WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 82

──────

Before Spring Comes (5)

──Click.

The terminal signal flashed red.

"Signal."

The instant it was detected, Schatz dropped low on the rooftop of a high-rise beyond the university.

Tzuzzzzt!

Blue mana current rose from her whole body like heat haze. Her vision pulled the student council room window, hundreds of meters away, close like a zoom lens.

"Target confirmed. Threat detected."

Pazzzzt──!

The air did not even have time to scream. She streaked across open space like lightning. She burst into the student council room before the glass even had time to shatter.

Kwaaaak──!

Sparks exploded. Schatz slammed high-voltage current into the backs of Kasim and the others' necks.

"──!"

"Ughk-!"

Short-circuit. Their nervous systems seized, and they rolled across the floor like insects. Residual current snapped through the air like static.

The situation was over in an instant.

"...Are you all right."

Schatz looked down at Elias on the floor and asked flatly. He finally let out a ragged breath.

"Huff, huff..."

With a shaking hand, he felt over his chest. His clothes were charred black, but his skin was only bruised and otherwise unharmed. Maximilian's silver necklace. The artifact's Protective Aura had blocked the magic bullet.

Elias staggered to his feet.

"..."

Blankly, he looked down at the floor.

Kasim, unconscious. And the armed attackers who had come in through the window.

Schatz asked,

"Do you know them."

"...No."

"Then you need to know now."

Schatz continued in a cold voice.

"These people have no interest in Gennen's safety. They used you and deceived you completely."

She flicked her hands and shook items out from the fallen men.

Clatter.

Suicide vests, an interceptor for the imperial military communications network, high-performance compact bombs, blades, firearms. Not things students or civic activists would carry.

Everything had already been burned out and disabled by the mana field Schatz released, but their purpose was obvious.

"Mr. Elias. If you had died, one of them would have pretended to be captured by Kasim."

Most of what they carried was military issue. Their identities would have been pinned on the imperial military.

Kasim would have taken Elias's place as the student activist who caught the military's puppet that killed him.

"These people want imperial chaos and social collapse more than Gennen's independence. They do not care how many Gennen citizens die. They would rather they die."

Schatz delivered Maximilian's words.

"It means they are the kind who would welcome Gennen's deaths if it gave them a reason to attack the Empire."

"Haa..."

Elias covered his face with both hands.

The pain stabbing his chest now was not just from the magic bullet.

Friendship had come back like a blade. It felt like thorns were growing out of his heart.

"Are you going to stay collapsed like this?"

Schatz looked down at him and asked.

"Or are you going to stand up and do your job."

"..."

Elias raised his head and stared at Schatz. No, he faced the illusion of "Maximilian" flickering behind her.

"How high you climb, and where you stop..."

Maximilian had said:

Elias Walter. From now on, it depends on your heart...

* * *

People poured out of the school. The military checked their identities, released some, detained some, and kept the rest on campus.

For those who refused every military order and continued the sit-in──

Chaaang!

Smoke rounds smashed through windows and dropped inside.

Pishuuuuuu!

Gray fog rose in seconds, and a small armed elite unit pushed in through it.

Cough! Cough!

The students resisted as they ran. Some even attempted suicide by police. But the suppression team was seasoned. With practiced hands, they twisted arms and locked joints.

Forced to their knees, the students trembled with rage, but the investigators' eyes were dry. Orders from above were clear, so no emotion entered the work. They just moved them out quickly, like cargo.

"Found you."

Then, in the deepest part of the university.

The student council room.

"Elias, Student Council President. You are under arrest."

Elias sat there in a chair as the representative.

Click. Click.

Handcuffs closed around his wrists.

......

Gennen Central Police Bureau.

"...Since when was this place a university?"

Looking at students packed from the detention corridor to the offices, the deputy chief sighed. Zendo, standing beside him, smirked.

"Just hang on a little, sir. Heard a rumor you might be chief soon."

The deputy chief tilted his head at the sudden comment.

"...Me? From where?"

"Heard it going around between the armored columns."

"Armored columns? You mean the tanks?"

The deputy chief went blank, and Zendo passed him and walked into the detention block.

The students were wound tight.

They were probably imagining brutal interrogation. The Empire police's infamous torture rooms, bloody beatings, water torture, screams and groans.

Their hard stares shot at Zendo. He let out a dry laugh.

"If this were old times, I would have done that too... hey."

At Zendo's hand signal, investigators rolled in carts.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Bowls were set down in front of the students one by one.

Hot steam rose from a red broth stew. Gennen-style stew with big chunks of meat.

"...What is this."

One student asked suspiciously.

"What else. Aren't you hungry?"

Zendo dragged over a chair and sat crooked in front of the bars.

"Eat. No poison in it. Interrogating brats like you only gives me more paperwork."

"I won't eat! Don't try to win us over!"

"The hell are you saying. Hey."

Zendo jerked his chin at one student who looked like a leader.

"You. Didn't your boss get shot?"

"...What did you say?"

The students' eyes all turned at once.

"Shot? The president? By you people?!"

"By that student council officer, Kasim or whatever. That bastard was an ideological criminal. A rotten one hiding behind your backs."

Zendo clicked his tongue.

"He shot the student council president for ordering the rally to disperse. Your friend barely lived. He almost got a hole through his heart."

The students' eyes shook. None of them looked like they could believe it.

"Stop lying!"

"I don't believe you!"

"Trying to divide us!"

With veins bulging in their necks, they shouted. Zendo shook his head.

"You little punks. Believe it or not, your choice."

He glanced at investigators. They threw in bottles of water, white paper, and pens.

"Eat everything and write reflection statements. We'll replace interrogation records with your statements. Your parents are waiting outside, so hurry up if you know what's good."

"..."

Then everyone looked down at the steaming stew in silence.

They had to be hungry. They had held out inside the school for almost two weeks.

One student checked the others and took a spoonful of broth first. One by one, the rest started moving their spoons too.

Zendo watched, then slid his hand into his coat.

"Oops."

He dropped a document, pretending it was an accident. The paper fluttered and slid past the bars to a student's feet.

As expected, the student at the front picked it up... and skimmed it quickly.

[ Incident Report: Elias Walter ]

[Content: The above individual surrendered as the ringleader and accepted full responsibility for this protest. Please consider leniency on the grounds that the remaining students were merely minor participants drawn in by him.

However, during the dispersal process, an armed group of four including 'Kasim Ekin' attacked them against Elias's wishes and opened fire... Elias is currently receiving treatment in hospital for aftereffects, and 'Kasim Ekin' is presumed to be a puppet of a criminal organization.... ]

"...This."

The student's hand gripping the report shook hard. Zendo quickly snatched it back, acting rushed.

"Give it here, punk. Classified."

"I-is this real?"

The kid waved his hand through the bars.

"What is it? What?"

"What do you mean, what?"

At the noise, the other students crowded in again. Zendo stood up as if annoyed, shaking the document.

"Ask him after he recovers. You're loud."

"Recovers?"

"W-what did you do that he has to recover? Did you torture him!"

They started flaring up again at the word recover.

Zendo left the detention block at once.

"Hmm..."

As he walked the corridor, he sank into thought for a moment.

The "power of people" was a strange thing. Just a college kid, yet that level of influence.

Anyway, Elias would become a hero. A hero who got betrayed, got shot, and still came back alive for Gennen.

Zendo pictured the near future.

Elias had now seen reality. He clearly understood the brutality and cunning of ideological criminals.

If a guy like that got only light punishment, compromised with the times, and built his career. If he grabbed Maximilian's line as hard as he could.

Could he become governor of the Gennen Autonomous Territory.

* * *

Deep inside the Gennen branch office, in an interrogation room surrounded by soundproof walls.

I sat facing a man.

He was Adeline's father, and the person directly involved in the incident that started this entire Gennen crisis. His name was Ben Lot.

Even though Gennen investigators brought him in safely through the chaos, his face looked ruined, like burned-out firewood.

"..."

"..."

He said nothing. He only stared at the floor, with a face that looked decades older than his real age.

He might have been blaming himself. Or drowning in despair. His daughter had been killed unjustly, and that death had become a fuse...

"I am sorry."

At the dry consolation, his shoulders jerked.

"Demonstrations and protests that broke out in many places, including Gennen Central University..."

I recited the situation in a businesslike tone.

"The armed riots that rose from them."

We had kept casualties to a minimum. We had captured as many impure elements as possible, the ones who would become tumors in Gennen.

Still, whatever the process, many people were hurt, and Gennen was wounded.

Among those who tried to kill military police with mana, or injured police with blades and guns, many were ordinary Gennen citizens swept up by anger, not Izenheim. Most of them would be sent to northern camps.

"What do you think."

At my question, he lowered his head even more. His split lips moved, but words did not come easily. He only curled up like a sinner.

"I am sorry."

A voice completely worn out. Barely even a voice.

"...Yes. I know too."

I leaned back in my chair.

"For you, this must be an unfair and irrational world."

An era where too much is decided before birth. Blood decides status, and status holds unjust privilege.

If the Empire collapsed, the frequency of injustice would decrease. But the price would be the extinction of humanity itself.

The Empire was not an axis of evil that must be destroyed, but a necessary evil that held up our world.

"But the living must live."

I, and all of us, had merely chosen the lesser evil.

Even if it was unfair, we had to keep living.

Even if it was not truly living, even if we were only barely being kept alive.

"Take it."

I placed a suitcase on the table.

Thud.

At the heavy sound, the man's eyes shook.

"Compensation."

A bag full of imperial dollars.

Could a daughter's life really be converted into paper scraps. Could any proper price ever be set.

I did not know that answer. I could not dare to know it.

"..."

A quiet breath leaked from him. It sounded like a groan, or a low animal cry, filling the room.

"And."

Looking at him, I pulled one sheet of paper from my coat. I set it on top of the suitcase.

"A chance for you to fight the world one more time."

The man's swollen eyes looked at the page.

[ Petition for Retrial ]

At the first line, his pupils widened as if they would split.

──────

Case Number: 1038 - Criminal (G) - 0914

Case Name: Death of Adeline in the Gennen Autonomous Territory

Recipient: Criminal Collegiate Panel, Imperial Gennen Autonomous Court

1. Petitioner (Complainant)

Name: Maximilian Albrecht von Ebenholtz

Affiliation: Imperial Sentinel Order

Position: Knight...

──────

"As the Empire's sword and watchdog, a knight has the right to demand strict law enforcement."

A governor-general's office secretary, the youngest son of a vice minister in the Imperial Palace Internal Affairs Ministry. He killed a person, got released in a sloppy self-defense ruling, caused chaos, and now hid in the Imperial Palace.

As far as I knew, the Empire had never granted the power of life and death to vermin like that.

"Of course."

I laced my fingers and added,

"To win in court, you will need a very expensive lawyer."

"..."

He stared blankly at me.

"A noble by rank. Someone who knows every word of the Imperial code and once served as imperial minister of justice would be enough."

If you thought a giant like that would never move for a commoner like you, that thought would make sense.

If my intention entered the picture, it would be different.

"Their incompetence caused this crisis in Gennen."

For the Empire's sake, nobles unworthy of being nobles had to be dragged down and killed.

If a palace vice minister tried to shield his youngest son, even better. The more he shielded him, the better. I would use that as a hostage and shake them all.

"They must receive punishment equal to what they caused."

Not for your murdered daughter Adeline, but as the price of damaging the Empire's prestige.

My logic had to be that.

"Take them."

I gestured at the suitcase and the document.

"It is the duty of the one who survived."

He reached out with a shaking hand.

His eyes had turned red before I noticed. On a face that looked like it had no moisture left to give, a tear squeezed out and dropped onto the petition.

"Thank... you."

What he said to me, the one who came with hundreds of tanks to crush Gennen.

"..."

What was there to thank.

What I did was selective in the end.

Countless Adelines were dying across the Empire, and countless fathers and mothers were growing old, shaking with injustice.

I could not save all of them. I had no desire to save all of them. I only reached out to those in front of me who fit my purpose.

You were only one of the most unfortunate people who happened to be one of the most fortunate.

Therefore...

"You do not need to thank me."

It was only that much.

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