Chapter 267: ......Preparations (2)
Half of Zerpha was collapsing.
The republic they had championed was dissolving and sinking away like a years-long dream, and countless people spilled onto the roads as refugees.
An endless line of evacuees followed behind the routed Republicans. But their ships could not carry every refugee, and they had no intention of trying. Their reason was simple: more important people had to be saved.
“…….”
‘Alcansa’ was the last port under Republican Faction control. A Highland-registered cargo ship, 「Brendal」, was docked there.
Its Captain, ‘Cameron’, stood on deck and stared beyond the docks.
“Hey, Olan. See that over there?”
Pointing into the distance, he handed the navigator his binoculars.
“……Yes.”
The navigator looked in the same direction.
Countless people filled the docks, with still more stretching toward them all the way from the horizon.
Women carrying bundles. Soldiers on crutches. Old people loaded onto handcarts. Everyone capable of walking was coming toward the sea.
“What are they doing?”
“They’re fleeing this way. The rumors were true.”
The Republican Faction had been completely defeated. Whether they had collaborated with the Republican Party or not, anyone who had lived in Republican-held territory was unlikely to have a peaceful life from here on.
“Captain, what are you going to do?”
“…….”
Captain Cameron hesitated. Then he wondered why he was hesitating at all.
None of this was in the contract. The company would be furious, and insurance wouldn’t pay a penny. They weren’t even from his country to begin with.
“……What else?”
Still, if those had been his only thoughts, he would have left long ago. He would not have spent three whole days docked at this pier, waiting.
“Exactly what it looks like.”
It wasn’t anything as grand as a sense of duty.
It was merely the whim of a somewhat difficult Captain.
“We’re a cargo ship. There’s all that cargo right there. We ought to take it aboard.”
The Captain spoke, and the sailors lined up behind him listened.
“Load them.”
People were people.
Nothing aboard this ship was more important than them.
“Open her up. Take in as many as we can.”
The sailors obeyed the Captain’s order. They went down to the dock and opened the cargo doors, admitting the stranded refugees one after another.
“Those at the front first! Those at the front, board!”
At the sailor’s shout, they began to move.
Everyone shoved, grabbed, and hauled one another aboard.
“Wait! Wait! I’m the Vice Minister! Of the Republic-”
A man demanding to be taken first because he supposedly held an important post in the Republican Party.
“So what?! Who do you think got us into this mess?!”
Someone else punched him in the face.
“……Sweetheart. It’ll be all right. Get on the ship. You only have to go a little farther.”
A mother fastened her family’s necklace around her crying child’s neck, then, wearing the expression of someone who already knew she herself would never make it aboard, placed only the child into a stranger’s arms.
Children whose names no one knew were passed overhead in a wave.
“Captain. There are too many.”
The navigator spoke. The deck was already riding dangerously low over the water. They had quickly reached the load line, the mark along the hull showing the maximum depth to which the ship could sink in the water ─.
Cameron watched them for a moment, then gave an order.
“……Dump whatever we can.”
“Sir?”
“I said dump whatever we can!”
The things they could dump were the very things they had originally been hired to transport. The things written in the contract as cargo that must not be thrown away.
Even so, the sailors obeyed the Captain’s order.
The cranes swung into motion. Crates of cigarettes, stacks of fabric, machine parts, cola, stockings, and other goods splashed one after another into the sea.
For every bit of cargo weight that sank beneath the waves, an equal weight in people came aboard.
***
I got into the car and looked around Zerpha’s capital as we drove through the city. The scenery had changed quite a bit even compared to a few years ago.
Banks built with Imperial capital. Alongside them were theaters, libraries, museums, broadcasting stations, insurance companies, currency exchanges, and more.
New buildings now stood in rows across the city center that had been destroyed during the civil war, with distinctive shops filling the spaces between them.
People sat on every café terrace with cola and coffee in front of them, while bookstores displayed the Zerphan edition of the Imperial literary classic 「Valtaras」 as a bestseller.
Just like that, the Zerpha Republic from before my Regression was gone.
Through this civil war, I saw a possibility.
Just as I had changed Zerpha’s future, humanity too…….
“……It is developing day by day.”
I smiled at Colonel Kai Han’s words. It was quite satisfying to see the change in the standing of an allied nation.
“It even looks a little like the Empire in places.”
Most of the Mana Stones extracted from mines such as「Jeronika」were purchased at fair prices by Imperial refineries, processed into Mana Stone chemical products, and then exported back to Zerpha.
On top of that, Zerpha had become a ‘corridor’ through which Imperial goods advanced westward. Beverage bottling plants and distribution networks had been established. Cola and nylon spread through Zerpha into Prozen, Highland, and numerous other countries.
Zerpha’s premium food industry had been enormously successful, with ham, olives, wine, cheeses from the northern mountains, truffles, Zerphan beef, and other products crossing its borders. The very best were exported to the Empire. Only what remained went elsewhere.
“That’s good.”
Before long, we arrived at our destination, the Zerpha Royal Palace.
We got out of the car and went inside.
“Knight Maximilian!”
Inside one of the palace’s private reception rooms, the Crown Prince approached with his arms spread wide and embraced me heartily.
“It has been too long. A fine thing indeed. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. You have been through a great deal.”
“Nonsense, you’ve had the harder time of it!”
“Haha…… Ah, these are Colonel Kai Han and Johann Georg.”
I introduced Kai Han and Johann Georg. Kai Han was already acquainted with the Crown Prince, while Johann delivered the greeting he had prepared beforehand in clear Zerphan.
“It is an honor, Your Highness.”
“Yes. A pleasure. A great pleasure indeed.”
I watched Johann shake hands with the Crown Prince.
This man. This troublesome man.
Before my Regression, his potential to become a great literary master had brought disaster upon the continent, but compared to those days, he had become far gentler.
But that gentleness was not frailty. On the contrary, he had grown even stronger. His gentleness was flexibility.
Johann no longer tried to impose only the Empire’s position when operating in foreign countries. He first mastered the culture and circumstances of the country in question, then tailored his operations to suit that country before planting his ideology there.
Of course, it was difficult to deny that I played a very large role in that process. Johann was a genius at agitation and propaganda, not a genius of languages.
Most of the scripts Johann wrote were translated by me before being delivered to Zerpha’s broadcasting stations, newspapers, and playwrights.
It was therefore only natural that Zerpha’s monarchy was filled with pro-Imperial figures, but the people of Zerpha themselves were also being drawn in the same direction without even realizing it.
What was actually true did not matter. With every media outlet under Imperial control, there was only one ‘truth’ left standing.
“Maximilian. There is something I wish to discuss with you.”
The Crown Prince sat down, his expression hardening.
“It’s about the treatment of the prisoners……”
There were countless Republican prisoners confined in the camps. They probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
But the number of civilians who had simply lived in territory occupied by the Republican Faction was more than twenty times greater.
“The leaders who commanded the Republican Party and the bastards who served as its hands and feet should, of course, be executed. Especially those vermin who were not even Zerphan, yet incited the people of this land and drove them into civil war. They must be punished.”
“I agree. Those bastards from the Ezenheim Volunteer Corps…….”
For a moment, I nearly smiled at the Crown Prince’s words, but managed to restrain myself.
“On the other hand, I believe civilians who were simply swept up in the republican cause should be allowed to continue earning their livelihoods.”
“But how are we to distinguish-”
“There is no need to distinguish them.”
I glanced toward Johann.
“The Republican Faction was truly vicious. They created an organization called the ‘Union’ and made it impossible to work for a company or in public service unless one joined.”
“You mean the Union Registry?”
“Yes. It cannot be used as evidence that someone was a member of the Republican Party.”
As a result, the ‘Union Registry’ contained the names of most citizens who had lived under Republican Faction rule, most of whom had signed because they needed money to buy bread and feed their families. If guilt were determined according to that registry, half the country would become criminals.
Therefore, rather than punish all of them.
“Johann will demonize the very people who created that registry.”
The Republican Party. The Republican Faction. Propaganda depicting them as people corrupted by Eastern ideology and, at the same time, as ‘traitors’ who had taken handouts from Ezenheim.
“To accomplish that, we actually need those countless civilians. As victims who were coerced.”
“……Indeed. A very sensible proposal. I shall discuss it that way with my advisers later.”
“Yes.”
Crown Prince Alonso believed anything I told him.
He himself would believe the decision was his own, but he had always been an extremely weak man, and weak men were simply swayed by others.
Just as I once had been……
Knock knock—
At the sudden knock, the Crown Prince furrowed his brow.
“At such an important time, what…….”
“It’s all right. Have them come in.”
The door opened. An attendant bowed apologetically, then whispered something to the Crown Prince.
“Your Highness. A foreign vessel has taken aboard Republican Faction refugees…….”
I caught the gist. The Crown Prince scratched his cheek with a troubled expression.
“Hm…… What a predicament.”
“Your Highness. May I go?”
At my words, the Crown Prince waved his hand.
“No, no. There is no need-”
“No. Since I’m already here, I can fly there in no time.”
An advanced prototype of a new helicopter, refined through successive rounds of development, happened to be parked in the front courtyard of the palace.
It was an assignment well worth taking on, if only to test its performance.
***
Late at night. The cargo ship [Brendal] was underway.
They had set a course along the southern route to Highland. The deck was packed with people, so even a modest swell made the entire vessel roll and groan.
Swoooosh──
Whenever waves struck the side of the ship, people clutched one another’s arms and clothing. Though drenched by the spray, not a single person complained. A Zerphan folk song that someone had begun humming softly drifted across the deck in place of weeping.
“……Captain.”
The situation on the bridge, however, was not good.
“They’ll be on us soon.”
At the navigator’s words, the Captain gritted his teeth. A pursuing ship had closed in not far behind them. It was a warship.
A cargo ship had no means of fighting back. It wasn’t even armed.
“Just keep going.”
They kept moving as though nothing were wrong, until suddenly.
Wheeeee──!
A loudspeaker blared from the bridge.
──ALTOS! NAVE FARENCY! KONTROL DE MARINA!
Searchlights swept over them. Alarmed voices rose. Exhausted screams rang out.
──FARENCY! ORDEN IMPERIO! PUEGO PARADAGIO!
They seemed to be barking some shit in Zerphan, and judging by the sobs spreading across the deck, everyone up there appeared to understand every word.
Of course, the Captain couldn’t understand a word of it.
“What the fuck are they saying…….”
With the cargo ship packed full of people, its speed was slow, and they were soon overtaken.
“Give me the loudspeaker!”
Captain Cameron grabbed the loudspeaker and climbed up above the bridge.
“Hey! This is a Highland cargo ship! If you shoot, you’ll cause a diplomatic incident!”
──FARENCY! ORDEN IMPERIO! PUEGO PARADAGIO!
“I don’t know what the hell you’re saying! If you want a diplomatic incident, then go ahead and shoot! This is a Highland cargo ship! Highland! I said Highland!”
──FARENCY…….
Their shouting abruptly stopped.
─……I know. This is a Knight of the Empire speaking.
The next words came in fluent Highland Language.
‘Knight of the Empire.’
A chill ran up the Captain’s spine.
“What kind of crazy nonsense is that?! Why would a Knight be out here……?”
“……Captain! Over there!”
The navigator pointed somewhere. A man stepped onto the railing of the warship, then bounded effortlessly across the gap between the two vessels.
It was such a leap that for an instant, Cameron wondered whether he had actually flown.
He walked across the deck packed with people.
──It’s a Knight of the Empire!
Someone farther back repeated the same thing in Zerphan. Everyone on deck lowered themselves.
A silence so complete that even breathing ceased. They knew the weight of one more person could be enough to sink the ship.
─Creak.
The Knight walked toward them as though pressing the deck down beneath his feet.
─Creak.
He moved slowly through the tightly packed crowd.
Wherever his gaze fell, people lowered their heads.
Then the Knight noticed a child. An infant held in its mother’s arms.
Giggle.
The baby looked at the Knight and laughed. Everyone nearby turned deathly pale. The mother hurriedly tried to bury the baby’s face against her chest, but…
“No. It’s all right.”
He smiled faintly, removed his glove, and reached out.
He slipped one finger into the baby’s tiny hand and let it grip him tightly.
Giggle. Giggle.
The Knight watched that lovely smile.
“……Are you truly a Knight of the Empire?”
By then, Captain Cameron had approached and asked him.
“Waaaaah!”
The baby burst into tears at the sight of the Captain’s scar-riddled mug, and the people on deck quickly cleared a space for him.
“Yes. I am. I flew here in haste.”
The word ‘flew’ made no sense to Cameron for a moment, but he had no chance to dwell on it. From then on, the Knight was the one asking the questions.
“Captain. Are all these people your cargo?”
He gestured toward the people packed across the deck as he asked.
Captain Cameron swallowed dryly.
“That’s right.”
He brazened it out.
“I’m transporting them to Highland. They’ve already paid me.”
Claiming payment he had never received, the Captain deliberately flicked his gaze toward the Highland flag.
“…….”
The Knight said nothing. The Captain remained tense, wary of how dangerous the Knight seemed, yet inwardly could not help admiring him.
His face was pale as a crescent moon, touched with a soft golden hue. His expression was impossible to read.
After silently staring at Cameron for some time, a faint smile finally appeared on his lips.
“I see.”
The Knight thought.
There was no need to go out of his way to kill them.
Of course, there could be members of the Republican Party among them. Someone who harbored resentment toward the Empire. Perhaps even an operative or two.
But one thing was certain──there were no Ezenheim among them.
Zerpha had never had many Ezenheim to begin with, so those bastards had probably fled with the Republican Faction’s senior leadership, abandoning everyone they considered useless.
“Yes. I understand a Captain’s duty.”
The Knight granted them safe passage.
“A certain Captain I knew once did the same.”
Then he extended a hand toward Cameron.
“May you have a safe voyage.”
“…….”
Captain Cameron stared blankly at him. Was he really letting them go? Or was this merely deception, perhaps hypocrisy?
Still unsure of the Knight’s intentions, Cameron took his hand.
“Well then.”
Whatever the case, the Knight seemed to have meant it.
He turned to leave and stepped onto the cargo ship’s railing.
“W-wait! Your name, what’s your name?!”
Cameron blurted out before he even realized what he was doing.
Moonlight spilled across the Knight’s profile as he briefly looked back.
“……You’ll find out later.”
The Knight smiled, then leaped back across to the other vessel. He said something to its Captain, and the searchlights went dark. The warship also began to pull away.
Swoooosh.
The sound of water parting. The rumble of the great vessel receding.
Once again, only darkness and stars remained over the sea, while silence and stillness settled over the water.
“…….”
For a long moment, the Captain stood there breathing hard, feeling as though he were in a dream……
“A-again. Full speed!”
His voice finally returned, and he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Move forward!”
***
Scale of Zerpha. Crown Prince Alonso sat inside the palace and personally signed a document.
[ As of today, the traitors have been annihilated. The Zerpha Royalist Army has achieved its final military objective. ]
[ The war is over. ]
[ Crown Prince of Zerpha, ‘Alonso Mateo de Valderosa’ ]
Those words were broadcast not only across Zerpha but also by radio stations throughout the entire continent.
Celebratory bells rang in every city across Zerpha, whether out of sincerity or flattery born of the need to survive. Royal flags were hung along every street, and between them fluttered banners praising the Empire.
Naturally, there were also Zerphans who did not welcome it.
The painter ‘Pablo’, who had become more famous than the nation of Zerpha itself, settled permanently in Prozen, while Zerphans living in numerous countries signed papers renouncing their citizenship.
Captured officials of the Republican Party were assigned to forced labor, while the populace was put to use for atonement, agitation, and propaganda, just as Johann had said.
Postwar reconstruction then began. In the western areas of Zerpha that had been held by the Republican Faction, construction began first on numerous Imperial factories.
For now, those factories would produce things like nylon and cola, but eventually they would be converted into munitions factories.
And I…….
[ The war is over. ]
Looking at those words, I found myself overcome by a peculiar feeling.
This ending would probably be a new beginning.
From now on, the Zerpha Kingdom Army would undergo increasingly rigorous training while the country carried out repeated rounds of conscription, eventually turning it into a powerful ally of the Empire.
“Sir Maximilian.”
Inside a car heading somewhere.
Someone called to me. It was Schatz Heizen, her black hair cut short.
“What has you so deep in thought?”
As she asked, she placed her hand over mine. The reassuring presence of a trusted confidante settled over me, stilling the faint wavering within.
“…….”
I’m glad there’s someone I can trust. Even as I entertained such a weak thought, the fear and sorrow I could never truly let go of remained.
That seemed to be the essence of who I was, but…….
I met her eyes and answered.
“It’s time to do what needs to be done.”
──Believe, Maximilian.
You will fulfill your mission.
~~~
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