Chapter 253: Applause (2)

……The things secured from the Blue Rose Society’s hideout.

The scroll of written conversation and the handwriting appraisal report. The results of the handwriting comparison. The measured floor plan of the underground space. Beyond those, a considerable number of other pieces of evidence that Adria had presented to the Sentinel and to the court as a private knight were all accepted.

The result was─ worth a modest round of applause.

“Knight Adria. The autopsies are complete.”

In the autopsy room of the Empire’s 9th District, the medical examiner Adria had known since her university days spoke as he wiped his hands.

“Yes. And the results?”

“Seven of the nine are Subspecies. According to the genealogy certificates, four of them are Ezenheim, and three are using outright forged identities. The rest are Aran.”

She quietly looked at the man standing beside her.

“…….”

The knight who had taken the heads of all nine, Julian. He stood there like some kind of stone statue.

“That’s a relief. At least only two were Aran.”

Seven out of nine were Subspecies. A composition tailor-made for Maximilian’s propaganda. He would frame it up nicely and hang it on the wall.

About Joshua, the young man deceived and used by an Ezenheim; the innocent intellectuals whose names had been entered onto a fabricated roster; and the cancerous growth of the Empire that lurked behind it all.

“Put it on my tab, Julian. I’ll pay you back later.”

Maximilian and the Sentinel had not rejected Adria’s evidence. If anything, they had accepted it as reasonable and used it as grounds to open a new line of investigation.

A fairly large part of that was thanks to Julian.

“If anything, Sentinel may pay you a fee. Provided you don’t refuse it.”

At Julian’s words, Adria’s eyes went round.

“Sounds good. I’ll take it gladly.”

She had no thought of refusing. She couldn’t starve her staff just to protect her own petty pride.

The two of them walked out of the autopsy room side by side.

By the time they reached the parking lot, night had fallen without either of them noticing. In front of their respective cars, they both stopped for a moment, as if by prior agreement.

“…….”

Adria looked at Julian and thought of someone else.

A man who did not reveal a single grain of anger at being insulted and mocked, yet who mercilessly cut down minority races for breaking the Empire’s laws. Who smiled where he should have raged, and cut men down where he could just as easily have smiled…….

Maximilian remained an unknowable creature.

“Julian. Do you know him?”

Julian’s gaze settled on her. His eyes were still hard to read, though heavy with exhaustion.

“We don’t need to know everything. We couldn’t even if we tried.”

A low, level voice.

Had he dodged the question, or was that itself the answer?

Either way, it was just like Julian. And inwardly, Adria was glad to see him being himself.

“Right. I should’ve known better than to ask you anything. Good work.”

Adria let out a small laugh and got into her car. Julian settled into his driver’s seat as well.

On the rain-soaked road, the two of them drew away in opposite directions.

…….

Oswin Mason had spent the entire course of the case holed up in a hotel in the Empire’s center, grinding through a brutal workload, and when the matter was finally tied off, he returned at last to Zestfall.

「Mason Law Office」

The building sat steeped in the fading sunset. The first floor was the office, the second a free legal aid clinic, the third the living quarters. It was one of the proud entries on the asset ledger of the old, distinguished house of Mason.

He threw open the door of the first-floor office.

“Ugh……”

So tired.

He wiped away the sweat that had soaked into the nape of his neck and groped along the wall. The moment he flicked on the switch…

Clap, clap, clap, clap──!

Applause suddenly burst out.

Oswin flinched and looked toward the sound.

Clap, clap, clap, clap──!

The office was packed with the people of Zestfall.

The families, neighbors, and acquaintances of those who would soon be coming home from the camps. Every one of them looked at him, clapping their hands and whistling.

At the very front stood Sara Müller, holding a cake.

“All of Zestfall is grateful to you, Counselor Oswin.”

“…….”

For a moment, Oswin was overcome by mixed emotions.

They seemed to regard this outcome as a victory, but had we really won? Or had we merely succeeded in changing that monster’s mind?

“Uh…….”

But looking at the candlelit cake and the wet eyes beyond it, Oswin decided that for today at least, he would set such worries aside.

“……Thank you.”

Clap, clap, clap, clap──

However it had happened, the Sentinel had listened to Zestfall. Those who had been dragged away would come back alive, and Joshua had escaped the death penalty.

It was, after all, a more than satisfying result…….

“Everyone. It’s all thanks to your faith.”

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap──!

Amid applause that grew louder, and louder, and louder still, Oswin smiled and embraced them.

…….

Clap, clap, clap, clap──

Applause rolled out over the platform. It was a ceremony where medals were bestowed upon Imperial Guard members who had rendered distinguished service.

Clap, clap, clap, clap──

It had been a long while since the Georgen had begun operating, in practice, as little more than a branch of the Imperial Guard.

With rumors rampant that it would soon be absorbed outright, it was hardly a novel sight.

“Is that the fellow?”

Martin, Lieutenant General of the Imperial Guard and Georgen’s patron, asked.

“Yes. He’s the one who rooted out the informant inside the Georgen during this Blue Rose Society affair.”

Georgen Director Heinrich answered with no small pride.

“And Knight Maximilian seemed quite satisfied as well.”

“Hm. Well, I suppose the man wanted to catch the ‘true culprit’ who made a caricature of him.”

The knight called Maximilian, whom Martin had once come face to face with, no, that nobleman, was more authoritarian and more fastidious than anyone alive.

On the outside he hid his inner self behind elegant gestures and noble bearing, a handsome face and a courteous voice, but the madness coiled inside him was not so easily scrubbed away.

“For the most part, carry things out as the knight intends…….”

For an instant, Martin’s teeth ground together. Through Maximilian’s retaliation, he had lost Valerian, one of his most trusted subordinates.

So it was not possible for him to bear no ill will at all.

“Never mind that. What’s the additional prize?”

At that question, the adjutant beside him answered in a whisper. Martin’s eyebrows twitched.

“……A genealogy certificate?”

“Yes.”

Gewin had received a special promotion to Chief Inspector along with a Genealogy Verification Certificate.

A bloodline document covering three generations, with a signature enclosed attesting that Maximilian himself vouched for it in person.

It was, quite honestly…… a deeply enviable thing.

“Hm.”

In truth, genealogy certificates had their own ranks.

The raw sort stamped by a clerk at a government office, the sort appraised by the College of Arms, and the sort certified by a knight order, in that order.

But a genealogy certificate bearing ‘Maximilian’s verification’ stood above all of them. For the Empire’s supreme authority on appraisal to guarantee its purity meant armor harder than anything else, at least where bloodline was concerned.

“Thank you, sir!”

Chief Inspector Gewin, too, clutched the 「Genealogy Verification Certificate」 to his chest more dearly than the medal he had just been given.

* * *

Zerpha. The homeland of the painter Pablo Sobakin, and the owner of a national pavilion slowly gaining renown at the World Exposition, and yet a country where the Republican Faction—Royalist Faction civil war was still going on.

──Shhhh. Shhhhhh.

A ‘river’ ran clean through its territory.

A long river by the name of Iber.

──Shhhh. Shhhhhh.

Amid the sound of the night wind flattening the reeds, the Republican Faction was preparing its largest operation using that river.

──Shhhh. Shhhhhh.

The Royalists received supplies from the Empire. The Republicans, too, were receiving covert support from Prozen and Highland, but no one could guarantee how long that would continue.

On top of that, with even the granary of the Valente Plain taken from them, the Royalists were now marching on the Republican heartland.

──Shhhh. Shhhhhh.

In the end, running dry was only a matter of time.

Sit and wither, or stand and at least fire a shot.

Whoooooo──

And so Frank, the head of the Republican Faction, and his staff had devised one final stratagem.

Whooooo──.

Gandela, the strategic point closest to the Royalist capital. Strike that junction and the enemy’s front line would be split in two, while our own divided lines would be joined into one.

Shhhhh──.

For this operation they had even secured military support from Prozen and Highland. Close to ten thousand men, wearing Republican uniforms, would enter the fight alongside the Republican forces under the guise of volunteers.

The royalist pigs fight riding on the backs of those imperial pigs, so why the hell should we have to fight alone?

Swishhh──

If only it succeeded.

If only they could pull it off.

Whooooo…….

That night.

Wooden boats crossed back and forth dozens, hundreds of times, delivering tens of thousands of soldiers to the far side of the darkness.

The vanguard split into small guerrilla units and simply ‘passed through’ the darkness between the enemy’s outposts, seeping into the rear.

And so, around the time the force across the river had swelled to full strength.

“Advance──!”

War cries and explosives rang out.

* * *

……The Zerpha Republican Faction’s final offensive.

Word of it was delivered to me as well.

In truth, the Zerpha civil war was a stretch of history to which my memories from before the Regression did not apply.

The Royalists should have collapsed from the start, and the Republicans should have seized the momentum, but the Empire’s help had reversed the situation.

So I did not know the beginning or the end of this offensive.

“……Sir. A personal letter from Crown Prince Alonso.”

An agent who had raced here from Zerpha handed me the letter.

[ To the esteemed Knight Maximilian……. ]

It was a request for support.

The situation at the front could turn bad at any moment. The enemy might make a sudden move or spring some ingenious scheme, so I couldn’t afford to let my composure waver.

“…….”

I sank into thought for a moment.

The Republican offensive. The scale described in the letter was considerable.

Which was to say, this was the ‘final’ one.

Grind up their main force there, and the Republican Faction would collapse on the spot.

That said, I could not send in the regular army. Too conspicuous, too overt, and liable to put other nations on their guard.

Which left, in the end…….

“Only one.”

Besides, by now I had grown curious myself.

What sound the Empire’s blade, honed for years, would make in an actual fight.

“Otto. Bring me one of the 0-year knights at random. Whichever one you run into on the way.”

“Yes, sir!”

First Operations Officer Otto withdrew.

Not long after, a young knight came in and snapped a salute.

“0-year knight Ruin, sir!”

“Sit.”

“Yes, sir!”

Watching his every movement snap into precise right angles, I asked him about the curriculum at Empire Point.

“It went like this, sir!”

Ruin poured it all out as if reciting fond memories.

Even setting aside Empire Point’s hellish regular coursework, there remained the final gate before knight commissioning.

The so-called [Selection Weeks], stretching on for a full twenty weeks.

Throughout that entire period, they slept less than three hours a day and had only three minutes for each meal, which they ate standing up.

For the first week, in a state of total Mana depletion—special equipment was worn for this—they carried out full-gear mountain marches on the strength of the body alone.

The next three weeks were devoted to the physical evaluation.

Physical in name only; in practice it was an exercise in scraping the very bottom of the body.

At dawn, they immersed themselves in ice water. During the day, they climbed sand dunes with packs loaded with Weighted Mana Stones, bearing loads that grew heavier with every step.

One week in the middle of that was the Room of Silence.

A week endured in a solitary cell with every sense cut off. Nothing there, nothing to be felt, a darkness in which both sight and hearing were sealed away.

“I got through it by reciting「Under the Moonlight」in full, sir.”

Ruin said it as though he were proud of it.

After that came the mental fortitude evaluation. Classmates became one another’s interrogators and took turns interrogating each other. They learned both how to hold out and how to break a man by applying those lessons to one another.

Then came the operational performance evaluation. Sleepless, they carried out small-unit infiltrations and mock battles one after another, testing whether they could still follow the field manual even with their judgment clouded by exhaustion.

Then came ideological screening, which tested how much a man was willing to sacrifice for the Empire. Extremely lifelike scenarios involving the death of family members, abduction, betrayal by a comrade, and so on were staged to evaluate each cadet’s reaction and response.

For those who endured all of the above, one last thing remained: the journey into the Western Unexplored Territory.

It was a gate that had existed for a long time, and a course I too had passed through.

The difference being that in my day most of us were guided by Yaken, whereas these cadets were given no support whatsoever.

……On the surface.

The unexplored territory was a domain where ‘luck’ played far too great a role. A place where even the most finely honed candidate could be broken by a variable that struck like a bolt from the blue.

That was why the knight order hired Yaken to trail the candidates in secret and intervene only when a danger arose that would otherwise mean death.

Two birds with one stone.

The candidates would gain the pride of crossing the jaws of death alone, and the Yaken would gain the standing of a race that had protected knights’ lives.

“You endured it well.”

“Thank you, sir!”

A trial far harsher than even the one from ten years ago. A uniquely imperial system for producing supermen, one that could only be survived by those with well-rounded talent.

Of course, other nations had elite training programs as well. Only, they placed weight on this thing called ‘human rights’, so they did not push it to this level.

Prozen apparently tried to imitate it for a while, resulting in a great many deaths, and got torn to shreds by its parliament and its press.

If anyone came close, it was the adversaries in the East, who were copying a similar curriculum.

“How many of your class died?”

“……Eleven, sir.”

The Empire regarded individual sacrifice as a collective virtue. Naturally, the bereaved families of cadets who died in pursuit of a dream were given compensation befitting it.

I asked him.

“Are you prepared to kill enemy soldiers?”

Ruin was a young man.

Barely twenty years old, perhaps.

“Yes, sir.”

Even so, his answer was utterly steadfast.

“For the sake of what?”

At my question, he answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“For the Empire.”

Seeing that resolve, I smiled.

With that, my next move was decided.

* * *

Chiron had received the operation plan directly from Maximilian.

Since it was an operation worthy of being included in Empire Point’s textbooks someday, he personally formed a joint command with Maximilian.

“You’ve come.”

“Yes.”

Chiron took the seat at the head of the table, and Maximilian dragged a chair over beside him and settled in at an angle.

──A conference room into which only moonlight fell.

Not long after, one more.

Leon Ascar entered.

“Max. What’s this about?”

He smiled at Maximilian while with his other hand he raised a salute to the Knight Commander.

“Take a seat.”

Chiron gestured to the space in front of him.

“Yes, sir.”

After that, one more.

Royce. Bringing three 0-year and 1st-year knights with him.

“Royce, reporting.”

One more. Dare Tan. Leading two 2nd-year and 3rd-year knights.

“Dare Tan, reporting.”

One more. Hannah. Together with her junior knight, Mia.

“Hannah, reporting.”

“Mia, reporting!”

The two of them looked around the room.

“……Quite a lot of us.”

They seemed to be trying to guess the scale of the operation from the head count.

Maximilian, expressionless, jerked his chin toward the empty chairs.

“Yes, sir.”

The two of them sat─ and one more.

Zionne.

She came together with Lukas Limperck.

One more.

Senior Knight Fried.

He gave the room a quick once-over and then leaned against the wall. He had read the mood at once, and meant to yield the seats to his juniors.

One more.

Senior Knight Cliff.

He too took his place beside Fried without a word.

As the knights steadily flooded in, the faces of the 0-year and 1st-year knights hardened.

It was not fear of the operation. It was simply that the sight of this many knights gathered in one place was, in itself, a very rare thing.

“……Ah.”

Ruin, the 0-year knight, started to step inside and froze solid on the threshold.

Because the room was filled with people whose faces and names he only knew from Empire Point’s textbooks.

Cliff signaled with his eyes. As if to say, sit.

“Y-yes, sir.”

And still they came, one more, Jeffrey.

One more, Philip.

One more, Ludwig…….

Before anyone noticed, the number had passed forty. Even if a single knight’s strength were reckoned as only a battalion, that already amounted to tens of thousands. There was still plenty of space, but the air was taut, ready to burst.

With the pressure of so many presences seeming to push the walls outward, Chiron finally spoke.

“Knight Maximilian. Begin the briefing.”

In that instant, the weight of the room tilted toward a single point. Every gaze converged on ‘him’ at once. The young knights felt a pressure that squeezed their hearts, and even the veteran knights could not remain entirely composed.

“Yes.”

‘He’, for his part, showed not the slightest trace of tension.

Without hurrying or straining, he remained exactly as he was.

Meeting the eyes of every knight gathered there.

He took his time before speaking.

“We are now going to── bring the Zerpha civil war to an end.”

~~~

Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/cdZPxPVrXW