The Reluctant Imperialist - Chapter 94

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 94

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Documents with Purpose

I sat in a corner of the library with Johann’s undergraduate thesis, which I had received from the department chair, along with several pieces he had contributed to the university press.

「A Study on the Economic Self-Reliance of the Aran People and the Parasitic Nature of the Bourgeoisie」

Even the title was full of rage.

I turned the page.

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...In other words, the Empire takes the survival of the people, not corporate profit, as its guiding value. Therefore, finance capital and comprador capital that fatten themselves by exploiting the blood and sweat of the Aran people must be eradicated.

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Johann Goetze had pointed out the evils of capital, stressed the unity of the national community, and poured out all kinds of related policies.

Because of that, the future New Cabinet analyzed Johann as if dismantling him piece by piece. It also did not discard the “good” ideas he put forward. It adopted them instead.

The most representative policies were withholding at source, tax bracket restructuring, state-led mega-highway construction, and the introduction of value-added tax.

Before my regression, the Empire moved according to Johann’s intent. The Emperor drastically lowered the effective tax rate on Aran people, won favor by expanding welfare, and supplied jobs through massive public works.

It was the brief boom right before the Empire’s ruin, a last flash before extinction.

War plunder made those policies possible. Ruthless exploitation of countless foreign companies and minority races inside the Empire funded it.

That was my first step.

Sadly, Johann could not normalize the nobility because of practical limits. He borrowed the power of the Imperial Guard to strip wealth from nobles who fell out of favor, and killed them too, but in the end, that was still done by borrowing the power of another noble force.

But I was different.

As a noble of Ebenholtz, I would build the power to make all of them kneel.

Under Ebenholtz, all nobles would become equal...

“I enjoyed your lecture.”

A familiar voice suddenly came from behind me.

Sonnet Kandel. She walked over with crisp steps and sat across from me.

“It sounded like something a noble would say. Quite impressive.”

“...”

I let out a dry laugh as I looked at her.

“Are you a stalker?”

“Oh, how interesting. I had a similar thought.”

Sonnet replied without expression.

Dumbfounded, I pointed at my own chest.

“Me.”

Then I pointed at Sonnet.

“Stalking you?”

“Yes. Everywhere I go, you are there. The underground city, the Head-Eater case, that forest-crossing event, even the National Support Council.”

Sonnet counted on her fingers one by one. But the order was strange. She deliberately, very deliberately, left only the middle finger up.

This lady was doing it on purpose.

“Hah.”

I was speechless.

“And today, your lecture day, at your alma mater library.”

Sonnet folded even that last middle finger.

“Think about it. Every time, you were the one who caught my eye first.”

“...”

But when I actually thought about it, she was right.

“A lot of coincidences piled up.”

“Yes. But...”

Sonnet looked at me and asked quietly.

“Are you sincere?”

“About what?”

“What you said in today’s lecture. It sounded quite open.”

Open.

The word was funny, but my head really was open. It had to be.

I had seen with my own eyes how the New Cabinet soared the moment it abolished the class system before my regression, and some of the academic and technological progress they made had stayed in my mind.

“It is simple logic. I am an honest taxpayer, so when I watch other bastards dig in and refuse to pay taxes, of course I get angry.”

If I thought my taxes were being drained by thieves, rage surged up.

Still, it could not be helped. It was also part of building my cause and qualification.

As I always said, cause mattered in the Empire. It might matter most of all.

“Yes. I know you pay diligently. So is that why you are so focused on hunting companies?”

Company hunting.

I smiled faintly. Sonnet was probably very angry with me.

She backed the Imperial Guard, and I was preempting what they wanted to seize.

“It is for the Empire.”

“...For the Empire.”

“If mediocre riffraff take them and cannot even handle them properly, then it benefits the national interest far more if I take them.”

Sonnet nodded quietly.

I could not tell whether she meant I agree, or keep spouting nonsense if you want.

“You look wonderful. I will be cheering for you.”

After saying that, she stood and walked away with crisp steps again.

“...”

I stared blankly at her back, then furrowed my brow.

The Kandel lot were exhausting no matter what. Every one of them was so calculating that I could never tell what they were thinking.

* * *

...Johann burned with fever.

For days after fainting in the lecture hall, he wandered through dreams where the line between reality and delusion collapsed. In those dreams, someone’s back was always standing in front of him.

A blurred face. Yet unmistakably golden hair.

For a reason he himself could not understand, Johann chased after him, then woke up, then chased him again, over and over.

“...Was I crazy for a while?”

Around the time he had somewhat recovered, his roommate Liam asked with a hollow laugh.

“Yeah. I must have gone crazy.”

Johann muttered in a cracked voice.

“Haa...”

He sighed and covered his face.

He had spewed strange words at a knight of Ebenholtz. He had cursed nobles in front of one of the Empire’s highest nobles.

What would the price be?

Would the secret police or the Imperial Guard burst in soon and hang him by the neck?

“...Liam. Can you lend me some money?”

“As if I have any. I do not even have enough to eat. Why, are you trying to run?”

“Yeah.”

He wanted to leave, anywhere.

Cross the border, slip into the underground city, or fall into a river and drown.

Knock knock-

Then a knock on the door rang out like shelling.

Johann and Liam stopped breathing at the same time.

“...Hey.”

“I will open it.”

So it had come. Johann stood in resignation.

Knock knock-

“Hoo.”

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

On the other side, there had to be uniformed police...

“...Department Chair?”

It was not the police. It was the department chair.

Dressed in a suit, the man looked at Johann silently.

It was ominous.

“Am I expelled?”

Johann asked first.

The chair quietly shook his head.

“...Take it.”

Then he pulled out a white envelope from inside his jacket and held it out.

“What is this...”

With trembling hands, Johann opened the envelope. It was a check.

A huge amount he had never touched in his life, with five zeros.

“Why... why? Is this the price on my life?”

“What price on your life. It is a special scholarship.”

The chair placed a hand on Johann’s shoulder.

Johann flinched, but the touch was oddly careful.

“Sir Maximilian took a liking to you.”

“...What?”

He looked up at the chair blankly.

“From now on, restrain that kind of sudden behavior, but return as soon as possible. The school has agreed to accommodate you as much as possible.”

“...”

Those words made no sense.

More than returning to school or any scholarship, Maximilian liking him...

“Uh...”

It felt like his mind was draining out in real time, like the fever was coming back.

His head hurt.

His legs trembled with no strength.

Reality scattered weakly, and the ceiling seemed to spin.

“Calm down. Calm down.”

As if Johann was about to faint again, the chair handed him another item.

“There is this too.”

“...What is it?”

This time Liam took it from the side for him.

“It is an elixir pill set, good for your health.”

A premium box of ten elixir pills. On top of it was even a luxurious sheepskin note.

Liam passed it to Johann.

“Look.”

Johann swallowed. He wiped the cold sweat beading on his face and read the note.

[If someone is meant for great work, he must first take care of his body.]

Only one handwritten line.

But the shape alone made it obvious.

Even among nobles, uneducated pigs or pigs who neglected education could never imitate this, penmanship filled with elegance and class.

“...The semester has already started, but tell us whenever you are ready. We will keep your place open.”

Pat pat. The chair patted his shoulder and left.

Silence settled into the cramped room again.

“Hey...”

His friend Liam stared at the number on the check with his mouth hanging open.

“What is this? What the hell is this?”

“...”

Johann could not answer. He only staggered back to his desk and sat down.

Across it lay the materials he had collected so far, scattered in disorder.

Clippings about the Gennen suppression, the Gigantes terror attack, and every case Maximilian Ebenholtz had handled.

Johann had actually been studying Maximilian.

When Maximilian saved Aran commoners’ lives right after the Gigantes terror by saying, “This is not something commoners should be held responsible for,” Johann had been deeply moved by his intent.

But the speech he heard from him directly at the podium today had felt too ordinary and stale, so all his expectations had turned into anger for a moment.

Stupidly, he had lost his reason.

And yet.

‘I agree very strongly.’

In front of a huge audience, Maximilian had agreed with his words.

‘The duty of a true noble. The attitude a noble must uphold...’

Everything Maximilian said had been close to Johann’s own beliefs.

‘So someday, not me, but all the nobles and bourgeois of the Empire will finally realize it.’

Maximilian had not been fake after all.

Among the rotten fakes he had searched through for so long, a brilliant genuine one.

‘That the privilege they enjoy is the weight of responsibility they must willingly bear for countless Aran people.’

When he heard those words, Johann had felt like he was dreaming for a moment.

Was this moment the continuation of that dream?

Incredibly, Maximilian had reached out to him first.

He picked up a fountain pen. He gazed at a blank sheet for a long moment, then pressed down the nib.

[ On Nobility ]

He started writing whatever came to mind.

[...Nobility should?]

He still did not know what or how to write.

Should he write a novel, or an essay.

[About nobility.]

[What a noble is...]

He got stuck from the first sentence. Phrases rose too densely.

Countless words collided and fused in his head.

All kinds of ornate rhetoric tried to swell up, but that was not noble. Nobility did not show off. Even standing still, its class and the weight it carried had to be visible.

[On what is most beautiful.]

[The precious values that must be protected in the Empire.]

[For Aran, by Aran, of Aran...]

He kept crumpling, tearing, and throwing away innocent sheets, then suddenly.

“...The nobles of the Empire bear duty.”

As the words that man had spoken in that lecture rewound in his head, one phrase assembled itself.

Only one sentence, but the introduction to the most important book.

The single proposition that would pierce through everything he would write from now on.

[The nobles of the Empire bear duty. In ancient Aran language, this is called Noblesse Oblige...]

Sentinel Order.

One day out of nowhere, Hanna knocked on my office door.

“...I would like to ask for your review.”

She looked miserable. Her eye sockets had sunk in and her lips were dry. It looked like she had studied activated residue far too hard.

“...”

I took the stack of documents she held out.

Rustle. Rustle.

From the first page to the last page. The logic of reverse-tracking mana flow, and insight that dug into a culprit’s mind through the colors of residue.

“Hmm.”

By my standard, to be exact, by the virus’s standard, she was still immature, but her direction was right.

If she kept working like this, she would build her skills well enough.

Honestly, she was much better than I had been when I had no help from the virus.

Thud.

I closed the report and handed it back.

“Good work. Keep improving.”

Hanna let out a long breath and tucked the report under her arm.

“...Thank you.”

She bowed and left.

Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.

Her footsteps were much lighter than when she came in.

As soon as she left, almost like a shift change, Kairon came in.

“Max. Busy?”

More visitors than usual today. Kairon’s expression was heavy, unlike normal.

“No. It is fine.”

“...”

He closed the door, came closer, and gestured out the window with his chin.

“Can we talk for a moment?”

Then he took out a small note and pressed it into my hand.

[We may be under wiretap.]

Wiretap.

Inside this place, as far as I knew, only Yukia could do that.

I nodded. I stood and followed him out.

We crossed the hallway in silence and went up to the rooftop.

Under the wide-open sky, the whole Order spread out in one view.

“Hoo...”

Kairon leaned on the railing and put a cigar in his mouth.

“You should use the rooftop often if you can. Even His Majesty cannot hear the wind up here.”

He said it like a joke, but the truth in it had weight.

The Emperor’s ears were planted all over the Order.

“Max.”

Kairon exhaled a long stream of smoke and spoke.

“I have an informant.”

Today he looked strangely arrogant. His face said he had a huge gift for me.

“The scale and depth are probably far greater than you think. So...”

He leaned on the railing and whispered.

“Among your staff who enter the Order, there is a Revolutionary Faction pawn.”

I did not change expression.

He meant Yukia.

The scenario was easy to predict.

That day when I almost got hit by the truck, Yukia had refused the Revolutionary Faction’s order. As the price, the Revolutionary Faction, likely Izenheim, had decided to cut her off.

A spy who betrayed even once could no longer be trusted.

“...Is that so.”

“You look like you did not know either. Well, it is darkest under the lamp.”

Kairon nodded, looking satisfied with my reaction.

“I have not heard the details yet. You should meet the informant directly and hear the explanation.”

He handed me one more note. Time and place were written on it.

A quiet fishing spot on the outskirts of the Empire.

“Go hear it.”

Kairon’s way of running his intelligence network was quite sophisticated.

He did not insist on knowing every detail himself. Information only needed to reach the right person at the right moment.

So most of Kairon’s informants moved without knowing who they were working for, and Kairon only controlled the flow of that cell structure.

“Yes. Thank you.”