Semi-Coercive Imperialist

Gliding almost as if flying, we crossed the deep sea and reached a street in an outer residential district of Hailand’s capital.

A four-story red-brick apartment building.

A bakery and tobacco shop occupied the first floor, while tenants lived on the second and third. Anyone could come and go without raising suspicion, which was why Hailand’s Intelligence Bureau had chosen it as a safe house.

”......”

”......”

Julian and I exchanged hand signals before infiltrating. To prevent any possible escape, Julian started from the far right, while I took the far left.

...

We moved without making a sound.

Guards disguised as civilians were stationed throughout the building. A cleaner, a milkman, a man smoking on the landing.Slash!

I cut them down in an instant as I moved. Some resisted, but it was over before they could send a signal.

Tap.

I climbed the stairs and reached the fourth floor.

I entered immediately.

The living room was lined with bookshelves. There, I found books related to Critical Stones.

A collection of Imperial Central University papers on mana stone refinement, several letters, hand-copied resonance-core calculation tables, and a bundle of manuscripts being translated into Hailandian. Resting atop them was...

Thump.

An Izenheim resonance.

I closed the book and tucked the letters into my clothes.

Then I moved again.

This mission was a top-secret assassination. Since a knight had infiltrated, I could not leave behind a single trace.

Step.

Faint footsteps.

I spotted Julian entering through the window. We exchanged looks, then opened the door to one of the rooms.

Creeeak.

The door scraped against the floor. There was nothing I could do about sounds from old fixtures like that.

”......Mmm?”

Someone had sharp ears.

”......”

A child woke up and stared at me with bleary eyes.

Perhaps a little over ten years old. Julian’s gaze slid toward me.

Suddenly, I remembered our first mission together.

I had killed a child around that age then, too.

”Who......”

I merely reached out and pressed the child’s neck.

Squeeze.

The child’s eyes widened in pain, but they soon passed out.

”......”

I covered the child with a blanket. Julian looked at me with confusion, and I pointed toward the room farther inside.

I signaled for Julian to wait outside. Julian nodded and took up position beside the door.

Creeeak.

I opened the next door more carefully.

Helmut was asleep at the far end of the master bedroom.

Thump.

Feeling Helmut’s heartbeat reaching me, I sat on the edge of the bed.

Creeeak.

Sink.

The bed sank to one side as its center of gravity shifted.

Helmut opened their eyes with a furrowed brow.

”Good to see you.”

I smiled at Helmut.

Helmut’s eyes widened at once.

”You betrayed the Empire and still sleep so peacefully.”

Helmut tried to rise, then stopped. A dagger rested against the side of their neck.

”......Helmut. I know who you are. I know what you want, too.”

Precisely because Izenheim were Izenheim, their schemes were easy to predict.

”What scientists you have gathered, what you intend to build, and where.”

I prepared the Izenheim language.

”Maybe... you leaked your own information, didn’t you?”

It was a language transmitted not through mana or waves, but through an energy belonging to them alone.

Helmut’s eyes suddenly grew cold.

”If we murdered you, those left behind would remember you, demonize the Empire, and follow your will.”

Izenheim sought humanity’s destruction. To achieve it, the Empire that oppressed them had to disappear. Therefore, an individual was nothing more than a tool.

”You’re an Izenheim lacking in ability.”

There were differences between Izenheim as well.

Coldly put, lower-ranked Izenheim had no use beyond being sacrificed.

If every Izenheim had been a genius, humanity would have been wiped out before it even recognized them.

That was why they obsessed over money and education.

Education was for cultivating high-ranking Izenheim. Money was for passing down the value that remained, even if individuals had to be sacrificed.

”So with your death, you will rally exceptional scientists and carry on your legacy.”

I stared directly at Helmut’s face.

Izenheim. A bizarre, disgusting people who lived by parasitizing humanity, then sought humanity’s destruction with humanity’s own cooperation.

Once, I had feared you. I had been terrified of you.

”Interesting.”

I had decided not to be that way anymore.

”Still, I will make you one promise.”

I would no longer ask your kind anything.

Why you wanted to destroy humanity. Why you hated us.

”I will find that place.”

They would not give me an answer, and even if they did, we would not be able to accept it.

”I will destroy every facility and kill every last one of them.”

I would choose the same method as you now.

Destruction, extermination, collapse. Even if they were innocent minds, if they harmed humanity, I would erase them with my own hands.

”Furthermore, I will tear apart, rip up, and burn every one of your kind...”

Just as your goal was humanity’s destruction.

My long-held wish was your extinction.

”I will clean you out of our continent.”

I had that resolve.

”......”

Helmut’s gaze settled. Their eyes grew very quiet.

”......I did not betray the Empire.”

Even so, Helmut showed no fear. They endured every tremble and did not reveal their true Izenheim form.

Perhaps Helmut was a patient, mid-ranking Izenheim.

”Rather, it is you who seek to betray humanity itself...”

I did not need to hear any more.

I drove the dagger into Helmut’s chest.

”!”

Helmut’s lungs contracted, cutting off their voice. Their breath leaked out like foam.

”Hah... haaah...”

They were exactly like humans in every way.

They died like humans, too.

* * *

”The infiltration is proceeding smoothly.”

At the hideout, Princess Justine received Rainer’s report.

”Countless agents are heading into Yursled...”

They traveled by train, car, and ship, crossing the border river.

They contacted the Yursled nationalists they had identified in advance. There was no need to create fakes. All they had to do was provoke the real ones.

Corpses and uniforms for use near the border had also been prepared.

”Then, in the end, the Aran of our Empire will be sacrificed?”

The Yursled nationalists would kill real Imperial citizens.

At Justine’s question, Rainer hesitated briefly.

”......We can disguise lower bloodlines imprisoned in the Camps in their place...”

”That is fine.”

Justine waved a hand.

”Just proceed.”

”......Yes. But we can adjust it at any time, so please tell me if needed. The operation is flexible.”

”Yes, yes.”

Unlike Maximilian.

Maximilian was not someone who wavered. Once he had decided on something, no matter how often you asked and asked again, he would stress that he could accomplish it.

At first glance, it might look like stubbornness or self-righteousness, but he did not cross the line. Maximilian ultimately stayed within bounds.

That was why he was comfortable to watch.

A knight who did not give their lord unease or fear.

”Yes. Thank you.”

But this one wanted my approval. Drawn by my wishes, Rainer tried to change his own plans.

If this lack of confidence continued, Rainer would be no better than a worthless cur...

”......”

Rainer raised a hand and swept back his hair. A small trace of grease came away on the fingertips, while stray locks stuck out awkwardly.

Something about it displeased me, but it did not matter as long as the work was done well.

Since Rainer’s nature differed from Maximilian’s, Rainer was easier to handle.

”......A definite answer will come from the East soon. We will announce the nonaggression pact to the entire continent and begin the operation at the same time.”

”Yes.”

Rainer bowed deeply.

”As an Aran of the Empire, I will carry it out without error.”

”......”

An overly humble manner, gestures that seemed intended to display only the attractive parts of that face.

The etiquette was somehow stiff. It had been learned well, but the faint awkwardness grated on Justine.

”......Fine. You may leave.”

”Yes.”

Rainer Wolf backed away and left.

”Tsk.”

Justine let out a quiet sigh.

Rainer Wolf was immensely popular in high society. Rumors said he was the public face of the Imperial Guard, and that even the other Imperial Guard members could not hide their admiration when they saw him.

Perhaps my eyes had been fixed on that man for too long.

All I can see in this one are his shortcomings...

* * *

After assassinating Helmut, we stood on the deck of a cruise ship, disguised as passengers on our way back to the Empire.

”Was it because that child was innocent?”

Julian asked why I had not killed the child.

”No. It was because the child was not Izenheim.”

If the child had been Izenheim, I would have stripped away that disguise of childhood.

Leaning against the railing, Julian asked again.

”Can you tell the difference?”

”Yes.”

I answered immediately and placed a hand over my chest.

”My heart tells me.”

Julian wore a blank expression for a moment, but I smiled faintly and nodded toward someone.

”That man over there.”

A middle-aged gentleman smoking at the end of the deck. A gray coat, a neatly trimmed beard, and a wedding ring on his ring finger.

”He is Izenheim.”

My heart pointed to him.

”And that woman over there.”

A woman in her fifties smiling softly behind an open fan.

”She is Izenheim.”

Julian suddenly looked up at the sky.

”......I see.”

He neither verified my words nor doubted them. He simply looked worn down.

Shhhhh.

As I felt the smell and sound of the sea, I spoke over the rolling waves.

”Sir Julian. We will probably return here one day. With slightly more people then.”

Beyond those dark waters.

A far broader stretch of fertile land, lying to the left of Hailand.

”To kill far more people.”

The island of monsters, where countless scientists and soldiers would establish themselves.

”We will make a drop onto it.”

Julian remained silent for a long time as he listened.

”But you knew too, did you not, Sir Julian?”

He was not ignorant of these things. He knew what a Critical Stone was, what Helmut sought, and what would be made with it.

That was why Julian had deliberately brought me along.

He always knew, yet guided me. Even compared to me, a returner, he was half a step ahead.

With a blind man’s eyes, he felt his way toward the right path, all while endlessly agonizing over his own beliefs.

The Empire was his soul, but his convictions were his pain...

”......”

Julian quietly fixed his eyes on the night sky. I stood beside him and looked at the constellation he watched.

”The Big Dipper.”

Julian nodded.

”Many people wrongly believe the Big Dipper is an unchanging constellation.”

Clouds drifted away over the pale water, and seven stars shaped like a dipper hung above the bow.

The lights people had placed on the deck were dimmer than the stars overhead.

”But the Big Dipper changes. Only one star, the one its end points toward, does not change. The Big Dipper is merely a tool for finding it.”

Not the seven stars, but beyond them.

A star touching none of the seven, yet the only one that eternally held its own place.

The North Star.

”Max. You move forward as though you always know the way.”

Julian placed a hand on my shoulder.

”You seize every success as if you had known about it long ago...”

He murmured those words and went down to the cabins.

I watched his retreating back with a strange feeling.

* * *

Helmut was dead. More precisely, Helmut had been assassinated.

The Hailand scientific community erupted.

The culprit was obvious.

Naturally, it had to be the Empire.

But Helmut was an exile who had betrayed the Empire, and in such dangerously tense circumstances, they could not even condemn it publicly. They remained silent, but coalesced in anger and fixed upon a certain purpose.

”This is the paper Helmut left behind.”

At the prime minister’s residence, Arthur Winston placed a stack of documents before someone.

”Proposal on the Applicability of Critical Stone Chain Reactions and the Need for a National-Scale Research System”

”......”

Julian Osborn.

A second-generation Mer born in Hailand. The youngest full member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and a mana scholar who led Hailand’s academic world through mana stone resonance theory.

Arthur appointed him to lead the plan, and he accepted the position.

”I have already read it, but we need far more land to carry it out. Somewhere very isolated, somewhere that can hold many people without drawing the Empire’s attention. It must be large enough to hide an entire city.”

”I know.”

Arthur pointed west through the window.

”The preparations are ready as well.”

Capital and manpower. Izenheim and Mer capital would support them. All the wealth they had accumulated would gather with us so they could survive.

”This is not only for war. It is also for Hailand’s development.”

A bomb of unprecedented mass, created through Critical Stones.

”Come to think of it.”

If they could invent such a weapon, they would not only be able to stop the great evil called the Empire.

”We could burn away the monsters in the unexplored lands in one stroke.”

It meant a national industry capable of raising Hailand’s usable territory to at least twice its current size, perhaps as much as three times.

”So don’t feel any guilt, no matter how much money you spend.”

”......Prime Minister.”

Osborn looked at Arthur Winston.

”Even more than money... we need people.”

The finest scholars on the continent.

Osborn wrote the names of dozens of them onto a blank sheet himself.

* * *

”Hand over every piece of land on the continent where people of Imperial descent make up at least 50 percent!”

Because of the Emperor’s logic, the Empire’s diplomatic relations had become disastrous, while heat worse than any disaster blanketed the capital.

Bzzzzzzzz.

Bzzzzzzzz.

Whenever the windows were opened, it was hard to tell whether the sounds rushing in were sunlight or cicadas.

”Sir Knight.”

An official brought me some news.

”Foreign Minister Steller is going East.”

The foreign minister was personally going to Lobrus.

I knew what that meant.

”The Sentinel has been assigned to escort Minister Steller...”

It was already summer.

Before summer ended, the Empire would seek to begin hostilities.

The continent would enter a new order, and we would kill countless people.

”Minister Steller personally requested Sir Maximilian.”

”......Me?”

”Yes.”

It was a sudden mission.

As a knight, it was naturally a task I could accept.

”......Very well.”

For now, I would watch.

From this point onward, history differed from before my return.

I would move according to how the other nations, and Izenheim, responded to the storm called the Empire.

......

”It has been a while, Sir Maximilian.”

”Yes. It is good to see you, Minister.”

I boarded the transport vessel bound for the East with Foreign Minister Steller. Sentinel agents searched the craft in advance to check for listening devices.

”......I do not think you have been sidelined, Sir Maximilian.”

But before departure, Steller suddenly spoke in a whisper from the seat beside mine.

”They are saving you. Neither His Imperial Majesty nor Her Highness would want to use the Empire’s sharpest sword carelessly.”

I had nothing particular to say, so I only nodded.

Steller shifted their gaze and continued.

”......Actually, Sir Maximilian, the East wanted you as well. They understood that His Majesty could not come, nor could Her Highness, so they asked for Knight Maximilian to be sent in their place.”

I was slightly surprised by Steller’s words. It was internal news even I had not known.

”But Kurt Grossmann and the Imperial Guard turned it down. Those bastards are full of nothing but inferiority complexes... So I slipped you in under the pretext of making you my escort.”

”......I see.”

Then again, Steller was famous for knowing how to align with the right people.

You could call it political skill.

The position of foreign minister was not one that could be won with a game of rock-paper-scissors.

”I wanted to tell you that there is no need for you to feel... wounded in your pride.”

I replied gently.

”Minister Steller. I am simply glad to escort you.”

”Haha. Is that so?”

Steller glanced at my face and smiled.

”I feel reassured to have you with me as well. To receive your escort is such a luxury. I feel as though I am royalty.”

Through the puzzle piece named Steller, I understood the atmosphere within the Imperial Palace.

More people there wanted me than I had thought.

I expected that the more forcefully the Imperial Guard tried to seize control of the disorderly atmosphere, the more others would lean toward me instead.

The name Ebenholtz, which had always stood above them, would be gentler and less insulting to their pride than having a rough group like the Imperial Guard suddenly sit above their heads.

It was a good thing.

”Then, Knight Maximilian, let us go do something that will remain in history!”

As Steller spoke, the transport vessel rose.

Vroooom!

Now, we were heading east.

Perhaps, no.

Certainly.

It was the signal flare of war.