WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 93

──────

A New Spring (3)

Maximilian’s knight office.

Yukia sat at the administrative desk, working.

Tap-tap, clatter, clatter-clatter-clatter-

She had exceptional instincts for machines. Her fingers flew across the keyboard so fast they were almost invisible. Even the other administrative officers kept sneaking glances at her.

Bang.

Just then, the door opened and Senior Knight Kairon walked in.

He asked Yukia, "Knight Maximilian is inside, right?"

"Appointment."

"...What?"

"Did you make one?"

Kairon stared at her blankly, then knocked on Maximilian’s office door.

Knock knock.

"Max. You in there?"

"Come in."

Kairon flicked a glance at Yukia and stepped inside.

Yukia focused mana into her ears.

"You’re here."

Through the wiretap artifact she had planted beforehand, Maximilian and Kairon’s voices came through.

"Ah, Max. For this Premium Cube order, you even put in a discount request? You didn’t need to."

"It’s fine."

They chatted casually, then Maximilian suddenly asked:

"How many staff members do you have, Sir Knight Kairon?"

"Hmm, eight administrative officers. Far more informants than that... But one of your staff is Yaken, right?"

At Kairon’s words, Yukia pricked up her ears.

"Yes."

"Is that alright? The Sentinel has no separate clause for it, but..."

Only pure Imperials could join the Sentinel. But there was still no clause on a knight’s staff.

"Keeping a subspecies close could stain someone with a bright future like yours. People might seize on it and make trouble."

"It’s fine."

Maximilian smiled faintly.

"She is connected to someone I know well."

"...Someone you know?"

"Yes."

Yukia’s hands stopped. Her heart lurched once.

"You knew someone among the Yaken?"

"You do too, Sir Knight Kairon."

"Me?"

"The Empire needs guides too, doesn’t it."

"...Ah, Empire Point. Right."

Kairon let out a dry laugh, as if he remembered.

"It’s been over ten years, so it’s hazy."

Yukia bit her lip.

Guide.

And the necklace.

"...Ms. Yukia."

A fellow officer quietly approached.

"Could you help me with this? I got some weird computer error-"

By now, Yukia had become the expert everyone asked for advice.

"Later."

"Ah, okay."

The officer went back to his seat, grumbling.

"Jeez. She’s too good, so I can’t even complain."

"Haha. Interesting."

Kairon’s oily laugh came through.

"You cared about a small connection like that?"

"It was never small."

Maximilian’s voice was serious.

"Maybe... as a noble."

Yukia’s fingers froze over the keyboard.

"She was someone who made me look back on myself."

His tone was steady and weighty.

"Hmm. I see."

Kairon did not push any further.

"Then. What did you want to talk about?"

"Ah. That four-star restaurant you mentioned before..."

Yukia let the rest go in one ear and out the other. It was all everyday talk, and more than that, her mind was already full of other thoughts.

Bang.

The door opened. Kairon came out looking pleased.

Maximilian even came out to see him off.

"Then, Max. Thanks. I’ll enjoy that meal."

"Yes. If anything comes up, let me know."

In truth, Maximilian had called Kairon on purpose. He had deliberately brought up staff numbers to steer the conversation, then exchanged those words for Yukia’s sake.

"Ah, what could happen, haha. Go on in, go on in. No need to walk me out."

Kairon, unaware he had been used, was simply in a good mood.

...

After work, Yukia returned to her quarters, perched in the window gap, and took out an artifact. A wiretap recorder she had made herself, a disk half the size of her palm.

"You cared about a small connection like that?"

She replayed Maximilian’s conversation from earlier.

"It was never small."

Someone who was not small.

"Maybe... as a noble."

Someone never small.

"She was someone who made me look back on myself."

As she replayed his words again and again,

an owl flew in under the night sky. She untied the letter bound to its leg.

It was a cipher again.

[ ◆◇◆◇◆◆◇◇◆◆... ]

The decoded message was brief.

[ The promised road. Together with Maximilian. ]

Yukia clenched the note tight. Her shut eyelids trembled faintly.

"It was never small."

Unlike the nobles who treated Yaken as trivial,

his voice saying she was never small kept circling in her ears.

* * *

A new spring was unknown to me.

From now on, what I knew and what I did not know would probably unfold all mixed together.

Vrooooom-

It was already like that now.

Yukia, my executive secretary, drove the car I rode in. A pitiful Yaken being used by Izenheim.

The air inside the car felt strangely cold. Silent, dangerous. A bad feeling ran through the seats like some kind of sensor.

But preparations had already been made.

By now, Schatz should be moving in secret and following us.

"You drive well."

I meant it.

Administrative officers trained in the main house usually drove well, but Yukia felt like a different level.

"...There’s something."

Yukia spoke as if she had been waiting.

"I want to ask."

"Add 'sir' at the end."

"I want to ask, sir."

"Much better."

Whoooosh-

The wind rushed past along the road.

"You were wearing that necklace."

It was what I had been waiting for too, but I asked back as if I knew nothing.

"...Necklace?"

"Back then. When the bomb exploded from the corpse."

"..."

Yukia glanced at me through the rearview mirror, and I quietly acted out my expression.

"...Not sure."

When it came to "dressing up who I was," I was actually a professional. A career built naturally through many long years of running and hiding.

"It was a gift from a benefactor."

That was all I said.

There was no need to explain in detail. In fact, I should not. It would look contrived.

"Hmmph..."

Yukia let out an indistinct groan.

Right then, the road came into view. The Marinus Overpass, with a deep imperial river running beside it.

One of the many scenarios Schatz had predicted.

If she suddenly twisted the wheel here and sent us into the river, then the killers waiting below would...

Yukia glanced at the river stretching to the left.

Creak.

The sound of her gripping the steering wheel.

Was she deciding something right now?

I also gripped the super stim pack inside my coat.

Thump.

My heart jolted faintly.

Under the riverbank. I detected Izenheim energy.

Thump!

A cry mixed with the virus’s warning.

There seemed to be only one Izenheim, but its intensity was unusual.

Thump.

But the car kept moving forward.

It calmly moved farther from the river.

The virus reaction was slowly fading, and then, in a split second.

Screeeeeech!

Yukia suddenly yanked the wheel. With a roar, the car spun like a boomerang. Black skid marks carved across the road, and right after that.

Kwooooom!

A truck burst out from the opposite lane.

Krrrraaaash!

It plowed through the exact spot we had just occupied, slammed into the guardrail, and fell.

My body tilted as I looked out the window.

Boom! Boom! Kwaaang!

The truck rolled over and over, then plunged into the river.

"...Hmm."

That truck would have rammed me, and the killers below would have finished the job.

Not a bad scenario.

"Haa... haa..."

Yukia panted and dropped her head onto the wheel. I watched her quietly.

What decision had this Yaken just made?

I still could not know. Just as I was acting, this could also be Yukia acting.

"Are you okay?"

"..."

At my question, Yukia raised her head and nodded. Her face and back were already soaked in cold sweat.

"You drive well."

"It’s basic."

Calmly, she turned the wheel again.

Wiping sweat with her sleeve, she slipped through the wrecked roadway like a loach.

"..."

"..."

The car was quiet. Even the engine seemed not to hum.

I closed my eyes without a word.

Today’s harvest was enough to satisfy me.

...

Imperial Central University.

Today’s schedule was a lecture.

The lecture theme was 「The Path the Empire Must Take」

"...As Aran of the Empire, we must shatter the jealous outside slander aimed at the Empire."

University students packed the wide auditorium, looking at me.

"The thousand-year history of the Empire will never collapse."

It was a script written by a ghostwriter. Writing and I were never a good match.

"So I hope all of you become talent worthy of the Empire and fulfill that duty."

Clap clap clap clap-

Applause spread. The faces turned toward me were varied. Some looked at me with genuine respect, others with envy and doubt, and a few with open hatred.

"I have a question!"

Someone in the middle of the audience shot his hand up high.

I looked at his face. A sharp-featured blond Aran.

I knew him.

Maybe he was exactly the person I had wanted.

"Sir Knight Maximilian. I have a question."

Before regression, he had been a war criminal.

A class-1 war criminal.

"...Your name?"

Class-1 war criminals had ability to match.

At minimum, earning nationwide and worldwide rage was impossible without a certain talent.

"I am Johann Georg Goetze, in the humanities doctoral program."

Johann Georg Goetze.

A commoner-born man who would later rise to become the Empire’s Minister of Propaganda.

Deep hostility lived in the eyes fixed on me.

"You told us to become talent worthy of the Empire. But I want to ask. Do you think today’s Empire is giving pure Aran the treatment they deserve?"

The hall stirred. Noise rose. It was too provocative, too reactionary a statement to throw at Ebenholtz.

But I knew.

It was not that he hated the Empire. He loved the Empire too much, and that was why he despised those ruining it.

Pig-like bourgeois, rotten nobles. Hatred directed at them.

"Right now, the taxes imposed on Imperial Aran are harsher than ever. Commoners break their backs to buy a piece of bread, while the people collecting those taxes-"

"H-hey, drag that bastard out!"

Guards behind the stage and university staff rushed out in panic.

"Leave him."

I stopped them as they reached out wildly to seize Johann.

The guards hesitated and stepped back.

I walked to the very front of the platform and looked down at Johann.

"...Johann Georg."

Johann’s face held a deep, desperate anger.

Looking at him, I answered simply.

"I agree strongly."

For a moment, Johann’s eyes shook. Of course he had not expected that response.

I looked away from him and swept my gaze over the students in the hall.

"You who entered Imperial Central University, pure Aran intellectuals the Empire is endlessly proud of."

More than 80 percent of the students gathered here were commoners.

To begin with, the Empire simply did not have that many nobles.

"Let me ask. Between the poor and the rich, high-income and low-income groups, which side should pay more tax?"

Silence.

"Between nobles and commoners, which side should bear greater responsibility and duty?"

No answer.

Because this was a world where answering itself could become a crime.

That did not apply to me.

I was one of the Empire’s most exalted nobles, and one of the businesspeople who paid the most taxes in the Empire, honestly.

At least I had the right to discuss taxes in any direction.

"Even without saying it, this is almost natural law."

I looked at Johann again.

"Those with more should pay more, and those in higher places should carry heavier weight."

"..."

Johann swallowed blankly. He looked deeply flustered, like he had come ready to be beaten.

"But in today’s Empire, too many refuse to do that. They grew up feeding on the Empire’s nourishment inside the Empire’s warm fence, yet they only suck the fruit and abandon responsibility and duty."

This was my true thought as well.

Those rotten bastards who had driven the Empire to ruin before my regression.

"As Maximilian of Ebenholtz, I am different from them. I always serve only the Empire, and I seek only truth."

Strength entered my voice.

"The duty of a true noble. The stance a noble must uphold. I intend never to forget it. Nobles should be that way."

I stepped down from the platform and walked toward Johann.

I placed a hand on his frozen shoulder.

"One day, not just me, but all nobles and bourgeois of this Empire will finally realize it. The privilege they enjoy is the weight of responsibility they must willingly bear for countless Aran."

I had lightly twisted a line from a specialist book I once read, The Reason the Empire Fell.

"That is the path for the Empire, and the path Aran must walk."

Silence flowed. The students stared at me quietly.

I asked Johann in return.

"Was that enough of an answer?"

Johann broke into a cold sweat and moved his lips. He opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish, then suddenly his eyes lost focus and he collapsed unconscious.

"...Huh? What."

He had probably forced out too much courage.

"Is there a doctor here?"

* * *

"I’m sorry!"

Imperial Central University, dean’s office of the College of Humanities.

"We are truly sorry, Sir Knight!"

The dean of humanities, department chair, supervising professor, and even the assistant professor. Everyone connected to Johann kept bowing at a ninety-degree angle in front of me.

"That bastard, no, that student Johann is currently on leave. We never dreamed he would suddenly break into your lecture hall and throw such an irreverent question. We will expel him at once-"

"No."

I set down my teacup and shook my head.

"It was fine."

"...Pardon?"

"I liked it. I’d like to read papers or writing by that young man too."

The deans exchanged looks. Their confusion was obvious.

"Then why is he on leave? He said he was in a doctoral course."

"Ah... that is..."

The dean of humanities glanced at the surrounding professors. One assistant professor at the very back whispered in a tiny voice.

"...His family situation is difficult. There is a rumor he moves from one construction site to another to pay tuition..."

I nodded.

"So that is the source of his anger toward bourgeois."

"We have no excuse, no excuse at all! We should have supervised students more strictly, and to upset you, Sir Knight, we are truly-"

The dean kept repeating apologies, and it grated on me.

"...I clearly said there is no need to apologize."

At that, the staff’s faces hardened like plaster statues.

It seemed they had taken my words a little differently. Perhaps they thought I meant I would bury them or hang them.

These days I had to be careful with every word. That image came from the Gennen suppression.

"Your name?"

I asked the dean.

"Ah, I... that, I am..."

"Do you not have a name?"

"Ah, ah, I do. Hahaha... Benedict."

He gave a strained laugh and wiped sweat with a handkerchief.

"Dean Benedict."

"...Yes."

His neck shrank like a turtle’s.

I took out my checkbook. I wrote a number with a fountain pen and tore it out.

"I truly liked that student Johann."

I placed the check on the table. The dean’s eyes widened when he saw the amount.

"T-this is...?"

"A scholarship."

From now on, I planned to "manage" future war criminals.

If their madness was not handled properly, it would explode out of control, as it had before my regression. And their talent was too valuable to discard.

"The full amount, please deliver it to Johann Georg Goetze."

Johann had fainted after meeting my eyes for barely ten minutes.

With the fear they felt toward me, I would definitely be able to control them.

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