WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 42

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Drawing the Future with a Pen

Lately, I have been thinking about the future.

The future will not be the same as it was before regression.

No, it must not be the same.

I have to make it different. In that catastrophic ruin, the only variable is me.

Still, history is a massive storm. Twisting it by myself will not be easy. It will not change in an instant, either.

So I have to open a current of change now.

At present, the Empire and the military are not thinking deeply about war. More precisely, not many generals harbor concrete doubts.

The Empire's stance on war has always been the same.

"If we keep the inside perfectly under control, we can force the outside to submit."

Then did the Empire fall because it failed to control its own inside?

No way.

The causes were far more complex. The Eastern Alliance on the continent alone was never an enemy to take lightly.

......To be honest, I do not know every detail either.

Being a regressor does not magically make you smarter.

I will do my part and keep working, of course, but in the future there was a text written by a scholar far smarter than me.

Several years after the Empire fell, a renowned historian published a study, 「Why the Empire Fell」.

The book exploded in popularity and spread through bookstores and magazines, so even I, living as a fugitive, could easily get a copy and read it.

"Let's remember."

I placed a hand on my collarbone. I asked the virus for memory.

That record I once read......

── 「Why the Empire Fell」 ──

......This paper defines the fall of the Empire not as the result of a single event, but as an inevitable collapse caused by structural contradictions reaching a critical point, and seeks to analyze its core causes.

1. The Emperor's Incompetence, the Bloat of the Imperial Guard, and the Fracturing of the Military

The Empire's final Emperor recklessly expanded the Imperial Guard to strengthen his own power. Standing above the law, the Imperial Guard committed corruption and atrocities across the Empire, causing severe conflict with the traditional military and splitting the Empire from within......

2. The Illusion of Pure-Bloodism, the Aran Myth, and the Failure of Talent Recruitment

In the late Empire, the "pure-bloodism" that ruled society was a noose around the Empire's own neck. Calling themselves the sacred "Aran" bloodline, the Empire rejected and oppressed countless capable talents from other races.

It gnawed away at the nation's own potential......

3. Technological Stagnation and Economic Rigidity

The Empire had once led the world in mana engineering, but by its final era it fell into severe technological stagnation. Great nobles who held monopolies over core technologies like mana stone mines suppressed new innovations by branding them "blasphemous acts against the order of nature" to protect their vested interests.

They seized the assets of promising companies and buried their technologies......

4. Knights, and the Failure of Asymmetric Power.

Knights were the Empire's sword. Human weapons only the Empire could raise, created by pouring in nearly limitless resources. In contrast, the Eastern Alliance and western states developed more advanced mass-kill and precision-kill weapons like tanks and guided missiles. Knights could respond almost invincibly against rifle units, but against tank bombardment and anti-personnel guided missiles......

────

Knights are not invincible. Mages are no different. Since the invention of crude weapons called mana firearms, battlefields have been changing little by little.

A strong knight can cut down hundreds of soldiers alone. But in war, no soldier stands alone.

Mana can easily deflect the force of bullets. But tank shells and missiles must be dodged. Compared to bullets, those shells and missiles are far larger, and they contain meaningful amounts of mana stone.

In the war with the East, what killed the most knights were tanks, anti-personnel guided missiles, and suicide attacks.

Even so, the Empire kept focusing only on raising "first-rate" individuals. Sebestian was the same. My father was noble to the bone, too old to keep up with the age's progress, and he blindly believed in that iron creed.

......Then again, he was also a monster who smashed hundreds of tanks by himself.

That is why the Empire did not fall only because of rebellion.

At its core, it lost to its own corruption, to the Revolutionary Faction inside, and to the eastern-western alliance outside.

"That is how the Empire became the loser."

I was sitting in my study, muttering to myself, when suddenly

a strange question came to mind.

How did the New Cabinet take power on the ruins of the Empire's fall?

The states and autonomous territories that had been forcibly subordinated to the Empire declared independence the moment it collapsed, yet the Empire's core territory immediately came under the rule of the New Cabinet Edmund belonged to.

It was a bizarrely peaceful and orderly transfer of power.

But think about it.

If I had been the Supreme Chancellor of the Eastern Alliance, would I really have stood by and let a newborn cabinet take the place of an Empire that had sacrificed tens of millions of lives?

At minimum, I would have taken territory in the name of reparations, or worse, tried to split that cabinet into pieces.

That is how interstate power works.

Even so, they withdrew too peacefully.

Why?

Why exactly?

How did Edmund become Prime Minister of the New Cabinet, and how did he neatly pick out only the Empire's war criminals and crush them?

"If......"

This might be my rash speculation.

But as someone who directly saw that ruined future, it is a possibility I can never ignore.

"......if the head of the East."

I thought about the Supreme Chancellor of the Eastern Alliance.

Varmil Lextun.

"If he was Izenheim."

One obvious fact,

Izenheim are not only in the Empire.

"War is inevitable."

That was the conclusion that settled in my head.

* * *

Screeeeee-

Morning. A tank arrived with a roaring engine. Dieter had bought one in just a day and delivered it to my house.

"......What is this?"

Freya, who had come for my lesson, stared at the steel monster in the middle of the yard, baffled.

"A tank. The latest model from Berton Industries in Zestpol."

The Zestpol Autonomous Territory. A very troublesome place, but also the only place in the Empire that can produce tanks.

I ran my hand over the armor and said,

"That barrel loads 120mm magic shells mixed with highly concentrated mana and armor-piercing fragments. One shot can blow apart most fortress walls."

"You really do have too much money. Why did you even buy this thing?"

"Imperial knights should feel this weight at least once, should they not? Before that, I want to test it with my own body and think through how to fight one. Please help me too, Master."

"......You go first."

I stood about 200 meters away from the tank barrel.

"Fire."

No shell came out, no matter how long I waited.

"......Yaaawn."

Freya yawned.

"Fire!"

The tank hatch opened, and the driver asked with tears in his eyes,

"Do I really have to shoot......?"

"If you don't, there will be problems."

He climbed back inside.

"Fire!"

Kwaaaaaa-

The barrel flashed.

Tick.

Even in slowed time, the shell flew at me like a streak of light, and I swung my longsword.

Slash-!

I cut through the shell's path. Sliced clean in two, the shell buried itself in a corner of the yard.

"Oh, not bad. What do you think?"

"......My mobility is extremely fast, so dodging itself should be manageable."

If mana is pushed to the limit, a knight's body can move fast enough. But the duration is limited. Not every knight has a trick like mine, and even I can only use it a few times a day.

"If it lands a direct hit, it would mean severe injury or death. But damage from blast fragments should be fully blockable with a knight's Aura Guard."

If the shell itself directly strikes a knight, the compressed mana stone inside it will break the Aura Guard and cause fatal injury.

But if it hits the ground first and explodes, the shock and fragments are bearable.

"So the actual hit area is narrow. The chance of a tank scoring a direct hit on a knight by itself is low. But battles drag on. Guided missiles aimed only at knights will also come in."

Knights are not machines. The more exhausted they get, the slower they become, and the probability of a direct hit rises sharply.

Still, if someone invents a way to completely cancel even two or three direct shell or missile hits, knights can become battlefield irregulars again.

"I think this might be solved by controlling Aura Guard more efficiently."

"How do you mean control it?"

"Aura Guard usually clings to the skin like armor. Expand it outward, turn it into a wave form, and wrap it around the body like a sphere."

"You're telling knights to cast magic? Aura Guard is manifested through mana circuits. It cannot be maintained once detached from the body."

Freya was right. But I did not think so.

More accurately, the virus inside me had a counterargument.

"It might work. If we use high-purity mana stone as a medium."

Freya looked at me in silence. After staring into my eyes for a while, she asked a strange question.

"Let me ask one thing. For what?"

"Against tanks, for knights-"

"I'm asking you. In the end, what is all of this for?"

I looked at Freya.

She was asking about the principle behind me.

But there was only one true answer to all my actions, one answer to all my will.

"Only for the Empire."

* * *

Deploying Aura Guard in a spherical form is definitely possible.

But it is instinct, not logic. Instinctive knowing delivered directly by the virus inside me.

Still, Freya's words are true. Mana is manifested and controlled through circuits inside the body. That is why Protective Aura can never leave the skin.

If there is an external medium, the story changes.

I placed an ultra-high-purity mana stone in my palm, finger-sized, and worth a full 300,000 dollars.

If I infuse my mana into it in a specific [format], the flow will resonate with the stone and create spherical Aura Guard centered on that stone.

To me, that process is as instinctive as breathing. The higher the stone's purity, the purer and stronger the Aura Guard it forms.

The problem is how to explain this principle of emitting Aura Guard through mana stone to other people.

I need a mana "formula" that can deliver spherical Aura Guard.

To understand the intuition whispered by the virus and then pass it to other knights, I have to use the language this world uses to explain mana.

I picked up the specialized books I bought from Lorenzo. Luckily, I was not a complete outsider. Back in Empire Point, I had been almost forced to take private lessons.

"Mana is expressed through refined agreements called formulas......"

A knight calculates the amount of mana needed for the intended phenomenon, the mana flow, and the nature of the mana itself. Then the concept is completed as a spell formula inside their mana circuits, explosively enhancing physical ability or manifesting Sword Aura and sword energy.

Every part of that process begins with a pen.

"......First."

I picked up my pen.

I should at least write a rough draft.

Even if it is incomplete, that is fine. I should at least put this idea on paper first.

──[ Introduction ]──

Mana is a powerful force granted to humanity, and at the same time, a difficult tool to handle......

For generations, Imperial knights have used Aura Guard wrapped around the body through long training and study, and that made knights masters of the battlefield. But on a future battlefield we are certain to face someday, overwhelming firepower that current Aura Guard cannot fully stop will arrive.

(omitted)

Therefore, this author proposes a new mana operation method that uses mana stone as an external medium to expand and deploy existing Aura Guard in the form of a "spherical defensive barrier."

Through this, the goal is to maximize knight survivability and secure the Empire's military edge in a changing battlefield environment......

If I write it rough, Mr. Lorenzo will polish it properly anyway.

......To be honest, I cannot deny I am thinking that too.

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