WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 219

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Moonlight filtered softly into the office.

Colonel Edmund Bwindol sat at his desk and turned the pages of a book he had never gotten around to reading.

[ My childhood was spent alongside Edmund...... The countless hours we spent crossing swords and sweating together became a precious foundation upon which I built my dignity as a knight...... ]

Chapter one of Maximilian's autobiography. Edmund read down the lines as though tracing each one with his fingertip, and a small smile spread across his lips.

"I owe you as much."

He murmured it bitterly.

The dream of becoming a knight of the Empire. For long years, Edmund, being of mixed blood, had forced himself to deny that dream and live as though it had never existed. Watching Maximilian soar to dizzying heights as a knight filled him with genuine pride, yet at the same time it was an almost unbearable pain.

......Thud.

He closed the book. Quietly rose to his feet. He had not made it past chapter one.

He crossed to the window and looked up at the moon hanging in the night sky. On his desk lay the red envelope Schweitzer had delivered that day. A classified document from Georgen, the political police.

They had sent a document casting suspicion on the identities of several subordinates under Edmund's command, people he held in high regard. His own mother's Prozen origins had already been deemed acceptable, but theirs was a different bloodline entirely.

Knock. Knock.

A knock sounded at exactly that moment.

"......Come in."

The office door opened carefully.

"Colonel."

It was Kane and Heintz, the two adjutants Edmund trusted most.

"The schedule for tomorrow night's mountain mobility exercise has been confirmed. Also, here are this month's supply distribution records and the weapons maintenance inspection log for the troops. We directed each company commander to see to their preparations. Please review them."

Soldiers in the truest sense, they did only what soldiers were supposed to do and judged right from wrong on their own.

"I'll look them over. Good work."

The adjutants saluted and withdrew, and Edmund exhaled a long, heavy breath. His gaze drifted and hung in the empty air.

Anguish spread through him.

Torment moved like a slow current.

Could he really do it? Over something as thin as a difference in bloodline, could he actually push away adjutants who believed in him and followed him......

Grip.

He clenched both fists.

......

Western Prozen Republic. Clara Magal, leader of the armed organization Revision Society, received word from Lucen. Felix Renoir, the man behind the Revision Society, had briefly surfaced at Lucen. Prozen intelligence had mobilized, but he had not been caught. It was a genuine relief.

"......Phew."

At any rate, the Revision Society had by now grown into a force that could no longer be ignored even within Prozen. Following Felix's instructions, they had purchased several properties in central Prozen and pressured politicians into advancing legislation that suited their agenda. This had been possible not only through the funds Felix channeled to them, but also through the support of countless sympathetic businesses, membership dues, and the revenue from the newspaper and other ventures they ran.

Within Prozen, those who agreed with the Revision Society's positions had already coalesced into a genuine faction.

The agitation: that Izenheim and other subspecies, along with various other minority peoples, were unjustly stealing the precious jobs and livelihoods that belonged to Prozen's citizens.

Maximilian's Aran racial theory itself remained a target of criticism among Prozen's intellectuals, but the underlying logic, that a clear hierarchy existed between the races, had taken root in the difficult daily lives of ordinary people and built real sympathy there.

"Yes. A racial order most certainly exists......"

"Leader! A letter! From Lord Felix!"

A senior member burst in suddenly.

Clara snatched it from her hands as it was passed over.

"Leader. That's actually from Lord Felix, right?"

A mana-sealed letter. If the cipher only Clara knew was not entered, it would remain locked and destroy itself. This was Felix's way.

"It is."

Before she knew it, members had poured into the leader's office in a crowd. They were clearly curious about what Felix's letter contained. The Revision Society's leader was Clara, but the biggest patron funding them and paying their wages, the true backer, was Felix Renoir.

"......"

Clara broke the cipher and began reading through the contents. At some point her expression changed.

It twisted into something dark and ugly.

"Why? What is it?"
"......Leader?"

Bang!

She slammed her fist down hard on the desk.

"......I knew it would come to this."

She ground her teeth.

"Why? What happened?"

At the urgent questions from everyone around her, Clara lifted a face full of fury and answered.

"The Prozen intelligence bureau."

That wretched red nest, which dogged the Revision Society at every turn and threw up obstacles at every move.

"Word is it's already become a den crawling with Izenheim filth."

The faces of the members went cold and rigid.

......

Lately, among Mer businesspeople and other minority merchants and foreign entrepreneurs of various nationalities, one saying had been making the rounds openly.

"Better to go to Maximilian than be robbed by the Imperial Guard."

Corporate annexations and asset seizures were being carried out across the entire Empire. The Imperial Guard squeezed out every last drop of blood they could find, and when they were done, not so much as a speck of dust was left behind.

But Maximilian of Ebenholtz was different.

"......Haah."

Hassan, a Mer businessman, arrived on trembling legs at the asset acquisition office Maximilian operated.

Just as the rumors said. The waiting room was full of people clutching company documents and transfer deeds tightly to their chests, waiting with barely concealed dread. Like refugees queued at a border checkpoint, they all dabbed steadily at the sweat running down their faces with handkerchiefs and waited only for their turn to come.

"......Excuse me. I had a prior appointment."

Hassan stepped up to the counter and spoke.

"Ah, yes. Please come in, Hassan-ssi."

A clerk in a clean business suit called his name. Hassan hurried inside.

"H-, here, here it is."

He laid every financial statement and ownership transfer document he had brought onto the table with shaking hands.

I cannot survive in the Empire any longer as a Mer. That was the conclusion he had reached.

"Please also submit your family register certificate."

Family register submission. A process that had become mandatory verification across the Empire. Of course, he was not pure Aran.

"Here, here it is."

Never in his life had he envied the Aran and their prized family registers the way he did these days. But in this place, the one who lied died first. Having walked into the tiger's jaws of his own accord, he had no choice but to lay every aspect of his identity bare.

"Yes. Confirmed."

The documents Hassan submitted were swiftly passed along and put through careful inspection. Shortly after, the clerk reported the result.

"The assessed corporate value is a total of 1,090,000 imperial dollars."

"......"

1,090,000 imperial dollars. The company his grandfather had built from nothing, three generations of a family's lifetime of labor, amounted to only that much. Far less than a tenth of its actual worth. There was a clause promising restitution in twenty years, naturally, but that was surely nothing more than a noble's characteristic hypocrisy, a defensive caveat.

"Will you receive payment in mana stone bonds?"
"......Yes. Please."

Even this was cause for gratitude.

If his family business had fallen into the Imperial Guard's hands instead, if those animals already circling his premises and preparing to stake their claim had seized it, he would not have recovered a single thousand dollars.

"We will proceed with the sale."
"Yes. Thank you."

This too was part of a scheme to swallow up the continent's prime businesses under the guise of legality. And yet Hassan had walked in and offered his own neck.

"Here. Please take these."

After all the paperwork was done, the clerk handed Hassan crisp bond certificates and a small envelope.

"This certificate will not be reissued under any circumstances. Do not lose it."

Inside the envelope was a single ticket made of fine parchment.

"I, the undersigned, recognize this person as a businessman who has contributed to the prosperity of the Empire. Should any unjust harm come to this person, corresponding responsibility will be demanded."

Beneath it, clearly and boldly signed in the hand of Maximilian Albrecht von Ebenholtz himself.

"......!"

The moment he saw it, tears welled in his eyes and his hands trembled. The single most important document guaranteeing the safety of his family.

"......Thank you, thank you! Truly, thank you!"

Hassan clutched the ticket tightly to his chest and let out a deep, shuddering sigh of relief.

The moment he stepped out of the office, a crowd of people rushed toward him.

"How did it go, how did it go?"
"Did you receive it, did you receive the token?!"

Fellow Mer. When Hassan barely let the ticket show from inside his coat, each face in the crowd flickered between deep envy, relief, and an anxious worry that seemed to ask: could I receive one too?

"Do not lie, whatever you do. They know our bloodlines down to the last detail anyway, so you must simply put everything down honestly and without reservation."
"......Yes. I will keep that in mind."
"Keep your spirits up, everyone. Stay clear-headed and you can get through this. I'll leave you to it."

They took Hassan's words to heart and turned back toward the line, their faces carrying fear once more, waiting for their turns.

***

One day in spring.

Before the Sentinel induction ceremony, Kairon's confirmation hearing for the post of knight commander concluded. Just as expected, it proceeded without a hitch, and no notable opposition emerged from either the imperial palace or parliament.

[ Northern Front in Balkania Enters a Lull...... ]

Around that time, a short article decorated one corner of the newspaper.

Balkania's forces had run up against Mekerel's tenacious resistance and finally ground to a standstill. Thanks to that, Leutern II had lately been treated like some sort of scholar at the imperial palace. He had even co-published a few diplomatic papers alongside Professor Ruben, though it was probably Ruben who had written the whole thing.

It was laughable, but either way, all I hoped for was that his attention stayed scattered. Leutern was better suited to scholarship than command. At least he would not kill anyone on his own side.

"A pleasure to meet you, Knight Maximilian."

Three days before the Sentinel induction ceremony, I received an invitation from an organization called Georgen.

Established recently under the imperial household's protection, it was a political police body tasked with rooting out ideological criminals and subversives within the Empire. It had absorbed investigative authority from the regular police and been folded under the Imperial Guard, making it an institution whose shadow of fear stretched across the entire Empire.

"I am Heinrich von Stark."

A class-1 war criminal who had been very well known even before the regression had risen to lead it.

Slowly, obsessive control over thought and ideology was going to begin. Anti-war advocates, pacifists, dissenting intellectuals who expressed even the smallest disagreement with imperial policy, all of them would be thrown into the camps without exception.

"I am Maximilian."

Georgen headquarters. In an office ringed by ink-dark walls, Heinrich smiled like a pleasant man. I looked around the bare interior.

"Not much here. It's rather empty."
"Haha. We've only just taken our first steps as an organization. There's still a great deal to fill in."

Despite saying there was still a great deal to fill in, a great deal had already been filled in. Wiretapping, for one. The devices had been installed quite cleverly, enough to make even me look twice.

"Knight Maximilian. We believe Sentinel and Georgen could become organizations that cooperate closely with one another."

Heinrich laced his fingers together and eased into it with a low, measured opener.

"Thought criminals our agents bring in from the field, you and the other knights would refer them to trial fairly. And if our agents happen to make mistakes or conduct flawed investigations in the process, the knight order would correct those matters firmly. In that spirit."

Heinrich held out a document envelope.

"These are classified documents Georgen recently obtained, concerning illicit accumulation of wealth. Serious irregularities within the imperial regular military, at the senior officer level."

I opened the envelope and checked the documents.

......These names were familiar.

"They are individuals who fought alongside you during the Gennen suppression campaign, Knight Maximilian."

A faint smile crossed Heinrich's lips.

Two generals affiliated with what was known as the Gennen Society.

At that moment I understood it clearly.

This was not the will of a mere police organization. Someone higher, the imperial princess, or the Emperor. They were watching me. Watching to see whether I would conspire with the military and turn a blind eye to their corruption, or cut them down in keeping with a knight's principles.

Simply put, the imperial household had mistaken me for someone who held some kind of "special feeling" toward the Gennen Society. Which was entirely wrong.

Heinrich asked with a show of careful hesitation.

"We fully respect your judgment,..."
"Execution."

I folded the documents neatly and tucked them into my coat as I spoke.

"If this information is true."

I looked straight through his golden eyes.

"Before that, I will verify the truth of every piece of information in this document. If it turns out to be fabricated, Georgen will likely go on record as the organization dissolved in the shortest time after its founding in all of imperial history."

A faint twitch ran through the corner of his eye.

"If it is true, the parties involved will be referred immediately to a knight tribunal and executed."

A major general and a brigadier general. The scale of corruption between these two had gone far beyond any reasonable limit.

"As generals, as military officers, or as Georgen's own police, accumulating assets beyond one's salary is something that can be tolerated up to a point. Family wealth may have grown, or it may be the result of lawful investments. But."

I continued, without expression, without feeling.

"If it is money squeezed from the suffering of the people, or taken through bribes and embezzlement."

I had never once said I would shield the Gennen Society. In truth, I had no particular interest in them whatsoever.

As things stood now, they were simply relics of an old order who had crossed the line and needed to be put down.

"That I cannot allow."

Heinrich was quiet for a moment. It had clearly caught him off guard. He must have imagined I had built some kind of rapport with those men.

"......I see."

He let out a breath that tried to pass itself off as relief.

"That is reassuring to hear. I spent a great deal of time wondering how to broach such a sensitive matter with you...... As ever, your impartiality is exactly what everyone says it is. I will leave the handling entirely in your hands."

He raised an eyebrow and held out a red envelope.

"There is, however, one more matter."

I broke the seal and examined the contents.

It was a matter concerning Edmund, or more precisely, his adjutants.

"......We could handle it ourselves, of course. But since you have a connection to the people involved......"

This much was certain.

The Emperor, or the imperial princess, was moving to keep me in check, and Georgen was carrying out their will.

Moonlight Below had become the scaffold holding the Empire's ideology together, but in exchange it had drawn the worry and unease of those above.

"I will go myself."

I smiled without letting anything show.

"It is a matter I can resolve well enough."

This was the moment to show my loyalty.

Besides, once war broke out, they would no longer be able to cut me loose so easily. All I had to do was hold out until then.

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