Semi-Coercive Imperialist

Chapter 201

Malice (2)

──Thud. Thud.

Maximilian Ebenholtz walked down the small theater stairs.

Hermann, Yulian, and the staff officers all followed him with their eyes.

"Knight Maximilian...... are you here as support?"

Hermann greeted him with forced ease, but inwardly swallowed his confusion. He had arrived far faster than expected.

Thud. Thud.

Maximilian approached without a word. Beside him, Leutern II tagged along, chattering away like a magpie.

"Wow. A theater like this exists too? It's tiny. Is this some kind of miniature? People actually sit in a place like this?"

Leutern dropped into a seat in the audience, while Maximilian stepped onto the stage.The play now had four leads.

"......"

Maximilian looked from Dominik to Yulian to Hermann in turn.

"Dominik Bauman."

Hermann pointed to Dominik first. He gave a brief report on how they had captured him here.

"I'll receive the rest in writing. And that?"

Maximilian pointed at the evidence pouch in Hermann's hand.

It held Laura's letter. Hermann hesitated for a moment, then handed it over.

"They say it's a letter from Revolutionary Faction member Laura to Knight Yulian."

Maximilian took out the envelope. He unfolded the letter. His eyes swept across the page.

"......There's a hidden message in it."

Maximilian muttered it under his breath.

Hermann frowned.

"Excuse me? A message?"

Maximilian nodded and sealed the letter again.

"It's familiar. And it's been a while."

Something strange flickered across his face.

Izenheim. A method those bastards had used before.

The bizarre traces of mana he had first seen on the day Jacob was murdered.

"I see."

Hermann studied Maximilian. For a brief moment, Maximilian's gaze passed over Yulian.

At that instant, a faint smile rippled across Hermann's lips like mist, then quickly faded.

It worked.

Hermann thought to himself. He must not tense up. He must not let his guard down, either. His opponent was Maximilian. He had to force down the emotion rising inside him.

"Sir Knight. What should we do with the evidence we found?"

The evidence the staff officers had collected and piled together, onstage and backstage.

"Turn it over to Sentinel. Take Dominik in as well. Use your vehicle."

"Ah...... our vehicle, you mean?"

Your vehicle. For some reason, those words struck Hermann as strangely loaded.

Maximilian nodded.

"Yes."

"Ah, well, since I'm still new, the vehicle's a little cramped......"

At that display of modesty, Maximilian gave a faint smile and shook his head.

"......"

Your achievements. Yulian was not included in that phrasing.

"Yes. Understood."

Hermann caught the subtle nuance, but pretended not to and gave orders to the staff officers. They hurriedly gathered up the evidence.

"Come on, come on. Everyone, work hard~"

The voice came from Leutern in the audience seats. He was puffing himself up without understanding a thing, while Yulian said nothing at all. He simply remained silent.

"......"

Then, suddenly, Maximilian's gaze landed on Yulian again.

Yulian looked back at Maximilian.

The two men faced each other.

Hermann secretly watched that moment of crossing between two men who seemed alike and yet were utterly different.

He struggled to suppress the feeling rising from deep inside him, something almost like joy.

"Knight Yulian."

At last, Maximilian called out to Yulian.

"Please look after Duke Leutern."

"Huh? Max. Why me?"

Yulian gave a small nod.

"Hermann. Let's go."

"Yes."

"Max~ Where are you going~!"

After that, the group headed outside. Dominik, now under arrest, was shoved into the back seat of the staff officers' car, and all the evidence was stuffed into the trunk.

"Then let's go."

"Hermann."

As Hermann was about to get into the passenger seat, Maximilian stopped him.

"Yes, Sir Knight."

"Ride in my car. I have something to say to you."

"......"

At that moment, Hermann knew by instinct.

What Maximilian wanted to discuss had to be the hidden content in that letter.

Hermann nodded gravely.

And so they got into the car together.

They sat side by side in the back seat.

Vroooom.

Right before departure, Hermann looked ahead and behind out of habit.

The passenger seat was empty, Maximilian was completely unarmed, and only a single staff officer sat in the driver's seat.

Srrrk......

Inside the car, gliding smoothly forward.

Maximilian said nothing for a long while.

Hermann merely watched him and waited.

"......"

He truly was a difficult man. Even the feel of the air around him was different.

Enough to leave the inside of one's mouth dry.

Still, he couldn't afford to stiffen up too much. If he did, he would never be able to stand at his side.

Hermann cautiously broke the silence.

Maximilian gave a faint smile.

"It was thanks to your good work."

"No. Knight Yulian tracked down almost all of it. I only......"

Just as Hermann, under the guise of humility, was about to give Yulian the credit.

"Hermann. Did you read what was written in the letter?"

Maximilian cut him off while staring out the window.

"No. Not really...... did you find something?"

"I did."

There was no change in Maximilian's expression.

No agitation, no wavering, just a dry stillness like a desert.

Hermann waited, focusing all his attention on keeping his face under control.

"Yulian was an executive who had been cooperating with the Revolutionary Faction."

His voice sank thickly, like fog.

"......What?"

Without showing too much, Hermann reacted with shocked disbelief.

"N-no, no way...... no way. Surely not."

Maximilian's lips twisted slightly. Hermann swallowed like a green rookie. Only his tongue felt parched.

Vroooom.

Silence wrapped around him once more.

Maximilian said nothing, only watched the scenery sliding past outside the window.

A suffocating stillness.

Then, suddenly.

An unfamiliar view entered Hermann's sight.

"......?"

Now that he thought about it, the direction was wrong.

This was not the road to Sentinel.

Just as he was about to voice his suspicion.

"Hermann von Berg."

Maximilian broke the silence first.

"......No."

Then he slowly turned his head, looked straight at him, and spoke a different name.

"Otto von Berg."

The sound of that name from his lips made Hermann's spine go rigid.

At some point, the car had entered a tunnel.

"Hermann died a long time ago. Didn't he?"

Maximilian's golden eyes flashed in the darkness.

He was badly shaken, but quickly hid his true colors. He turned his confusion into anger.

"......Sir Knight. Otto is my dead brother's name."

A curve formed at Maximilian's lips.

"No. I think that's your name."

Whoooosh.

A bleak wind gathered inside the car. It was the flow of mana.

Hermann glanced at the rearview mirror again.

"Even for the Revolutionary Faction, imitating a noble with no ties to you isn't easy. Empire Point's screening isn't that sloppy."

If he had just been some bastard pretending to be a noble, there was no way they would have failed to weed him out from the start.

This was Maximilian, a man who could distinguish western and eastern origins just from the slightest accent.

"But if you were imitating your own blood relative, that would be enough to pass."

Otto von Berg, Hermann's older brother, was said to have died in a Revolutionary Faction terror attack.

But in Maximilian's eyes, Otto had not died then.

Instead, he had faked his death and borrowed the identity of his younger brother Hermann.

Because at Empire Point, the greatest barrier was age, along with bloodline.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Sir Knight. Are you insulting my brother and my house?"

Veins stood out in Hermann's neck. Maximilian leaned lightly against the window frame. His movements still carried an elegant ease.

"Otto. It doesn't matter if you claim not to know. In truth, it doesn't matter even if my guess is wrong."

The voice cut into him. Had Maximilian already reached his conclusion?

Hermann clenched his fist tightly.

"......There is plenty of evidence that we found. That will point to the truth. Knight Maximilian, you're supposed to be a fair and objective man."

"Fair?"

At Hermann's protest, Maximilian bit that word out coldly.

KWAHHHHH──!

Right then, a massive roar rose from behind them. Hermann snapped his head around. Blue flames surged up on the road. The staff officers' car behind them, Dominik, and all the evidence had exploded.

"How unfortunate. All the evidence is gone."

Maximilian laughed softly.

Hermann, no, Otto, ground his teeth. Veins webbed across his face.

"What a shame, Otto."

"......"

This had gone wrong.

Since when had he been exposed, and since when had they known?

Still, he had to stay calm. This situation itself was not bad. He was now alone with the very core of the Empire.

Otto glared at Maximilian and moved his hand in secret.

"I'm sorry, but."

Maximilian seemed to be reading his gaze and killing intent perfectly as well, yet there was no sword in his hand.

"The Empire is not that easy."

Shhk. Otto drew the dagger hidden at his wrist.

But before he could even thrust out his arm, the driver's seat moved first.

Schatz Heizen lunged at him.

* * *

Western Empire. A harbor buried in thick fog.

At the silent dock, where not even a trace of life could be felt, a black sedan slid to a stop.

Clunk.

The car door opened, and a corpse was dragged out from the back seat.

Schatz moved quickly. She firmly tied heavy chunks of iron and mana-stone weights to the body, then hurled it over the breakwater like a thrown spear.

Splash!

The corpse flew far out. Schatz's mana formed a whirlpool around it and dragged it down, deeper and deeper still.

I watched it sink without emotion, then spoke to the person behind me.

"What do you think?"

......Yulian Askar.

He slowly walked forward.

"If you ask me, the real Hermann probably died because of some incident."

I kept my eyes on the sea as I continued.

"Whether from illness. Or in battle."

The younger brother, Hermann, lost his life unjustly for one reason or another, and Otto, the elder brother, either learned that truth from the Revolutionary Faction or uncovered it himself and joined hands with them.

He carried a vengeance deep enough in his bones to steal his brother's identity and infiltrate the Order.

"Are you certain?"

Yulian asked.

"I can't know for sure."

I turned and looked at Yulian.

At some point he had come to stand beside me, and now he held out a wristwatch.

"It was a watch his younger brother gave him."

Behind the slightly loosened screws on the back plate, a small inscription had been carved.

[ To my most beloved brother Otto, from Hermann. ]

......It was not a keepsake from the older brother. It was a watch the younger brother had given him.

A faint smile passed over my lips.

"Did you know from the start?"

Yulian had been absent from the Order for a long time. He had used covert work as an excuse, but during that time, he had probably been investigating Otto from the shadows.

"Who knows."

Yulian's eyes drifted toward the sea where Otto had sunk.

"Knowing and understanding are different things."

At that, my brows twitched.

The Revolutionary Faction had failed, but one part of it had succeeded.

The aftertaste of the malice they left behind, and the contradictions of the Empire, had already begun to wear away at Yulian from within.

"We'll face countless kinds of malice from now on."

Yulian looked up at the night sky and recited the words without emotion.

"Maybe the Empire itself is malice."

His hollow voice scattered into the cold sea wind.

"Yes."

Still, there was no need to worry.

I already knew the kind of person Yulian was.

Someday, if the day came when he could no longer bear the Empire and finally broke.

"That may be true."

Then I would gladly......

behead him.

* * *

Northern Empire. The visitation room there, where gray sleet still drifted through the air even though summer had already begun.

"......"

Beyond the transparent barrier, Yulian looked at Laura.

Her cheeks were pale, her eyes sunken. All the life she once had was gone, leaving only the shabby figure of a prisoner standing before death.

"......"

Laura looked back at Yulian in silence. The fact that he had come to her alive was enough to tell her what must have happened outside.

The plan had failed.

"......Looks like that's how it went."

Laura let out a sigh and murmured.

"That's what happened."

Yulian's answer was dry. The two of them read far too much in each other's faces.

"It couldn't be helped."

The revenge she had harbored.

The hatred she had aimed in anger over Ashton's death.

The malice that had tried to bind Yulian in the Revolutionary Faction's net had failed to fulfill its purpose completely.

"......Yulian. You're still the same."

A sorrowful smile spread across Laura's lips.

"Even after all this, no. Even though you knew everything from the start, you still don't hate me."

Laura placed her hand on the barrier. Yulian replied while looking at the ring mark on her finger.

"Knowing and understanding are different things."

"......I see."

But she knew.

In the end, her malice would achieve its purpose.

The Yulian she saw now was already no longer normal.

Outwardly, he still upheld the duties of an imperial knight and fulfilled his responsibilities, but inwardly he had already been worn down past the point of repair.

A broken man, now far removed from the Yulian of the past.

"I heard about my older brother and my younger brother."

Yulian was someone who could not betray the Empire. But at the same time, he constantly struggled and agonized over the Empire's absurdity. He wandered within that contradictory cage.

In the end, unable to endure the internal conflict tearing at him, he would shatter into pieces.

"I heard Maximilian made sure no harm would come to my house. Tell him thank you."

"......All right."

Yulian checked his wristwatch.

Laura counted too.

Three minutes. One hundred eighty seconds.

Their visitation time was over.

"Then I'll go."

With the same unshaken face, in the same tone as always.

"Laura. I was glad to have you by my side."

He left those words behind and rose from his seat.

"......Yeah."

As he walked away under the prison guard's salute, Laura offered her final farewell as well.

"Goodbye, Yulian. Forever......"