Chapter 239: Fairy Tale (2)

Time had passed since「The Sinking of the Titan」shook the entire Empire, and it was now early autumn, when fallen leaves drifted down to settle on the ground.

“……So this is where you were.”

The Imperial Central Cemetery. A quiet stretch along the outskirts, far from the center where the headstones of renowned families stood in rows.

Celine Dubois, Editor-in-Chief of the Jemion Daily, stepped up beside a woman standing there, motionless.

“What are you doing?”

Charlotte Grossman.

Instead of answering, she looked down at the small stone slab at her feet. A modest headstone set at the very edge of the burial ground, wiped clean.

“It’s just strange. This isn’t supposed to be a place where a Merin can be buried.”

Her tone was calm. Celine stood beside her and took in the name carved into the stone.

[ Eli Zella ]

The remains of a Merin, laid to rest in the heart of the capital. Given the Empire’s laws and customs, it was next to impossible.

“There’s probably nothing underneath. They never recovered the body.”

As if she had read the other woman’s thoughts, Charlotte laughed softly.

“If anything, that’s why he could be buried here.”

An empty coffin.

Ironically, that was the very thing that allowed Eli Zella to lie in the central burial grounds.

As a man of merit who had given his life to hold order together aboard the sinking Titan, the Merin received the posthumous honors of a Quasi-Bloodline.

Had there been even the smallest chip of bone, the Pure-blood Supremacists would have kicked up a shitstorm, but there wasn’t a single drop of blood in his coffin to pick a fight over.

“Do you really…… believe Viktor Haim carried out the attack?”

Celine Dubois asked it out of nowhere.

Viktor Haim’s act of terror. That was how the case had been closed. But anyone holding even a fragment of the truth knew better. That ending was a story someone had bound together with great care.

Most likely──

By Maximilian.

To them, his name was now a vast, boundless curtain. Like a shadow draped endlessly, layer upon layer, over the Empire.

“…….”

Charlotte kept her silence for a while. Tumble, tumble. Only the sound of leaves rolling along filled the space between the two of them.

“……Don’t come looking for me anymore.”

Words spoken after long deliberation.

Celine’s brow twitched faintly.

“My brother went through a rough time because of me. He’s probably already worked out what I was up to behind his back. Kurt is frighteningly clever.”

Charlotte smiled bitterly and ran a hand down the headstone.

“I just want to return to where I belong. In my own way, making my own kind of effort.”

Celine studied her profile in silence.

Had a single person she would never forget changed the whole course of her heart?

“But the Merin will go on being discriminated against. Even if this incident has softened it a little-”

“Halbert Goering. You know him?”

Goering. A family of pigs holding senior ranks in the Imperial Guard, the greatest beneficiaries of the Emperor’s Guard policies and imperialism.

“They say that man went to considerable trouble to secure this plot. Even lobbied for it, insisting it was a place he absolutely had to give to a Merin Appraiser…… Strange, isn’t it?”

Halbert believed that Eli Zella had stayed aboard the ship to the very end for his sake. That he had sacrificed himself for the nobles, to hold order together through that night.

This was an honor born of that misunderstanding.

Charlotte had decided not to bother correcting him.

Delusion or not, the fact that a man bearing the Goering name had gone around of his own accord seeking a burial plot for a Merin was real enough.

“The Merin Appraiser succeeded. He discerned what was genuine. He moved even a man like Halbert.”

She murmured, almost to herself, gazing at the headstone.

“Maybe it isn’t that the Empire won’t change…… maybe there just wasn’t anyone who knew how to change it. That’s why I’ve decided to remain within the Empire.”

“Even if war breaks out?”

“…….”

Charlotte’s fingertips stopped in midair for a moment.

War. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of millions of hearts collapsing in a single direction, that was a realm no one had understood yet.

“……I don’t know.”

An honest answer, with nothing dressed up about it.

Celine realized that any further persuasion would be meaningless.

“Shouldn’t you be going now?”

Charlotte gestured with her eyes. Down below, a nobleman with a pocket watch hanging at his waist was climbing up toward them.

Halbert Goering.

“……Yes. Understood.”

Celine Dubois turned to go. The moment their shoulders brushed on the narrow cemetery path, the watch chain at his waist gave a jingle- as it swayed.

“Ah, I knew it! Lady Grossman, you’re here as well! Hahahaha!”

An interesting conversation seemed about to unfold up there. Her journalist’s instincts stirred for a moment, but she didn’t bother turning around.

Crunch. Crunch.

She walked out of the cemetery, treading over the fallen leaves.

* * *

The day of Viktor Haim’s execution.

I scheduled a visit. My staff combed the place beforehand, cutting off any possible listening devices or surveillance, and cleared out every last person, guards included.

“…….”

A room with nothing in the air but stillness. I sat down facing Viktor Haim, bound in Mana Stone Handcuffs.

The flow of history had shifted markedly from what it had been before my Regression. All of it was my doing. Since the only difference between then and now was me, I could say so with certainty.

The Empire, too, had gained a sturdier constitution than before, but I was wary of the ‘synergy’ that came with it.

Because the stronger we grew, the more relentlessly Ezenheim would respond in their own way.

“Congratulations on your death sentence.”

Alone with him now, I meant every word of it.

Viktor Haim raised his head.

“Once your neck snaps, your corpse will go up on the autopsy table. That’s when the proof that you’re an Ezenheim gets laid bare for the world.”

A sneer hung at the corner of Viktor Haim’s mouth.

“……Just as they say. You really are a devil of a man.”

A devil.

Hearing that from him was so absurd that a laugh slipped out of me.

Then again, perhaps I had come too far myself to feel anything like anger now.

I slid the record of testimony across the table.

“Even leaving the Ezenheim business aside, what you did on the Titan leaves no room for defense. You murdered the Captain, pulled a gun on the crew and seized a raft. Fitting conduct for a race that isn’t human.”

Viktor’s brow wavered.

He glared at me quietly, then tossed out a single line.

“I’m curious where that vicious hatred of yours comes from.”

His cracked voice continued.

“We are all the same, are we not? All human.”

A vein rose at my temple.

“We feel pain no differently than you do, we yearn for life just as you do. We are the same people.”

Rage surged up my throat in an instant.

Because of whom had I killed countless people, because of whom was I grinding through this fucking hell over and over again?

“The Natural Rights of Man. Was that not a value humanity bled to win over the course of its history?”

……If I lose my temper, I lose.

Because this knocking on the human conscience with human language was precisely their greatest weapon, and their greatest danger.

I suppressed my emotions.

“You aren’t human.”

Sometimes I find myself wondering.

Some among the Ezenheim carry themselves as nobly as saints, some fail to contain a moment’s emotion and step on their own tails, and some are consumed by rage and expose their species’ shame.

Was it because they resembled humans so closely, because they had even inherited that diversity where ‘no two are ever alike’, that they had no choice but to leave openings to be caught by?

“……Niko Weber. That commoner hero who bombed your lot had something to say.”

I recited a passage from the record.

“‘The Silent Communion. A rite in which they crush the heads of their own kind with stones. The Ezenheim carry out this demonic ceremony, offering up even their own lives.’”

It wasn’t time to bring out the Ezenheim language yet.

A blade should be driven into the heart at the most critical moment, all at once.

“And the purpose of it is to open a dimensional gate.”

“……What.”

Viktor’s whole face twisted. It was the look of a man who had just heard a lunatic’s delusion.

“Are you insane? It’s because a madman like you sits at the summit of the Empire that this country is in the state it’s in.”

I gave a small laugh and channeled my mana.

“Then let me ask one last thing. It’s a personal question, so I’d appreciate an honest answer.”

Golden hair darkened to brown, and my eyes sank into black. I took out the well-preserved dentures and pushed them into my mouth.

The face of Eli Zella.

Facing Viktor as he stiffened in shock, click.

I released his handcuffs.

“How did you know Halbert Goering’s pocket watch was a fake?”

It was pure curiosity. Even I had needed the Virus to appraise that piece, and he had spotted it with the naked eye from a couch in the lounge. It might be a trait the Virus and the Ezenheim shared.

“……Ha.”

He looked at his freed hands and let out a hollow laugh. He gave no answer to my question.

Then I leaned in at an angle.

And whispered in the language only they could understand.

【 You’ve been in the palm of my hand from the very beginning. 】

Viktor Haim’s expression crumbled. His pupils dilated wide.

And for the briefest instant, his fingertips.

Only for a moment, truly, but they darkened with mana of an unknown kind.

“…….”

Hands unbound. Guards gone. Surveillance cut.

At this very moment, every condition needed to tear his kinsmen’s enemy limb from limb lay right before his eyes.

But he swallowed once and smoothed his expression over with ease. The blackened fingertips returned to their natural color.

Eyes far colder than before fixed on me.

“……So it was you. The one who carried out the attack.”

To the very end, he refused to take the bait.

He understood what this situation meant. He understood that showing his true nature would itself be a confession.

A shame, but this much was enough.

I spoke too with my original voice.

“That’s right. There will be countless massacres to come. Aimed at the Ezenheim, and no one else.”

I rose from my seat and gathered up the deposition.

“Humanity has always fought for humanity’s survival. And it has always won. Until the only enemy left to humanity is humanity itself.”

This time the result would be the same.

“The visit is over.”

I believed in humanity’s destructiveness, its harmony, its faith, and above all in its will to survive.

“Goodbye, Viktor Haim.”

I left him with a smile and walked out of the visiting room.

* * *

Viktor Haim was named the mastermind behind the Titan attack and executed.

He was officially identified as an Ezenheim after death, and the details of his motive were never made public.

All that circulated among the public were plausible made up rumors claiming that, with his escape route cut off by the Alchemia incident, he had tried to drag the Empire’s nobles down to the bottom with him.

Along the way, a few scraps of columns honoring the sacrifice of the Merin Appraiser ‘Eli Zella’ ran as well…….

Before long the seasons had turned again.

It was winter once more.

I was sitting by a cafe window, watching the snow come down and settle.

“Have you heard about the upcoming Prozen World Expo?”

The voices of nobles drifted over from the next table.

“I’ve heard, yes. Though I don’t see why the Empire needs to take part. Our Empire is this great, and we’re to attend those republican louts’ little party……”

They ran their mouths as they pleased, but the Emperor’s true feelings were the exact opposite.

The Emperor harbored a peculiar longing for Prozen. He envied their art and culture and admired it at the same time.

Which was why this Expo was a stage with the Emperor’s pride riding on it.

I traced back through my memories from before the Regression.

At that Expo, a ‘whose pavilion stands taller’ contest had broken out between the Eastern Alliance and the Empire.

After a war of pride and one reckless expansion after another, the Empire’s structure collapsed before the closing ceremony.

The Empire became the laughingstock of the continent, the Emperor’s inferiority complex exploded, and it all ended in a purge that saw most of the Expo staff beheaded.

“…….”

I left the cafe. At the appointed hour, I stepped into that same shabby building.

The space connected through to Imperial Princess Justine’s hideout.

As though she meant to test me yet again, she had left a pamphlet for the World Expo, four months away, sitting on the table.

“The Titan news was good. The pure love of an Aran, the filthy true colors of a Subspecies. Good enough. However.”

Justine narrowed her brows to a thin line.

“The sight of that one worthless Merin being treated as a hero grates on me.”

“……He is nothing more than a dead man now. I would ask that Your Highness regard him as a disposable trinket for soothing the sentiments of your subjects.”

Before the Imperial Princess, one had to be careful with any talk touching on race. Nothing good ever came of rubbing her fastidious Pure-blood Supremacy the wrong way.

“Hm. I shall let it pass for now. They are all destined to vanish in any case. More to the point, what do you make of this?”

Justine tapped the pamphlet. I picked it up.

“His Majesty the Emperor is deep in deliberation over it.”

Less deliberation than a formality, meant to lend confidence to a conclusion already reached.

“The Eastern Alliance is stepping forward to attend, and so is Mekerel. Even a little state like Mekerel.”

For reference, the Mekerel-Valkania war had settled into a lull.

Valkania’s pride kept it from declaring an end to the fighting, but neither could it commit any more force. Internal opposition to a war that dragged on with no justification had grown fierce.

“Every eye on the continent is turning toward Prozen.”

Every nation wanted peace and was angling to step onto the stage the Expo offered.

But what the Empire wanted was not peace.

“And your view?”

“Surely the Empire ought to take part as well.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. In the very heart of Prozen.”

I said it looking straight at the Imperial Princess.

“We raise the Empire’s symbol at the highest point of all. So that no one can help but crane their neck to look up at it.”

A deep smile bloomed at the corner of Princess Justine’s mouth.

“In that case, will you take charge of that stage yourself?”

I had seen it coming from the moment I walked in, but it was a heavy responsibility all the same.

This too might be part of her efforts to keep me in check.

But I had to bear it.

She doubted and tested me without end, yet at the end of this process she would come to trust me completely.

She would have no other choice.

“Yes. I shall gladly undertake it.”

The World Expo.

Let me show them the Empire at its most beautiful there.

I had confidence enough.

Because I possessed an ‘aesthetic sense ahead of its time’, propped up by memories from before my Regression.

…….

“……I don’t recognize a single one of these names.”

Schatz murmured quietly as she skimmed the roster I had handed her. Something unfamiliar clouded her eyes as she traced down the line of strangers.

“Of course you don’t.”

She had clearly changed from before. The version of her that answered everything with ‘Understood’ had faded.

Now she put questions to me, wondered about the reasons behind my moves.

I took this for the process of building trust.

Just as I, without realizing it, had come to lean on Schatz.

Perhaps I was hoping she would become my new Enzi.

“They’re artists. Painters I’ve had my eye on. Right now they’re hanging their work out on street corners and in back-alley markets.”

I answered, sinking back into my chair.

The Empire was crude. Nothing existed there but force and the logic of blood and iron, and any sense of beauty had run dry. That was how the continent generally saw the Empire.

The Emperor, whose temperament was surprisingly delicate, raged at that public verdict, yet in the end could never rid himself of his inferiority and his yearning toward Prozen’s radiant art. Not even up to the day he lost the war and took his own life…….

“We’re going to prove how great Aran aesthetics really are.”

I intended to show the Emperor the fairy tale he wanted. To present Maximilian to him as a loyal subject.

And so, the geniuses who, before my Regression─ had only been recognized after the war and gone on to become masters.

I would claim them in advance, while they still held their brushes in nameless slums and on backwater streets.

“You’re pure Aran yourself, aren’t you, Schatz?”

“……Yes. That’s correct.”

Something like a smile brushed across Schatz’s lips.

I closed the roster, imagining the brilliant trajectory the masters of the future would trace.

From here on, let’s use a little information asymmetry and put together a ‘dream team’.

~~~

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