The Reluctant Imperialist - Chapter 291

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Chapter 291: The Real and the Fake

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Thump! Thump! Thump!

Yursled's Bresla Fortress. A gentle ridge ran north to south along the border, with an open plain beneath its slope, nowhere to hide. Trenches and bunkers formed a belt of defenses along the ridge.

For five days, the same morning had repeated there.

"Load the anti-tank guns!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Shellfire rose from the Empire's tanks, answered by cannon fire from the trenches on the ridge.

Kraaaash!

The enemy was coming again.

Watching the tanks grow larger in their sights, the gunners held their breath.

"Four hundred meters!"

The company commander raised a hand.

"Two hundred and fifty!"

The hand fell.

Booom!

Dozens of muzzles fired dozens of shells.

Crunch!

One shell pierced the lead tank's side armor. The tank behind it tried to avoid the halted vehicle and exposed its flank.

Booom!

The second shell struck. A hatch opened on the tank caught in the blast. Someone crawled out, only to be swallowed by flames.

The third tank chose to retreat.

Cheers erupted along the ridge, but the company commander shouted.

"Pass out the ammunition!"

Weapons manufactured in unknown places. Shells were steadily loaded into the new anti-tank guns, which had arrived aboard cargo ships of various nationalities before the Empire began threatening Yursled.

Yursled's superhuman corps moved as well. They took up positions on the ridge and hurled spears solely at the tanks.

Their mana was sufficient to pierce the tanks' top armor.

"Load!"

The Empire tried to crush our front, and we met them head-on.

Of course, we could not hold out forever. Even if we endured now, the Empire's resources were nearly limitless.

"Fire!"

Booom!

But Bresla Fortress existed to buy time, and the three days the Imperial bastards had been so confident about had already passed.

"Fire!"

News of the Western Allied Forces' advance had already reached every trench. Hearing it, Yursled's soldiers stopped fearing the Empire for the first time.

We can endure. We can win.

Because we are not alone. Because the continent is helping us stand against the great evil called the Empire.

That feeling was the greatest gain of this battlefield.

"..."

Yursled's commander looked down at the soldiers fighting with all they had to protect their country.

Even if their bodies wore down, even if they were broken and torn apart, they did not stop.

A sense of duty rose from the blood and sweat staining them.

Swallowing the emotion welling up inside, the commander cried out.

"Don't stop! Fire! For Yursled!"

...

"Urgent report!"

In Yursled's capital, news of the Western Allied Forces reached the government building.

"The Allied Forces have broken through the Empire's border and are advancing on the port!"

The phrase unstoppable advance suited it perfectly. The coalition of western powers had driven straight toward the Empire's key port without resistance or obstruction.

Every member of Yursled's prime ministerial cabinet rejoiced.

"The war may end sooner than expected. Stake Yursled's fate on this. Concentrate every resource on the front!"

That night, Yursled's prime minister appeared on the radio, and by the next morning the entire country was in motion.

A wartime system. Every factory in Yursled operated in three shifts. The railways suspended civilian service and carried only troops and ammunition. Civilian food supplies were strictly controlled with ration coupons.

Yursled concentrated all national production on its western border.

...

Bang... Booom...

As gunfire and cannon fire echoed like drums along the defensive line, as Opening Hostilities neared their first week, Imperial Guard commanders stared at a map inside their barracks.

"Why can't we break through..."

They were sincerely puzzled.

The tanks were the latest models, and we had far greater numbers.

Was there something wrong with the tanks? Or were the tank crews afraid?

Rainer Wolf spoke.

"Let's catch our breath for a while. I think we need to reconsider the operation from the beginning."

At his suggestion, Alfred, commander of the Frontline Imperial Guard, frowned.

"If we retreat now, what will happen to the Empire's honor? We've come this far. It can't be helped. If we keep pouring in troops, they'll break eventually."

That was the Imperial Guard's logic. They understood that the first step had gone wrong to some extent, but now they were trapped by sunk costs.

If they withdrew now, they would have wasted troops without gaining anything.

"Then let us send a small force around them, at least."

Rainer said as he put on his combat uniform.

"I will command it."

A graduate of Empire Point. A man capable of handling mana, with physical abilities rivaling a knight's.

Rainer wanted to earn military distinction of his own on the battlefield.

Perhaps it was an achievement he wanted to present to the Imperial Princess.

Without speaking, Commander Alfred examined Kents Bertem's expression. Even now, they were keeping each other in check.

"..."

Kents Bertem quietly nodded.

"I approve."

Only then did Alfred permit Rainer to depart.

...

The continent spoke of war, but an odd liveliness filled Prozen's capital.

Cafes and restaurants remained open, and people held coffee and newspapers in their hands. The theaters continued their evening shows.

Perhaps it was because of the pleasant news arriving from the border.

"The continent is at war."

In the large lecture hall of Prozen National University, Jean Pierre had also received news of the Western Allied Forces' advance.

"As you can see from the empty seats."

He pointed to the back rows of the lecture hall. More than half were vacant.

"Every newspaper on the continent is talking about war, too."

He spread several newspapers across the lectern.

[ Empire Stalled at Yursled's Bresla Fortress. Are Its Tanks Made of Paper? ]

[ Allied Forces Enter Western Empire: Fifteen Kilometers Beyond the Border. ]

[ Balkanian Fleet Sets Sail! Declares Blockade of the Empire's Southern Coast! ]

The headlines were clearly excited.

The Allied nations' declaration of war had certainly been decisive. They had thrust into the Empire's west in an instant, and now the whole continent was intoxicated by that speed.

Meanwhile, the Empire was struggling unexpectedly in the east.

"Why is the Empire struggling?"

Several students raised their hands at once. Jean Pierre chose one of them.

"Could the tanks have been built wrong? Gigantes was destroyed in a terrorist attack."

"Their military strength was exaggerated from the beginning. They took Genson without firing a single shot. It's an army that has never fought."

"There were rumors that the Emperor was personally commanding..."

"Could it be a plan to make us let down our guard?"

Claims poured forth that the military itself was the problem, that the Empire had never been strong in the first place, and that Gigantes's destruction had left holes throughout its military supplies.

"What do you think, Professor?"

One student asked in return. Everyone's eyes turned back to the professor, the figure known as Prozen's great pillar.

"Not yet..."

Jean Pierre wore an unreadable expression as he thought.

After staring into space for a long time, he finally spoke in a low voice.

"...Because this is not a real war."

There was clearly something that separated the real from the fake.

The real one was the person we had always feared, but the one fighting in the east now was not him.

"A real war? Then is this a fake war?"

A student asked.

A war only one week old. A situation that still did not feel real.

But precisely because of that.

"...You could say so."

The real one would someday, without fail, arrive.

...

At the Hailand prime minister's residence, Arthur Winston sat in a chair and unfolded a newspaper. Nearly every page had a caricature.

The first showed the Emperor atop a gigantic tank, cracking a whip while the tank's wheels spun uselessly against a small hill. Whiiirl!

The second showed the crowned Emperor gazing hungrily at Yursled on a map. Sluuurp! Yet every one of the Emperor's teeth had fallen out.

The third showed men in Imperial Guard uniforms standing in a row atop a turret and giving salutes. "Loy'lty!" Beneath the tank, a Yursled farmer smashed its tracks with a plow.

Those were the illustrations pouring from the press.

Arthur and the Hailand government did not bother suppressing them.

In Arthur's view, the attitude most needed against the Empire was courage. The continent could not fear the Empire. If it feared them, it could not unite, and if it could not unite, it could not win.

They had to instill the belief that even the Empire could be defeated if everyone stood together.

That was why Arthur did not hesitate to trample on and scorn the Empire's prestige.

"Prime Minister, Balkania has taken control of the Empire's southern coast."

Army Minister Leonard brought another piece of good news.

"The thing you are worried about will not happen. Young, talented generals are leading the front lines, both in Hailand and Prozen."

"..."

Even so, the prime minister's face remained hard.

Arthur folded the newspaper and murmured.

"I hear the Imperial Guard is commanding the Empire's army now."

It meant that a certain person Arthur knew was absent.

Leonard nodded.

"The Empire has always been that kind of country. Even the Emperor does not trust their own authority, so they keep the houses beneath them in check. And..."

As though Leonard had read Arthur's mind, they continued.

"In the first place, that knight is not as extraordinary as the continent believes."

Leonard took another step toward the prime minister.

"I remember something you once said. 'Do not give the enemy an unnecessary narrative.'"

"...I did say that."

Arthur Winston looked out the window for a moment.

"We must never let down our guard."

But if they had to fight and defeat the enemy anyway, there was no need to fear them.

"Nothing is more foolish than imagining someone you cannot even see."

If that man would someday return to the front, they had to secure as much as possible while he was gone.

"A butcher in uniform... There is no need to give him any other name."

A madman loyal only to the Emperor and obsessed with foolish ideology.

The continent's worst imperialist and a racist soaked in madness.

That was all Maximilian was.

* * *

As the stalemate in Yursled continued, several independent Imperial Guard units chose to go around it.

They announced victories in several southern regions and planted flags in a few villages behind Yursled's lines.

The Imperial Guard reported this to the Imperial Palace and inflated it into a great victory, but skepticism began to rise within the imperial family.

The civilians were the same.

The radio repeated only that they were attacking, attacking, yet it never once said they had succeeded in occupying anything.

Instead, rumors spread through foreign news that Allied Forces were pouring in from the west.

"..."

At Princess Justine's hideout, she looked at the man seated across from her.

"The terrain does not seem suited for tanks, so we plan to resume a large-scale offensive shortly, with artillery and infantry support, including air strikes."

"Why didn't you do that from the beginning?"

"...There was some trial and error."

Whenever Rainer spoke like that, his hand kept gripping and releasing his glass. Justine caught every motion.

"Your Highness, they say the Allied Forces are pushing in from the west, but the Regular Army is unable to resist them at all."

Rainer suddenly tried to shift the blame to the Regular Army. Even that was utterly unbecoming of a noble.

Of course, it was because he was not a noble to begin with.

"I see."

The Imperial Princess glared at Rainer.

The way he seemed to tense whenever he spoke. His eyes moving between the Imperial Princess's gaze and his plate. The way he kept clearing his throat before answering. The occasional clatter of his knife. The uncultured sound of plate and cutlery striking together.

None of it pleased her.

"Rainer Wolf, return now. The front will be fierce."

"Yes. I also believe I am needed at the front."

Rainer set down his knife and withdrew, leaving his meal unfinished.

Justine looked at the cross-section of the steak he had left behind. She stared blankly at it for a while.

"He eats disgustingly."

Only after Rainer left did she begin her own meal.

She had the offensive plate across from her removed, then cut and chewed her meat alone while picking up translated transcripts of radio broadcasts from various countries.

[ The Imperial Army remains halted before Yursled's fortress. Prime Minister Arthur Winston calls this a "great resistance"... ]

Hailand's radio.

[ The Allied Forces' vanguard has advanced into the Empire. Our brave army has pressured and driven back the Imperial forces... ]

Prozen's radio.

[ ...Our ridge still stands. The Empire's tanks are burning. People of Yursled, today again, we stand with our homeland. ]

Yursled's radio.

"..."

Those who cried through loudspeakers across the continent that this was the Empire's humiliation, disgrace, and indeed, reality.

But it was true. The fortress they claimed they could crush in three days was still intact after ten.

Grind.

Justine clenched her teeth. She tore her steak apart along the grain with her knife.

Red rage surged through her.

Drip.

In the blood that splashed across the plate, a man's face suddenly came to mind.

A knight who was not indecisive like Rainer, who did not evade his own duty, and who was infinitely ruthless toward the Empire's enemies.

Perhaps the name everyone in the Empire wanted now.

* * *

The Sentinel Knights.

While the war was in full swing, I had agents search the continent for the Mana Nuclear Bomb Research Institute under construction on Hailand's island of monsters, beyond the sea.

I trained as well, preparing for the intensity of the front I would soon enter.

Even so, I continued to follow the situation.

The Empire's Regular Army met the Allied Forces at the Final Defensive Line in the west.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Guard still could not break through in the east, and because of that, public opinion across the continent was raging that this was how they should have responded from the beginning.

Every media outlet on the continent except those in the Empire condemned the cabinet of Hailand's Gary Beaufort, who had handed over Genson, and everyone who had agreed with it.

"...An interesting book."

The Guilty.

This book had been published and instantly become a bestseller. It treated everyone who had argued for peace with the Empire, including Gary Beaufort, Ambassador Stanley, and Ambassador Laurent, as criminals.

"At this point, it's practically a social exposé."

"Exactly. Max, are you all right?"

Across the office, Leon of House Askar, who had brought me the book, asked.

"And you?"

When I asked in return, Leon smiled bitterly.

"I'm itching for a fight. Those lowlifes have been talking too much lately."

Leon of House Askar. My fellow cohort member seemed eager to go to war.

In truth, the Sentinels themselves were on the verge of exploding.

That, too, was an atmosphere I was cultivating.

The mockery and insults against the Empire gathering around the Sentinels. And the Hailand and Prozen cartoons I had deliberately fabricated, directly insulting the Sentinels.

They were devices meant to use their anger.

"Not as much as me."

At my words, Leon chuckled.

"Right. You keep becoming a strange character, Max. This time, apparently you were some kind of pig?"

I was smiling faintly too, when...

Knock knock.

For some reason, the knock sounded heavy.

Then Hans Wenzel, the First Working Officer, entered.

"Sir Knight."

While Leon watched with serious eyes, Hans whispered something in my ear.

"..."

The message was only three lines long, but...