Semi-Coercive Imperialist-Chapter 131: The Face of the Empire (4)
The Imperial Royal Guard.
They were fundamentally different from knights. They existed solely to protect the Emperor, or more precisely, the power of the central authority. Put simply, they were no different from the Imperial Palace's private soldiers.
The knight orders and the Imperial Royal Guard. Both groups symbolized the Empire's traditions, its military strength, and its distinctive ethos of iron discipline, but as was always the case, the two did not get along. Much like how the regular army and royal guard despised each other.......
Gale watched them and asked Hannah.
"Hannah. Are you alright?"
Hannah drew her sword.
"Yes. The painkillers are finally kicking in."
It might have been adrenaline. Every time she channeled mana, a twisting agony tore through her insides, but she had no luxury to whine about it.
Sssshhhh──
The ship had already set sail. No, the shore was already far behind them. On the deck. On a sea with nowhere to run, the two faced the Imperial Royal Guard.
─Lower your weapons.
A guardsman spoke. The voice coming from behind the visor was rigid as a machine. Gale and Hannah studied them closely, gauging their strength.
“They came prepared to face knights.”
A serpentine smile spread across Gale's lips.
There were eight guardsmen. But the composition was aggressively stacked. Three Decurions, and the one in charge was a Centurion. With the Imperial Royal Guard, rank could be identified by the color of their cloaks and the shape, texture, and purity of their mana stone armor, making it fairly convenient to assess their fighting strength.
A single Centurion alone would be equal to or above a Senior Knight.
Hissss─
The ship continued its relentless course, cutting through the acrid sea, and thick sea fog rose from the water's surface. The glow behind the Guard's visors bled through the mist. They loomed even more like unearthly shapes pressing closer.
"Hannah."
Gale asked without taking his eyes off them.
"In your opinion, do we stand a chance?"
The killing intent pouring from the gaps in the Centurion's visor deepened another shade.
Hannah looked back and forth between them all.
"......."
Her head tingled with a sharp, prickling sensation. The Centurion would be far stronger than any of those she had faced in Volska.
"......A chance."
She murmured quietly. She looked down at her own sword. Her fingers trembled faintly.
─I will not say it again. Lower your weapons.
Gale gestured toward Hannah's sword with a glance.
"......Hannah Usar."
It sounded as if he were trying to persuade her.
Hannah slowly surveyed Gale, the Imperial Royal Guard, and this fog-shrouded place.
Don't trust it.
Don't trust the part of me wondering if I might somehow survive against a Centurion.
Right now, don't even trust Gale standing beside me.
Don't trust anyone, Hannah Usar.
You have no one to lean on.
"─Surely both sides have something at stake here."
As if to buy Hannah time to think, Gale stepped one pace forward.
"Let's talk. Let's make a deal."
─Talk. A deal.
A voice muffled behind a visor. More grotesque than solemn, with no rise or fall in its cadence, it barely sounded human.
"That's right."
Gale turned to look at Hannah from the side.
"Hannah. Tell them what you have."
The evidence she had hidden somewhere in Volska. The rifle components and ledgers stamped with the Gigantes mark.
"......What I have."
At Hannah's words, Gale swallowed hard, as if tense.
Clank. The guardsmen adjusted their grips on their swords and closed in.
Sssshhhh.
The fog hung so thick it seemed she could grasp it in her hands.
The humidity felt as though it had already sunk beneath the sea. Everywhere her eyes could reach, the silence was honed sharp as a blade, the very air whetted to a cutting edge.
"Haah......."
In the grip of a tension so tight that even breathing was difficult.
"What I have is–"
BWAAAAAAANG───!
A tremendous blast of the ship's horn ripped the space apart in a single instant.
Everyone clapped their hands over their ears and turned toward the sound.
"......Guh!"
"Ngh!"
Beyond the fog, another ship appeared.
A vessel that had approached silently, like a ghost ship.
A man stood at its prow.
──Whooooosh.
The hem of an Imperial knight's dress uniform fluttered in the sea wind. His golden hair gleamed cold under the moonlight, and his golden eyes looked down upon them without emotion.
"......."
So quiet, yet a presence that seemed to fill the entire sea.
The most Imperial of men─ Maximilian stood there.
Thud.
He stepped off the prow as casually as stepping off a curb, landing on the deck without bending his knees in the slightest. He glanced around and spoke with flat composure.
"......It seems things have already been mostly resolved."
His gaze happened to fall on Gale. Gale tensed for a moment, but it was needless worry. Maximilian wore a gentle smile instead.
"Well done, Sir Gale."
Gale's eyes wavered. His expression was a tangle of bewilderment and suspicion.
"......What?"
It was Hannah who reacted instead. She stared blankly, her gaze darting between Maximilian and Gale.
Has he come to save me? Or the opposite.......
Maximilian shrugged his shoulders.
"In any case, you know as well, Sir. I was also an investor in Gigantes."
Maximilian had been one of the victims of Gigantes. He had even been hit by the terror attack right after pouring in an enormous sum of money, and received no restitution whatsoever.
"I was effectively the biggest victim. Tens of millions just evaporated into thin air."
Maximilian glared at the Centurion of the Imperial Royal Guard, his brow furrowing.
"Which means I, too, am in a position where my losses must be recovered. The money I lost was quite substantial, after all."
"Wait, right now–"
The instant Hannah tried to speak, the Centurion closed the distance in a flash. A cold blade touched the nape of her neck.
─Do not move.
Hannah bit her lip. She glared at Gale with wide, furious eyes. A look that screamed, Say something, damn it.
Gale met her gaze with indifference and asked Maximilian.
"......You knew everything, then?"
"I found out rather late. I never imagined you harbored such grand ambitions, Sir."
Gale smiled bitterly.
"A commoner without ambition would never even make it to the Sentinel."
He scratched near his eyebrow. The tension seemed to drain from him, and the wrinkles across his face bloomed like flowers.
"Wow......."
Hannah was, frankly, caught between admiration and contempt.
Could it have been a rigged game from the very start? From the moment Gale gave me that mission?
As much as she felt betrayed, she was simply dumbfounded. It felt like someone was frying her skull with a stun gun.
“......At first, it was a coincidence.”
Gale swept back his hair. A dry smile rose to his lips.
"But when coincidences piled on top of each other, it started to feel like heaven-sent fortune."
What does a commoner knight live for? What kind of spirit sustains his life?
Without any hope or vision, he is nothing more than a hollow shell that only earns money.
Wetting his dry, stale mouth with a salary, growing old content to simply complete the work assigned to him, harboring no desire whatsoever, just like every other clerk and functionary.
As a knight, as a human being, unable to hold even the smallest ambition, ground down by reality, sinking deeper into habit,
watching himself like that with self-mockery, falling further and further, until one day.
Gale had 'coincidentally' acquired intelligence during his duties.
─Sir. It seems Gigantes goods are being circulated in Volska.
At first he thought it was just the usual affair of Imperial scrap, secondhand weapons being trafficked, but when he investigated out of idle curiosity, he stumbled upon something significant.
It was thanks to another 'coincidentally' obtained rifle whose serial number had not been fully erased.
A rifle from just before Gigantes was destroyed by the terror attack.
The certainty that some high-ranking figure in the Imperial Palace was selling these for profit.
"Maybe I thought the world, the Empire, needed me."
When those coincidences had piled up, Gale saw it as a revelation, and sensed it was a lifeline.
'──Hannah Usar. This is your mission. Large-scale weapons and illegal mana stone transactions are being attempted in Volska. The buyers are believed to be remnants of Zentra.'
Gale had deployed Leon and Hannah. Leon was the pretext, and Hannah was the bait.
Both had served their purpose well.
Leon returned home by his family's order, and Hannah remained in Volska.
What he hadn't anticipated was Hannah's excessive competence. And her tenacity.
“Fortunately, things worked out well.”
In exchange for burying this Gigantes affair, for wrapping it up in a prettier package, and for handing over Hannah...... Gale had secured a connection to Julius.
"......Hah."
Hannah let out a hollow laugh. The blade was still against her neck, but she couldn't feel it; the top of her head was burning that hot.
"What are you looking at me like that for? You should've known when to stop. If you'd just listened, this would've ended with a dismissal. But no, you had to act like someone desperate to get her head chopped off."
Gale brushed the dust clinging to his body and smirked. Before anyone noticed, the briny stench of the sea had settled on his lips.
"I'll leave her handling to you, Maximilian."
"Yes. Let's discuss the details later, with him."
"......Haha. You mean Lord Julius? Fine by me."
Gale rested his hand on Maximilian's shoulder with a light pat.
"Ah, and take good care of that Centurion, too. He's one of Lord Julius's people."
Maximilian silently raised an eyebrow.
He walked over and stopped before Hannah.
“......Is this the Empire you speak of?”
Hannah muttered, glaring at Maximilian.
"Selling out your subordinates, colluding with the filth who smuggle Imperial weapons to terrorists. Is this the true face of the Empire you seek to protect?"
"What if I said it was?"
Maximilian asked back, unfazed.
"If this is the true face of the Empire that you don't know, what would you do?"
"No."
Hannah shook her head firmly. Her damp hair swayed with the motion.
"The Empire I know is not like this."
"This is done for the sake of the Empire."
“Absolutely not! This kind of filthy shit-”
"No. Think more carefully. Taking Gigantes's cheap goods, selling them at a higher price, siphoning money from terrorists to fill the national treasury. Have you never considered that?"
"Cut the bullshit! Empire's citizens are bleeding because of those weapons!"
Hannah screamed. The swell of the sea amplified her cry like an echo.
Maximilian narrowed his eyes as if disappointed.
“......Hannah. You remind me of the one who lost his head beside you.”
Jacob.
He had been identified as a Subspecies and deserved to die. Hannah had accepted that, but the Maximilian she faced now was an even bigger asshole than that Subspecies had been.
"Yes. Go ahead and kill me too. I'm not a Subspecies, though. So fuck you."
"......."
He stepped one pace closer.
"Hannah Usar. I'll ask you once more. What is the Empire, to you?"
Hannah looked up at him with her jaw clenched. Seething, she spat out the words in ragged fragments.
"......Strength."
"Strength?"
"The strength to protect Imperial Subjects. The strength to maintain order. A nation that possesses the strength to unite its people and shield us from the chaos beyond our borders. That is the Empire."
"Yes. And you are the one disrupting that order."
"Bullshit."
She nearly spat at him but stopped. She'd probably get her throat slit if she did. The Centurion's blade was right there, literally in front of her windpipe.
"The Empire's hierarchy, the tiers of status, do not exist merely for the sake of oppression."
"Oh? Are you denying the class system, then?"
Maximilian tilted his head with apparent interest, and Gale laughed out loud.
"No. I do not deny it, for it is the natural order of the Empire. However!"
Hannah stared at Maximilian with bloodshot eyes.
"The reason we commoners willingly endure that oppression is because we believe that those above us will use their power to protect us from threats beyond our borders."
"Yes. You are a commoner. And as a commoner, shouldn't you be willing to do anything for the Empire? To lay down your life–"
"That's exactly why, for the Empire's sake!"
She cut Maximilian off with a roar. A thin line of blood trickled down her neck.
"This is not something done for the Empire! Selling weapons made by Gigantes to terrorists, killing Imperial Subjects with them, how is that for the Empire?! It's just these fuckers greasing their own fat bellies, that's all this fucking shit is!"
Her ragged breathing swirled over the deck.
Maximilian stared intently into her fierce eyes.
"Hopeless."
Truly.......
He turned to Gale with a hollow laugh.
"What do you think?"
Gale nodded as if disgusted.
"Hopeless, if you ask me."
"Yes. Then."
Maximilian gestured to the Centurion.
"Step aside."
─Swing your blade. I will dodge on my own.
Maximilian nodded. Gale watched with amusement, as if savoring the scene, already imagining the rosy future that awaited him.
Shing.
The Ebenholtz long sword– a blade steeped in moonlight was revealed.
Hannah squeezed her eyes shut.
The very next moment.
───.
The sword cleaved the air in silence. The dense fog split white in an instant, and a silver arc cut across the deck.
Thud.
Something dropped.
But no matter how long she waited, there was no pain.
Or maybe I'm already dead? Have I crossed over? Just as the thought came, Hannah slowly opened her eyes.
"......?"
It was a bizarre sight.
Not her face, but Gale's lay fallen on the deck.
─What– Are you insane? What have you–
“From this moment, in the name of Maximilian von Ebenholtz of the Sentinel Knight Order, I declare.”
In the instant the Centurion erupted, Maximilian's firm voice cut across the sea.
"Pursuant to Article 14, Treason, and Article 27 of the Imperial Military Code."
Silver mana rose silently from the Ebenholtz long sword.
"The traitor who framed a comrade for personal gain, fabricated a case involving national industry, and attempted to inflict harm upon the Empire is hereby summarily executed as a criminal caught in the act."
─.......
Even the Imperial Royal Guard flinched in shock, and on this open sea where Hannah still blinked in a daze.
The silver blade, without a single drop of blood on it, slowly shifted its target to the Centurion's throat.
"You, too, deliver this message to your master. For the crime of desecrating the Empire's order and daring to line his own pockets with assets built upon the blood of Imperial Subjects──"
His voice rang clear and sharp across the entire space.
"You're next."
......At that moment, everyone fell silent.
Hannah Usar, the Centurion, the Decurions, the other guardsmen– all simply stood still and watched Maximilian.
"......."
If the guardsmen had resolved to subdue him in earnest, if they had truly intended to kill him, Maximilian might well have been defeated.
The Guard's fighting strength here was that overwhelming.
─This is.......
And yet, they could not bring themselves to raise a blade against him.
They could not even conceive of resistance, could not dare take a single step closer.
Before that eerie stillness, Hannah thought.
Strength.
This is true strength, and transparent power.
Without a shred of hesitation, he had severed a fellow knight's head and lost none of his legitimacy. The name of his house alone held the Imperial Royal Guard in such absolute awe that they could not lift a finger.
A man whom even a Centurion dared not treat carelessly...... the heir of Ebenholtz.
Maximilian, Knight of the Empire.
"Hah!"
Hannah belatedly did what she had to do. She moved her body in a wide arc, shoved the Centurion aside, and leapt to Maximilian's side.
"......Hannah Usar."
Watching her, Maximilian spoke.
"That was the right answer."
A shiver ran down Hannah's spine. Never before had the word 'right answer' sounded so beautiful.
"What you said– that is the true face of the Empire."
She pressed her lips tightly together and nodded.
