Semi-Coercive Imperialist

Sentinel…… (3)

At dawn, the stars hung faintly in the sky.

I looked at Cliff in front of me.

“……”

“……”

A man ten years older than me knelt in silence, staying like that for a long time.

Honestly, it was awkward and embarrassing. I even wondered if this really had to go this far. Or maybe my tolerance for collar-grabbing in this class-bound world had just gotten too low.

“I’m sorry.”

That was Cliff’s first heavy word.

I set my pen down.

“I was stupid.”

I looked down at him for a moment, then let out a short, dry laugh. He seemed to take it the wrong way and bowed even deeper.

“I am not asking for forgiveness. I only-”

“It’s fine.”

I stood and walked over to him. I pulled his broad shoulders back up and made him stand. Looking straight into his unsteady eyes, I asked:

“…So, what responsibility will you take?”

As if he had already accepted everything, Cliff nodded heavily.

“Dismissal, whatever it is, I’ll take it. If you want my life, then take it.”

“……”

What a brutal answer. Talking about life and death over collar-grabbing. That really was classic hardhead behavior.

Still, I liked this kind of extreme temperament.

“No.”

Cliff had exceptional strength. There were plenty of strong knights, sure, but in raw destructive power, he was one of the very best, even on a battlefield.

“That is not the responsibility I want.”

I shook my head firmly.

“Knight Cliff. Sentinel is Sentinel, in the end.”

His face went blank for a moment.

“So we, and I, will protect you.”

He looked like he could not understand what I was saying. Like he could not grasp why I was trying to pull him back up.

“So you should be shameless too.”

That was the “responsibility” I wanted from my knights.

Absolute authority.

From now on, we stand above the Empire’s law books. To civilians, we become figures of awe. To those who call themselves men of power, we become fear itself.

“As a knight, trust your own authority. When an imperial knight carries out a great cause, what do civilian sacrifices matter?”

In the war coming soon, we will have to cut down hundreds of thousands, no, millions of lives. For one purpose only: victory, and humanity’s survival.

Guilt is not worth using even as dog feed.

“…Above all.”

I walked past him.

“It was not your fault, Knight Cliff. Follow me.”

A private office of mine outside the reach of the Imperial Palace’s eyes and ears.

I led him there.

The next day.

Sentinel’s knights gathered in the external office. Deputy Commander Kairon, Senior Knight Jerome, Tiana, and Cliff himself. Every eye settled on the wide table.

“…You brought all this?”

A dry smile flickered at the corner of Tiana’s mouth.

“Almost all of it.”

A massive collection of machine parts recovered from the scene had been laid out in order. They were the wreckage of the mana condenser in District 14, the one Cliff’s sword strike had reportedly destroyed.

Outer plating scorched black, mana wiring melted beyond recognition, shattered mana stone fragments.

Even tiny screws twisted by the flames had been sorted and arranged. Almost everything from the scene.

Yukia and the operations officers had stayed up all night to catalog it.

“The most important piece is this.”

From the graveyard of fragments, I picked up a lump of metal that was still mostly intact.

“A primer.”

I held it up for everyone to see and said it clearly.

“The ignition piece of a remote detonator. It receives an external signal and triggers an artificial explosion.”

In the silence of the office, I looked over each knight one by one.

Cliff, now composed. Jerome and Tiana, as if this was what they expected. Kairon, wearing a cold, snake-like smile.

“In other words.”

I set the detonator down on the table with a sharp tap.

“Someone planted a trap in District 14, lured Knight Cliff there, and tried to pin the explosion on him.”

“What about the informant who passed the intel to Knight Cliff?”

Tiana asked. I answered briefly.

“He was found dead last night.”

They had moved quickly too.

I had more than enough suspicion about who did it, but without evidence, I could not hold them accountable.

“The ones who dared frame an imperial knight.”

Still, it was only a matter of time. Cutting off the tail does not hide the body.

Those who dared use Sentinel like a game piece would pay the proper price.

“We will find them and crush them.”

Now I had that much power.

* * *

Kents Bertem’s reputation went into free fall.

The publicly released Anton Closed Hearing Transcript gave everyone grounds to reject him, and we launched a full reinvestigation of the Cliff case in cooperation with the Magic Tower.

The forces that had backed Kents panicked. They rushed to cut ties.

“Sir Knight. A reply has come from Minister Aints.”

On an unusually warm spring day in the mansion’s front yard, Schatz approached politely with her report.

I had sent a top-grade mana stone sculpture, carved by a master artisan, to Interior Minister Aints Greifenberg, who had helped Sentinel in this hearing.

“He was very pleased with the Lilac Vita reservation voucher and the gift.”

Aints was not a particularly clean man. He was expensive too.

He did not even look at petty offerings. He only took the big ones.

Then again, there were not many clean people in the Empire’s upper ranks, and that worked in my favor.

No one on this continent could grease palms with more money than I could.

“That’s good.”

I smiled faintly and looked ahead again.

Yaken stood lined up in the yard.

“So. Seven this time?”

“Yes.”

Yukia nodded. They all looked tense, but there were seven in total.

“Woof!”

Leo barked suddenly.

“Right. Eight with you.”

In any case, they were an extremely valuable resource. Like Yukia, they could smell Izenheim.

After searching for so many Yaken, this was all I had gathered.

“Good to meet you all.”

Should I give the group a name?

Arangdan… no, that sounded too harmless.

“From now on, you will work for the Empire, so protect your own honor. The authority and treatment of every Yaken on this continent will depend on you.”

No, it was better for them to stay nameless. These were forces that must never be exposed.

“Yukia. Training is yours. You’re the captain from now on.”

“……”

Yukia nodded.

She tried to stay expressionless, but the slight lift at the corner of her mouth gave her away.

“Everyone starts with physical training. Run.”

“Yes!”

These Yaken had to move fast. They could never collapse from exhaustion. Every one of them was worth more than a fortune, so each had to gain enough strength to protect themselves.

As I watched them, I picked up the documents.

Swindlers, murderers, embezzlers, ideological criminals, predatory lenders, terrorists. Those already executed or awaiting execution. Records of countless criminals sent to the Knight Court.

I picked up my fountain pen.

Among death row inmates, if a “subspecies” had an unclear identity or even slightly suspicious circumstances, I marked them as “Izenheim” without exception.

Step by step, but surely, I was manipulating the continent’s statistics.

Scratch, scratch.

As I scrawled signatures across the papers, my pen suddenly stopped.

I rested my chin on my hand and sank into thought.

“…Step by step.”

Izenheim.

Why did they not wait, step by step?

The discrimination and contempt piled onto Izenheim for centuries across the continent, in truth, was partly something they had brought on themselves.

Even while earning hatred, they dug into the weak links of human society, obsessed over the capital that would raise their race’s influence, and fueled revolutions and civil wars.

If so, why did they not wear the mask of kind neighbors?

Why did they not blend into human society, smile, and wait?

Human greed would eventually rot itself, so quietly waiting until the Empire collapsed would have been far more…

“…The reason they did not.”

Maybe they could not.

Lately, I could not shake this hypothesis flashing through my mind.

Just as I was moving this breathlessly because time was chasing me toward ruin.

Could it be that Izenheim also had some unknown time limit we knew nothing about?

Drrring-!

My knight terminal rang sharply.

[Underground chapel in Central District 18, murder case suspected to be the work of the cross serial killer. Multiple mana residues at the scene. Request activated residue analysis and support.]

Cross Killer.

The serial murders that had gone quiet had suddenly resumed.

* * *

There are people in this world you cannot persuade.

People who can never be on our side.

Not only because of Izenheim or racial extermination. There are people whose beliefs and life paths can never align with the Empire.

Enemies who will forever run parallel to my cause.

“Again, the evidence is faint.”

I arrived at the crime scene. The victim’s chest had been opened in the shape of a cross, and the detective let out deep sighs.

“We still don’t know why the killings, which had gone quiet, suddenly started again…”

From here on, things would likely escalate. The truth was, I already knew who the culprit was. More precisely, I knew the group she belonged to.

They were part of the Revolutionary Faction.

A band of irregulars calling themselves “Outcast.”

“And there’s no common point among the victims, so it looks like completely random killing-”

“No. There is a common point.”

Every Cross Killer victim was a researcher from a secret lab called T24.

On the surface, it posed as an ordinary company. Behind that front, it was a den of human experimentation.

Cross Killer was a former test subject who escaped from there. Her name was Elje.

“Are you serious?! Then-”

“This matter is level-2 classified.”

“…Ah, yes. Understood.”

The detective did not ask another question. He watched my expression and gave me a cautious side glance.

“Then… should we step back?”

The T24 lab was backed by Mason Industries, a giant corporation in the Empire’s west. It was practically a subsidiary.

Yes, Mason Industries.

The bastards who killed Schatz’s father and tried to put her on the execution block too.

Before long, the group called Outcast and the company called Mason Industries would collide.

“Go ahead.”

“Ah, really? Can we report it that way to the station? In, in your name, Knight Maximilian?”

“Yes.”

“Th-thank you!”

How did I know all this in such detail?

Outcast were the handful of mutants who stabbed the Empire’s heart before my regression. Legends who awakened talent from the bottom and overturned the heavens.

Because their story had been adapted into comics and sold as bestsellers across the continent.

I had been a die-hard fan of that comic myself, back when I was a fugitive, but…

“It can’t be helped.”

Now I had to crush them in the bud.

Before they grew any further. Before they became the Empire’s most dangerous enemies.

I had to sever their heads without hesitation.

Because of the villain called Maximilian, that future comic would never be made.

Power in the Empire had many layers: nobles, corporations, the imperial family, knights.

Entangled with one another, they formed constant friction through their relationships.

The head of Mason Industries, one of the Empire’s top corporations, prided himself on standing above even them, and everyone in the Empire thought so too.

“…Then.”

Behind the curtain, wrapped in veils and never showing his face. A magnate who had ruled the Empire’s west for decades from the summit.

Mason Hector spoke in a low voice.

“Did we find the trail?”

Serial killings of researchers. Terror attacks striking labs and factories inside and outside the Empire. After enduring that sabotage, Mason Industries had closely monitored the final victim’s movements and finally found a trace.

“Yes. It was A-19.”

The secretary handed him the documents. Hector’s shadow-dark eyes scanned them.

“The test subject… was alive.”

In the photo was the back of a young woman slipping through a rain-soaked alley. Her face was hidden, but her unique mana signature and movement perfectly matched the test subject.

“But she does not appear to be alone. There are signs of group activity. In the underground city, they seem to have worked as mercenaries and built a degree of reputation.”

“Hm.”

A satisfied murmur escaped Hector.

“The test subject is proving useful, even now.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

At T24, established by Mason Industries with imperial support, those test subjects had grown on Hector’s own money.

Now they had returned and were seeking their homeland. How delightful.

“Deploy Falkenrat and retrieve them. They were our property from the start.”

“…As you command.”

Hector smiled.

At last, he had a gift to present to the Emperor.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-

A hideout somewhere in the underground city. In a place vibrating with club beats, five men and women dreaming of revolution had gathered.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-

Elje stood before a cracked full-length mirror, recalling without expression the face of the researcher whose throat she had crushed with her own hands just moments ago.

People say the world is full of different kinds of people, but right before death, they are fairly predictable. The laughing kind, the crying kind, the calm kind, the stiff kind. About that much.

“Feels filthy…”

This one had been the laughing kind.

A bastard who enjoyed both sadism and masochism. Even in death, he looked like he had been gifted something, and that irritated her for no reason.

“Elje. What are you doing?”

At that moment, Meden, leader of “Outcast,” walked up and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Thinking.”

They were all survivors of T24 human experimentation.

Orphans with no parents, or orphans sold off by their parents. At T24, Mana Engines were forcibly implanted in them, mana fluid made from beast blood and mana stone was injected into them, and mana circuits made of special materials were inserted throughout their spines and muscles.

Countless test subjects had died from side effects, but they survived and escaped that living hell.

“Then tell me what you’re thinking.”

“…I heard Maximilian has taken our case.”

Elje ran a hand through her hair, thinking of that imperial heavyweight.

She had not even seen his face properly yet, but his reputation was no joke. Son of Sebestian, the Empire’s greatest sword.

Sure, they had overcome human experimentation and gained bodies beyond normal humans, along with unnatural mana. But could they compare to knights who had grown through natural means?

Meden gave a short laugh.

“So?”

Elje frowned slightly.

“…Aren’t you scared?”

“Why would I be? We kill him, that’s all.”

Meden stroked Elje’s shoulder.

“I always tell you. We can win.”

At some point, desire and rage had settled in his eyes.

“Maximilian or anyone else, not just those imperial dogs. We can bring down this whole damned country with our own hands.”

Raised in the bottom of society the Empire had thrown away, in its corruption and filth, they had become traitors who hated the Empire more than anyone.

“So.”

Meden held out his hand to Elje.

“For now, let’s dance.”

“…Seriously.”

Elje looked at him like he was absurd, then took his hand.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-

In that place where the club beat pulsed, the two danced together.