at all. Had he really come all the way to this far eastern land because of that?

"Why?"

Yelena compressed every question she had into one word. It was the most perfect expression possible.

Maximilian gave a short laugh.

"Because of my pure hatred."

For a moment, Yelena's eyes shook.

"General Secretary Varmil Makstun is definitely Izenheim."

She looked at him in the driver's seat. His golden eyes, like a desert, flashed with killing intent. It looked as if burning sand was scattering inside them.

"A low, vile filth, a dirty subspecies that should never become the leader of a nation."

His voice was savage as he said it. Whenever he spoke of Izenheim, even his beautiful face twisted like a beast.

He was certainly a far more vicious, far more mad imperialist than anyone she had ever seen.

"As I told you before, Izenheim cannot hold key state posts, and your situation proves it."

For now, at least, our interests aligned.

"...That part is my private feeling."

Maximilian quickly composed his expression. Holding the wheel with cold calm, he continued.

"Now I'll give you a more realistic reason. You are an exile from an enemy state. A key insider carrying very valuable information about the Eastern Alliance."

That reason was more rational.

"Lobrus's military capacity, power structure, Adversary techniques, the military's real scale and movement. The Empire has a lot to gain by rescuing you."

"...Are you telling me to betray my homeland?"

At Yelena's words, Maximilian stared out at the sleet drifting past the window and replied.

"Your homeland betrayed you first."

He nodded forward.

"Well, that calculation only matters if we can safely break through this border."

Ahead, a checkpoint appeared where heavily armed soldiers had formed a line.

"You have about three minutes left to answer. If it's hard to decide, take out the photo inside that dashboard."

She looked at his profile, then opened the passenger-side dashboard with a click.

Inside were a few black-and-white photos.

"..."

Her complexion shook violently.

The person in the photo was her father, staring at the camera with a gaunt face and empty eyes.

Kirov Yumanov.

"They said it's a mugshot taken right before execution. It'll probably be on the front page of tomorrow's Lobrus state newspaper."

"...Ha."

Creak.

Yelena closed her eyes, gripping the photo tightly.

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