WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 24

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What It Means to Be Different (2)

Slash!

After the wall came down, Yulian moved. Cartel troops were everywhere, but he moved like the wind. He showed no mercy.

Ten minutes was enough to wipe out dozens of gang members from the first floor to the third.

"..."

I strapped my longsword back at my waist. There was nothing left for me to do. I trudged up a floor and found Yulian sitting on a box.

He wiped the blood from his blade with a handkerchief.

"Good work."

By then, the police had arrived.

"Loyalty! We'll begin the search!"

After saluting, they tore through the building.

"We found a suspicious passage here!"

Another space was uncovered underground. I went down too.

It was a sealed room soaked in a foul stench, with people the cartel had kidnapped locked inside.

Thump.

The virus reacted faintly.

"...?"

Could an Izenheim be among them?

I looked around, but none of them was Izenheim. The source was the sofa in the middle of the room. I studied it closely.

"Max. What are you doing?"

Yulian had come down at some point and asked.

"I think I found something."

I pointed at the sofa. Yulian split it open, but there was nothing inside except stuffing and dust.

"What exactly did you find?"

"...Maybe."

I placed my hand on the leather and pushed mana through it. The outer layer melted like liquid, then condensed into strange crystals.

There was a lot of it.

Yulian's eyes widened slightly.

"Drugs. Very high purity."

"Yes."

I picked up a shard. The moment I touched it, the virus reacted. Information about the mana compound flooded my mind.

In numbers, purity was above 97%. Double-helix structure. Extremely addictive.

"..."

At this point, it seemed my virus also had a talent for reading mana.

"They rearranged the material structure with mana and hid it. What kind of bastards..."

Yulian rarely trailed off. That was how groundbreaking the technique was.

The culprits were obviously those bastards. The ones who would do anything to throw the Empire into chaos: the otherworldly species, Izenheim.

"Max."

Yulian suddenly turned to me.

"Well done."

Praise from my mentor. It did not feel bad to hear. I swallowed my smile and gave a small nod.

Just then, the police came over. Their eyes widened at the glittering drugs inside the sofa.

"May we seize them?"

"No."

I waved them back.

"We'll seize them."

"Yes, sir!"

Yulian looked at me for a moment.

"Don't trust the police too much either, Sir."

This was enough for at least tens of thousands of doses. Steal even one ten-thousandth and your life changes, and police stations are full of rats.

Yulian gave a short laugh. He looked like he agreed, but he asked as if testing me.

"Then who do you trust?"

The answer was obvious.

"Only yourself."

Yulian nodded. I was right.

* * *

In her room at the residence, Schatz kept breathing steadily and controlling her mana.

It was meditation to stabilize the flow that had been suppressed by restraints for years, and training to carry out Maximilian's words: get stronger.

Knock knock.

A man entered with the sudden knock.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Dieter Schmidt."

Dieter glanced around the room. A mattress, a small refrigerator, bedding, personal belongings. Nothing else.

"It's temporary housing, so there are many shortcomings. Please bear with it for now. Our finances still aren't very comfortable."

Schatz tilted her head.

House Ebenholtz's finances were not comfortable? Those words did not belong together.

"...Ah. Understood."

So treatment changed depending on ability.

That was how Schatz interpreted it.

"Yes. Could you step outside for a moment?"

Dieter led Schatz out. They stood side by side on the empty lot behind the building.

"Please show me your mana."

Dieter took out a notebook as he asked for a demonstration.

Accurately assessing and recording an employee's abilities was also important work.

"Yes."

Schatz gathered mana. Blue sparks crackled and surged.

Pazzzzt!

The moment she thrust out her arm and fired, electromagnetism shot up ten meters and struck the pavement.

"Hmm. Electromagnetic type? Good. You were born with a very rare mana trait."

"Thank you."

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

She had always been a woman of few words. Dieter was also the type who only spoke when necessary.

For a moment, they quietly looked around the lot.

"There's nothing around us."

At Schatz's words, Dieter answered.

"Yes. It's still undeveloped land, but we're buying it up piece by piece."

"We plan to build a city here later."

A voice suddenly came from behind them.

It was Knight Maximilian. Schatz straightened up at once.

"I stopped by on the way. Dieter, what do you think? Can this place become a city?"

"It looks possible."

"You can be honest."

"It's not far from the center, but transportation is cut off, so in practice it may as well be far. Monster appearances are frequent too, so these are not good conditions."

That was why this vast land was undeveloped. Monsters were construction's greatest enemy.

If monsters attacked at night, everything would be torn down. If they deployed extra manpower for defense, costs would explode.

"Ebenholtz can do it."

"...More than anything, we don't have enough funds to build a city."

"The mine?"

"Trust me and wait."

Maximilian turned to Schatz.

"Are you still thinking about Mason?"

Schatz answered shortly.

"...Yes."

"Don't bury yourself in it. If you wait, an opportunity will come someday."

Mason's founder was not a pure Imperial. They were disguising it, but that mixed blood would be exposed eventually. That fact alone would destroy Mason Industries.

An era like that was waiting for us.

"And this is your first mission."

Maximilian handed her a document with someone's profile on it.

"Find this person."

"Yes. Understood."

"Not curious who it is?"

"What kind of person?"

Only then did Schatz wonder, and Maximilian answered briefly.

"A Revolutionary Faction member."

* * *

Summer had not even fully started yet, but my peers had already formed factions.

Tiana and Leon got onto Senior Knight Jerome's line.

Go up from Jerome and you reached Adria. Go up from Adria and you reached Anton.

In other words, they were on Deputy Commander Anton's line.

Anton had broad support. That was why the Revolutionary Faction coiled around him.

As I said before, high-ranking knight Adria had been a mole for the Revolutionary Faction.

"Sir. This arrived from Empire Point."

A staff member handed me a letter.

He was a guard brought from the western prison. One deputy warden who had played a major role in saving Schatz, and two guards. All of them were now employed as my knight administrative officers.

I picked up the letter. It was fine parchment stamped with Empire Point's crest.

[To Knight Maximilian von Ebenholtz of the Sentinel Order]

[For the sake of our academy's outstanding cadets, we respectfully request your observation and evaluation, so that you may share your noble experience and knowledge...]

Empire Point asked Sentinel knights for this kind of guidance. It was a kind of master class.

"...I should go."

If there was an Izenheim at Empire Point, that was the worst case.

It was the shortest path to the heart of the Empire.

And...

"There had to be a better way. There had to be."

Jacob, the first Izenheim I killed. I was curious what his peers were doing now.

Bzzz.

My terminal rang.

“This is Schatz. I have identified the target's location.”

Already?

No. That was about right. She was as capable as expected.

I left the office. I'd been sitting there analyzing activated residue the whole time, and I was getting restless.

"Max... imilian!"

I was about to get on the elevator when some knights called my name.

They were noble-status knights: Raynel, Zionne, and their leader, Kairon.

"Knight Kairon wants to see you."

Raynel pointed to Kairon behind him.

Kairon smiled at me.

"Maximilian. We finally meet face to face."

"...Yes. Greetings."

I bowed my head to him.

Memories from before the regression flashed by.

Kairon. A capital noble who wanted to bring down Deputy Commander Anton.

But Kairon lacked a base. Anton was from a fallen noble house, yet knights gathered around him because of his popularity. Kairon, meanwhile, came from a newly successful upstart house.

The reason Kairon managed his coup was cooperation with the Imperial Guard.

"Lately, people in high society have been talking about you a lot."

The Empire's Imperial Guard was power. The knight order was honor. Both wielded overwhelming authority, but they operated differently.

The Imperial Guard would carry out racial purges, and the knight order would wage wars.

Both... might be necessary evils for me.

"Gold Lion Third-Class Medal, hm. Was I twenty-two when I got that?"

Kairon looked at my chest and smiled.

"Can we talk for a moment?"

"Of course."

Kairon signaled his subordinate knights. They took the hint and stepped away.

"Let's talk on the way down. You're busy too."

"Yes."

We got into the elevator together.

The moment the doors closed, Kairon spoke in a low voice.

"Maximilian. The world is changing. It will change far more than it has so far. Probably far more than you imagine... Central politics is already in turmoil."

His face looked like a snake, and so did his voice.

"But I always worry. Can our Sentinel really handle that massive wave?"

Kairon had made this same proposal before my regression too.

Back then, I had not even understood what he meant.

"Are you talking about Deputy Commander Anton?"

Now I knew enough to go straight to the point.

"...You're sharp. Yes. There isn't much time left before the commander election. At this rate, Anton is the front-runner."

"Yes. I know. A lot of people like Deputy Commander Anton."

"Do you?"

Ding.

The elevator stopped. I walked toward the parking lot and thought.

Deputy Commander Anton Jefren.

He was a good person.

...Only a good person.

"Of course not."

"Then what don't you like about him?"

Kairon asked. I lifted my head and met his eyes.

"He trusts human goodness far too much."

Anton valued the outdated romance called chivalry. That was why he had worried when I killed a young Izenheim.

I would kill Izenheim, and Anton would become an obstacle.

"He doesn't understand a knight's duty, or the meaning of our existence."

As I kept speaking, Kairon's face twitched more and more.

He looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"He only wants to look at the good side of this world."

Destruction bloomed from a broken Empire. The Empire had to function as the lesser evil, and racial purges had to proceed.

"That makes him no different from a blind man with open eyes."

An old man trying to plant a single flower in this hellish world.

That was Anton.

"Hahaha!"

Kairon laughed brightly. He clapped and put a hand on my shoulder.

"That's right. Absolutely right. Well, the rookie got me good. No, calling you a rookie doesn't fit, does it, Maximilian? You're Ebenholtz's heir."

Kairon's face quickly turned serious again.

"Maximilian. The imperial household will probably keep investigating matters related to Anton. They'll come to you and your father and ask many questions."

"I don't think my words will carry that much weight."

"Why so modest?"

Kairon paused and curled one corner of his mouth.

"When that happens, speak honestly like you just did. And no matter what else comes up, I hope you'll stay silent."

He meant he would openly fabricate things and tie them together.

Kairon raised his brows with a strange look.

"A man who's hardly a noble, someone fit to sell straw mats, becoming Sentinel commander... that can't be allowed, can it? Your father probably thinks the same."

I nodded. I did not like how he kept bringing up Sebestian, but I needed tact.

"Yes. Speaking honestly is easy enough."

"...Haha."

Kairon smiled low.

"Good. We'll talk again later. Go on. You look busy."

"Yes."

Kairon left, and I got in my car.

I hit the accelerator and let out a sigh.

"There are too many people who don't know their place."

The fact that they brought up Sebestian so casually meant they looked down on me, but for now I had to endure it.

I'm still just Sebestian's young puppy. Being seen that way is useful for now.

...

"...Sir. Will Max be any help?"

Sentinel Order parking lot. Noble knight Raynel asked with a displeased look.

"Max has already fallen out of Sebestian's favor. There are even rumors he'll adopt Edmund as his heir. You saw him yourself, right? Stiff as hell."

Kairon frowned.

"Watch your mouth. Stiff as hell?"

"Ah, yes?"

"And why would Sebestian adopt some mixed blood? He's a pure-blood supremacist more than anyone."

"...I'm sorry."

Raynel and the other knights hurriedly bowed. Kairon clicked his tongue.

"Don't treat him carelessly. Maximilian is someone you can talk to."

"Ah... is that so?"

"Yes. How long are you going to sulk? You were in the wrong from the start. Maximilian was right a hundred times over. Even if you knew him personally, in public you shouldn't call him Max."

"Don't call me Max."

Those words Maximilian had once said had left the senior knights with hard feelings.

"He's Ebenholtz. His position is already different from yours, and his family's history puts him in a different class of noble."

They might have been his seniors as cadets, but from the start they were in different leagues.

Even so, those fools remembered their Empire Point days and tried to treat him casually.

"I'm telling you, don't provoke him for no reason."

"...Yes. I'm sorry."

The knights bowed.

"Oh my. Looks like there's a gathering in the parking lot?"

Everyone flinched and turned. Kairon glared at her.

Adria von Hardenberg.

One of the key figures on Anton's line, and the knight Kairon hated most.

"We were just discussing lunch."

Kairon swallowed his curse and smiled. Adria gave a small laugh too.

"I see. Well, you do like making everything sound grand. Keep up the good work."

Adria got into a knight vehicle. Kairon watched her, then gestured to his knights.

"Let's go."

"Yes."

Kairon had confirmed that he and Maximilian of Ebenholtz saw eye to eye.

That alone was enough.

Then again, someone raised in the highest nobility was never going to like lowborn stock like Anton.

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