WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 220

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Stagnant water always rots. When a name acquires authority, parasites bloom beneath its shadow like poisonous mushrooms, each eager to feast on the spoils. That is simply human nature.

The Gennen Society.

Within the imperial regular army, they were now a private clique wielding enormous factional power and influence. Not that they openly traded on Maximilian's name, or brazenly committed corruption by impersonating his prestige.

Yet the mere fact of having participated in the Gennen Suppression Campaign, now a page of history, the mere fact of appearing in military academy textbooks, had handed them a degree of power inside the military that far exceeded what they deserved.

"You didn't have to do that, child."

Could Maximilian cut off the Gennen Society, a thing that had grown from him? Justine wanted to test his authority even as she meant to check it. For the imperial household. For the Empire.

"In the end, he is Sebastian's son."

The Emperor's voice filled with a dark weight. Justine sank into deep thought. She wanted to believe in Maximilian, but she knew she could not allow herself to. She understood all too well how feeble a thing "belief" was for someone who would one day stand at the apex of the Empire, how unnecessary, how poisonous a toxin it could become.

"Even if Maximilian were to corrupt himself and raise a banner of rebellion, he could never overcome Sebastian."

The Emperor was certain of it. He knew Sebastian's nature as a human being. Or rather, he believed he knew it. In the Emperor's estimation, Sebastian was a man who would gladly cut off his own son's head if it served the imperial household.

"I trust Sebastian."

The Emperor's arrogant certainty frustrated Justine, even as she understood it. A father who placed such absolute faith in Sebastian struck her as weak, yet she envied the very capacity to trust someone that deeply.

"So you too may simply use Maximilian as your sword."

A blade she could wield completely. A retainer who harbored no ambition for power, who lowered himself willingly and became the Emperor's pedestal. That was what Sebastian had been to the Emperor. Could Maximilian be the same for her?

"......"

The princess sat alone in her empty bedchamber and sank inward, descending into her own consciousness.

What judgment would Maximilian pass on the Gennen Society? Could he cut down those who had shared history with him? Could he bear that pain and carry it out willingly?

She picked up Maximilian's autobiography from the corner of the room and opened it.

[ ......History is the struggle between races. We Aran are the ones who create civilization and lead the world, while certain subspecies are nothing more than viruses that parasitize and destroy what civilization has built. ]
[ Therefore, the Aran's struggle is a devotion for the salvation of all humanity, a sublime sacrifice that only the Aran can bear...... ]

A people without history. Parasites who seep silently onto the continent like demons and corrupt the purity of mankind.

Justine traced those fierce and beguiling sentences with her fingertips.

Maximilian Ebenholtz.

He was a man who looked toward the same place she did, who shared the same abyss.

And yet the reason she could not help doubting him was, perhaps......

* * *

The Sentinel Order's administrative office. I was reading through the paperwork on Edmund's adjutants.

Captain Kane and Captain Heintz, Georgen's "targets."

The intelligence Georgen had compiled on them centered on bloodline. If their family registers turned out to be fabricated, there would be no escaping execution under the Imperial Civil Code. Even if that weren't the case, once Georgen had a hook in you, interrogation and torture would be difficult to avoid.

Still, my thoughts lingered less on Edmund's adjutants than on Edmund himself.

How deeply was Edmund involved in the revolution right now?

Edmund Bwindol had been my beginning.

He would probably never know it himself, but he was the one who had kept me alive, the one who had released me. The one who had passed me information about the future, the one who had pressed the key to send me back into my hands at the very last moment. All of it had been Edmund.

"......"

I drifted briefly back to the time before the regression, then shook the thought loose and picked up the next document.

Major General Rudolf and Brigadier General Olise, both members of the Gennen Society.

Those two had clearly crossed a line. They had clearly accepted requests. Personnel appointment requests of the most dangerous kind.

When requests like that run rampant, a fool like Leutern II could become a field commander overnight. People like that almost always impose inefficiency and drag down military morale. They commit more corruption to recoup whatever they spent buying the position. They take out their frustrations on subordinates for no reason, drunk on their own authority, and push soldiers into situations where they will die.

That was exactly what Leutern had done before the regression.

Knock. Knock.

A knock at the door. The clerk opened it carefully.

"Major General Maut has arrived, sir."

I gestured, and Maut came in. His complexion looked like overdone toast.

"It's been a while, Major General Maut."

I spoke first as he settled into the seat across from me.

"Major General Rudolf and Brigadier General Olise will be referred to the Knight Court."
"......Yes. I understand."

Maut's voice was heavy.

"That is exactly what should happen."

He seemed to have come already braced for this outcome. He made no attempt to offer excuses or to appeal for leniency.

"Still...... on behalf of those beneath me, I want to say sincerely that I am sorry to have disappointed you."
"......"

Every so often there are people like this, people who surprise you. Major General Schweitzer had a twisted personality, but as a military mind he ranked among the finest on the continent. Major General Maut had the integrity and the personal regard of others that let him bow his head over his subordinates' failings. When his private finances had been gone over thoroughly, there was almost no trace of illicit wealth.

"You have nothing to apologize for. You were never their representative in the first place."

I drew a line between them and Maut. Something flickered briefly at the corner of Maut's mouth.

"Take this as an opportunity instead."
"......An opportunity?"
"Yes. Reforming the military requires selection based entirely on ability."

A general in the regular army had just lost his head over personnel requests and bribery. This incident was worth treating as a chance to reshape the regular forces.

"Promotion and selection, from the military academy all the way through to the field, must be decided by talent and capability alone."

There were certainly hidden talents buried inside the imperial military. This enormous Empire had no shortage of able people. But countless chains of bribes and backroom requests had buried them, and soldiers who excelled only at politics had rolled into the Imperial Guard and brought the continent to ruin.

"I trust you understand what I mean, Major General."

Excluding backroom dealings, ranking people on ability alone. If the Gennen Society, which had taken shape without my noticing, could be made use of, that was the best way to do it. If they were going to exercise influence over personnel decisions anyway, correct the instincts driving those decisions.

"......Understood."

Maut nodded, his face set. I watched him for a moment, then smiled slightly and extended my hand.

It was a handshake that carried a great deal of meaning.

......

The imperial Knight Court. I attended in person at the prosecution's seat and sought the death penalty for the major general and brigadier general charged with bribery and illicit personnel dealings.

"The accused are hereby sentenced to death."

The judge recited my demand like a parrot. Two middle-aged generals who had carried those ranks on their chests were led away without even the strength to rise on their own.

The gallery of the Knight Court was quiet enough to seem empty, yet there were many hidden eyes watching me from within that silence.

Not only Georgen operatives angling for something to pin on me, but shadows from the imperial household as well.

This was loyalty performed for their benefit.

Cutting personal ties without mercy, for the Empire alone. Painfully excising comrades who had once shared a battlefield. Playing the part of someone who does that.

I could not say what I was performing loyalty for, but I was performing it all the same.

Wasting this precious time on nothing but loyalty for loyalty's sake.

"This Knight Court trial is hereby concluded."

Listening to the judge say those words, a thought rose in me without any particular intention.

How much longer can I hold myself back?

* * *

Bam bam, bam bam bam, bam ba ra bam bam bam bam

A sharp reveille shattered the dawn along the eastern border.

"......"

Edmund had not slept at all through the night. He stared at the red envelope sitting on his desk, the internal investigation order delivered to him from Georgen, recording their suspicions about his subordinates' bloodlines. He had lost count of how many hundreds of times he had read it.

"Haa......"

Edmund breathed out a long sigh and crossed to the window. Out on the parade ground, soldiers in full combat gear stood in flawless formation.

A mutant beast extermination operation was scheduled for the day.

The Kitan Mountains to the east were home to large numbers of mutant beasts. Without periodic sweeps, the damage to nearby civilian settlements would be severe, and the treacherous terrain overrun with beasts carried the added risk of being exploited as an infiltration route by enemy states. The operation was therefore a critical one, and it counted toward a commander's performance record.

Clank.

Edmund buckled his sword at his hip and slid a pistol into the holster. As colonel, he intended to lead the soldiers himself.

"Let's go."

Edmund left the office and climbed into the command vehicle. The driver gripped the wheel in rigid attention.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Marching with the soldiers, they reached terrain where the mountain range stretched without end. The unit advanced in the agreed formation, encircling the mountain. At some point, strange cries came rolling out from deep within.

Grrrrrrrr......

Before long the mutant beasts showed themselves, bear and wolf mixed together, corrupted by mana and turned ferocious.

"Ready, fire!"

Combat unfolded exactly as rehearsed. Real engagements like training; training like real engagements. Holding the formation they had drilled countless times,

Bang! Bang! Crash!

Gunfire shook the mountain valley. The overwhelming majority of ordinary soldiers relied on firearms as their primary weapon. Even Empire Point officers, if their mana aptitude was lacking, found it far more efficient in the field to combine physical ability with a firearm.

Bang! Bang! Tatatatang!

Edmund watched from a distance with calm eyes. Captain Heintz, his adjutant, was different from the ordinary soldiers. She held a sword rather than a gun, a talent Colonel Edmund himself had permitted to her alone.

Slice!

The blade Heintz thrust forward sheared clean through a mutant beast's thick neck in a single stroke. Sword Aura cut through the beast's limbs. She was a fine officer, highly skilled in both swordsmanship and mana, rare even within the regular army.

Bang! Bang! Crash!

Gunfire and explosions rolled on without pause. As the sun sank, the day's mutant beast sweep was complete. The mountain had already darkened into shadow.

"We camp here."

This operation would run steadily for three days. Edmund's order passed down through the company commanders. The soldiers moved with exact precision and pitched their camp.

"Mm."

The regiment's commander was satisfied with the unit's discipline.

"Colonel Edmund, sir!"

A signals operator came running up and thrust out a telegram.

"Colonel Edmund, sir! Urgent news from the capital!"

Edmund took the field communicator and received the message. The telegram was brief, but the impact was proportionate to its brevity.

"......Is this accurate?"
"Yes, sir. It is."

Knight Maximilian had sought the death penalty for two generals belonging to the Gennen Society, citing bribery and illicit personnel dealings.

"......"

The Gennen Society. Edmund knew their presence and standing well. As Gennen had stabilized and recovered, as the prestige of Ebenholtz had risen, they had risen with it, becoming a genuine power inside the regular military.

And yet Maximilian had cut off the heads of generals who were effectively his own hands and feet, without hesitation.

Edmund had seen this in a man once before. A knight who had dismantled, with his own hands, every faction he himself had built. Sebastian.

"You can receive the details directly from the knight himself."
"Directly?"
"Yes, sir. Knight Maximilian is on his way there now."
"......"

Maximilian was coming here. But he was no longer the same person Edmund had known in the past.

"I see."

Edmund set down the field communicator. The signals operator saluted and withdrew.

"......"

Silently, he looked toward a certain spot. There stood his two adjutants, both smeared with sweat and dirt.

"Captain Kane. Captain Heintz."

Edmund tilted his chin toward them.

"Come with me. I have something to say."
"Yes, sir."

He stepped out alone. Behind him, familiar footsteps followed. Edmund left the camp alongside them and walked without a word, heading deeper into the mountain range, toward somewhere no eyes could reach......

How much time passed like that.

When they broke through the steep brush, a sheer cliff opened up before them without warning. Beyond it stretched an expanse of deep blue sea that stopped them in their tracks. The end of the border, looking out over the snow-white territory of Finnomia below in the winter cold.

"Colonel, sir. What is this about?"

Captain Kane asked, his voice heavy.

Whooooo......

Night air tugged at their uniforms. Edmund looked from one adjutant to the other and spoke calmly.

"Captain Heintz. You said you were from Frieden, in the western Empire."
"Yes, sir. That's correct."

Captain Heintz answered without a moment's hesitation.

"Kane. You're from Central District 36?"
"Yes, sir. That's right."

Under imperial military law, officers and above were subject to strict family register verification and bloodline investigation. If the registers they had submitted were found to be forgeries, the minimum sentence was death. Edmund knew that fact all too well.

Shhhhhhh......

Edmund pushed back his dark reddish hair and clenched his teeth where no one could see. He looked steadily at Heintz and Kane, adjutants who had served beside him for years, and spoke.

"Intelligence has come in claiming your family registers are fabricated."
"......Sir?"

Kane's eyes went wide. He seemed struck speechless for a moment, but Heintz cried out at once.

"That's, there's no way that could be true!"
"......"

Edmund said nothing. He simply absorbed their shaken gazes in silence.

"Fabricated! Colonel, sir! Do you not trust us? Do you not trust me?"

Captain Heintz poured out words, her voice raw with the injustice of it.

"My mother and father in Frieden, they..."
"No."

Edmund raised a hand to stop her.

"......My trust means nothing to you. You both know that already."

A self-mocking smile crossed the corner of his mouth.

"I too am mixed-blood."
"......"
"......"

Heintz and Kane fell silent, words gone from them. Then Edmund laid out a certain reality before them.

"Maximilian is on his way here."

The most merciless knight in the Sentinel Order, Ebenholtz's heir. If he caught hold of them, it would not only be themselves who suffered, their families and comrades would not go unharmed either.

"If you cannot prove your innocence before him, even I cannot make guarantees."

He drew his sword, watching them both. Dim moonlight gathered along the blade.

"So tell me. If you confess now, I can make sure no harm comes to your families or your comrades."

On their backs hung the field packs stocked to last them several days. Beyond the cliff and the sea lay Finnomia's territory, where imperial law did not reach.

"Are you... false?"

If you want to survive, run.

Edmund Bwindol gave them the gift of a choice.

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