WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 31

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If You Ask About the Empire's Future (2)

Commandant Dane's office at Empire Point.

"Sir Knight Maximilian. Did you know Cadet Lucas?"

Dane asked me. He managed Empire Point's cadet corps, so of course we already knew each other.

"Yes. I have a bit of history with Lucas's father."

I set down my teacup and picked up the cadet roster he handed me.

For reference, Leon and Tiana were helping with cadet training.

"His grades are definitely good."

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【2】 Lucas Limperk

· 17 years old, born in November

· Swordsmanship Ability: A+

· Physical Ability: A

· Mana Aptitude: A

· Mental Ability: B+

· Operational Performance: A

······.

· Overall Evaluation: B+

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"He is right at the elite cutoff. His grades are solid, but his instructor evaluations are borderline."

"Then he'll definitely make it now."

He seemed to understand what I meant and gave a bitter smile.

"...That is not why I called you."

Just a year ago I was still a cadet, and now he addressed me as an equal. He understood the situation clearly. He had been worn down that much. The spirit of the North had already rusted beneath corruption.

"Do you remember Jacob Mack?"

"Yes. The subspecies I dealt with."

"And Hanna, his classmate."

"..."

Without a word, I turned the pages. I found her name right away.

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【3】 Hanna Usar

· 18 years old, born in January

· Swordsmanship Ability: A+

· Physical Ability: A+

· Mana Aptitude: A+

· Mental Ability: A+

· Operational Performance: A+

···.

· Overall Evaluation: A+

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A full sheet of A+ marks. She was at Tiana's old level.

For a commoner to become an elite knight, this was the level she needed.

But before my regression, someone this talented never made it to the Sentinel Order. I was hearing her name for the first time in this life.

"Impressive. That's rare competitiveness even at the elite level."

"Right. But..."

"What else is there?"

The commandant took a leather notebook out of a drawer.

"This was found among Jacob's belongings. Read it."

I picked up the notebook. The first pages were ordinary daily notes. Work harder, do this, do that.

Then, from one page onward:

[......It was the last night of leave. While everyone was excited, I saw Hanna slip out of the dorm alone. I followed her carefully. Honestly, I was planning to tail her and scare her as a prank. Hanna headed to an old dock by a riverside far from the school. Someone in a black robe was waiting for her there. I hid and watched them. I could not see the other person's face, but what they exchanged did not look ordinary. Words like 'avoid surveillance,' 'before dawn,' and 'comrades' drifted faintly on the wind......]

There were many other lines pointing out Hanna's "suspicious behavior."

"Hm..."

Izenheim was thorough and used any means necessary. This diary was probably a trap Jacob designed so he could bring Hanna down one day. Sell out an ally, build his own record, secure his own safety, and push deeper inside.

This might have been why Hanna disappeared before my regression.

"..."

Dane watched me in silence. I closed the diary.

"Why are you giving this to me only now?"

"I thought about it for a long time. In the end, I decided to leave it to your choice. Hanna has already earned Ebenholtz's resentment, and the Jacob case was yours from the start."

He was watching my reaction.

Back when I was a cadet, I thought Dane was far above me.

Yet in only one year, we had gone beyond equals, and I now stood higher. That was the weight of the name Ebenholtz.

"Who says she earned Ebenholtz's resentment?"

"Among cadets, rumor is truth."

Meaning they said whatever they wanted.

"If you want, you can expel Hanna from Empire Point."

Jacob's diary was enough to kill a commoner like Hanna, but Dane deliberately limited it to expulsion from Empire Point.

Dane wanted to save her too.

I asked him, "You sound exhausted. Do you want to retire?"

"...Not a bad idea."

Dane was old and tired. The wrinkles of worldly life had deepened.

"Too many bastards are after my seat."

The commandant who oversaw every cadet at Empire Point held enormous authority.

If Dane retired and someone who valued money above talent and birth took that seat, it would go beyond simple corruption. Security itself would break. It could put them in Izenheim and the Revolutionary Faction's hands.

That could not be allowed.

Like that famous saying, the future existed right here.

"Then..."

I looked at Dane. Looking at him, I understood why the Empire had rotted. Corrupt people clawed for survival and clung to power, while upright people were worn down until they faded. The bad had driven out the good.

I picked up Jacob's diary.

* * *

Empire Point instructor Phillips was a man in his mid-thirties, loyal to the Empire. He was commoner-born but became a knight through effort, then was inspired by Dane, once his superior. He became an instructor at Empire Point to find commoners like himself.

Jacob was one of the cadets Phillips had watched closely.

But Jacob was a subspecies. He was not Aran, so Maximilian killed him in what was considered a "deserved" death.

After Jacob's death, Phillips was cleaning the room when he found the diary hidden under a floor tile.

He agonized as he read it.

Was Hanna really this kind of person?

No, impossible. But if the Imperial Guard or the knights saw this diary, they would jump at the chance to drag Hanna into it. They would never throw away such an easy achievement.

Then should he destroy it? If he did, could Hanna survive?

Hanna was too valuable. Even setting aside their shared background as commoners, he had a daughter around Hanna's age.

His deliberation went on and on, but in the end Phillips ran away. He handed this heavy burden to his superior, Dane.

By now, Dane was probably with Maximilian of Ebenholtz...

...This was Empire Point's field training ground.

Phillips watched Hanna rolling in mana-mixed mud.

From the day Jacob died, she had thrown herself into training like a madwoman. Every score climbed to top tier or higher. Noble cadets should have sneered, saying things like a commoner dares, but most only scoffed and moved on.

There was not even the usual pushback.

Because the rumor had already spread that she had been marked by Ebenholtz.

"Training over!"

After that came cadet interview time.

Phillips called Hanna into his tent first.

"..."

He watched her quietly. Mud clung all over her, but she sat straight without a trace of fatigue.

"What are you staring at?"

"...Hm?"

"It's fine. I know. I'll just keep doing my best."

"...You answer everything before I even ask."

Hanna gave a faint smile. She was composed beyond her age.

"Are you doing a little better now?"

"I won't lie. I still think about that day. The day Jacob died."

Originally, Jacob should have been an elite-division cadet too.

...No.

Jacob should never have been here in the first place.

"Hanna. He was not our friend."

"Yes. I know. But I keep thinking there might have been a better way-"

"Then stop thinking that."

Hanna lowered her head. She bit her lip in silence.

Phillips asked, "Cadet Hanna Usar. You said your dream was to become a knight."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I wanted to become the Empire's sword. I believed there was no reason I could not become one just because I was a commoner."

It was the same reason Phillips himself once had.

"...Yeah. Right. I know. I'm a commoner too."

The corner of Hanna's mouth twitched. A small smile escaped.

Yet Phillips's heart only grew darker. Back then and now were not the same.

Even by feel alone, class discrimination and racial division had grown far worse.

"I know. I'm only losing one dream."

Even so, Hanna stayed calm.

"Right now my only dream is to become a knight, but someday I'll find another dream. I'll help the Empire in another way..."

Her words stopped. There was movement outside the field tent.

"Who's there?"

Phillips called out. The tent flap pulled back, and Commandant Dane entered. Dane looked between Hanna and Phillips, then gestured.

"Could you step out for a moment."

"Of course. Cadet Hanna, you may leave."

"Yes! Loyalty!"

She gave Dane a rigid salute that trembled with force, then quickly left.

Dane sat across from Phillips.

"...Phillips."

"Yes, Brigadier General-nim."

"I delivered the diary to Maximilian."

Phillips's heart dropped.

"What happened?"

"You're curious?"

"Yes."

Dane took a cigarette from his inner pocket. Phillips quickly lit it for him.

"When I handed him the diary, Maximilian..."

Dane exhaled a long stream of smoke and gave a faint smile.

His gaze hung in the air, rewinding time to that moment.

'...Commandant Dane-nim. I think this is a matter of trust.'

A matter of trust.

Maximilian, once a cadet at Empire Point, had opened with those words.

'Trust?'

'Yes. In a world this chaotic, who should we trust, and how should we trust them?'

Maximilian looked out the office window.

'People we can trust and people we cannot trust are clearly different. And we do not trust those we cannot trust. If we pick and choose only parts of them to trust, we will be deceived.'

His voice was calm, but his words were sharp as blades.

'Jacob Mack is a subspecies. A vermin bastard who dared infiltrate Empire Point and deserved to be killed. A diary from trash like that has no credibility.'

For a moment, Dane tried to overlap Knight Maximilian with Cadet Maximilian.

They would not overlap at all.

He did not feel like the cadet from those days.

'This is nothing more than a cunning trick to cause internal division.'

Maximilian smiled lightly and fluttered the diary in his hand.

'On the other hand, Cadet Hanna's birth has been clearly verified by House Ebenholtz. She is an Aran born and raised in the center.'

Even while saying all that, he never broke courtesy toward Dane by even an inch. He showed no insolence. He kept his back straight, and never crossed his legs.

'So... with talent at this level, she is fully qualified to come to the Sentinel Order.'

Dane swallowed a dry laugh at that moment.

Even if they were commoners, if they were Imperial and talented, he treated them fairly. But if they were subspecies, he cut their necks without mercy.

Maximilian was authoritarian and deeply aristocratic, because he was Ebenholtz.

But being noble-born did not make everyone truly noble. In the end, being aristocratic meant having the qualities of nobility.

"Then..."

Instructor Phillips's face went blank.

"What, what happened to the diary?"

"He suddenly asked to borrow my lighter. I thought he had picked up smoking. But then."

Whoosh!

Maximilian lit the lighter and set the diary on fire without hesitation.

"He burned it."

He cleanly burned evidence that could have become his own achievement.

"And then he said this."

“Commandant Dane-nim. This is how I trust people.”

Facing Maximilian like that, Dane felt a deep ache in his chest. In his younger days, there had been a fire in him that did not cool even in northern blizzards. In this barren capital, he had lost it somewhere along the way. This felt like that same thing again.

"Then Cadet Hanna...?"

"If she keeps these grades, she will become a knight without trouble. If she does even better, she might enter the Sentinel Order. Ebenholtz has acknowledged her."

"Heh."

Phillips let out an empty laugh without meaning to.

"Ha... haha."

Soon it turned into a broad laugh filled with relief. He laughed for a while, then hurriedly came back to himself.

"Ah, sorry."

"It's fine."

"But was that all? Did he say anything else to you, Commandant-nim...?"

"...Who knows. I still don't know whether I did something that will make Ebenholtz hate me, or something that will make them favor me."

At the end, Maximilian gave Dane one request.

"He told me to complete my full term and retire."

"Ah, that, that's very good news."

"What's good about it? Looks like I have five more years of suffering."

"Haha..."

Dane thought of Maximilian for a moment. Even if he was Ebenholtz's heir, he was only a twenty-one-year-old rookie knight. But the presence he gave off reminded Dane of Sebestian, the man he had once met.

The man who had made his younger self, full of confidence after coming down from the North, kneel in an instant, and taught him for the first time what an unconquerable wall felt like.

The central monster, and Ebenholtz's masterpiece.

A tiger could only give birth to a tiger cub.

Until now, that young bastard had simply not known that he himself was a beast.

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