Chapter 238: Fairy Tale

The waters where the Titan had sunk. A warship packed with divers arrived on the scene. They had come to collect evidence, and before the work began, the naval crew on deck fired flares into the empty sky.

FWOOOOOSH——!

For an instant, the sea turned clear and bright.

“Descend.”

At the Captain’s curt command, divers with oxygen tanks on their backs plunged into the sea.

They moved to recover the ship’s wreckage, human remains, and any evidence there might be.

The Titan’s hull itself had already sunk into depths beyond the reach of human hands, but they hauled up the debris floating to the surface, the fragments suspended at middle depths, and the countless corpses drifting through the waters, pulling them onto the lifeboats.

“I’ve found a suspicious fragment!”

Among them, an object that had come into the hands of one diver.

Whether it had actually been there from the beginning did not matter.

Whether the diver had brought it from land and scattered it into the sea, or whether it had happened to drift in from somewhere, no one cared.

So long as it had been ‘found’, that was enough.

For ‘that person’ held the kind of authority that could easily fabricate and reconstruct a single incident…….

* * *

The Sentinel Knight Order’s interrogation room.

─What is your name?

Hannah’s voice flowed out of the Mana Stone Recorder.

─I understand you have many false identities. Your real name.

I had deliberately entrusted Viktor Haim’s interrogation to her.

─……Viktor Haim.

The answer from the subject of the interrogation, Viktor Haim.

That bastard’s voice.

At that moment, the sailor’s eyes flew wide open.

─The Moneybags behind「Alchemia」. That’s you, isn’t it?

─……Do Sentinel knights use words like Moneybags now?

─Financier, then. Satisfied?

“Th-that was the voice! There’s no mistaking it!”

The sailor shot to his feet as if his hair were standing on end.

I wrote across the report with my fountain pen and asked again.

“The man who shot Captain Erio. This is his voice, correct?”

“Yes! I’m certain! What happened was—”

Face flushed with fury, the sailor continued his testimony.

‘Captain Erio had tried to hold the wheelhouse even in the moment of the sinking. He himself had gone to the door to evacuate the Captain, but hearing voices in conversation and then a gunshot from within, he had hidden himself for a moment.’

“When I looked inside, the Captain had already stopped breathing…….”

The sailor clenched his teeth hard. I took down his words in full sentences.

The sailor glanced over my handwriting.

“……You’ve got really nice penmanship.”

I gave a small laugh.

Viktor Haim. The bastard, Ezenheim though he was, had made no effort to hide his malice, and that was exactly what had exposed him to us.

“To be honest, I also believe this man is the mastermind behind this catastrophe.”

In an instant, the air in the interrogation room sank heavy.

“……Mastermind? The mastermind, behind it?”

The sailor asked back, nearly panting.

“I am convinced he is the terrorist who attacked the Titan.”

“Hah……”

The sailor’s eyes went wide. He hissed out hot breaths before sinking back against his chair.

I gazed at him steadily and made my request.

“Would you be willing to testify in court?”

“……Yes! Of course! I’ll be there, without fail!”

In truth, there was no connection whatsoever between the murder of Captain Erio and the Titan terror attack, but this was how the truth would be fabricated.

Unrelated crimes would be woven together and skillfully blended.

Solely for the benefit of us humans.

…….

The Knight’s Trial of Viktor Haim was held.

Nearly all the evidence presented to ‘manufacture’ a culprit pointed to him as the terrorist who had engineered the sinking of the Titan.

It was far too good an era for fabricating a single incident, and far too good a power that I held in my hands.

Viktor Haim protested his innocence, but the outcome of the trial had been decided from the very start.

Every piece of Sentinel evidence, admitted. Every one of Viktor Haim’s claims, dismissed.

It was the natural conclusion.

He had already been branded an Anti-Imperialist who, as the Financier behind「Alchemia」, had threatened the security of the Empire.

The countless nobles and officials who had once been in league with him had already severed all ties, and instead took the lead in denouncing him.

──The evidence submitted being clear, and the witnesses’ testimonies in agreement……

The presiding judge pronounced the sentence as if reading from a storybook.

──……Accordingly, this court sentences the defendant Viktor Haim, who has committed numerous grave crimes against the order of the Empire, to death.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The wooden gavel rang through the chamber, and afterward, as I stepped out and walked down the courthouse corridor.

“Hm?”

I spotted a face I was rather glad to see. The young man I had met on the Titan, handsome as an Aran ought to be.

It was Yan.

“……?”

My gaze happened to settle on his wrists. A binding rope constricted him, and beside him stood an Imperial Guardsman with a menacing look. He appeared to be under escort.

I stopped walking for a moment.

“Ah, loyalty, sir!”

The Imperial Guardsman hastily snapped a salute. Meanwhile Yan, who had once cheerfully called me ‘pal’, could not even bring himself to look at my face, his whole body bowed low like a condemned man.

I asked the Imperial Guardsman.

“……What is this about? He looks like a survivor of the Titan.”

“Ah, Sir Knight. Well, you see.”

The Imperial Guardsman relayed a few facts. The love I had witnessed aboard the Titan had spread into something quite different.

Yan had been indicted as a ruffian, a mere commoner who had dared to covet a noblewoman.

Well then, was this the difference between fairy tales and reality?

“You there. Why don’t you lift your face?”

“……Hey, punk! Can’t you hear Sir Knight? Head up, punk!”

At the Imperial Guardsman’s bark, Yan slowly raised his eyes.

Golden hair and golden eyes. A straight nose and a firm jawline.

Bruises marked his face here and there, but the boy’s looks still seemed to hold their light.

“The face of an Aran.”

“Ah, that he is. With that pretty face of his, the little shit.”

“……Carry on, then.”

“Yes, sir!”

I passed him by and left.

Fairy tales and reality.

A thought suddenly came to me.

In a world this bleak, where people died day after day, and where I would have to go on killing day after day, would it not be all right for one decent fairy tale to remain?

Even if I could not be their knight on a white horse, could I not at least write a happy ending into their final story?

* * *

The Eston Family, a declining noble house of the Empire’s west, was turned upside down today. One of the greatest figures in all the Empire had come calling at the main estate without any notice.

Name, Maximilian.

House, Ebenholtz.

The entire Eston household lined up in rows and held their breath, and the House Head, pale as death, received him.

“Please, have a seat.”

Eston seated Maximilian in a drawing room tidied as neatly as they could manage.

Smiling faintly, Maximilian smoothed his attire and was the first to speak.

“I have come to offer my condolences to the survivors of the Titan.”

“Ah…… I-is that so. For someone of your stature to come in person to such a humble place…….”

“And while I was at it, I heard some interesting news as well. There are a few things I wish to ask.”

Facing Maximilian, Eston felt as though he could hardly breathe. Every word the man spoke seemed to prick at his heart.

“Er…… which matters would…….”

“Do you know a commoner named Yan?”

Maximilian asked the Eston House Head about the custody of the young man called Yan.

“Ah, ah…… yes. Yes. That…… that lowborn wretch dared to try to abduct our child…….”

“I see.”

“Yes, yes! He tried to harm a noble. Upon investigation, he turned out to be a vagrant with no kin and no bloodline. That such a thing dared to covet my precious daughter-“

“May I meet your daughter myself?”

At the abrupt demand cutting him off mid-sentence, the House Head flinched and trembled.

“S-Sir Knight. But this is no different from a family matter-“

“House Head. I could have the Sentinel take over this case at the Order’s level.”

Maximilian’s calm tone sent an immense ripple through the House Head’s heart.

“……Pardon? The Sen, Sentinel?”

“Yes. A commoner attempted to dishonor a noble. Is that not a grave incident that disturbs the order of the Empire?”

The House Head belatedly grasped his meaning.

“Yes, yes. Understood. Please wait just a moment…….”

The House Head scurried off into the inner rooms, and a short while later.

He returned with his daughter before him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you…… I’m Lian.”

A voice that barely crept out. She studied Maximilian with trembling eyes.

So her name was Lian.

Maximilian gave the House Head a look.

“I would like to speak with your daughter alone.”

“Yes. Yes, understood.”

The Eston House Head reluctantly left the room.

──Thud.

In the now-closed drawing room, the ticking of the pendulum clock’s second hand rang out.

Maximilian asked Lian, who sat across from him with her head bowed low.

“I will ask you directly. Did the young man named Yan abduct you, or attempt to harm you?”

“…….”

Lian stayed silent. Was it out of fear, or out of guilt? Unable to meet his eyes, she only fidgeted with her fingers.

Maximilian drew a fountain pen and a single document from inside his coat.

“This is a letter demanding a Knight’s Trial.”

Lian’s shoulders shook violently.

“Let me be clear. From this moment, your words can kill him, or they can save him.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Answer honestly. There is no need to be afraid.”

His tone, for some reason, seemed to settle into something warm.

Lian forced her trembling eyelids open.

“……If I speak honestly, will you help me? Sir Knight.”

The rudeness of answering a question with a question. Yet in her voice lay the kind of courage only a person standing at the edge of a cliff could summon.

Maximilian regarded her quietly.

“I am a knight of the Empire. I move only in whatever direction benefits the Empire.”

An indifferent answer that leaned toward neither side.

Yet Lian’s expression became, if anything, one of resolve. With a face that said things could hardly get any worse, she opened her mouth.

“……It was an arranged marriage. To prop up our failing house, Father tried to sell me off to some Imperial Guard General officer whose name I don’t even know. It was closer to a contract than a marriage proposal. I…… didn’t want to become an object. I only wanted to run away.”

And so, taking the allowance and jewelry she had saved up over the years, she had tried to leave her family and the Empire behind……

Her trembling voice continued.

“Leaving the Empire is a great crime. But to me…… simply remaining here felt like a crime in itself. That was when I met Yan, on that ship.”

Yan.

The moment she spoke that name, life stirred in her voice for the first time. Warmth crept into her pale complexion.

“He was the most lovable person I had ever seen in my life. A commoner, and among commoners one of the lowest of the low…….”

Maximilian knew his background as well.

A pureblood Aran, but an orphan with no one in the world, having lost his parents far too young.

A boy with no kin, no bloodline, no backing.

All he possessed was luck at gambling, a handsome face, and—

“But his soul was freer than anyone’s.”

Maximilian listened without a word.

“You asked whether he harmed me? No. Not at all. If anything, I’m the one who did the harming. Because he got tangled up with someone like me, he was hurt. He was wounded so terribly.”

Swallowing back her tears, she laid a hand over her chest.

“I want him to be happy. He committed no crime at all. So…… Sir Knight. May I dare to ask a favor of you?”

Maximilian looked at her for a moment.

Before long, a quiet smile settled on his lips.

He slipped the fountain pen back inside his coat.

“I believe the two of you may simply meet again.”

“……Pardon?”

Lian asked back blankly. Her face said she could not comprehend what she had just heard.

Maximilian gazed out at the scenery beyond the window and added.

“Yan possesses flawless Aran looks. And you, likewise, are a beautiful noble of the Empire.”

The Titan. A love that had budded between a noble young lady and a commoner youth aboard the Empire’s sinking ship. An affection that crossed the wall of class.

A story this much like a fairy tale was superb material for stirring the pride of the Empire’s subjects. It could make for excellent propaganda.

“I will help you.”

“……?”

For a moment, Lian could not understand those words.

Help.

Who, helping whom?

Her dazed eyes wavered wildly, and then.

“Fulfill your wish, fulfill your heart’s desire.”

Her face brightened like the breaking of dawn. Tears streamed down from her widened eyes. Afraid that sobbing aloud might shatter this moment, she desperately clamped both hands over her mouth.

“That is what benefits the Empire.”

The ending of a fairy tale must always be beautiful.

Only then can it become a fairy tale.

For fairy tales are made to help us forget reality.

* * *

──【Special Feature : The Miracle of the Titan】──

On the deck of the sinking Titan, there was a young man who risked his own life to save a noble young lady.

His name is Yan. A commoner with no parents, no relatives, and no backing, who has lived on nothing but his pride as an Aran. Though he was orphaned at a tender age and drifted along the docks, they say he never once forgot the dignity of his bloodline…….

(omitted)

In the moment before death, the wall of class meant nothing. Only the heart of an Aran swelled within him. Yan gladly gave himself for Miss Lian’s sake, and upon the icy night sea, he called her name and stayed by her side to the very end.

The sailors of the rescue ship say they still cannot forget the sight of the two, rescued and sharing a single blanket, gazing at each other…….

(omitted)

The two now lead a happy life.

The Yan this paper met was a young man handsome as any Aran ought to be, and Miss Lian, at his side, was like a bashful girl.

The Eston House Head said he would support the two young people’s love. He added that this love was proof of the Empire’s very health.

Thus, even amid so gruesome a disaster, Aran love did not sink.

Aran blood runs deeper than the sea, and Aran pride stays afloat longer than steel.

So too shall it be with the future of the Empire.

◆Jemion Daily

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