The Reluctant Imperialist - Chapter 76

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 76

──────

What Bothers Me (2)

Yukia sat on the windowsill of her residence and looked up at the Empire's night sky. A cold wind tugged at her clothes, and moonlight washed over her bare feet.

Clink. Clink.

She rolled tiny metal parts in her hand.

Assemble, disassemble, assemble again. A meaningless cycle. A ritual to quiet her anxiety.

Kzzzt.

A sudden burst of static crackled in the artifact in her ear.

......These are the approval documents.

Maximilian's office. It was the aide's voice.

Dry sounds came through: pages turning, a fountain pen scratching.

......Sir Knight. May I ask you one thing?

A moment later, after the pen was set down, the aide spoke carefully.

......I am curious why you accepted the Yaken in particular. Communication is difficult, and in the Empire's social climate, keeping a subspecies by your side could hurt your reputation.

......Well.

Maximilian's voice was low. He spoke like he was talking to himself.

......Maybe it is pity.

Pity.

Yukia's hand froze. She clenched the metal pieces so hard they nearly bent.

Rage surged up. She bit her lip in humiliation.

......If anything, it feels more like a promise.

Yukia's head snapped up.

A promise?

With whom, and for what?

......So you should pay close attention as well. The Yaken tribe is clearly a useful subspecies for Aran.

......Yes. Understood.

"Useful. Subspecies."

Yukia spat out each word as if grinding it between her teeth. Swallowing her shaky breath, she picked up her pen and wrote today's record in her notebook.

Maximilian's smallest gestures, the habits in his offhand speech, even the spacing of his silences.

All of it was information for the future, and a weapon to aim at his throat.

Scratch. Scratch.

She hated nobles. She hated them to the bone, the men who drove her father to his death and covered even that death with deceit.

To her, revolution was just another word for revenge.

That knight named Maximilian, no, that man at the very top of the noble system itself, was the most fitting target of all.

* * *

I came to the Kanillan Independent State on a short business trip.

"This is Newrak Street."

A bustling city, and I was here with Dieter. Two men. Not ideal, but as a change of pace, it was not bad.

After breathing nothing but the foul perfume of imperial nobles day after day, even this stench of rotting money mixed with pleasure and desire felt strangely fresh.

"Kanillan has a wide range of cultures."

Dieter drove and guided me through the area like he had become a local expert overnight.

"This street has many grand theaters. They say the number of theaters has tripled in the last year."

From classic plays to avant-garde modern drama, posters for every kind of performance covered the buildings.

"Massive capital is also flowing into the film industry."

The movie district was plastered with posters for romance, war, and every other genre. Overflowing liquidity was pooling everywhere and bursting outward. Kanillan was in its prime.

"Oh, and."

Dieter suddenly stopped the car, ran to a street stall, and came back with a dessert.

"You have to try this."

It was a crispy waffle cone topped with ice cream and chocolate, with stick-like cookies stuck in it.

I took a bite.

"Hm."

Sweet. Strong enough to make my head spin, but not bad.

"Not bad."

"Sir Knight, would you like to look around for a while?"

"Sure."

I got out in the middle of the street.

Brilliant lights turned night into day, people laughed over champagne on restaurant balconies, and music spilled from every corner.

For a world nearing ruin, it sparkled.

"Dieter. What do you think? I am sure all of this will collapse soon."

Dieter was still hard to read. He carried out every order perfectly, but his mind was calm as a deep well. No ripples outside, none inside.

He had seemed ordinary from the first moment I met him, and he still did. A man who never changed.

"I agree. Money with no real substance is circulating here."

Dieter pushed up his rimless glasses with one finger.

"Kanillan companies borrow from banks to develop technology, then borrow again with that technology as collateral. This repeats endlessly, and companies fall into severe moral hazard. Even if the technology is never developed, even if it is impossible to realize, loans are approved as long as they hang up a label called innovative technology."

If the Empire would collapse through war, Kanillan would collapse through debt.

"They are inflating a bubble with empty technology, technology they never intended to complete."

Even so, stock prices hit new highs every day. Blind money kept pouring in from the Empire and neighboring states.

That was why the shockwave from Kanillan's future collapse would slam into many countries, including the Empire.

"But if this place explodes, the Empire takes major damage too. The imperial economy runs on bill of exchange paper."

"Ken Steiner, right?"

"Yes."

Imperial Chancellor and notorious workaholic Ken Steiner was forcibly propping up the imperial business cycle through bill of exchange paper issued by a ghost bank with no real substance.

That was the only reason the Empire still looked like it was functioning.

"His goal is probably pure exploration and frontier expansion. Secure military supplies with bill of exchange paper, then force open routes into unexplored lands."

Use profits from exploration and expansion to repay the future pulled forward in advance.

But the Emperor wanted something different.

"His Majesty wants something far safer and far more certain than that."

Looting nations. Completing conquests that would become his own achievement.

That was why war was inevitable for the Empire. If it did not win, there was no future.

"Yes. War will happen without fail."

We passed the busy district and reached an empty lot. It was scheduled for development, but for now it was overgrown with weeds.

"Before that, we build a bank here."

It had been Dieter's proposal, and my decision.

In time, the targets whose leashes I would hold through risk insurance would be Kanillan's insurers and banks. The moment Kanillan's economy crashed and turned to waste paper, I would file massive insurance claims and take over this country's financial system itself.

"The bank's banner is absolute neutrality."

When borders collapse in war and dynasties are overturned, ownerless money and survival-seeking black money will pour out. I planned to build the vault that would swallow all of it, starting now.

"Yes. I will prepare it."

I watched Dieter quietly as he wrote in his notebook.

"Dieter."

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

Dieter's salary was enormous, far beyond what most people would expect. Yet he never spent money. He bought several suits and glasses, lived in staff housing, and never indulged in luxury.

"I consider myself an extremely hedonistic person."

That was Dieter's answer.

"......You?"

"Yes."

Dieter looked at the empty lot. His eyes looked like they were already seeing the bank that would soon stand there.

"I feel ecstasy in numbers. Numbers do not lie. You can tamper with them and falsify them any way you like, but that is always exposed in the end. Because numbers do not exist independently."

Something like a smile rose at the corner of his mouth.

"Stacking those numbers efficiently, creating a perfect flow, consuming without waste... the completion of pure logic with value judgment removed. That gives me pleasure."

I let out a short laugh. Dieter was not a man who wanted money.

He seemed like a peculiar man who loved the order created by the flow called liquidity itself.

"What do you want, Sir Knight?"

That question surprised me. There were things Dieter wanted to know about me too.

"I..."

All at once, the ruined future and the landscape of a destroyed world flashed through my mind.

"......I want the Empire to win. Only then can our world stand upright."

Dieter adjusted his glasses and answered calmly.

"Yes. Understood."

* * *

In a winter of thick falling snow, I was training my Aran Shepherd, Leo, in the white front yard of the mansion.

"Listen carefully. In the end, this is about setting your territory."

Maximilian, currently imitating Freya.

"You are an Ebenholtz dog. That means the most aristocratic kind of dog."

I did not know whether this guy understood me, but he sat still and listened.

"So always keep your posture and your coat in order."

His stance was impressively upright. He definitely had unusual potential.

"Do not bark recklessly or wag your tail and lower your dignity..."

After thoroughly drilling him in Ebenholtz ideology, I drew my longsword and carved a two-meter circle in the snow around him.

"Set a circular fence inside your mind. Sense everything that enters it. The wind, sounds, even an enemy's killing intent."

I kept edging my foot in and out of the circle's boundary.

"The moment something enters."

Tap.

The instant my foot touched the line, Leo sprang like a compressed spring. Bullet-fast. Even his braking control, stopping right before biting my forearm, was perfect.

"Good. You go for the throat in one burst. Answer."

"Woof!"

"......You really are smart."

No, he understood everything I said. You could see it in his face.

"Again. But this time, close your eyes."

Leo obediently shut both eyes.

"No, do you actually understand me?"

Leo opened them again.

"......Close them again."

He closed them again.

As expected, he was a real spirit beast worth every bit of that blank check.

I picked up a small stone from the ground.

"This time, a stone."

Whoosh. Thud.

The stone sank into the snow. In that instant, Leo ran with his eyes still closed and snapped right onto the exact point where it landed.

He had reacted through sense, not sight.

"Good. Again..."

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Training that started with stones progressed to leaves that made almost no sound.

After training, I held Leo in my arms.

"Good work. Drink."

I put an elixir into his mouth.

For the record, I had also checked with Lorenzo just in case.

"Elixirs are pure mana crystallization, not chemical compounds, so they work the same on humans and beasts. But why are you asking?"

Meaning there had never been a lunatic who fed elixirs to beasts before.

Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp.

Leo wagged his tail and sucked down an elixir worth several million. It even felt like his fur was getting smoother in real time.

"Grow well."

One well-raised beast is better than ten people.

At least a dog does not betray its owner.

"Sir Knight, you have guests."

Right then, the butler announced visitors.

"Ah. Let them in."

"Yes."

A reporting team from Jemion Daily came out to the front yard.

Alphonse, and the editor in chief, Celine Dubois.

"Good to see you, Sir Knight."

Celine bowed politely. The Revolutionary Faction executive who had once worn the Rabbit Mask now stood before me in an elegant coat.

"I did not expect the editor in chief herself to come. With that man, no less."

I gave Alphonse a sideways glance with a faint grin. Celine shrugged.

"He said he wanted to come in person."

Alphonse yawned and lifted his camera.

"Sir Knight, what do you want? Any composition in mind?"

"Just get some shots of my back with this little guy."

"Yeah, sure."

Click. Click.

He kept pressing the shutter. Celine watched us with her arms folded.

"'A Knight Raises an Aran Shepherd'... something like that might be nice."

"Oh, yeah."

Alphonse nodded lazily and handed me a crumpled letter.

"What is this now?"

"Nothing major. The Gigantes security staff... that commoner representative wrote it. Asked me to make sure it got to you."

I took the letter and opened it. From the first line, I could feel how hard he had pressed the pen, like the paper might tear.

────

To the Honorable Sir Knight Maximilian von Ebenholtz......

We were people already marked for death. When Gigantes collapsed, we were caged behind iron bars as sacrificial victims. On those cold nights while waiting for execution, through those days when our hands and feet would not thaw, when we despaired that we would never see our families again, we remember......

You said this was not a burden commoners should shoulder. To us, that was boundless grace. Right now, a seven-year-old child is in front of me. Eating soup, eyes bright and clear......

────

I folded it without a word and put it into my inner pocket. Alphonse looked at me with serious eyes.

"I admit it this time. You saved those people, Sir Knight. Like you said, it was never something mere commoners should have been forced to take responsibility for. But I will keep both eyes open on labor conditions in the new factory."

"Do as you like."

I stroked Leo's head and answered quietly.

"Use your pen while you still can."

Once war began, pens would be snapped first.

Bzzzt.

A message came on my terminal.

[We have succeeded in identifying Eric Tarik's remains. However, recovery will require a little more time.]

A smile spread across my face.

Bzzzt.

Another message followed right away.

[The direct agency has begun tracing Leutern's corporations.]

They say good things come all at once.