WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 35

──────

The Path I Must Take

The Imperial Army poured through the breach in the castle wall. I led the push and carved open their path, and Kailus’s private troops folded quickly. Screams, gunfire, and exploding spells rang out everywhere.

I drove my sword into the private soldiers guarding the entrance to the inner keep. Their bodies split apart along with the doors.

Krrrsh...!

I broke through and ran inside. I did not stop for even a moment. I drove forward like a tank and reached the center. The Imperial Army spread across the inner keep, but I went down alone.

Beneath this castle, there had to be a secret moat route, a passage leading out to the coast.

The records from before my regression were clear.

I raced down the stairs and reached the lowest underground level.

“......”

But in that dark lower floor, there was no moat, not even moisture. Most of it was just empty space used as storage.

Still, it had to be somewhere here.

I focused mana into my optic nerves. My retinas turned blue.

Then I caught one wall sconce. There were many, but only this one was slightly twisted, and mana circulated around the candle wax.

I grabbed it hard.

Crack!

Sparks burst. My palm burned badly. They had set up tight magical security.

It did not matter. I only had to cut through it.

I swung my sword.

Shhk...!

Part of the wall split open, revealing a hidden passage. Stairs descending even deeper.

I stamped forward. At some point, damp air rolled in. I smelled water. Then an open space appeared.

An artificial waterway with a small boat moored there, and people standing beside it.

“......”

I found four direct-line members of House Kailus. They turned to look at me.

I met their eyes in silence, then said one thing.

“By order of His Majesty the Emperor.”

No one spoke. In the silence, the sound of water in the channel echoed.

Suddenly, the whole scene felt bitter. At the same time, it was strange.

The Beheading Operation had already begun. If so, the coastline should have been sealed first.

So why were they choosing the most obvious escape route?

Were they fools?

Was this truly their only path left?

Or.

──Shrring.

The old guard knight of House Kailus drew his sword. He was strong. But his body was already covered in wounds. Blood poured from bullet wounds in his shoulder and leg.

A knight who could use Protective Aura was fairly resistant to gunshots, as long as he had enough mana.

In other words, his mana was gone. Even so, he still stood in front of them, blocking me.

“......We never plotted treason.”

Yusef, head of House Kailus, said it quietly. Sadness lay in his calm voice.

I looked at him. Yusef, current head of Kailus, his wife, his eldest son, and his eldest daughter. Four people in total.

“Yes.”

Still, this was a current of history that could not be defied. Even if I let them go here, they would be caught soon and all die anyway.

“I know.”

At my answer, they exhaled deeply.

“What is your name?”

Yusef asked.

“Maximilian Albrecht von Ebenholtz.”

Their expressions settled at once. I kept my courtesy. I did not wave my sword at them recklessly, and I did not speak with aggression.

They were nobles worthy of respect.

“Ebenholtz......”

Yusef smiled faintly.

What was it like to accept death? To me, they looked like people who believed in an afterlife. I did not know why, but they seemed to be waiting for some kind of next.

A brief thought crossed my mind. I remembered Duke Sebestian’s words from the past.

“It couldn’t be helped. That youngest son over there looked pretty useful.”

The youngest son of Kailus.

I counted the family members.

“......Four.”

There were five direct-line Kailus in total.

The records from before regression were clear. House Kailus’s direct line had been wiped out.

But they had not all died together in one place.

So the conclusion was simple.

These four standing before me had chosen to be bait.

They drew the Imperial Army’s attention to themselves, offering their lives to protect their house’s last hope. They believed that if that boy survived, their bloodline could continue.

Too many people in this Empire had fallen this way.

They all died protecting their own convictions, and the values they tried to protect were stolen by evil men.

“One is missing.”

At my words, Yusef’s face turned cold.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

From above, I heard Imperial soldiers running in the distance. They must have found the secret passage I opened.

“Young knight of Ebenholtz, the house of the Empire’s greatest classical legacy, the house that stood with the Empire at its beginning.”

Yusef spoke in a low, gentle voice.

“May I ask one wish, in exchange for all our lives?”

I thought I knew what he wanted. There was no need to say it aloud.

I only gave a faint smile and nodded. They understood.

Not only Yusef, but his family’s faces also brightened for a moment. The old knight lowered his sword.

To those willing to accept death, I drew up my mana. I raised my longsword.

They were people I did not want to kill.

Because they were righteous nobles.

But this was the world we lived in.

We did not have enough time.

In the violent current called history, I too was swimming desperately, just like them.

“My regrets.”

It was my final greeting.

If possible, without pain. So none of them would have to watch the others die.

In that instant, my sword moved. A silver flash split the dark.

It was quiet.

Truly, there was no sound at all.

I cut them cleanly, and they fell like grass.

“Over here! This looks like some secret pla......?”

An Imperial officer and soldiers rushed in from behind me. I wiped the blood from my sword and turned to them.

“The situation is already over. Collect the bodies.”

“Ah, yes! Loyalty!”

I passed the saluting soldiers.

A decent house had been ruined by the greed of evil men. It left a bitter taste.

More than anything, I still had work to do.

* * *

After the Beheading Operation, a drinking spree broke out in Kailus’s inner keep.

They were celebrating the mission’s success. Bloodstains and wine bottles rolled together over expensive carpets, and filthy laughter splashed across the portraits on the walls.

“Hahahahaha!”

Their faces were already flushed red as they chugged the premium wine Yusef had collected straight from the bottle. Some were secretly pocketing valuables.

I walked down slowly. Distracted by alcohol and loot, the soldiers did not notice me.

“......”

I stood still and swept my gaze over them. I watched dozens of soldiers moving through the chaos.

Thump.

With cold eyes, I searched for the target my heartbeat pointed to.

That species was somewhere here.

Thump.

Soon my gaze fixed on one point. I crossed the hall and walked straight there.

──Thud.

A drunken trooper staggered by. I deliberately bumped his shoulder.

The glass of red wine floated up into the air, then fell. Drops splashed onto my knight’s uniform.

“Ah, shi, who the......”

The soldier turned around. His eyes widened, and he quickly bent at the waist to apologize.

“S-Sir Knight, I’m sorry!”

“......”

Without a word, I wiped the wine drops from my chest.

A few nearby soldiers looked this way, but it was still a drinking party. The shouting stayed loud.

“I’m sorry! I made a huge, huge mistake!”

Even his apology was slurred.

I wondered.

Was this an act? Did alcohol affect them the way it affected us?

I still did not know. Because they were not human.

“......No.”

Instead of getting angry, I gave a faint smile.

“It’s fine.”

There was no reason to be angry in the first place.

“Ah, sorry. Please enjoy your rest!”

The Imperial soldier, no, the Izenheim, turned away with a servile grin.

In that moment, I gripped my sword.

──

There was no sound. The soldier’s neck separated from his body.

The Izenheim’s head flew into the air.

Thud.

Blood burst from the headless corpse. It sprayed like rain and filled the soldiers’ wine cups.

Only then did they grasp what had happened, and the soldiers jolted to their feet.

“Uh, uh!”

“Wha, what, Sir Knight?!”

“Loyalty! Loyalty!”

“Loyaaalty!”

Everyone snapped to attention. They seemed sober at once, and their faces drained pale.

I spoke to them.

“......We still missed one direct-line member. So we are still in wartime conditions, are we not?”

A battlefield is convenient this way. A knight, as final overseer, has the authority to execute soldiers, and in wartime there are endless pretexts to kill those you want dead.

“Who gave you permission to laugh and celebrate here while coveting the property of imperial nobles?”

The reason for execution was clear. Breakdown of discipline. Looting noble property. Damaging a knight’s uniform.

The laughter stopped. The shrieks that rang in my ears vanished. Only silence remained.

Before long, the soldiers had lined up in a single file. One man’s teeth were chattering from fear.

Discipline had been restored.

“......”

With their eyes on me, I walked out of the inner keep.

Thankfully, among the Imperial soldiers here, the one I just killed had been the only Izenheim.

“You did not have to go that far.”

Someone approached through the dark. I looked at him. Jecard Kailus, the one who had orchestrated this beheading.

“It is an honor, Sir Knight. I am Jecard Kailus. Ah, and you need not worry, I will soon remove that shameful surname from my name.”

He smiled faintly and brushed back his long hair.

“You could have let them keep the loot. I was willing to allow it.”

He was already acting like he owned House Kailus.

I said to him,

“I could not stand watching common soldiers covet the belongings of nobles.”

“As expected...... First, allow me to offer my respect and gratitude, Sir Knight.”

Jecard bowed his head.

“To think you found a secret passage even I did not know about. But as you know, one is still left.”

Jecard’s expression turned cold.

“Akard Kailus. The sixteen-year-old youngest son. Those lowly members of this house doted on him in particular.”

Some people hate seeing a close family. Some people want to tear it apart.

Either a true villain, or someone with something even darker inside.

“I knew the passage existed, but not where it was. Still, it was obvious it would connect to the coast. Even so, those traitors insisted on using that secret passage, probably to buy time for Akard to escape.”

He was the kind of man who read other people too well for no good reason. One of the scheming flatterers who would cling to the Emperor.

A man I would one day want to kill for sure...

No, a man I had to kill.

“Yes. I understand.”

I saw Yusef Kailus for the first time only today. Before my regression, even his corpse had been horribly mutilated.

But in this life, we made a silent promise. The Kailus family trusted it and bet their lives on it. They willingly offered up their own heads.

Only to save their last child.

Fortunately, I knew Akard’s evacuation route.

[......The four direct blood relatives, including ringleader Yusef von Kailus, attempted to escape to the coastline through the underground moat of the main castle but were killed at sea, while the remaining blood relative who attempted a separate escape was discovered near the western border Macken Mountains...... found dead near the ridge.]

The western border, the Macken Mountains.

“I’ll take the Macken Mountains side.”

At that, Jecard’s face lit up.

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