WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 71

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After-the-Fact Trial

Maiyach Mountain in the eastern Empire.

Empire Point's cadet commandant, Dane, was camping with his hunting dog Rocky. No thoughts. No stress. He focused only on the moment as he laid thick-cut chunks of meat on a stone slab heated over the campfire.

Chiiiiiiik.

Grease hissed and rich smoke rose. As the meat sizzled, he ground coarse salt and whole pepper over it, then set asparagus and garlic on the side. Beside him, Rocky kept his ears perked and watched the surroundings, ready for any threat.

Dane picked up a well-cooked piece of meat, bone and all, and tossed it to Rocky. The dog snapped it out of the air like he had been waiting for it and crunched it down.

Chijijijik.

Static crackled from the radio he had brought, but Dane switched it off entirely.

Crunch. He took a huge bite of meat. Juices burst in his mouth. Then he washed it down with the cold beer he had set aside.

"Kha."

The mountain wind was cold, and the rich flavor of fatty meat and beer filled him.

This was a day in the life of an Imperial subject. A quiet, solitary holiday.

......

Chijijijik.

At the Gennen branch office, Yukia turned the radio dial to tune the signal. The static cleared, and a dry voice came through.

[......At around 2 a.m. today, a large-scale explosion occurred at Gigantes, the Empire's largest military industrial zone. The collapse of the central mana ore vein destroyed industrial facilities, and more than 90% of surface installations were also lost. The Imperial Household has defined this as the act of a treasonous group opposing the Empire......]

Yukia leaned back in her chair and stared blankly out the window.

Before she knew it, the sun was up, but the chilly autumn wind seemed to veil even that light.

"......"

She lowered her head quietly. No joy, no grief. Just a heavy weight in her chest, like a stone pressing down.

This destruction had been achieved on the sacrifice of her comrades. Their successful resolve must have been stained with their red blood.

I was only lucky enough to survive.

"Yukia Tarik."

In the middle of it all, Schatz approached.

"It's the contract."

Yukia silently looked at the contract handed over by the head of the Gennen branch office.

......

Gigantes had been completely destroyed. The ground had collapsed into a massive crater, and bare twisted steel frames had turned into grotesque wreckage.

Police and officials at the scene stared at the crushed facilities and let out hollow laughs.

"......We're fucked."

"My money, what happens to my money now?"

Some noble knights, along with palace-connected nobles who had invested their private funds in Gigantes, stood there in total shock.

"Hey, stop taking pictures!"

"Do you want to end up in an Imperial Palace prison?!"

Reporters had rushed in at some point and kept firing flashes.

Alphonse of Jemion Daily weaved around the chaos as he captured the sight of Gigantes with his camera.

"Huh......"

Yulian also watched the ruined industrial zone with a hardened face.

Gigantes had always been full of problems, but it had existed since before he was born, before his mother and father were born, before his grandparents were born. Too many emotions crossed inside him.

-Tap.

Someone nudged a steel wreck with his foot. Yulian turned.

No, the man had already come and stood beside him.

Maximilian.

"I heard the underground mana ore vein was completely shattered."

At Yulian's words, Maximilian nodded.

"Yes. That's what I heard."

"Aaaagh! My money! My money!"

A scream burst out nearby. It was a fat palace noble decked out in jewels. A haggard official was dragged over and bowed repeatedly. The noble swung his cane and shouted.

"This happened because your control was weak! You gave those rats room to come and go...... You should have watched tighter, tighter! This is your fault!"

"I'm sorry."

"You deserve execution! Execution! I'll make sure it happens, no matter what......"

Yulian frowned and looked at Maximilian.

"What do you think?"

Maximilian's expression was unreadable. He watched the raging palace noble, then answered flatly.

"The trial will decide that. Actually, I invested in Gigantes too."

"I see. That's unfortunate."

"Yeah. A shame. I think I invested around twenty million, maybe thirty million?"

"...What?"

Yulian's eyes went wide. By then, Maximilian was already walking off without a fuss.

Step. Step.

He moved through gaps in the collapsed rubble. The virus below his collarbone released tiny mana waves and guided him.

Step. Step.

How far had he gone?

He found an entrance buried in ash.

An old worker dugout from the past. It had survived like a miracle.

"......"

He picked up a half-charred wooden box. The outside was slightly burned, but the contents, records from the past, were safe.

"This one is worth about ten million dollars."

Maximilian gave a faint smile and tucked it under his arm.

......

Empire, Sentio Magic Tower.

"Our house must have taken quite a hit too."

Ezel fluttered the morning paper in her hand as she stepped out of her lab. House Runselot also held some shares in Gigantes. Not huge, but still.

Her eyes stopped on an article at the bottom of the front page.

-[Gigantes Disaster, Special Trial to Determine Accountability Opens Soon]-

......The Imperial Central Court summoned numerous security managers and field staff this afternoon to determine responsibility for the security failure in the Gigantes explosion terror case. Palace-side investors are demanding severe punishment, calling it "a man-made disaster caused by lax security," and heavy sentences for working-level staff now seem unavoidable......

-

"......This was your fault, though."

Ezel pouted.

Anyone who knew anything already knew how rotten Gigantes had been. Budget embezzlement, inhuman treatment, indifference from higher-ups. And now they were cutting off tails and dumping blame on underlings. It was disgusting.

Just plain disgusting.

"If I have time, I should go too."

She crumpled the paper, shoved it into her bag, and walked down the tower corridor.

"...Huh?"

Then she ran into someone a little awkward to face.

A woman in a neat suit gave Ezel a polite nod.

"Hello, Mage Ezel, Rank 4."

It was Sonnet Kandel.

"Ah, hello. Um...... are you here to see Professor Jun?"

"Yes," Sonnet said calmly.

"Related to the Gigantes incident, our house has something to discuss with my older brother."

"Ah...... I see......"

Ezel scratched her cheek awkwardly. Things felt weird because of the last Head-Eater incident.

"And I'm Rank 5 now. I recently passed the promotion review."

"You made that rank thanks to us. Congratulations."

Sonnet's words were polite, but the meaning felt strange. Her usual flawless pressure overwhelmed Ezel.

"Then, excuse me."

"Ah...... yes. Take care."

Click, click. Watching Sonnet walk away, Ezel tilted her head.

"......Thanks to us?"

I mean, it is true, but she says things in such a weird way.

* * *

After the Gigantes terror attack, security tightened at every Imperial facility, and the trial opened with unusual speed. This was less about real responsibility for security and more about hanging someone to calm rage over investment losses.

Imperial Central Court.

A large number of investors gathered there. Knights, nobles, and businesspeople, all kinds. Still, the palace side made up the biggest share.

"Knight Maximilian, you came as well."

People from the palace recognized me. I nodded and exchanged greetings.

I attended as a victim too. I had made a fairly large investment in Gigantes beforehand as a way to avoid possible suspicion, just in case.

As an alibi, it was very cheap.

"Haa...... Sir Knight. I truly don't know what to do. I'm so furious I couldn't sleep. How could their security be this bad and cause this kind of disaster?"

"It's absurd. We should never have left security to mere commoners...... You just can't trust lowborn trash."

At their whining, I ran a hand through my hair, pretending to be irritated.

"If you had outsourced it to a knight order, this never would have happened. But wasn't it the Gigantes board that decided to handle security internally?"

My sharp answer made the palace people flinch. They were the ones with decision-making power on that board.

"H-haha...... knight orders cost that much...... and this time even the Royal Guard got hit too......"

"I heard most of those Royal Guards were kids."

"Ahaha, well...... um, cost is always the issue. The facilities had to keep running first, so-"

"Cost or not. I lost quite a lot of money in this too. I can't just let it slide."

To avoid suspicion, you had to be more sincere than anyone else. You had to fool even yourself.

I was a victim. A victim among victims, someone who invested only three months ago and took catastrophic losses right away.

"H-hahaha...... yes, I understand. Then...... ah, uh, over there. Duke Kade!"

Under my deadly stare, the palace people quietly slipped away.

"How do you feel?"

While that happened, someone approached. It was reporter Alphonse with a camera around his neck.

"So you invested too, Sir Knight, in Gigantes, that nest of labor exploitation? Ha-ha-ha!"

"Pfft."

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Alphonse looked so triumphant that it was oddly cute.

Alphonse frowned.

"What's so funny? You'll drag innocent commoners through the mud again in this trial, won't you?"

"No need for that."

I shook my head.

"Even if you squeeze them dry, not a single coin will come out."

Alphonse looked puzzled, but soon lifted his camera and took a shot of my face. I gave him crisp, proper poses.

“We will now begin the trial shortly.”

Right then, court opened. Several Gigantes personnel entered first.

"Ah, Sir Knight. This way."

The victim section was separate from the general gallery, so a court staffer guided me to what looked like a VIP seat.

"We will now convene the special hearing of the Imperial Central Court."

The judge continued in a strict voice.

"Case concerning negligent security management and dereliction of duty at Gigantes. All defendants, please stand."

After that, prosecutors brought out the line of security supervisors one after another. Their faces were drained of color.

One of the prosecutors read the indictment.

"This case occurred due to the defendants' negligence in their duties and failure to follow security regulations."

Most of them were probably not true security decision-makers. Probably not the villains who exploited Gigantes either. They were working-level people under them. The truly responsible figures had already slipped away, and what remained were tails to cut, ordinary Imperial commoners.

"Inspections of controlled zones were insufficient, and monitoring of outside access was lax, allowing the terror group to infiltrate. This is clear dereliction of duty and......"

The judge looked down at them in the defendant seats and asked, "Do the defendants admit the charges? If you have something to say, speak."

Their throats tight with resentment, they barely managed to speak.

"The budget we were given was far too small to add manpower. We reported it to our superiors over and over, but-"

A noble beside me shot to his feet and shouted.

"How long will you keep whining about budget! This terror attack was not prepared in one or two days. During all that time those bastards dug tunnels and planted bombs, where exactly were your eyes looking?!"

"B-but we-"

"Silence! Even Knight Maximilian here is a victim! He lost a huge sum only three months after investing! Go ahead, make your excuses in front of him too!"

"Shh."

I tapped the shoulder of that overly loud fool.

It meant shut up.

We did not even know each other by face, so what was his problem?

"...Yes. Sorry."

The noble flinched and sat down. The defendants bowed their heads, and even the judge looked at them with disapproval.

The palace was trying to cover its own responsibility again by killing pointless people.

"Then. The primary victim of this case and also a witness, Knight Maximilian von Ebenholtz. Would you please come sit here briefly as a witness?"

The prosecutor called my name. I stood gladly and sat in the witness seat.

"We were told that the witness suffered a very large financial loss in this incident."

"It was probably somewhere between twenty and thirty million."

The audience gasped, and so did the prosecutor, the judge, and even the palace nobles.

......Maybe I should have burned a little less.

My sense of money had really been wrecked.

"Do you believe the root cause of this incident was the defendants' negligence and poor control system?"

The prosecutor asked politely. I slowly swept my gaze across the courtroom.

There were many familiar faces. Alphonse was there. Other nobles and knights. Yulian and Kairon. Even Sonnet, expressionless.

Then my eyes returned to the commoners in the defendant seats. Their bodies trembled. Their faces were full of despair.

"No."

I smiled lightly and rejected the prosecutor's framing.

"I think it's the opposite."

"...Pardon?"

"The problem in this case was excessive control and the crushing workload imposed on workers. In other words, the operating foundation of Gigantes itself."

The courtroom stirred.

I continued calmly.

"According to the investigation, the terror group dug a web-like underground passage inside Gigantes. In one sense it was recklessly bold, yet they were never detected."

The old worker dugouts from decades ago that I had found. If workers still had breathing room like that, the Revolutionary Faction's tunnels would have been discovered.

No, Thomas Wagner might never even have decided to destroy Gigantes in the first place.

"Even setting aside the budget issues proven by documents and numbers, excessive control turns people into machines. Workers move only on fixed paths. Supervisors watching them, guards on patrol, they all walk only the same routes written in the manual. Once your eyes are fixed, blind zones are inevitable."

So this was the price of treating humans like parts.

"If control over workers had been loosened even a little, if some degree of leeway had been allowed inside Gigantes."

The problem was not people. It was structure.

"Out of all those workers, at least one person, taking a break or stepping into a corner for a smoke, would have found at least one underground danger."

From the start, this had happened because of how Gigantes was run.

"Y-you, but-"

The flustered prosecutor tried to cut me off.

"I lost a very large amount of assets in this incident."

I swept my cold gaze over the gallery where the palace nobles sat.

"If you try to cut tails and place responsibility only on these low-level field workers."

I beat those palace bastards to the punch.

"I can only say I would be deeply disappointed."

Right now, I was half-crazed from losing money.

A sincere victim.

For someone like that, those words were more than fair.

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