WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 289: Opening Hostilities (2)

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The continent was broadly divided into East and West.

Of course, the Empire called itself the center, but strictly speaking, it was a nation leaning toward the West.

The East was therefore more vast than the Empire.

I thought that was why they built labor reeducation camps.

And why they needed war.

To forcibly exploit labor, dig beneath the earth, and build up whatever they wanted.

In the East's unexplored lands, there were places no person would ever want to go. To push people into those impossible places that they would refuse to enter even for an enormous fortune, and make them develop them, crimes were needed.

And humanity's greatest crime was probably...

War.

"We've arrived."

In the meantime, we arrived in the East.

The person who welcomed me was Zerof, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and the East's most firmly established second-in-command.

"The East's most firmly established second-in-command."

Steller whispered the very thought I had just had into my ear.

"Sir Maximilian!"

A small-built man, Zerof was almost fairy-like in stature as he approached with both arms spread wide.

"Sir Knight. I've been hearing all sorts of things from the Empire these days."

Perhaps rumors about how precarious my position had become.

They would hear whatever they wanted to hear, and I had no intention of hiding it. If it made them lower their guard even a little.

"Well, don't be too disheartened. Nothing lasts forever, does it?"

Zerof spoke with smug condescension, but it was rather regrettable.

You, even more than I, will soon be discarded and boiled by the Supreme Leader.

"Thank you for your concern, Committee Member Zerof."

I merely smiled and bowed my head.

"Haha. Even if your prestige is not what it used to be, I don't mind. Come, let us go together."

Guided by Zerof, we got into a car and entered Lobrus Palace.

The Winter Palace of the old imperial dynasty. A place that was practically their heart.

Red flags hung beneath ceilings stripped of their gold leaf, and guards stood in endless ranks. We got out there, passed through the entrance, and walked the marble corridors, and walked, and walked again...

Until we reached a windowless sealed room.

"Please wait here for a moment."

There was only a long table, several chairs, and a map of the Eastern Union hanging on the wall.

Steller and I sat down.

"Then...?"

Zerof was about to sit beside us when an Adversary whispered something in his ear. He was then called away somewhere.

"Watch closely, Foreign Minister Steller."

I whispered to Steller.

"That is the sign of someone being pushed from their position."

Zerof glanced back at us with an odd expression as he left.

Steller asked quietly, "Zerof?"

"Yes. It means he can now be ignored."

"......Even so, Zerof is supposed to be the person the Supreme Leader trusts most."

Foreign Minister Steller furrowed their brow, as though unable to believe it.

A short while later, another official entered.

"The Supreme Leader wishes to see you."

The Supreme Leader of the Eastern Union. The General Secretary of Lobrus.

Varmil Makstun wanted to meet us.

"What?"

Caught off guard, Steller was visibly flustered, while I settled myself calmly.

"Please wait a moment."

"Goodness... what is this?"

Steller broke into a cold sweat and adjusted their tie.

"Sir Maximilian..."

"Don't worry."

The Supreme Leader was only the Supreme Leader. As people of the Empire, there was no reason for us to be afraid.

Seemingly reassured by my words, Steller took a deep breath.

Step.

Suddenly, footsteps approached from outside.

Step.

I listened quietly.

Thump.

My heart beat.

Was it my own heartbeat, or the resonance of the virus?

Was the ruler of the East truly an Izenheim?

Creeeeak.

The door opened, and Varmil appeared.

Steller hurriedly stood. I rose as well, straightening my clothes.

"Glad to meet you."

Varmil's voice had a heavy, imposing timbre, and the accent was strongly Eastern.

The real Varmil, whom I was seeing for the first time even after living two lives.

"......"

Varmil was an oddly rigid person.

Thick hair. Heavy brows. A mouth set deep beneath a mustache. A body that was not large, but solid and lean. There was no haste in Varmil's stride, and Varmil's hands were clasped behind the back.

"So you are Knight Maximilian."

Thump.

The expressionless words made my heart beat faster.

"Countless people from the Empire have come and gone from Lobrus."

Just as I had expected.

"But you alone, I wished to see with my own eyes."

That wretch was an Izenheim.

......

The sealed room.

Diplomacy proceeded there. The Supreme Leader spoke as though mocking Prozen and Hailand, Steller played along, and I handled every translation.

The non-aggression pact had been discussed in advance, so this was essentially a meeting to confirm it.

The Supreme Leader stated the line dividing Bolska.

The west would belong to the Empire, the east to the Eastern Union.

Steller went to the next room to telephone the Emperor, then returned with the Emperor's immediate answer.

The Supreme Leader laid out the allocation of the "Eastern nations that refused to join the Union," meaning Finnomia and the smaller northern states.

Steller again went into the next room to ask the Emperor. The Emperor accepted all of it. The reply of an Emperor who wanted war seemed to contain even joy.

I watched the scene that would become history with perfect clarity.

"At this point, I believe we may sign."

As every matter was brought into alignment, Steller pointed at the treaty with satisfaction.

Through my translation, the Supreme Leader smiled and nodded.

"Let us."

One copy of the public treaty. Two copies of the secret protocol.

They signed them at the same table, but the two copies of the secret protocol would be stored in their respective foreign ministry vaults.

Scratch. Scratch.

Steller signed as foreign minister, while the Supreme Leader inscribed his own name.

Thump.

The moment they stamped the state seals representing their nations,

I felt the final trigger being pulled.

* * *

The Empire, Imperial Palace.

Having returned to the homeland, Steller sat respectfully before the Imperial Princess and recounted that day's events.

"......Afterward, there was a banquet."

At the banquet, Maximilian and Steller were led into a small room together.

"It was filled with Eastern vodka, champagne, caviar, black bread, and the like."

There, Supreme Leader Varmil Makstun heartily raised a glass first.

"The Supreme Leader's toast was, 'To His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of the Empire.'"

The Imperial Princess raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Since the Supreme Leader raised a glass to His Majesty first, I responded with, 'To His Excellency, the Supreme Leader.'"

The Imperial Princess nodded as well.

"After that, we continued drinking."

Steller's face reddened by the third glass, and by the fifth, their skull felt as though it were being shaken apart.

"Seeing that I was dying, Maximilian drank on my behalf."

The sight remained vivid in Steller's eyes.

Their blurred, swaying vision. The hand holding the glass trembling faintly. Maximilian gently taking the glass away and smiling as though telling Steller to trust only them.

The Imperial Princess asked,

"......Did Maximilian lose?"

In the East, alcohol was courage itself. While the phrase "heavy drinker" carried a somewhat curious meaning in the Empire, in the East it was considered a highly valiant compliment.

"Haha..."

Foreign Minister Steller could not hide a smile. It was pride. The face representing the Empire had been beside them, and Maximilian had never lost.

"To be honest, it was clear that the Supreme Leader was drinking water."

The vodka poured for the Supreme Leader had been a different liquid. There had been no smell of alcohol.

"Even while drinking water, the Supreme Leader could not match how much Maximilian drank."

Maximilian drank in Steller's place without a single mark appearing on his face.

Later, one of the accompanying ministers even drank Maximilian's liquor to test it.

"I see."

The Imperial Princess shrugged. In her own way, she felt pleased. It was clear that the Empire had not lost to the East, nor been outdone by it, in any respect.

"Also, Maximilian seemed to have already read the currents in the East to some extent."

"The currents?"

The Imperial Princess asked back.

"Yes. After seeing how Zerof was treated that day, Maximilian said Zerof would soon fall from power."

Zerof. A Committee Member of the East who was well known even in the Empire. No one in the Empire, not even diplomats familiar with the East, had anticipated Zerof's fall.

"In fact, Zerof has been missing ever since that day."

In contrast, Maximilian had sensed Zerof's downfall based only on the information he saw firsthand during a single visit to Lobrus.

"So, my personal opinion of Maximilian is..."

When Maximilian was beside them, Steller felt a strange confidence.

The feeling that they too belonged to the same kind. That they, like that knight, belonged among the pure Aran...

"I now truly understand why Your Highness keeps Knight Maximilian close."

"......"

The Imperial Princess listened quietly before speaking in a low voice.

"Summon Rainer Wolf here... no."

There was no need to deliver those words face-to-face.

"Tell him to prepare the operation where he is."

* * *

An unimaginable treaty called "Non-Aggression Between the Empire and the Eastern Union" was announced to the continent.

A treaty discussing peace instead filled every nation on the continent with terror.

The cabinets of Prozen and Hailand each confirmed that they had been right. They became certain that the Empire had no intention of stopping.

Fortunately, nations across the East and West had already expanded their armaments and conscription.

They were not too late, but it would not be enough either.

"Jean."

At Prozen National University, Foreign Minister Duvall visited Jean Pierre and handed him a paper.

"......It happened as you said."

It was a paper Jean Pierre had written two years earlier.

[ Hostile Forces Paradox: Continental Situation Arising from Noninterference Between the East and the Empire ]

The paper's core argument was that if the two forces most hostile to each other were not fighting, that could never be peace.

The East was in the midst of the Supreme Leader's purges, and the Empire was in the midst of its military buildup, yet they consistently ignored one another.

Jean Pierre had pointed out that the situation itself was abnormal, but two years earlier, academia had dismissed it as "delusion of grandeur."

"Where do you think it will begin?"

Jean Pierre answered immediately.

"Yursled, certainly. But Lobrus will wage war as well, to claim its share in the East."

Lobrus, like the Empire, would begin a war, and Finnomia was within its reach.

Therefore, the starting point did not matter at all. There was no need to worry about it.

Because...

"In the end, the entire continent will be engulfed in war."

Not a single nation existing on the continent would escape being dragged into such an enormous quagmire.

......

Meanwhile, in Finnomia, the nation of winter.

"They are leaving. I had grown rather fond of them."

The officers dispatched by the Empire to teach them, along with the Winter Corps that had come to learn skiing from them, were preparing to withdraw.

Watching the scene, Army Commander Hannu asked,

"President, what do you think?"

Wirse Mateus, President of Finnomia, did not take their eyes from the window.

"......It is the will of nations, so it cannot be helped. We must prepare for the East."

Just as the Empire was a threat from the West, Lobrus was a threat from the East.

"There is no reason to resent the Empire."

No matter what the Empire said, Lobrus had never intended to let Finnomia remain an independent nation, and the Empire had never been obligated to protect Finnomia.

Rather, thanks to "that knight," they had imported the Empire's advanced systems for several years and increased the nation's basic military capacity. It was something for which they were deeply grateful.

"President!"

As they watched the Empire's withdrawal, a soldier suddenly ran in and reported something.

Afterward, they went together to Finnomia's parade ground.

"......"

All kinds of supplies were laid out there.

Hundreds of trucks parked across the parade ground. Rifles and submachine guns. Mountains of crates filled with ammunition. Anti-tank guns and mines, mortars and shells, boxes of radios, fuel drums, sleds, white snow camouflage uniforms, crates of medicine, canned food and field rations...

Everything Finnomia would need most desperately against Lobrus.

"What are all these?"

When the President approached and asked, Colonel Elbert, an Imperial Army instructor, answered.

"Ah, we received orders from above not to fuss over packing this and that, but to return as quickly as possible... So we have no choice but to leave it behind."

"Leave it behind?"

"Yes. Please dispose of it as you see fit. Put it in the trash, or wherever... And."

Colonel Elbert handed the President a ring of keys.

"These are the keys to the barracks we used."

The Winter Corps, which had come to Finnomia to learn skiing, had not drained Finnomia's military budget.

Instead, they had built new facilities. Training grounds, parade grounds, dining halls, roads, barracks, guard posts, barbed-wire fences, communications networks, and more.

Using Imperial money, they had provided jobs to Finnomian citizens and built varied military infrastructure. Now, they meant to return those places for free.

"......What is the name of the person 'above' who gave those orders?"

At the President's question, Elbert smiled.

"Well, I did not hear the name myself..."

Perhaps Maximilian Ebenholtz.

Wirse nodded and handed the ring of keys to Commander Hannu.

"If you ever learn who it was, make sure to tell them thank you."

* * *

The Sentinel Knights' office.

I stood by the window and looked toward the distant eastern horizon.

"It seems they have infiltrated."

An aide spoke.

Imperial Guard operatives had slipped into Yursled.

"According to what we have received..."

Rainer's operation was perfectly suited to starting a war.

It was far more extensive and tightly woven than before my return.

That bastard certainly had ability.

"They will begin in three days."

I looked at the Ebenholtz longsword. It lay carefully inside its long case, but it was not yet time to draw it.

"We watch."

The Imperial Guard's movements. The Emperor's orders and the continent's response.

Unlike before my return, Hailand and Prozen were already armed with Izenheim-influenced public opinion.

They would therefore not hesitate against the Empire, nor fear it excessively.

"......"

I stared silently eastward.

It seemed I could hear it from somewhere unseen...

Bang!

In a square before the Imperial consulate in a port city of Yursled, two consulate employees fell.

The culprit was a young member of a Yursled nationalist group. A genuine Yursledian who had long been angered by the Empire's demand for his country's port. A foolish young man used without ever learning who had put a gun in his hand.

That night, a bomb was thrown at the main gate of the Imperial embassy in the capital. There were no casualties, but the flag caught fire, and the image of the burning national flag was broadcast throughout the Empire on Imperial radio.

At dawn the next day, a border guard post east of Genson exploded.

Eleven Imperial soldiers died, while three bodies in Yursled uniforms and Yursled-made primers were left at the scene.

"Yursled has shot our diplomats! They burned our flag, and now they have killed our soldiers!"

The radio repeated those words all night.

All of it was true, and all of it had been manufactured.

Now, only the Empire's decision remained.

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