The Reluctant Imperialist - Chapter 57

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 57

──────

Scarcity

Empire Point, the computer room built with Knight Maximilian’s sponsorship, 「Maximilian Hall」.

“Today you learned how to connect to the internal server called the intranet.”

The instructor was wrapping up the ninety-minute class. It was the newly opened [Information Processing] course, added after the semester began.

“You’ll be using computers often from now on, so practice your typing speed, document writing, and document viewing every day. Submit the document you wrote today before you leave.”

Hanna, one of the elite cadets, carefully moved the mouse over her finished file and pressed the send button.

Click.

[Transmission Complete]

“...Did it go through?”

It probably did.

The machine was hard to use, since she had never touched one in her life. Keyboard, mouse, monitor, for Hanna, who came from a rural southern town, everything was unfamiliar.

The class after that, like field training, was [Aerial Descent], newly added as a formal course this semester.

“Seriously, we’re actually doing this. So annoying.”

“Exactly. ‘Jump from the sky, don’t jump from the sky.’ What are we, performers?”

The noble cadets grumbled as they moved.

Hanna honestly found it ridiculous. Rumors were already everywhere that those same people had rented transport planes for themselves and were running rehearsal jumps.

“...Sigh. Is this going to cost money again?”

“Not this time, they said. And even if it does, who cares? We’ll earn it all back once we become knights.”

“That’s because you don’t know my family situation.”

The commoner cadets also walked in small groups.

Hanna was alone. No one spoke to her. She had been an outcast ever since the Jacob incident. She did not mind. If anything, she preferred it.

“...Must be that one.”

By the time she muttered that, they had reached the training field. A huge transport plane was parked on the runway, and parachutes were lined up across a long table in front of it. The elite cadets formed ranks there.

Everyone stared at the aircraft and whispered among themselves.

“Quiet!”

A loud shout cut through the noise, and an instructor wearing drop goggles and a helmet stepped out of the plane. Every eye turned toward him.

“Good to meet you. I’ll be supervising your first descent today.”

He wore a major’s uniform, likely from the airborne corps.

“The most important things in descent training are control and discipline. The place you descend into will be a battlefield. During this training, you will obey this instructor’s orders absolutely.”

His face was hidden behind black goggles and helmet, but for some reason Hanna found the voice familiar.

She had definitely heard that tone somewhere before...

“Today you’ll do landing training from five hundred meters. Put on your parachutes now. Move!”

Cadets stepped up one by one and strapped parachutes to their backs.

“Board the transport!”

They climbed aboard while watching the instructor’s mood.

“Stop dragging your feet!”

The instructor shoved the slow ones inside.

He was pretty rough.

Hanna felt uneasy for no reason. Noble cadets hated this kind of thing.

And it was true, lately there were quite a few who ran to their parents the moment things stopped going their way, so even instructors had been handling them carefully.

“Sit down and fasten your belts.”

Everyone sat in a row on the side seats inside the transport.

Then two cadets quietly laughed while playing with their belts. Stuff like, Why do we even need belts for this? They were Royce and Dare Tan. Famous at Empire Point, sons of so-called high-ranking houses.

“Hey.”

The instructor’s gaze fixed on the two.

“Did you come here to play?”

In an instant, the cabin went rigid.

Neither cadet answered. The instructor asked again.

“I asked if you came here to play.”

“...No.”

Royce answered flatly. In other words, with no manners at all.

Probably thinking, some mere major. Usually instructors let it slide at this point.

“No?”

Not this one. The instructor strode over, grabbed Royce by the collar, and threw him out of the aircraft. He did the same to Dare Tan beside him.

“Ugh!”

“Ghk!”

They rolled across the asphalt outside.

“Up.”

Both hurried to their feet. Their faces were red to the ears. They looked humiliated.

“Get down.”

“...”

Neither moved. Neither got down. Watching from inside, Hanna felt it was right on the edge.

Most instructors would never push it this far. Royce and Dare Tan were heirs of high nobles. They were exactly the type who stayed relaxed even during training because of their status.

“I said get down. Are you idiots who can’t understand words?”

Even so, this instructor did not bend. A rigid soldier with no flexibility.

Then it happened.

“...Instructor. What is your name?”

Royce finally pushed back. Asking his name meant exactly what it sounded like, and Royce’s face was thick with arrogant contempt. He glared at the instructor, teeth clenched.

The instructor asked back.

“My name?”

“Yes. I came here for training, not to be insulted.”

Hanna watched from the corner of her eye.

The instructor would probably have to back down. She did not know rank dynamics perfectly, but an airborne major was not exactly untouchable.

“Why, so you can go home and tell your mother?”

The instructor asked with a faint smirk.

Hanna’s mouth fell open before she knew it. The other cadets reacted the same way. It was that shocking.

“...Ah, come on.”

Royce and Dare Tan widened their eyes and let out heated breaths.

Right then, the instructor tore off his helmet.

“!”

“Huh!”

Royce’s face went white in an instant. He flinched backward, then slammed his forehead to the ground. Dare Tan did the same beside him.

Every other cadet tensed up too.

“This is funny.”

At least for an Empire Point cadet, there was no way not to recognize that face.

For Hanna, the image flashed through her like trauma, him glaring at them over Jacob’s corpse.

Maximilian of the Sentinel Order.

He looked between the two cadets and twitched a brow.

“What changed?”

“I’m sorry!”

“No, answer me.”

“I’m sorry!”

“...Do you brats not understand words either.”

He kicked both of them in the side with the top of his boot.

Thud! Thud!

As soon as they fell, they shoved their foreheads back to the ground and lay flat again. They forced themselves not to groan.

“‘I’m sorry’ is not the right answer. I asked what changed.”

“...W-we didn’t know it was you, Sir Knight!”

“If you didn’t know, what changes? If you wanted praise, you should have talked that same trash after seeing my face.”

“I’m sorry!”

“...Pathetic idiots.”

Maximilian left the two there and swept his gaze through the transport. Then he pointed to his major rank insignia.

“Officially, a knight is treated as equivalent to a major on the battlefield. And you are worth far less than that.”

Empire Point’s cadet commandant, Dane, had asked Maximilian, who had already experienced aerial descent operations, to handle the first session, and Maximilian had gladly accepted.

In Maximilian’s view, Dane had probably known what would happen if an ordinary airborne instructor took this class.

“You are mere cadets. You are not entitled to act differently depending on who is in front of you. If a knight keeps his neck stiff with pride, he dies first. Knights are the highest-priority targets on every battlefield.”

In rising nations, heirs of powerful houses were often hardened like iron. In this Empire, where wealth and power had stagnated for too long, noble heirs were uniquely troublesome.

“Answer.”

“We will remember it!”

The cadets’ shout filled the transport. Maximilian nodded, then spoke to the two still pressing their heads to the ground.

“Royce. Dare Tan. You two are disciplined for insubordination.”

“We will correct ourselves!”

“Get in.”

They sprang up and rushed back to their seats. Hanna took a deep breath as she watched the dust on their foreheads and their stunned expressions.

“Today you’ll train in opening a parachute and descending. But parachutes are only for this week. Later, key evaluation points will include body descent without parachutes and how you use mana during freefall. Answer!”

“Yes!”

Every cadet focused completely on Maximilian. Discipline had been set.

Shock therapy.

That was probably why he had shown up in a helmet, so they would not recognize him.

* * *

After Empire Point’s first descent training session, in Dane’s office.

“How was it?”

“There were definitely a lot of ill-mannered cadets.”

Dane grinned at my words.

“Couldn’t be helped. Those types see Empire Point instructors as retired knights who lost their edge, or soldiers clinging to nobles. Didn’t you think that way too when you were a cadet?”

“No. I never thought that. If anything, I felt conflicted about the special treatment I received.”

I got plenty of special treatment because I was Ebenholtz.

Like when an instructor took only me to a different area during mana mud training, so I got full marks easily, things like that.

Of course, truthfully, I did not feel conflicted at all. I was actually very grateful to that instructor.

“But from what I heard from my father.”

The word father still did not sit right in my mouth. Sebestian was not someone who felt like a father.

“He said he received quite a lot of corporal punishment. Hard to imagine him being hit.”

“...Hard for me too, but that was almost forty years ago. War was daily life then, so he definitely got hit.”

“Then, Cadet Commandant, I think it is time to return to those days.”

Dane’s expression turned serious for a moment.

This was not a simple memory of the past, or just a call to train harder.

I was talking about wartime, and it was not far off.

“I heard you’ve also been getting a lot of pressure from cadets’ parents lately.”

Dane frowned as if he hated even thinking about it.

“They can get updates instantly through terminals now. If they think their child’s grades might slip, they contact us right away.”

“Then fully overhaul Empire Point’s school regulations. Back to forty years ago, before terminals.”

Dane’s eyes scanned me from top to bottom.

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“From now on, Empire Point’s biggest sponsor is Ebenholtz. Announce it as Ebenholtz’s policy. It’s the new semester season, so timing is perfect. Those rude bastards only understand after someone hits them hard at least once.”

The name Ebenholtz was, simply put, a mana core umbrella: the kind of cover no noble could throw a tantrum under.

Dane nodded, suppressing a laugh.

“Fine. Starting this semester, I will adjust the school regulations under Ebenholtz sponsorship.”

“Yes. Do that. And this.”

I handed him one copy of the 「Spherical Aura Guard」 theory text, along with the latest Magi Studies Journal issue scheduled for release around this week.

“「Spherical Aura Guard」.”

[Mana Engineering Journal: Theory of the Week - On the Possibility of 「Spherical Aura Guard」]

“It will be officially released soon, but most knights won’t be able to get it for a while, even if they want it.”

A shortage was expected. Not only because of knights. Anyone with expertise in mana, and even Revolutionary Faction bastards, would try to get it somehow.

That was why I planned strict procedures and security at the purchase stage, and tight control over supply volume.

Of course, someone would break through eventually. The point was to delay that moment as long as possible.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. The list price for one copy is fifty thousand dollars, but if demand overheats, it might jump to more than double.”

“...The list price is fifty thousand? Is it locked with mana security or something?”

“It is.”

Mana security. A magical lock where pages activate only after mana is injected into the book. Once injected, the book remembers that mana, so one copy can be used by only one person.

Usually that method was used for high-grade spellbooks.

“I consider my 「Spherical Aura Guard」 strategic material.”

My technical manual deserved that value.

......

After Maximilian left.

Dane spent a long time absorbed in the finished theory book.

“...He really made this well.”

He removed his rimless magnifier and murmured quietly.

From Dane’s perspective, there was no way a theory like this could be conceived in a short time. Looking at the number and complexity of mana formulas embedded in the technique, it had to be the result of long, deep thought and countless rounds of trial and error, plain hard labor.

Thinking of Maximilian, Dane let out a dry laugh.

“So while others trained, he was working on this.”

What instructors had cautiously reported about Maximilian was always the same: for some reason, he did not seem focused in class. He did not train hard either, and he did not seem serious about anything.

Today, Dane had gotten something close to an answer from Maximilian.

‘...I never thought that. If anything, I felt conflicted about the special treatment I received.’

Compared to Empire Point in Sebestian’s era, today it was little more than a place where children played house while looking for a fast path to advancement.

Had Maximilian lost motivation because of that atmosphere?

Dane suddenly grew grim and summoned all faculty and instructors.

Starting today, Empire Point’s regulations would be fully revised.

......

The main estate of House Kandel. Sonnet Kandel sat in her study all night, reading a single theory volume.

「Knight Formula Theory: Spherical Aura Guard」
「Author: Maximilian Albrecht von Ebenholtz」

It was the official release edition of 「Spherical Aura Guard」, certified by the Imperial Central Mana Graduate School. House Kandel was a major patron of magic and mana engineering circles, so obtaining it had not been difficult.

“Spherical Aura Guard...”

A technique that organized Aura Guard into mana formulas, implanted it into a mana stone, then released it to form a spherical defensive shield.

A work written by a young knight of Ebenholtz.

This 「Spherical Aura Guard」 had perfectly structured logic and no wasted flow in its circuits.

Still, the difficulty was high. The entry barrier was also very high. Not only the expensive price of the theory book, but also the mandatory use of high-purity mana stones.

“Hmm.”

People said mages were practitioners who studied magic, while knights were specialists who wielded mana itself.

Sonnet Kandel acknowledged Maximilian’s achievement. This man had clearly invented a highly practical combat technique. It was worth keeping.

“Check-in.”

She slid Maximilian’s technique volume onto her study shelf.

“You made a good technique, Knight Maximilian.”

This was not simple storage. Knowledge allowed into her library passed very strict standards.

Sonnet stepped back, looked at the shelf, and nodded.

“It also works as interior decor.”

Very Ebenholtz, you could say. The aesthetic was not bad. It was a fairly luxurious hardcover.

Expressionless, she picked up a high-purity mana stone from the desk.

Pazzt!