The Reluctant Imperialist - Chapter 96

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 96

──────

The Betrayal I Want

Kanillan was collapsing.

The moment the true face of the “corporate asset-backed securities, CDO” so ambitiously designed by the securities firms was exposed, the mirage turned into a living hell. A bomb wrapped by cunningly mixing bonds from sound companies and rotten ones exploded across Kanillan.

Many firms once thought unbeatable crashed, then fell in a chain together with the securities firms.

“…Dayson.”

Inside the executive office of Lekiano Securities.

CEO Moretti scratched his cheek and looked at Dayson. His cheeks were hollow, and today he looked even more like a badger than usual.

“I got through to them. They said they would resell part of the insurance to us.”

“…Really?”

Dayson’s eyes went wide.

“Thank God! As expected, they needed cash too. How much did they ask for? I, I can negotiate. I will do everything I can to-”

“No. It was not about money.”

CEO Moretti slowly turned toward him. His eyes had gone cold.

“It was another condition.”

“…A condition? What?”

“The people responsible for designing and selling this trash derivative product have to pay the proper price…”

Dayson’s face hardened instantly.

“…What?”

“Financial fraud, and market manipulation.”

Moretti set a document on Dayson’s desk.

“Someone has to take responsibility, does he not? That is how the company survives. That was the deal. I am sorry.”

“No, what are you-”

Bang!

The office door flew open before he could say another word. Kanillan investigators in blue uniforms stormed in.

“Dayson Rock. You are under emergency arrest for violating the Act on Aggravated Punishment for Specific Economic Crimes and for fraud.”

“N-no. Let go, let go of me! Let go!”

Dayson thrashed as they dragged him away, and Moretti shook his head with a bitter expression.

“Let go! I said let me go! You beggar bastards worse than dogs…!”

His screams and curses faded down the hallway.

“…”

The office stood empty.

With trembling hands, the CEO picked up his terminal.

“…Yes. It is done.”

“Confirmed.”

A dry voice. A power behind the Empire whose name he still did not know.

“We will cancel part of the insurance contracts. You should be able to put out the immediate fire.”

“Ah, thank you. Thank you very much.”

Moretti kept bowing over and over. It was only enough to let him breathe for the moment, but even that was a blessing.

“Please continue to take care of us-”

Click.

The call ended.

“…Tch.”

Moretti wiped the cold sweat from his face and sank into his chair.

“What a joke.”

After back-calculating and tracing transaction records from other securities firms and banks, this imperial noble’s projected profit came to well over several billion imperial dollars.

Of course, that could shrink or grow in the process of cashing out, but at minimum, he had already claimed the title of “the greatest trade in continental history.”

“…Bastard. Did he see the future or something.”

Still, thanks to him, bankruptcy had been avoided.

The CEO of Lekiano ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath of relief.

……

“Haa…”

Ren stared blankly at her terminal. The completely crushed stock price flashed in her eyes.

[-83.85%]

The dream of getting rich overnight.

The reward she had built with blood and sweat through her mercenary twenties had become this…

“Ha.”

She did not even have enough for her members’ salaries this month, much less anything else. She could not even cover the office rent right now.

Akarius had become an empty shell.

“Customer number 37.”

Right then, her number was called.

This was the new bank, 「Kronen Schatzinsel」. She followed the employee’s guidance into a VIP consultation room.

“Welcome, Commander Ren.”

An expressionless employee greeted her.

“Yes.”

The employee handed her documents first.

“You have been overdue on interest payments for two months.”

“…I have no excuse.”

Her head lowered on its own.

“Also, you invested company capital in CDOs, so the total loss is…”

The numbers the employee read out were impossible to grasp.

Ren answered in a cracked voice.

“I am prepared to be detained and imprisoned.”

Blinded by a moment of greed, she had burned through the mercenary corps’ assets. Even their mercenary contracts had been put up as collateral, so before long Akarius would no longer be hers.

“…Are you alright?”

The employee asked suddenly.

Ren gave a bitter smile.

“Looking back… I despaired too young, and I succeeded too young.”

And when I rebuilt myself and succeeded in Kanillan, I thought I was the protagonist of this world.

“I was arrogant.”

“Yes. You were.”

“But now I finally understand. In front of the world, I was still only a hatchling.”

The employee adjusted his glasses and answered flatly.

“What I asked was not about your state of mind, Commander, but whether the Akarius Mercenary Corps will continue to exist.”

“…Huh?”

“I asked whether your mercenary corps will be alright.”

“Ah…”

Ren’s face burned hot.

“A Kanillan government investigation will begin soon. Embezzlement and breach of trust charges. Civilians in Kanillan have suffered losses almost as severe as the corporations, and they need a scapegoat.”

She was not afraid of being arrested, but she desperately wanted to stop Akarius from being blown apart.

“…If I start blaming anyone after things got this bad, I am an idiot. I will take all responsibility, so please. Please save Akarius.”

Ren bowed politely.

The employee watched her for a moment, then turned over one page of the document.

“If you want, I think we can help you keep management control.”

“…What?”

“And we may also be able to compensate every loss caused by Commander Ren’s owner risk.”

Ren blankly repeated his words in her head.

Loss compensation. Keep management control.

“Is, is that possible?”

“Yes. There is someone who values Akarius’s potential highly and wants to invest. Kronen Schatzinsel serves as a link for investments like that.”

He held out the turned page.

“However, this was the condition that person set for you.”

It was a sentence, not numbers.

[Sincere remorse, and commitment to the mercenary corps]

“…”

“If you accept this offer, that person will become the owner of Akarius, but Ms. Ren will continue as the first commander appointed by that person.”

The employee pushed up his rimless glasses and asked again.

“Can you accept that?”

Ren lowered her head. She thought in silence, but there was nothing to think about. A lifeline had dropped from the sky just when it seemed to be collapsing.

“…How could I refuse.”

She felt she might burst into tears, so she could not say anything more.

* * *

One morning.

A thick stack of manuscript pages was delivered to my estate. For me, it was a rather troublesome amount of reading.

The title was 「Baltaras」.

The author was Johann Georg Goetze.

It was a heroic epic where the protagonist, Paul, meets an exalted aristocratic being called Baltaras and leads the Empire and the world into glory.

The problem was that its tone was too religious, and above all, the depiction of “Baltaras” pointed at me far too openly.

Blond hair, golden eyes, a cold rational mind, and a swordsman with a longsword. No matter how you looked at it, that was Maximilian.

Johann had written this novel before regression too. Back then, the protagonist still had not met Baltaras, the Imperial Guard presented that unfinished novel to the Emperor, and the Emperor took Baltaras as himself and selected Johann.

In this life, Johann had found Baltaras.

Johann’s Baltaras was me, not the Emperor.

“…Hmm.”

I invited that Johann to my estate.

“…”

Johann entered the study with a face full of tension.

“Who do you think Baltaras might be?”

He asked carefully, watching my expression.

His shining eyes alone seemed to say, it is you.

“Johann.”

“You can speak casually to me. Please, be comfortable.”

“…Alright, Johann.”

I set the manuscript down on the table.

“I think the first rule of fiction is that it has to be interesting.”

“Interesting… you mean?”

“Yes.”

Johann had talent.

Before regression, he spent his literary talent only on imperial propaganda. Yet after the Empire fell, it finally bloomed while he was in prison as a war criminal.

His prison novels 「The Setting Sun」 and 「Dawnlight」 were both rated very highly by the New Cabinet.

“Set literary value and lofty philosophy aside. In the end, a story only means something if people read it.”

For a class-1 war criminal, Johann was executed rather late, and this literature was why.

He had a novel in progress at the time, and the New Cabinet deliberately waited for him to finish it.

Even though he was the Emperor’s closest aide and one of the chief architects of genocide, he still received that consideration.

“This reads less like a novel and more like… yes, a religious liturgy. The worship is so excessive it becomes off-putting.”

I flipped through pages of 「Baltaras」.

[It is proper for nobles to bear fitting duty. In ancient Aran language, this is called Noblesse Oblige.]

A clean and simple opening.

“I like the first sentence. But if your goal is to remind nobles of noble duty and sound an alarm to the bourgeoisie.”

I looked straight at Johann.

“In the end, it has to sell well and earn high praise. It has to be widely read, so it can become an idea, then common sense.”

A sufficiently well-written novel can stand as evidence nearly equal to a specialist text.

“Yes. I understand. But my feelings-”

“Think about the reader more than your feelings.”

Talent is like fire. Sometimes it burns where it wants. It is not easy to hold tightly.

Still, I had no intention of tolerating their self-indulgence.

They could revere me, they could praise me, but beneath it all there had to be fear and dread.

“Writing is judged only by writing. No one cares about your feelings.”

“…Yes.”

Johann nodded quietly.

“Good. But that manuscript is not the only reason I called you.”

I set it aside and put down different papers instead. They were essays Johann had written in his student days.

“Your ideas were excellent.”

“Ah… thank you!”

Johann’s face lit up in an instant.

“First, explain this concept of withholding tax in detail.”

“Yes. I developed it from something I once saw vaguely described in an academic journal…”

At that moment, Johann’s eyes changed completely.

That sharp gaze I had only seen from afar in the past came back to life.

“Of course the Empire needs taxes. But they must be used only for Aran people, and they must not become pain for Aran people.”

His voice carried conviction.

“To do that, taxes for those three sectors, medical care, pensions, and unemployment, should be withheld at source before workers receive their pay envelopes.”

“Then it stops being painful?”

“…Sir Knight, I once gave chocolate to children.”

There was a strange force in Johann’s words.

“If you give a child one whole chocolate, then take away the last third after he has eaten two-thirds, he cries. Because he thinks something that was his has been taken.”

Was his talent affecting me too.

I found myself focusing without realizing it.

“But if you give only two-thirds from the start and say this is your share, the child accepts it gratefully. Because that remaining third was never his to begin with.”

It was content the New Cabinet had already analyzed in detail, but I listened in silence.

“In essence, this begins with perception of ownership. The pain of having my thing taken away. Withholding at source numbs that pain, because it makes people think it was never theirs in the first place.”

The ability to dig into mass psychology and steer it toward the state.

“But there is one more thing I want to recommend to you, Sir Knight.”

“…To me only?”

“Yes. Establish a labor union and collect dues. You run many businesses, and you are more faithful than anyone, so there seems no need to leave control to the Empire. Under your name, you should build a labor union for Aran people and bind them together.”

If Dieter handled numbers efficiently and maximized profit,

Johann dug into how those numbers affected people’s minds.

That meant he was outstanding.

“Johann. At this Emperor’s National Support Council session, I want to propose your policy.”

The Emperor’s National Support Council.

A chance this spring to draft new laws, in other words, a chance to change the Empire.

Johann’s expression went blank when he heard that.

“…What?”

“But tax policy is an extremely sensitive matter.”

I handed him a blank sheet.

“I want to leave the script to you.”

A genius of propaganda. The pen that once fused the Empire together with devilish prose.

In this life, I intended to use his abilities myself.

* * *

…Dark night.

Yukia stood leaning against the window frame in her quarters. A cold wind blew in, but the agony burning inside her did not cool. It boiled harder, like wildfire.

That day.

Inside the car with only the two of them. On the road.

At the moment the truck charged in.

She had turned the wheel and saved Maximilian.

She had refused the Revolutionary Faction’s order.

Was it a mistake.

Should I have killed him then.

She let out a sigh and lowered her head.

Not someone insignificant.

That one line from Maximilian, that she was not insignificant, had made her miss a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

And that kind of moment might never come again.

“Haa…”

A flutter.

Suddenly, a bird cut through the darkness and flew in. A ghostlike flight so silent that even the wingbeats could not be heard.

“…An owl?”

It was not the owl from last time. The creature settled on the window frame and stared at Yukia with yellow eyes. A small paper note was tied to its ankle.

Yukia removed the note.

[ ◆◇◆◆◇◇◆◇…… ]

She decoded it in her head.

[ The last Friday of April. ]

[ If you have not betrayed us, come to this place. ]

She stared at those lines for a long moment.

……

A fishing spot wrapped in thick dawn mist.

I sat in a chair, watching the float on the water.

“…Confirmed.”

At some point, Kairon’s informant approached.

He reported in an excited voice.