WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Reluctant Imperialist

Chapter 97

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The Betrayal I Want (2)

In the mansion library.

“Sir Knight, your appearance is perfect. You are the very image of an Aran.”

My eyes stayed on the manuscript Johann had brought.

“Even the tone of your voice is noble.”

And my ears listened to Johann’s advice.

“So please do not raise your voice on purpose. More than logic, the masses will be captivated by your face and your cadence.”

Suddenly, I remembered speeches from the imperial military before my regression. They always shouted, veins bulging, full of madness.

“Do I need gestures too?”

I waved my clenched fist around. Swish swish. Swish swish.

“No.”

Johann shook his head.

“If someone lacked looks, or lacked an aura, they might need those artificial motions. But not you, Sir Knight.”

Looks.

Maybe that was the only talent Maximilian truly had.

Most of my personal achievements in this life came from the virus and regression, but that one thing was entirely my own.

“Especially compared to military officials, most of whom are... unsightly, no, rough-faced, you stand out sharply.”

I had heard plenty of praise about my looks since childhood.

Of course, I was not some once-in-a-century beauty, not one of the finest men on the continent. Men like that were probably somewhere else.

What Johann called “beauty” was not simple prettiness.

“Shub dor. Jiyu de ryumiere. Tre paeng. Rongbeur.”

Using ancient Aran grammar, he described me.

I let out a dry laugh.

“Golden hair, eyes of light, delicate features, a long elegant shadow?”

That was roughly what it meant.

“Yes, exactly. Have you studied the old language?”

“I have been reading a lot lately.”

Thanks to the virus, everything I read once felt stored in a library inside my memory. I could pull it out anytime and flip through it.

If I had this ability and still stayed away from books, that would be negligence.

“Sir Knight... you are the ideal of Aran.”

A strange light entered Johann’s eyes.

“The ideal...”

I thought about my father, Duke Sebestian.

Sebestian also had the clear traits of an Aran, but his height, easily over two meters, was the issue. His tiger-like chest and frame were enough to call him the strongest on the continent, but there was still a gap between him and the image of Arans described by the ancient Empire.

“Yes. If you simply stand in a high place, the eyes and ears of imperial citizens will gather on you.”

I also thought about the Emperor.

His greatest weakness was his appearance. He was not blond, not golden-eyed, and not tall.

“In you, good and evil coexist. At times you feel like an innocent boy, and at others you carry an abyss no one can look into. That contradiction creates mystery.”

What Johann wanted to tell me was clear: how to maximize my strengths.

“To seize an entire audience, your face truly is, without exaggeration, one bestowed by the god of Aran...”

According to him, I stood out even among other nobles. Bloodline, looks, authority, wealth, rank, ability, character, I lacked nothing, so a more special kind of “qualification” took shape.

So all I had to do was reveal myself naturally, exactly as I was.

......

“If you have a weakness, Sir Knight, it is your gaze and projection.”

I set up a small podium. In front of it stood mannequins as stand-in spectators, and Johann watched my gestures and eye movement from beside me while explaining the right posture.

“Gaze and projection?”

“Yes. You stare at one place too much, so your eye movement feels awkward.”

Johann pointed to the center of the mannequins. In terms of the Emperor's National Support Council, exactly where Sonnet had been sitting.

“Then what should I do?”

“Before saying something important, pause briefly. Stop speaking for a moment and gather the room, then slowly sweep your eyes in a fan shape.”

Flow of gaze, and use of silence.

He continued.

“Even if your gaze only brushes past them, the people below will either feel happy, thinking they made eye contact with you, or afraid.”

“What about projection?”

“Your vocal color is excellent. You carry a noble weight that moves between deep black and cold blue. But...”

Johann paused.

So this was the use of silence he had just mentioned. It made me focus on what he would say next.

“Your clarity is slightly lacking. Your voice tends to stay in your mouth and scatter. Do not tense your throat and squeeze your vocal cords. The more you do that, the thinner your sound gets, and your dignity drops.”

He tapped his stomach, around his lower core.

“Drop your breath deep into your lower abdomen. Keep your diaphragm tight, then push the sound up with that rebound. The sound should not crawl out of your throat. Fire it up from the lower core so it strikes your palate and nasal cavity, then resonates.”

The lower core was familiar ground to me. It was the most important element in every kind of Mana Breathing Method.

“Also, move your lips and tongue more firmly, and bite off your consonants with precision when you speak. That way, even distant listeners will receive your intent clearly.”

Eyes and mouth.

Gaze and voice.

I looked at the mannequins while repeating Johann’s advice in my mind.

Then a sudden sense of discomfort hit me.

“......”

Come to think of it, these were wounds I got from Sebestian.

Whenever I stood before him, my gaze faltered, my throat tightened, and my voice would not come out right.

“Sir Knight. Are you all right? Your expression looks dark.”

Johann called to me carefully. He seemed to feel a strange chill in my silence.

I gave a bitter smile.

If I thought about it again, I was always blaming Sebestian.

I benefited from Sebestian, yet feared Sebestian.

Was I still nothing more than a child trembling under that giant’s shadow?

“...It is nothing.”

Or was I only now finally leaving childhood behind?

* * *

Last Friday of April.

An abandoned factory on the outskirts of Imperial District 39. Cold moonlight slanted in through rusted steel frames.

Drip. Drip.

The sound of falling water struck the ear like a ticking second hand, and Yukia stood alone in the dark.

Step.

Footsteps spread through the silence like fog. A man walked out of the darkness. A contact from the Revolutionary Faction, and an insider from Veil.

Sniff sniff.

Yukia caught his scent first. That same fishy water stench stabbed her nose.

“Why did you reject the directive?”

The masked man asked at once. His voice carried accusation.

“...I thought I could get closer.”

“To gain Maximilian’s trust?”

“...”

Yukia only nodded. The man sneered.

“By showing off your driving skill?”

“I judged that was far more efficient than injuring him right away and running.”

“It was not a chance to injure him. It was a chance to behead him.”

“...Someone was secretly following us from behind.”

Yukia’s sensitive nose had detected it that day.

A sharp mana smell like burning electricity, so acrid it was hard to believe it came from a human.

“Nice excuse. But, Menci.”

The man stepped closer.

“The moment you entered Veil, you gave your body to the revolution. Every directive serves the cause, and you do not refuse it.”

To enter Veil, you had to write a pledge in blood and mana. It was recorded in a register.

“I know.”

“...Good. I am glad you know that.”

The man nodded with a sinister smile.

“It is a fucking oath. I hated things like that.”

“...?”

Sudden rambling, words with no clear meaning. Yukia turned toward the factory entrance.

Another presence was there.

Step.

Footsteps that did not even try to hide.

Yukia’s eyes widened.

Step.

Quietly, a man appeared.

Even Yukia’s sharp senses detected him late. His blond hair shone cold under the moonlight.

“...Did you hear that? This is the clearest proof.”

It was Maximilian.

“......”

Without a word, he looked at the man and took out a small card. The man accepted it.

“I hope we meet again.”

After a brief bow to Maximilian, the man vanished.

......

Silence sank down. The air in the abandoned factory grew heavy as lead.

Yukia stared at the longsword hanging at Maximilian’s back waist.

“......”

He was an imperial knight. There was no way he would spare a seditious revolutionary spy.

Should she run?

No, could she run?

...Impossible.

Yukia just lowered her head and prepared herself.

Step.

He walked toward her.

Each step tightened around her heart.

Step.

Death was coming.

Step.

Suddenly she thought of her father. He had been quiet. He did not leave many words even to his child. Still, his back had always felt warm, and she had been proud of those shoulders, stronger than anyone else’s.

She could not even remember his face or voice now. Was this also a kind of life flashing by?

Step.

My dream was simple: to meet my father again someday and build a cozy life in a small house.

But when my father died, that wish shattered, and the purpose of my life changed.

Only revenge remained.

Step.

His footsteps stopped right in front of her. Yukia did not resist.

She only closed her eyes.

“...Yukia.”

A cold voice fell from above her head.

“Open your eyes.”

She opened them quietly.

“That man just now, did he smell like fishy water too?”

Fishy water smell. The rotten water scent she had just smelled from the man.

She looked up at Maximilian in silence.

“......”

Maximilian said nothing more. He did not interrogate her, did not get angry, did not swing his sword. He only spoke in a flat voice.

“You should not have turned the wheel that day.”

The day the truck charged at them.

If she had not turned the wheel, would he have died?

Would I have lived?

“This is what the Revolutionary Faction is. You should never have trusted them.”

Silence stretched between them.

Dusty wind came through a crack in the broken window and shook their clothes. The knight’s hand moved inside his coat first. Yukia could not even breathe properly.

She was just about to squeeze her eyes shut.

Tap.

Something touched her chest.

Not a sword.

A document envelope.

“Take it.”

Yukia took it. With trembling hands, she checked what was inside.

There was only one sheet. Her own pledge, clear traces of red blood and mana still on it.

「Menci | Yukia」

“The only original copy.”

Maximilian spoke casually.

“So burn it.”

Yukia stared blankly at him.

Maximilian removed an ornament from his chest. A roughly carved wooden necklace.

“...Think of it as your father’s request.”

Yukia looked closely at the marks and cuts on it.

A carving style too familiar, her father’s.

“Yukia Tarik.”

Maximilian called her name.

“Revenge cannot become your conviction. It is only poison that eats you alive. Eric would have wanted you to simply live.”

He left those words and turned away. He did not cut off her head, did not throw her in prison...

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

He moved farther away from her.

Left alone, Yukia stared blankly at his retreating back.

Standing in the dark dust, she repeated his words in her mind.

‘Eric would have wanted you to simply live.’

She raised a trembling hand. In her left hand was the pledge tied to her life, and in her right was the roughly carved wooden necklace.

Slide.

Her fingers traced the necklace surface.

The rough but warm grain of wood her father used to carve through countless sleepless nights.

A familiar warmth touched her. The Yaken texture was still there.

It felt like touching her father’s hand.

* * *

“Will this really be all right?”

On the way back, Schatz asked from the driver’s seat.

“There is no reason to play along with what the Revolutionary Faction wants. Whoever I need, no matter what mistakes they made, should stay by my side.”

“No matter how I think about it, it looked like you just let her go.”

“She will come back. Definitely.”

I was sure. Yukia would return.

In that talk just now, I had used every method Johann described for moving people, and her wiretap device was still in my office.

“Yes. But what about that man? Are we leaving him alive?”

That bastard was Izenheim. The Revolutionary Faction had not given Yukia a second chance. They had only tried to cut off her breathing by selling her out.

At least, that was not how the Revolutionary Faction I knew operated. Naturally, it was Izenheim’s response from inside the Revolutionary Faction.

Because of that...

“Izenheim knows the Yaken are a threat to them.”

I could build that hypothesis.

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. Keep him alive for now and just watch him. Let him live in comfort.”

I would kill him one day.

But now that I had identified him, I planned to observe a little longer, to see how Izenheim, now a traitor to the revolution, would move.

Woof!

A dog barked from the back seat. One of the shepherds Schatz raised with unusual dedication, Shaun.

“That one barks pointlessly too much.”

“Not that much.”

Schatz’s lips stuck out a little.

“It is not your fault, Schatz. Bring him to my estate sometime. He will improve after meeting Leo.”

“Shaun is smart too.”

“I know. He looks smart.”

Shepherds were smart by nature, and that one had come from a premium auction too. He was probably two or three times smarter than an ordinary shepherd.

“I mean compared to Leo. Leo is smarter than most people.”

“I see.”

Schatz looked unconvinced. Or maybe she was overrating her own dog.

Did not matter. Once he came and met Leo, he would know immediately.

“Leo is the king of Aran Shepherds. This one called Shaun will understand too.”

Woof!

Shaun barked again. His bark lacked intelligence. His coat also had serious issues. The fur sticking out in all directions was, compared to Leo, about preschool level.

“Heh.”

I gave a small laugh and leaned back in my seat.

“It will take about an hour. Please rest comfortably.”

Schatz said it, and I quietly closed my eyes.

Beside me was Schatz, growing as properly as Leo did. This was probably the safest place for me.

“All right.”

This kind of calm was not bad.

The world stood on the edge of destruction. No, maybe because it stood on the edge of destruction...

I had to manage my mental state and stress with care.

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