Chapter 520

Marian Baum closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples. The mood among the Catacombs’ leadership was far from pleasant. Janina Schweitzer, a colleague who had recently become co-chairman alongside Chairman Antje Dracher, made no attempt to hide her contempt.

“Where is His Majesty the King while the Crown Prince wishes to meet with us? If he has any conscience at all, shouldn’t he at least have the decency not to come to us wearing that illustrious family name?”

They were discussing whether they were willing to receive the Crown Prince. Chairman Schweitzer opened her eyes wide and made an aggressive gesture with her hand.

“He’s doing this because the Wittelsbachs need our technology, isn’t he? Because they need the spatial magic technology we had to desperately develop just to survive.”

“That may be part of it, but that’s only secondary. From what I’ve heard, and from what I think as well, the Crown Prince and the kingdom’s real objective is—”

“See? That’s exactly why we should have executed those two on the spot—the Hohenzollern offshoot who barged into the Catacombs and the Bavarian Royal Family! Whether they knew about us on the surface or not, why should that matter to us when they didn’t even know where the entrance to the Catacombs was? We could have used them to show the world what we’re capable of. But the moment they learned who we were, they started coveting our technology!”

Chairman Schweitzer slammed her hand against the table and rose from her seat, shouting as she scratched at her neck. Her secretary and the other activists from the same radical faction wore equally grim expressions.

Marian Baum felt his mouth go dry. It wasn’t that he failed to understand Chairman Schweitzer’s intentions or concerns. On the contrary, although Schweitzer’s radicalism could earn her the disapproval of others, he believed that her opinions and reasoning were perfectly valid, and that people like her were necessary for the Catacombs.

Marian Baum could not handle Catacombs diplomacy on his own. Doing so could sow the seeds of internal conflict and would fail to reflect the will of the ‘Catacombs’. It would represent only the opinions of Marian Baum and a handful of Catacombs politicians who had heard the information from him, not the Catacombs as a whole. It would hardly be democratic.

This too would be a confidential meeting where they could not hold a referendum, but he still had to discuss it with the entire leadership. There were several who shared Marian’s views, but nearly half of them did not. The need to convince everyone made the task enormous.

Chairman Schweitzer pointed accusingly at the floor and shouted.

“They shoved us into the ‘Catacombs,’ and now that they need us, they want to pull us back out and make use of us. Ha! It’s so absurd I can’t help but laugh. What kind of nonsense is that?”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

Marian Baum shook his head awkwardly and replied.

“The parties responsible are different. We were driven out like this because of Prussia and the pro-Prussian states. Bavaria is the only state that wants to return us, the Catacombs, to the surface, and the only one capable of standing toe-to-toe with Prussia in a fight.”

It was easy to see how much a country’s direction could change depending on the character and values of a single ruler. The parliament and the prime minister were heavily influenced by the king’s will.

Even among the members of Prussia’s upper house—in other words, the noble New Humans—there had been those who argued that Old Human mages should not be treated that way. But the King of Prussia rejected it, and so did the many members who shared his views.

Surprisingly, among the commoners serving in the lower house, there were also those who argued that it was right to kill commoner mages, even though they themselves were commoners. Some made that argument because the mana flowing through the bodies of commoner mages was effectively money in circulation throughout the world, and they did not want others to gain an economic advantage from it. Yet if the king changed his mind and declared that commoner mages should not be discriminated against, most of them would change their own views as well, and come to admire ‘His Majesty the Emperor’s graciousness in refusing to discriminate against commoner mages.’

That was the influence of a single ruler.

The same was true in Bavaria. Even among its upper-house members, there had been those who insisted that Prussia’s policy of discriminating against commoner mages should be faithfully enforced. But the King of Bavaria rejected it, and so did the many members who shared that view.

So much was determined by the ruler of the age.

Would things improve under a democracy? If an elected president stood at the head of the country instead of a hereditary king, the parliament and prime minister would not necessarily be able to defy the president’s wishes either. The press currently watched the royal family’s mood, but surely, once democracy arrived, there would be no such ‘despotic’ behavior as the press watching the president’s mood…

Marian Baum had thought that way once. Not anymore.

The democratic republic of America, existing in the same era as autocratic Germany, had given Marian Baum half a reason to hope and half a reason to despair. From a broad perspective, the two seemed astonishingly different. But once he looked at the lives of ordinary people, they seemed astonishingly similar.

Why was it that even when an ideal form of government was created, it did not function nearly as ideally in reality?

Marian Baum pressed between his brows and sighed, then touched his temple. Thinking about it for so long had given him a headache. All Marian Baum could do was hope that Chairman Schweitzer would be convinced.

But the chairman firmly rejected it.

“Bavaria is the only state that cares about us? Bavaria? What about the Papal States?”

“No. They are working to weaken Germany. If they can provoke a civil war in Germany, the ‘Great Power Germany’ will collapse, and a new hegemon—the Papal States—will emerge. With the influence of not only Catholicism but Christianity as a whole declining rapidly across Europe, the Papal States can no longer maintain their power through religion alone, and their territory is too small. They cannot stand on their own, so they intend to join hands with Bavaria and eventually swallow Bavaria as well.”

Marian Baum spoke earnestly, trying to persuade the members of the leadership seated around the table.

“Whatever else we may be, we are Germans. If all we wanted was to live without persecution, we would have gone into exile in another country long ago instead of staying in this damned homeland of ours! There is Switzerland, where they speak German, and countries like America. We chose not to do that and instead made our home on German soil because Germany is our homeland, the country we love. And unlike the tricks they have pulled with the Constitution, we have every right to live here as unmistakably ‘German citizens’ with our feet planted on this soil! As German citizens, we will firmly protest our homeland’s wrongs and work to change it. We cannot stand by and watch ourselves tear each other apart because of other countries fighting over their own interests. We are Germans.”

Schweitzer’s expression hardened as she replied.

“I can. I can stand by and watch it happen. The only thing I care about is the Catacombs’ victory. I do not care about Germany’s victory. And you expect me to join hands with a German Royal Family?”

“The Crown Prince hinted that this is precisely the opportunity to elevate the Catacombs’ position. His strategy is to save Prussia ‘by breaking the rules and order Prussia itself established.’ We, the Catacombs, can make Prussia owe us a debt for saving it from ruin ‘by breaking those rules.’ I am not expecting the Catacombs to return to the surface completely overnight. But it means we can make it so that Prussia can no longer get away with its oppression and injustice! We, the Catacombs, can make that happen!”

“What a generous Crown Prince. The royals shoved us down here, and now he tells us to climb back up with the help of royal power. You want us to become indebted to the royals? What if the Crown Prince is simply trying to use the Catacombs for Bavaria’s national interests?”

The fact that this royal family was not the same royal family as those who had driven them into the Catacombs did not seem to register with Chairman Schweitzer. Marian Baum understood that as well, but he was growing increasingly anxious.

“Then how do you intend to rise again? How can we get out of this situation without cooperating with anyone?”

“That remains to be seen. But can we really take the hand of royalty? Even if what happened to us was the doing of Prussia and the pro-Prussian states, the Bavarian Royal Family is still complicit because they are royalty all the same. They should have stopped it somehow. And if they could not, they should have withdrawn from the German Federation!”

“Then we would have another war on our hands. Do you not know how many wars our country went through before it was unified? Bavaria did not have the strength to stand against them back then as it does now. As always, if we want to minimize the loss of life and protect Germany from outside powers, this is not the time for us to fight among ourselves. Do you realize how many people would end up in graves?”

“Our commoner mages were killed by Prussia as well. Bavaria is a bystander. A bystander that chose to sacrifice fewer people in order to prevent Germany’s destruction and the deaths of millions. Of course, I would rather be a bystander than a mass murderer. But if I had to stand by and watch, I would sooner take my own life! The Kingdom of Bavaria should have been prepared to disappear into the pages of history for the sake of doing what was right. Justice is what cannot be compromised, no matter the circumstances!”

Chairman Schweitzer continued, her eyes burning with anger.

“That is why I said before that a German civil war is none of our concern.”

Marian Baum lowered his head. He understood why Chairman Schweitzer was so angry. The chairman was a radical, while Baum was a moderate. He understood all too well the resolve to choose dignity over an immediate gain, and Marian Baum felt the same way. They all wanted the true liberation of the Catacombs—they simply differed in how they believed it should be achieved. Janina Schweitzer might be able to understand Marian Baum as well, but politics could not be settled through understanding alone.

Even so, Marian Baum believed he was standing at a turning point that could change the fate of the Catacombs. The international situation and the Crown Prince’s plans that he had heard directly from him were nothing short of an opportunity. An opportunity that might never come again—if they let it slip now, they might have to wait another few decades, perhaps even centuries.

He had already heard that the Crown Prince possessed remarkable strategic ability. Some people said that his having a brilliant adviser like Nikolaus Ernst, or his consistent degree of political success, was simply a matter of luck. But it was certainly not luck alone. If Marian Baum could trust his own years of experience while remaining wary of confirmation bias, then the Crown Prince, whom Baum knew only through the limited information available to him, had always been someone who observed and accepted things as they were.

That acceptance was easily mistaken by the impatient as passivity or timidity, but that was simply a misunderstanding born of their different positions.

The Crown Prince was, regardless of how he saw himself, fundamentally different from everyone else. He would have to acknowledge that if he wished to avoid arrogance without realizing it.

Most people, Marian Baum included, had to walk toward opportunities themselves and seize them with their own hands. But that Wittelsbach Crown Prince had occupied a position where everything came rushing toward him from the moment he was laid in his cradle. Countless riches, pleasures, talents, and resources lay at his feet.

Everything had two sides. From this moment onward, the real problem slowly raised its head upon the red carpet beneath the throne. Having too much could be just as troublesome as having too little.

A ruler could use the golden tide surging toward his feet to pave a road toward ruin, or he could use it to build a reign that would live on in history. Whether a ruler embraced all the gold and treasures before him along with his own human desires and fell beneath the throne, repeatedly made uncertain choices swayed by immature judgment and warm, sentimental compassion, or kept a certain distance from everything he loved and hated, observing all things with a cool head before making the best possible choice—he had to forge his own fate through one of these paths.

Therefore, the achievement of the adviser known as Nikolaus Ernst was also the achievement and foresight of the Crown Prince: when a talent like Nikolaus Ernst came within his reach, he had not let the opportunity pass, but appointed him to such a high position and thereby gave him the freedom and appropriate authority to make use of his abilities.

It was easy to say that he had naturally been appointed because he could wield divine power, or that their personal relationship had placed Nikolaus Ernst, known as an unidentified foreigner, in that position. But those were only parts of the story.

Bavaria could have given Ernst a lower position that was still suited to his use of divine power. The reason Bavaria had gone beyond employing Nikolaus Ernst merely as a divine power mage or a member of the Royal Army and instead made use of him as a political adviser was because they had recognized his worth.

Bavaria had taken a gamble, and it had succeeded.

The Crown Prince had to manage every chess piece given to him—not too few, not too many—and place each one where it could be most effective at the right time. Continuously solving that problem would be both his role as a future ruler and the greatest burden of his life. After all, it was the ruler’s duty to move each of his pieces to a position where it could use its abilities to seize the advantage, and to keep them under control.

It was much the same. Nikolaus Ernst was merely the clearest example. A ruler had to make judgments like these at every moment, and rulers had been doing so for as long as there had been rulers. Filtering the vast amount of information flowing into the Royal Family through his own mind and the exceptional talents at his disposal, then piecing it back together to produce explosive results; taking a moment when all they could do was scramble to avert a national crisis and turning it around in an instant, transforming it into the stage for a great victory—that was what the Crown Prince had accomplished this morning.

He had already laid the groundwork perfectly. All that remained was to put it into action. It was something only the Royal Family, where every exceptional resource gathered, could accomplish.

Leonard Wittelsbach’s strategy was exceptionally clean and devastating—enough to smash through every obstacle that came charging at Bavaria’s chariot and carry it all the way to the top. When it came to strategies with a high chance of victory, the simplest operation was the most difficult one. He was a born commander.

Marian Baum would not say that Leonard was astonishingly capable for his age simply because he was the future ruler. Marian knew that being raised in an advanced family environment where he could devote himself to learning had shaped the Crown Prince’s intellect, and he knew there was nothing wrong with acknowledging that from the perspective of their own values. But he had no intention of making a statement that could be taken as defending the legitimacy of hereditary rule. Nor would such an assessment be much of a compliment to the Crown Prince himself.

But there was no denying that, as one person to another, Leonard was exceptional.

And judging from the little pieces of information Marian Baum himself knew—though he had no intention of explaining to the others what those pieces of information were—the Crown Prince also had values that aligned closely with his own.

It had to be this era. Now was the right time, while there was someone beside him who understood both sin and duty. No matter how Marian Baum thought about it, he could not let this opportunity pass.

“Chairman Schweitzer.”

At Marian Baum’s words, Chairman Schweitzer frowned and looked at him.

“You said that, if you were in Bavaria’s position, you would rather kill yourself than stand by and watch, and that the Kingdom of Bavaria should have pursued its ethics even if it meant being erased from history. I disagree. If Bavaria were to fall, it would only be a matter of time before Prussia took its territory. If Prussia had taken Bavarian land, every one of us would have been hanged before we ever had the chance to remain here. Not only that, we would lose the only barrier capable of stopping Prussia’s rampage. I believe that if Bavaria had not been there to refuse to go along with Prussia every time it tried to do something, Prussia would have intensified its suppression of the Catacombs even more than it has now. If there were no country left willing to openly humiliate Prussia by challenging its political influence, what reason would it have to hesitate?”

Chairman Schweitzer spread both hands as if she had something more to say, but Marian Baum hurriedly continued before she could object.

“You called Bavaria a bystander.”

“Yes. I did.”

“That’s right. Bavaria is a bystander.”

Chairman Schweitzer turned her head. Marian Baum swallowed and continued.

“Bavaria tolerated Prussia’s wrongdoing for the sake of peace and to save more lives from war. That decision must have included considerations of national interest as well. A state is not a school of philosophers. That is why Bavaria could not save everyone. A state will always do wrong by one side or the other.”

Marian Baum looked around at the Catacombs’ leadership, all of whom were watching him.

“And you said that if the Catacombs benefited from this opportunity, it would mean ‘borrowing the power of royalty,’ ‘incurring a debt to royalty,’ or simply accepting the Crown Prince’s ‘benevolence’ toward the Catacombs.”

Chairman Schweitzer nodded. Marian Baum answered firmly.

“That is wrong. We are collecting a debt they owe us.”

At those words, the chairman narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth. The other members of the leadership wore expressions as though lightning had struck them.

Marian Baum forcefully argued the conclusion he had reached about the Crown Prince’s intentions from the little information available to him, as well as the attitude he believed the people of the Catacombs ought to maintain toward the Royal Family.

“We have rights that remain unsettled. The Crown Prince of Bavaria is seeking us out because he wants to return the rights his country failed to actively secure for us. Not to gain influence over us, but because returning us to the place we ought to have occupied is his duty—and a debt the Kingdom owes us. He has a debt to settle, and we have a debt to collect from them. The time has come for us to reclaim the rights we have been denied all this time. That is why I do not consider accepting Bavaria’s operation to mean that we will be indebted to Bavaria!”

Chairman Schweitzer remained silent, her eyes narrowed. She drew her brows together even more tightly and fell into deep thought, lips pressed shut. Marian Baum looked around at them and finished.

“We are reclaiming what we have every right to receive from Bavaria. That is why we should meet with the Crown Prince.”

Marian Baum hoped the people of the Catacombs would not be burdened by the feeling that they owed someone a debt. Like Janina Schweitzer, Marian Baum himself would rather refuse Bavaria’s help than incur a debt to them. But he did not consider the information Bavaria had handed over or its proposal for a joint operation a debt at all.

It was simply a matter of finally receiving some of the rights the Catacombs had been denied all this time. The Crown Prince was acting on behalf of the Kingdom to find those to whom it owed a debt.

The other Catacombs leaders, too, should not think of themselves as indebted to an outside power or as having received the favor of some exalted figure. This operation was not, by nature, a vertical relationship. It was horizontal cooperation founded on mutual benefit. Even if the Crown Prince had handed over the information because of some third incentive, they needed to understand one thing clearly: it was not his benevolence, but a duty that had been his to fulfill in the first place, and a rightful claim that they should have received long ago.

Those who believed the Catacombs had to accomplish everything entirely on their own from beginning to end, or else it could not be called a victory, needed to understand this as well. The Catacombs had rights that were owed to them in the first place.

To think that having the debt of stolen rights repaid meant becoming indebted in return—Marian Baum found it deeply troubling to realize that this was precisely because they failed to understand that the rights someone had taken from them were themselves a debt owed to the Catacombs.

Several of the other moderates and a few of the radicals among the leadership nodded slightly. They were not favorable toward the Royal Family, but neither were they hostile to it. Perhaps they had not been inclined to think this way before, but after hearing Marian Baum, they had become a little more open to the possibility.

The chairman, who had been sitting there with a grim expression, slowly clasped her hands together and looked at Marian Baum.

“I wonder if the Crown Prince thinks of it that way as well.”

Marian Baum bit his lip and held his breath.

Success. Now it could begin.

The chairman, too, was saying that she was willing to take a step back and wait.

If only the Catacombs saw this as a horizontal relationship, there could be no guarantee of their safety. They needed to know whether the Royal Family saw it the same way. Only after that consciousness was properly put into words would the Catacombs act.

Marian Baum had done what he was meant to do. From this point on, all that remained was the attitude of the Royal Family and the Crown Prince.