Chapter 237

Semi-Coercive Imperialist

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In the Empire, how great was the standing of Maximilian, a Sentinel knight?

The question itself was wrong.

What should be asked was how far the name Ebenholtz, and the capital behind it, had spread through the Empire.

It began in southern Hermes.

Before Maximilian drilled into the mana stone vein, there had been more than seventy small mining operators in the south.

Four years later, how many remained?

Six.

And all six effectively flew Maximilian's flag.

Yet there had been almost no bloodshed in the Hermes Massacre.

Maximilian's method was always the same.

One day, one of his employees would arrive with a single ledger in hand. It listed the other company's output, debts, clients, even defects in its mine shafts, with greater accuracy than the owner himself knew.

Then came an offer above market price.

The former head of a mana stone company interviewed by this paper recalled it this way.

"......They told me it was their first and last offer. The moment I saw the name written on the contract, I understood. If I refused, not one cart of my company's mana stones would leave the south."

It was not an empty threat. Freight companies under Maximilian's control had already seized southern mana stone distribution.

Maximilian's mana stones were shipped out at bargain prices, while those of his competitors rotted in warehouses.

Those who tried to hold out could not sell at even half the market price, and eventually came knocking on his door of their own accord.

The second offer received by those who rejected the first was always worse.

Maximilian's side has denied any involvement in the case of a real estate developer who attempted to stake out land in the mining region and was found dead three days later.

This paper could not uncover evidence of a connection either. Still, it should be noted that after that incident, the practice of staking out land in the south itself vanished.

Then was Maximilian a tyrant?

This was where the portrait of the man became strange.

Maximilian did not pursue excessive profits. In fact, the opposite was true.

After he took control of the south, mana stone prices fell by half, while quality became consistent.

Even the southern slums now used mana stone heaters in winter. Miners earned the highest wages in the industry, and mine accidents dropped dramatically.

Everyone who had met the nobleman Maximilian across a negotiating table said the same thing. He did not shout. He did not threaten. He simply spoke numbers in a quiet, low voice.

Once, Maximilian reportedly said this.

Its authenticity could not be confirmed, but every mining operator in the south claimed to have heard the sentence.

"Competition is wasteful. I was taught that waste is a sin."

Where did the capital he did not waste flow?

Beyond mana stones, it expanded into commerce, finance, and logistics.

This paper paid particular attention to his actions before and after the Imperial Citizens Act took effect.

One after another, he purchased prime companies owned by ethnic minorities and foreigners. A former business owner, speaking on condition of anonymity, confided the following.

"Yes...... I sold my company to him. It was just before the law took effect. He paid a fair price and gave me a way to receive what it was worth."

The source strongly refused to reveal their name, but unexpectedly had words of gratitude for Maximilian.

"Looking back, it was the right decision. If not for him, I would have lost not only my property, but my life. If anything...... I'm grateful."

A man who purchased companies at fair prices just before the Imperial Guard confiscated them.

Was he a savior, or simply a liquidator who moved half a step faster than everyone else?

No, was confiscation itself ever just?

Recently, a painter created a picture.

An octopus lay stretched across a map of the Empire. One tentacle wrapped around mines, another banks, another railroads, another newspapers, and its face wore the gentle smile of a saint.

The painter withdrew the work voluntarily the next day. No reason was given.

Yet viewed from the other direction, perhaps the story that Maximilian alone built all these businesses was itself nothing but a myth.

In truth, perhaps all he had done was happen to locate a single vein, and the prosperity that followed had been built upon the skill and labor of the others he absorbed.

The Empire's revival might be the same, perhaps a tower built upon the sacrifices of those left hidden in shadow.

Maximilian's success instead taught us this.

No person, and no nation, could stand upright alone.

◆ Jemion Daily

Alphonse von Stauffen

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"......Oh, for God's sake."

Celine Dubois let out a hollow laugh as she read the draft article.

Thud.

She put down her pen. Took off her glasses. Then, without them, she looked at Alphonse standing stiffly across from her.

"Reporter Alphonse. Do you honestly think this can go to print?"

"Why can't it? It's all facts. And read it however you want, doesn't it sound like it's praising Maximilian's success?"

"Are you insane? Get this out of here."

"Then how about this one?"

Alphonse held out another article.

The headline alone was something to behold.

「House Valerian Defies Maximilian, Faces Annihilation.」

"......"

The Valerian family. A distinguished house that had exercised considerable power in the Empire's judicial world.

They had produced more than a few dozen judges, once risen as high as ministerial office, and there was even a time when the Valerian seal appeared on half the Empire's indictments.

"Ugh......"

Now the Valerian family stood on the brink of ruin.

The charges were as follows: During the Alchemia incident, they pressured the terrorist Nico Beber with violence during interrogation, forced a confession from him, treated his legitimate self-help as a crime, and attempted judicial murder.

"Take Maximilian's name out of it entirely."

Treating a terrorist as a terrorist had become a crime.

It made no sense even written out in a sentence, but that was how the Empire worked now.

Nico Beber had become a national hero, and the legal professionals who prosecuted him had become people who insulted the order of the Aran.

"The reporting guidelines are summer resorts and vacation spots now."

At Celine's rejection, Alphonse pushed out his lips in a deep sulk.

"What? Why summer vacations all of a sudden?"

"The situation changed."

"......Editor-in-chief. Are we even the press?"

"Then quit."

Celine waved him away without another word. Alphonse left muttering curses, while she picked up a pamphlet lying on her desk.

「A Paradise on the Sea: Titan」

Then.

Bang!

Someone burst through the door as if intending to break it down and shouted.

"Editor-in-chief! The Titan has sunk!"

* * *

Disembarkation began.

I inspected the passengers stepping down through the gangway one by one. Of the 3,100 passengers, only 1,500 had survived.

Most of the dead were likely Izenheim, but there were surely people among them who were not Izenheim as well.

"The crew is coming down."

The crew descended in turn. Led by first mate Rusen came the second and third mates, the boatswain, the helmsman, and more. They had carried out their duties to the very end, even aboard a ship that was falling apart.

I was glad they had survived.

"You've all worked hard."

Hiding my deception, I offered them my hand.

There were certainly people among them who had cooperated with the Revolutionary Faction to help ethnic minorities escape, or who had broken Imperial law.

There might even be Revolutionary Faction members themselves.

I decided to overlook it today. They deserved forgiveness.

"Thank you."

I clasped the hands of several sailors.

The passengers continued to disembark. They carefully held out family registers soaked through and tattered by water. Many had lost their family registers entirely.

"They are damaged too badly to appraise."

Before the regression, during the Continental War, there had been mad war criminals who used unclear documents like these as an excuse to shoot civilians and pad their records.

"Still, I heard that the appraisal was already completed aboard the ship."

The identity Eli Zella was an illusion. Yet without anyone noticing, his name would slip into the Appraisers Association and remain as one of the people who had always existed.

The power held by Maximilian had grown to that extent before anyone realized it.

"I'll attach my signature, so please have new family registers issued at an Imperial government office later."

Of course, some of them would never return to the Empire.

They would want to roam freer lands and live freer days.

"Please take a package."

My attendants handed the surviving passengers bags containing consolation money, food, and clothing.

I watched their backs as they left, as a knight of the Empire and as the criminal who had ruined them and threatened their lives.

"......Sir Knight."

The captain came to stand beside me. He nodded toward the backs of a Mer couple and their child walking away in the distance.

"That Mer businessman was on the surveillance list. We spoke with the Imperial Guard further, and it seems certain that they sold off their estate and fled."

They had probably sold their property to escape the Imperial Guard's harassment.

Yet now they had nothing in their hands but one child.

That meant their entire fortune had sunk into the sea, and they had barely managed to save their own bodies.

"Are there any other problems? Be honest."

I asked the colonel.

"Ah...... Actually, an Imperial Guard brigadier general seems especially fixated on the woman. He is on his way here now......"

A smile spread across my lips.

Sometimes there were lunatics like that.

"What's his name?"

"Brigadier General Oscar Goettner."

He was a notorious war criminal before the regression.

So there was one more bastard who would have to die at the gallows someday, by trial or by whatever means it took.

"Tell him my name."

The colonel seemed to understand my meaning and nodded.

"Yes, understood."

The inspections continued.

"Next."

A passenger held out a family register. The register itself was genuine.

But the virus at my collarbone throbbed. The family register honestly identified the passenger as Izenheim.

"Hm."

Cases like this could only make me smile bitterly.

Unfortunately, being Izenheim alone was not yet enough justification for execution.

Still, a crime only had to be created somehow. The passenger had clearly boarded the Titan to flee, and under Imperial law, I had barred Izenheim from leaving the Empire in my house's name.

It meant I could put the passenger on trial and hang them.

"......"

I gave the marines beside me a look. They pulled the Izenheim passenger out of line.

As I filtered through hundreds of people that way.

Thump.

My heart beat hard.

One person.

They had disguised themself again, this time as an old person with a deeply wrinkled face, but they could not deceive my senses.

Thump.

Victor Heim entered my sight.

......

After a long business trip, I returned to Sentinel Order headquarters.

Three stone buildings had already been completed on one side of the grounds. As the Order's authority expanded, so did its territory.

"Ah, Sir Knight Maximilian!"

Hanna, who had been looking around the new buildings, came over with a bright smile and began chattering.

"You're back. Did you hear? Every floor of the newly completed building has interrogation rooms, and the basement will be used as an evidence storage room. There will be a special investigations office, a joint situation room where knights can conduct cooperative investigations, and finally a separate forensic lab. Private facilities exclusively for knight departments are supposed to be assigned too. I've already applied for space for the administrative staff, though I don't know how it will turn out. I hope we get a somewhat larger room. That way the staff can be comfortable. Honestly, I've hired too many people lately. Um, it's not a waste of the budget. I made the exam questions extremely difficult myself and tried to select people carefully, but there were so many exceptional candidates I just couldn't bring myself to turn away......"

Chatter, chatter. Chatter, chatter. Like a chick.

I put a hand on Hanna's shoulder.

"Watch out for bugs."

"Pardon? Ah, yes. And Sir Knight, I've sent over the final statement containing Mr. Nico Beber's testimony."

"All right. Good work."

Returning to my office, I spread out a list of names on the desk.

A total of 137 Izenheim had survived aboard the Titan.

That was a lot.

There had likely been over a thousand Izenheim aboard that ship.

"......"

But I still did not know why they had boarded that ship together.

There was surely a very important reason. Whether it concerned their habits, their nature, or something else, it had to be connected to that.

"......Hmm."

I picked up Nico Beber's statement, which lay at one corner of my desk.

As I skimmed through it, one passage caught my eye.

[......One of them suddenly picked up a stone and beat a member of their own kind to death.]

It was a fairly chilling ritual. They had performed such a rite in Alchemia's basement.

"Beat them to death with a stone......"

A thought suddenly crossed my mind.

No traces of mana had been found on the stele I recovered from Alchemia's basement, but my virus had clearly sensed some kind of agitation from it.

"......Blood."

What if the cause was Izenheim blood, or life force?

Were they trying to offer their own lives, or the lives of their own people, as sacrifices to open the Dimension Gate Edmund spoke of before the regression?

Knock, knock.

The knock interrupted my thoughts.

"Come in."

The visitor was Kairon.

"Max. What happened with the Titan?"

He immediately asked about the Titan. It was one of the year's biggest disasters, after all.

I lowered my voice gravely.

"The investigation is still ongoing, but we found quite a number of passengers at the scene whose identities could not be confirmed. There were also many survivors with unclear identities."

"Then?"

Kairon's expression turned serious as well, as though he sensed something was wrong.

"Personally, I suspect terrorism."

Kairon's face hardened.

"For now, it is a matter that must be kept quiet."

"Yes. The Imperial Palace also wants it dealt with quietly. The chief secretary's younger sibling is involved, after all. If it really was terrorism, do you have a suspect in mind?"

I fell silent for a moment.

The real culprit was the person standing before him.

"One."

To tie up this tragedy more perfectly, for everyone who had been sacrificed.

I needed to create a criminal better than the real culprit.

"Victor Heim."

The race known as Izenheim.

* * *

Elsewhere, on a beach at a southern Hailand resort.

Halbert Goring lay on a sunbed, proudly displaying his chest hair as he snorted.

"......Good grief! This is unbelievable!"

News had reached the papers that quite a few rats trying to flee the Empire had hidden aboard the Titan, and that the sinking might even have been caused by terrorism from one of them.

"Those damn bastards! How dare they ruin my vacation like this!"

Beside him, Nils lazily yawned and slightly lifted his sunglasses.

"What's wrong?"

"They say terrorism is highly likely! I knew a ship that big couldn't sink so easily!"

Still unable to calm down, Halbert abruptly sat upright.

At that moment, a shabby child carrying a basket approached them.

"Drinks for sale! Cold drinks!"

"Hey! Hey! You!"

Halbert suddenly called the child over. The child flinched, shoulders curling in, and approached.

"Y-yes......?"

"You! Where did you learn the Imperial language?!"

"What? Um, Imperial people visit here quite often, so...... just from hearing it around......"

"How much are the drinks?!"

"T-two dollars......"

"Why are they so expensive?"

Halbert started to take bills from his wallet, then paused.

He carefully studied the child's features and furrowed his brow.

"......Are you Mer?"

The child's face went pale. Apparently expecting the hatred of an Imperial noble, the child answered in a shrinking voice.

"One dollar...... One dollar is fine......"

"No, didn't you hear me? I asked if you're Mer. I'm an Imperial noble. Don't even think about lying. Answer honestly."

Nils's gaze rested on Halbert for a moment.

The child clenched trembling hands tightly and barely managed to speak.

"......Yes, I am."

"......"

Halbert stared at the child, then took five one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and tossed them into the child's basket.

"Give me everything you have, then get out of here."

"......W-what? Yes?!"

The child's eyes widened like a sparrow's. It was enough money to feed the child's mother and younger sibling not just today, but through this week, even next week.

Halbert waved a hand at the child standing there blankly and barked.

"What are you doing? Get going, you idiot!"

"Y-yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank you!"

The child hurriedly set down everything from the basket, then ran away swinging both arms with obvious excitement.

"Tch."

Halbert clicked his tongue at the child's retreating back. The expression that had almost looked like a smile quickly disappeared.

"......Want a drink?"

He picked up a bottled drink scattered among the sand and handed it to Nils.

Nils let out a disbelieving laugh, but still.

"Sure. I was thirsty anyway."

He took a bottle and drank.

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