Chapter 237: Goodwill (4)
───────
In the Empire, just how high does the standing of Maximilian, knight of the Sentinel, rise?
The question itself is flawed.
What we ought to be asking is how far the name of the Ebenholtz Family, and more to the point, their capital, has reached into every corner of the Empire.
The starting point was the southern region of Hermes.
Before Maximilian sank his drills into its mana stone veins, the south had more than seventy small-scale mining operations.
Four years on, how many remain?
Six.
And all six, in practical terms, fly beneath Maximilian’s banner.
The miners have a name for those four years. They call them “the Massacre of Hermes”.
Yet the Massacre of Hermes was almost bloodless.
Maximilian’s method was always the same.
One day, one of his men would arrive carrying a single ledger. Inside it were the rival company’s extraction figures, its debts, its trading partners, even the flaws in its mine shafts, recorded more precisely than the owner himself could have managed.
And then a purchase price above market value would be offered.
The former head of one mana stone company, interviewed by this paper, recalled it thus.
“……He said it was the first offer and the last. The moment I saw the name on that contract, I understood. If I refused, not a single cartload of my mana stone would ever leave the south.”
It was no empty threat. The freight companies under Maximilian’s control already had a stranglehold on the south’s mana stone logistics.
Maximilian’s mana stone shipped out cheap, while his competitors’ rotted in their warehouses.
Those who tried to hold on couldn’t sell at even half the market price, and in the end they came knocking on his front door of their own accord.
The second offer, given to those who had refused the first, was always leaner than the first.
Furthermore, when a certain real estate developer who attempted “Holdout Squatting” in the mining district was found dead three days later, Maximilian’s people denied any involvement whatsoever. [TL: “Holdout Squatting” refers to buying land in a development zone to extort a higher price from the developer.]
Naturally, this paper likewise could uncover no evidence of a connection. I will note only this much, that from that point on, the very practice of Holdout Squatting died out in the south.
So then, is Maximilian a tyrant?
It is here that this man’s portrait grows strange.
Maximilian does not gouge for profit. If anything, the opposite.
After he took hold of the south, the price of mana stone fell by half, and its quality became uniform.
Now even the slums of the south light their mana stone stoves in winter. Miners’ wages are the highest in the industry, and the rate of shaft accidents has dropped dramatically.
Those who have faced the nobleman Maximilian across a negotiating table all say the same thing. That he does not shout. That he does not threaten. That he simply, quietly, in a low voice, recites numbers.
Once, Maximilian is said to have spoken these words.
Their authenticity has never been confirmed, yet every miner in the south claims to have “heard” this very sentence.
“Competition is waste. And I was taught that waste is a sin.”
Where, then, did this “capital that went unwasted” flow?
Beyond mana stone, it swelled into commerce, into finance, into logistics.
What this paper found most noteworthy was his conduct in the period surrounding the enactment of the「Imperial Citizenship Law」.
One by one, he bought up the choicest enterprises owned by minorities and foreigners. A certain former businessman, who requested anonymity, confided to this paper as follows.
“Yes…… I sold my company to him. It was just before the law took effect. He paid a fair price, and he opened a path for me to get what it was worth.”
He stubbornly refused to reveal his own name, yet, surprisingly, he asked us to convey his gratitude to Maximilian.
“Looking back now, it was the right decision. Had it not been for him, I’d have lost not only my fortune but my very life. On the contrary…… I’m thankful to him.”
A man who buys, at a just price, the very enterprises about to be seized by the Imperial Guard.
Is he a savior, or merely a liquidator half a beat ahead of everyone else?
No, is the seizure itself even a just act at all?
A certain painter recently produced a picture like this.
A single octopus sprawled across a map of the Empire. One leg coils around a mine, one around a bank, one around a railway, one around a newspaper company, and its face wears a saintly, gentle smile.
The next day, the painter withdrew the work of his own accord. He gave no reason.
But turn it the other way around, and perhaps the very narrative that Maximilian, a single individual, built all of these enterprises alone is itself nothing but a myth.
In truth, all he did was luckily strike upon a single vein, and the prosperity that followed was in effect built atop the skill and labor of the “others” he absorbed.
The Empire’s revival may be much the same, a tower raised, perhaps, upon the sacrifices of those hidden in the shadows.
Maximilian’s success rather teaches us this truth──
No person, and no nation, can stand on its own.
◆ Jemion Daily
Alphonse von Stauffen
───────
“……Unbelievable.”
Celine Dubois let out a dry laugh as she read the draft.
Tok.
She set down her pen. She took off her glasses. With her bare eyes, she looked at Alphonse, standing rigidly across from her.
“Reporter Alphonse. Do you honestly think this can go to print?”
“And why couldn’t it? It’s nothing but facts. And, read it again, just skim it. Doesn’t it sound like it’s praising Maximilian’s success?”
“Are you out of your mind? Get rid of it.”
“Then how about this one.”
Alphonse held out another article.
Even the headline was something to behold.
「Valerian, Who Raised the Banner Against Maximilian, Faces the Extinction of His House.」
“…….”
Valerian. A distinguished family that had long wielded considerable power in the Empire’s judiciary.
They had produced dozens of judges, had once risen to ministerial rank, and there had been a time when the Valerian seal was stamped on half the Empire’s indictments.
“Haah…….”
And now that same Valerian stood on the brink of ruin.
The charges ran as follows─ that during the「Alchemia」incident, in the course of interrogating the terrorist Niko Weber, they had coerced him through violence, forced a confession, framed his legitimate act of self-redress as a crime, and thereby attempted judicial murder.
“Take out the name Maximilian altogether.”
The fact of having tried to treat a terrorist as a terrorist had become a crime.
It made no sense even set down in writing, but that was how the Empire was running now.
Niko Weber had become a hero of the people, and the jurists who had prosecuted him had become “those who insulted the order of the Aran”.
“From now on the reporting directive is summer resorts and beating the heat.”
At Celine’s rejection, Alphonse jutted his lips out in a long, sullen pout.
“What. What’s with the summer vacation all of a sudden?”
“The situation’s changed.”
“……Editor-in-Chief. Are we even the press?”
“Well then quit, why don’t you.”
Celine waved her hand back and forth without a reply. Alphonse left muttering fuck this, fuck that, and she picked up a single pamphlet lying on her desk.
「Paradise Upon the Sea — Titan」
Just then.
──Bang!
Someone burst in as if to break down the door and shouted.
“Editor-in-Chief! They’re saying the Titan has sunk!”
* * *
The disembarkation had begun.
I verified every passenger coming down through the gangway, one by one. Of the three thousand one hundred passengers, only fifteen hundred had survived.
Most of the dead would be Ezenheim, but surely there were those among them who were not Ezenheim as well.
“The crew.”
The crewmen came down in turn. Led by the first mate, Lecen, then the second and third mates, the boatswain, the helmsman, and the rest…… those who had carried out their duties to the very end even as the ship collapsed around them walked out.
I was glad they had survived.
“You’ve all done well.”
Hiding my deceit, I extended my hand to them.
Surely among these men were some who had cooperated with the revolutionary forces to help minorities escape, or who had broken the Empire’s laws.
Or perhaps there were even revolutionaries themselves among them.
For today alone, I decided to turn a blind eye. They were more than deserving of forgiveness.
“Thank you.”
I clasped the hands of many a sailor.
Next, the passengers’ disembarkation continued. They cautiously held out their Genealogy Certificates, sodden and worn to tatters. Many had lost their certificates entirely.
“This is too damaged to appraise.”
Before my Regression, during the Continental War, there had been crazed war criminals who used such unclear paperwork as a pretext to gun down civilians and rack up a record.
“Still, I’ve heard the appraisals were already completed aboard the ship.”
The identity of Eli Zella is a fiction. But his name will slip into the Appraisal Association without anyone noticing, and he will remain as one of those who had existed all along.
The power of the man called Maximilian had, before I knew it, swollen to that degree.
“I’ll affix my signature for you, so please apply for a new Genealogy Certificate at an Imperial office later on.”
Of course, some of them would never return to the Empire.
They would want to roam freer days, in a freer land.
“Take a bundle with you.”
The attendants handed out bags containing condolence money, food, clothing, and the like to the surviving passengers.
I saw them off, watching their backs recede. As a knight of the Empire, and as the criminal who had ruined them and threatened their lives.
“……Um. Sir Knight.”
The Captain stood beside me. He gestured with his eyes toward the receding figures of a Merin couple and their child.
“A Merin businessman who was on the watch list. I spoke a little more with the Imperial Guard, and they say it’s all but certain he’s liquidated his assets and is fleeing.”
He’d probably sold off his property to escape after being hounded by the Imperial Guard.
But now all that remained in their hands was a single child.
Which meant they had sunk their entire fortune to the bottom of the sea and barely dragged their own bodies out.
“Any other problems? Speak frankly.”
I asked the Colonel in turn.
“Ah…… The truth is, the Imperial Guard brigadier general seems to have taken a particular fixation on the woman. They say he’s heading this way now…….”
A smile spread across my lips.
Every so often, there was a lunatic like this.
“What’s his name?”
“Brigadier General Oskar Goettner.”
Before my Regression, he had been a notorious war criminal.
So there’d be one more added to the list of men I would hang, one way or another, whether by trial or otherwise.
“Tell him my name.”
The Colonel nodded, seeming to grasp my meaning.
“Yes, understood.”
The inspection continued.
“Next.”
A passenger held out a Genealogy Certificate. The certificate itself was genuine.
But the Virus at my collarbone throbbed. And the certificate honestly read “Ezenheim” as well.
“Hm.”
In cases like this, all I can manage is a bitter smile.
A shame, but being Ezenheim alone is not yet grounds enough to justify a killing.
Still, a crime can always be manufactured somehow. It was plain from the start that they had boarded this Titan to flee, and under Imperial law the departure of an Ezenheim is something I bar in the name of my own house.
Which is to say, all I need do is drag them to the stand and hang them.
“……”
I gestured with my eyes to the marines beside me. They pulled the Ezenheim out of the line.
And as I sifted through the crowd of hundreds in this fashion.
Thump──.
My heart gave a great pound.
A certain someone.
He had disguised himself yet again at some point, wearing the face of an old man deeply creased with wrinkles, but he was one my senses could not be fooled by.
Thump──.
Viktor Haim came into my view.
…….
Having finished my long assignment, I returned to the Sentinel Knight Order headquarters.
On one side of the grounds, three stone buildings had, at some point, been completed. As the Knight Order’s authority expanded, so too did its territory grow.
“Ah, Sir Maximilian!”
Hannah, who had been touring the new buildings, came over with a beaming face and started chattering away.
“So you’re back. Have you heard? These newly finished buildings, they’re putting interrogation rooms on every floor, and the basement is going to be used as an evidence storage vault. There’ll be a special investigations office, a joint situation room where knights can carry out cooperative investigations, and the forensics lab is finally being separated out on its own. And a private annex is going to be allotted just for the knight departments too. I already put in a request for a space as part of the operations officers’ allotment, and I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but I hope it’s a slightly bigger room. That way the operations officers can be comfortable too. The truth is, I’ve hired so many people lately. Um, it’s not a waste of budget, I even made the test questions incredibly hard myself so I could screen strictly, but there were just too many excellent candidates I couldn’t bring myself to let go……”
Chatter, chatter. Chatter, chatter. Just like a baby chick.
I laid a hand on Hannah’s shoulder.
“Watch out for eavesdropping.”
“Yes? Ah, right. And Sir Knight. The final deposition containing Niko Weber’s statement, I’ve sent it over.”
“Good. Well done.”
Back in my office, I spread the roster of names across the desk.
Ezenheim who survived the Titan, one hundred and thirty-seven in total.
That was a lot.
More than a thousand Ezenheim had probably been aboard that ship.
“…….”
But I still couldn’t figure out why the creatures had all boarded that ship together.
Surely a very important reason. Whether their nature, their ecology, whatever it was─ it had to be connected to that.
“……Hmm.”
I picked up Niko Weber’s deposition, set to one side of the desk.
Skimming down through it, one passage caught my eye.
[……One of them suddenly picked up a stone and beat another of their own kind to death, striking its head.]
A rather chilling account of a ritual. The creatures had performed that rite in the basement of「Alchemia」.
“Beat its head in with a stone……”
Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.
The stone tablet I had recovered from the「Alchemia」basement bore no trace of mana, yet my Virus had clearly felt some kind of “agitation” coming from it.
“……Blood.”
If the cause of that had been the blood, or the life force, of the Ezenheim.
Were they offering up their own lives, or the lives of their own kind, as sacrifices in order to open the “Dimensional gate” that Edmon had spoken of before the Regression?
Knock, knock—.
A knock cut off my thoughts.
“Come in.”
The visitor was Chiron.
“Max. How did the Titan matter turn out?”
He asked about the Titan right away. Fair enough, it was one of the most significant disasters of the year.
I lowered my voice gravely.
“The investigation is still underway…… but a fair number of passengers whose identities couldn’t be confirmed were found at the scene. And among the survivors there were plenty whose status was unclear as well.”
“And so?”
Chiron too seemed to sense something was off, and his expression turned grave.
“Personally, I’m treating it as terrorism.”
Chiron’s face hardened rigidly.
“For now it’s a matter that must be kept quiet.”
“Yes. The palace wishes it handled quietly as well. After all, the Chief of Staff’s younger sister is involved. Tell me, if it does turn out to be terrorism, is there a suspect you have in mind?”
I fell silent for a moment.
The true culprit is the very man you’re looking at right now, but.
“One. There is.”
To tie off this catastrophe more perfectly, for the sake of everyone who was sacrificed.
I have to manufacture a culprit better than the true one.
“Viktor Haim.”
The race called Ezenheim.
* * *
Meanwhile, this was a beach at a resort in southern Highland.
Halbert Goering, sprawled on a lounge chair, flaunted his chest hair and snorted through his nose.
“……Hah, honestly! It’s outrageous!”
It was because the newspapers had carried word that quite a few rats trying to flee the Empire had stowed away aboard the Titan, and that the ship’s sinking might even have been the work of a terrorist among them.
“Damn bastards! How dare they ruin my vacation like this!”
Beside him, Nils, who had been yawning languidly, slightly lifted his sunglasses.
“What’s the matter?”
“They say it’s likely terrorism! No wonder, there’s no way a ship that big could go down so pathetically!”
As if his anger hadn’t cooled, Halbert bolted upright from the waist.
Just then, a scruffy child carrying some sort of basket came up to them.
“Drinks for sale~! Cold drinks here!”
“Hey! Hey! Hey, you brat!!”
Halbert suddenly called the child to a halt. The child flinched, hunched its shoulders, and approached.
“Y-yes……?”
“You there! Where’d you learn Imperial?!”
“Huh? Well, a lot of folks from the Empire come to sightsee…… so, picking it up here and there…….”
“How much for the drinks?!”
“Th-they’re two dollars……”
“Why so expensive?”
Halbert started to pull a bill from his wallet, then paused.
He studied the child’s features closely and frowned.
“……You. Are you a Merin?”
The child’s face went pale and stiff. As if expecting an Imperial noble’s disgust, it answered in a shrinking voice.
“One dollar…… one dollar’s fine…….”
“No, can’t you hear me? I asked if you’re a Merin. I’m an Imperial noble. Don’t think about lying, just answer me honestly.”
Nils’s gaze lingered on Halbert for a moment.
The child, clutching its trembling hands tightly together, barely managed to open its mouth.
“……Yes, that’s right.”
“……”
Halbert stared at the child for a while, then took five 100 dollar bills from his wallet and tossed them into the child’s basket.
“Hand over everything you’ve got, and get lost, right now.”
“……Eh, ehh? What?!”
The child’s eyes went wide as a sparrow’s. Money enough to feed its younger sibling and mother not just today but this whole week, no, well into the next.
Halbert waved his hand and hollered at the child standing there dumbstruck.
“What are you doing? I said go, brat!”
“Y-yes! Yes sir! Thank you! Thank you!”
Hurriedly setting down everything in the basket, the child swung both arms wildly and hurried off, looking thoroughly delighted.
“Tch.”
Halbert clicked his tongue at the receding figure. The expression that had somehow looked like a smile vanished in an instant.
“……You. Care for a drink?”
He picked up one of the bottled drinks strewn all over the sand and held it out to Nils.
Nils let out a dry, exasperated laugh, but, well.
“Sure. I was just getting thirsty.”
And he took a bottle and drank.
~~~
Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/cdZPxPVrXW