WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Reluctant Imperialist
Chapter 169
──────
Do Not Abandon Comrades
The Empire, Central District 14.
Tap. Tap.
Acrid smoke billowed up, and all around, the sound of burning debris crackled through the area.
"What a mess."
If you only looked at the devastation, you would easily assume it was a terror attack by an armed group like the Revolutionary Faction. But this was not terrorism. It was the kind of "incident" that happened during a suppression operation.
"Ah... Sir Knight. You've arrived."
The police chief controlling the scene approached with a pale face. Tiana rubbed her brow and asked,
"Please explain what happened."
"Yes. This place was, um, a base warehouse distributing illegal mana stones. We still don't know whether it was connected to the Revolutionary Faction."
He swallowed and continued his report.
"A Sentinel knight received intelligence and deployed alone... and when the suspects resisted and tried to flee, the knight personally launched sword aura at the mana condenser inside the warehouse to block the escape route."
"Oh my."
For knights in their first year and above, solo deployment was the default. Moving in groups wasted knight resources.
So sometimes, things like this happened.
"Yes. The impact sent the condenser out of control and triggered a chain explosion. As you can see, nearby shops were swept up too, and there were many innocent civilian casualties."
Tiana clicked her tongue inwardly.
This might have been excessive force, or it might not have been. Cases like this always depended on who interpreted the knight's actions, and how.
Still, the timing was awful.
Anton, who had been holding back the tidal wave called the Imperial Palace, had fallen, and Kairon had risen to the center of power.
At this exact moment, the perfect incident broke out.
Tiana asked the chief,
"Where is that knight now?"
"...Over there, inside the warehouse."
She entered where the chief pointed.
Crackle. Crackle.
At the center of the warehouse blast, still spewing black smoke because the flames were not fully out yet, stood a knight breathing hard with only light burns.
"He looks like a weapon."
The moment Tiana saw his face, she sighed.
A man who looked as if he himself had been turned into a weapon, senior knight Cliff, year eight.
"...Cliff."
Jerome, who had appeared before anyone noticed, called his name. Jerome did not look pleased either.
Cliff was a notorious hardhead even inside Sentinel. Much more rigid and inflexible than Jerome, and Anton Jefren's fiercest supporter.
Put simply, he was a loyalist.
No, even that word was not enough.
A loyalist among loyalists. Sometimes he looked almost insane, but everyone understood him.
Because of the life he had lived.
"Cliff."
The one who first found and took in young Cliff, abandoned by his parents and surviving as a pickpocket in the Empire's lowest back alleys, was Anton Jefren.
Anton spent his own money to send him to school. Cliff kept grinding forward, entered Empire Point, then graduated with top marks and was commissioned as an official knight of the Sentinel Order.
Cliff had been saved by Anton.
That was why.
"...Sir Jerome. I have nothing to say."
Without Anton, Sentinel might have become a meaningless place to him.
* * *
Northern Lobrus.
Fwooooooosh!
A white storm raged in circles. Inside the curtain of snow, Yelena walked down the mountain.
Crunch. Crunch.
Even these footsteps felt strangely unreal.
Crunch. Crunch.
The fluffy feeling under her soles. Ice shards touching her cheeks like glass.
"I wonder, were you ordered to bring me in alive?"
Yelena asked the Adversaries walking ahead. No answer came back. They kept their lips sealed and hurried their steps in silence. One of them was a man who had escorted her in the Empire not long ago.
"Your name was Ivan, right?"
She asked her former escort.
"..."
He said nothing. He did not even glance at her, only continued escorting her.
"It's not like there's any law saying you can't speak. At least chat with me a little."
She laughed at herself, quiet and bitter.
Looking back, it was all so strange.
Her house was wiped out in an instant. Her father was executed without anyone knowing. A knight from an enemy nation approached her and proposed a deal. Then, with his help, she wandered the capital of Lobrus for days, this time trying to become a traitor to her own country.
Even now, it all felt like a lie.
At the end of my life, I really had a bizarre, unreal experience.
"...Heh."
She forced down the laugh spilling out of her.
Crunch. Crunch.
Whoooooosh.
Violent currents of wind. Feeling how futilely life fluttered away, she descended the mountain in silence.
"...Still. It seems His Excellency the General Secretary really despises the subspecies called Izenheim."
At her casual throwaway comment, killing intent rose from the Adversaries like blue steel blades.
"To launch this kind of purge over nothing but one rumor."
The Adversaries who had stayed silent finally reacted.
"His Excellency the General Secretary cannot be a subspecies. I will never believe that."
"...Do you want to be summarily executed right here?"
Ivan, silent until now, growled and gripped the hilt at his waist.
"Whether I get dragged to the capital and beheaded, or freeze to death here, it's all the same to me."
Yelena sneered and provoked him harder, and the other Adversaries restrained Ivan.
"Well, if His Excellency really is Izenheim..."
Yelena stopped walking.
"Then of course we should beat him to death. We can't have a filthy subspecies like that standing over our heads."
The Adversaries' eyes settled again, calm and cold. Ivan clenched his sword hilt tightly.
But he did not swing. He shook his head as if deep in thought.
Then, all at once.
A single silver speck shimmered faintly in midair.
"...?"
The moment reflected in Yelena's eyes lasted only an instant.
Not even a full second.
A flash pierced through the blizzard at a speed too fast to perceive.
...
Soundless, quiet, and therefore even more alien.
It struck two Adversaries at the neck at the same time.
Slice.
Silence, as if the world had stopped. On the pure white mountain range, an even whiter sword aura rose. The battle unfolded at extreme speed. The Adversaries moved on instinct.
They drew up mana immediately.
But instead of targeting the sudden attacker, they reached first to cut off Yelena's head.
Crackle!
Blue current lashed under their feet.
Kiiiiiiiing!
One second. As if thousands of lightning branches struck all at once, a torrent of mana whipped madly through the snowstorm.
Pazzzzzzt!
A violent electromagnetic storm burst up on all sides. Electrodes spread in chain reactions through every point in the air. Ultra-hot sparks jumped between banks of snow.
Yelena just stared blankly at the scene. In truth, she did not even have time to close her eyes.
Krrrrrk!
Two seconds. Lightning flashed and blinded the Adversaries. It tore through their mana like paper and rattled their skulls apart.
...
Beyond the curtain of blue lightning, Ebenholtz's silver longsword, holding moonlight, danced again without sound.
Slice. Shrrrk. Clang!
Three seconds. The battle lasted only that long.
At most, not even three full seconds passed, and the ambush ended cleanly.
Pssssss...
When the blizzard quieted again, every single Adversary had been beheaded, with no exception.
"..."
Yelena looked ahead.
Flick.
She watched Maximilian elegantly shake blood from his sword.
She watched him turn back toward her, gathering his coat as it whipped in the wind.
"...The code of an imperial knight has one plain saying."
His slanted eyes curved into a smile.
* * *
Sentinel Order conference room.
They could not treat a knight as a criminal and throw him into an underground interrogation chamber, so the investigation was being handled here temporarily.
Tiana quietly looked at Cliff, seated across from her.
"Senior Knight Cliff, do you have anything to say in defense, or any explanation regarding your negligence?"
He only kept his head lowered. He did not even pretend to listen.
"Hello?"
"Can you hear me?"
Honestly, this conversation was pointless. It looked like a year-two knight investigating a year-eight knight, but that was only because everyone above her had already failed.
"...I'm leaving, okay?"
"Go."
"So you answer that one."
"..."
Silent again.
Such a hardhead, exactly what you'd expect.
Tiana scratched the back of her neck and stepped out. Jerome and the other knights waiting outside strode over. Tiana crossed her fingers in an X.
"He won't say a word."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Then many footsteps rose from the far end of the Order corridor.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Bootsteps in sync, like marching soldiers. Kairon approached with several noble-born knights.
They stopped with cold faces.
"...Ha."
Kairon, Sentinel's new deputy commander, looked back and forth between Tiana, Jerome, and the old Anton faction, then said coolly,
"Strip him of his post."
Decisive from the very first word.
Tiana brushed her hair back.
"Dozens of innocent civilians were injured after being swept up in a knight's excessive suppression."
Then suddenly he held out his hand. A knight beside him placed a newspaper in it.
"This is tomorrow morning's front page, to be distributed across the entire capital."
Flick. He threw the paper against Jerome's chest. Tiana's eyes followed the thick headline.
[City Center in Ruins Due to Sentinel Knight's Negligence... 17 Innocent Civilians Seriously Injured, Under Hospital Treatment!]
[An Uncontrollable Armed Group, Is This Really Acceptable?]
"...Move."
He shoved past frozen Jerome and Tiana roughly, then entered the conference room.
Cliff. Do you know what you've done?
Through the half-closed door, the voice carried out.
The Executive Affairs Minister hearing is underway in the Imperial Palace right now. If Kents Bertem takes that seat, he will absolutely use this issue as a pretext...
Bang.
Knight Raynel shut the door. With his arms crossed, he glared at Tiana and sneered.
"Tiana. Why are you even here?"
"Where I stand is my choice."
"...Ha."
Raynel shook his head in frustration.
"They said you're like a young Adria. Exactly that type. Everyone, step back for now."
He waved his hand even at Jerome, who was much more senior than him.
"We'll handle it from here. Big matters go to big people. You know that, right?"
His attitude was openly rude, and Jerome's face hardened. The other senior knights looked the same.
"Let's go for now."
Tiana pulled Jerome away instead.
"Sir Cliff doesn't listen to us. You think he'll listen to them?"
Crack. Everyone ground their teeth and turned away. Behind their backs, mocking snickers rippled out.
Tiana pressed at her throbbing temples, headache stabbing through her skull.
Now there was one fact she could not deny anymore.
Sentinel had split.
And maybe it could never be stitched back together.
...
Such a great thing. Hahahaha! Feels like an aching tooth got pulled out.
Kikikikiki. High-pitched laughter came directly into her ears through the mana wiretap device.
But I knew this would happen anyway.
Sonnet Kandel sat inside a dark building, eyes closed, listening to the intercepted voice.
Those knight types are arrogant to the core. They always think only they are right and keep swinging swords, so I knew they'd cause a major disaster like this eventually.
Kents Bertem's voice was unbearable. Too high and too thin, disgusting in a different way from Leutern.
That is exactly why, now I!
Drunk out of his mind, Kents clattered as if climbing onto a table.
As Executive Affairs Minister!
Waaaaah. Sycophants around him cheered and clapped.
What a spectacle.
I will control those bastards!
No matter how long she listened, it was all bragging. He sounded like someone who would never say a useful sentence in his life.
"..."
Sonnet opened her eyes. A man stood in front of her.
"The equipment?"
She asked him. He nodded.
"It's almost fully ready."
Anton Jefren's closed hearing. The transcript from that day would be set in print at this Zepheltron Printing House.
Of course this would help Sentinel too. But that was still better than letting Kents's influence grow stronger. If they left things alone, the Imperial Guard's center would tilt toward Bertem.
As Sonnet Kandel, this was something she had to do.
Sentinel will bow its head to me soon enough.
Kents Bertem's voice continued in her ear.
He would become Executive Affairs Minister and control the Knight Orders. He seemed to believe he deserved it.
But what he said in that transcript proved the opposite.
It was coarse and vulgar to the core.
This is politics. I can put it plainly. I do nothing, and they fight each other on their own. They cause incidents on their own. Hahahahaha!
He brought up Anton Jefren's private wounds and insulted his whole family as fallen nobles.
The vulgar conduct recorded in that transcript was, no matter how she looked at it, far from "qualification."
I feel great. Bring more alcohol. There should be Kadeo, Vintage 45.
On the other hand...
Maximilian Ebenholtz.
Sonnet opened the later part of the transcript in her hand.
Inside it were his thoughts about Anton.
What? You drank it yesterday? Then go buy more. Anywhere.
Even in that filthy closed room, Maximilian kept his dignity.
If this had been a public hearing watched by the public and the press, Anton's fall was already a foregone conclusion, so people could have interpreted Maximilian's defense as fake mercy performed to protect his own image.
But it was a closed hearing.
From the start, it was behind the veil, something that would never be made public to anyone.
So he could have poured out all his resentment toward Anton, or every reason Anton was a loser. He could have gladly joined the palace nobles and helped crush him.
But Maximilian did not do that. He actually stopped palace voices trying to tear Anton down.
Even now, though he knew all the rumors around himself, he stayed silent to preserve palace propriety.
Maximilian himself had kept the most knightly bearing of all.
"Print it."
"Yes."
Thud.
The darkness lit up with the glow of machinery.
Clank. Clank.
Once enough copies of the transcript were printed here every night, they would make it public at the right time.
That timing would probably be...
"Before the public hearing, that should be enough, right?"
"Yes. Of course."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Sonnet Kandel watched the presses stamp letters onto paper with numb eyes.
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