Semi-Coercive Imperialist - Chapter 139: Let The World Think Whatever It Wants About Us (1)
Jeronika Mine had been completely destroyed. Reduced to ashes beyond any hope of salvage or defense. At the news, the Republican Faction’s command fell into a heavy silence.
“……The Crown Prince and those rotten Imperial bastards sanctioned an atrocity like this?”
“Yes. In fact, they’re reportedly giving it their full support.”
The Republican Faction’s leader, Frank, slammed his fist roughly against the desk.
“That worthless piece of filth!”
Jeronika Mine was nothing less than a symbol of Zerpha. The single greatest reason Zerpha could still call itself a “Mana Stone nation”, even in name only─ the economic heart responsible for over forty percent of the entire country’s Mana Stone production.
The royal family had blown it up with their own hands.
“Incompetent.”
Slam! Frank struck the round table.
“Imbecilic.”
Slam! He snarled, eyes bloodshot with fury.
“Degenerate son of a bitch……!”
Slam! Frank lowered his head like he was coughing up blood. Angry sighs rose from all around only made the meeting room feel hotter.
When he finally regained his composure, he swept his gaze across the room.
“……What was the Durkon Legion’s strength?”
“Stronger than anticipated. Speed, equipment, troop numbers, and above all, the new weapons they’ve developed…….”
“What’s the situation in the Zerpha capital?”
The officer answered with a grim expression.
“According to our moles inside, the regular army’s coup was suppressed by Imperial forces, and it seems the Royalist Faction’s military has been firmly brought to heel.”
Frank pressed his fingers to his forehead. Zerpha had now been split cleanly in two.
The Royalist Faction, cornered and on the verge of suffocation, had ridden on the back of the devil called the Empire and turned the tide.
“That Crown Prince bastard probably doesn’t even realize what he’s done.”
He sold his country to the devil. From now on, the Zerpha monarchy, the pitiful people of Zerpha, would be wrung dry ever more mercilessly.
“Maximilian.”
Frank ground the name between his teeth as he spat it out.
Originally, the Empire had no intention of intervening this aggressively in Zerpha’s civil war. Zerpha was nothing but rugged mountain terrain, a land sorely lacking in resources worth plundering or territorial value, so-called “land that wasn’t worth the cost”.
That had been the consensus.
And yet, the one person who had goaded the Imperial military into mobilizing a massive army to this barren battlefield was none other than that one knight, a man worse than a dog.
“What the hell is he after? From start to finish, none of this made any damned sense from a cost-benefit standpoint!”
At Frank’s furious voice, the generals glanced at one another nervously.
Just when all of them were doing nothing but darting their eyes around, clearly having no idea whatsoever,
“At present… actually, we do have some intelligence that came in.”
The intelligence officer cautiously opened his mouth.
“Intelligence? Then speak.”
“Well…… According to a report from our agent embedded in the capital…… Crown Prince Alonso’s persistent persuasion apparently proved effective…….”
Even the officer himself seemed to find it hard to believe, dragging his words out reluctantly as he recited the contents.
“And also, it seems that Maximilian himself felt a sense of personal respect and…… compassion for Crown Prince Alonso.”
Frank’s face went blank.
“……Personal respect? Compassion?”
“Yes. According to the intelligence, that is the case. The two have reportedly been observed on multiple occasions walking together and sharing tea, building a bond. The knight is said to be someone who rarely smiles, yet he was seen smiling frequently, and…….”
“What?”
“Well, the truth is, even within the Empire, Sir Maximilian is quite well-known as an elitist and a classist. So it’s believed he held a strong favorable regard for the mere fact of royal blood. And since Crown Prince Alonso has an unexpectedly humble and unassuming side for a royal, that aspect apparently…….”
Frank pressed his fingers to his forehead.
What utter bullshit.
It sounded like absolute bullshit, but if no other explanation presented itself no matter how hard he thought, he had no choice but to accept it as fact.
“You’re telling me he poured his personal fortune into Zerpha and mobilized the regular army over a reason like that?”
“Yes. As of now, no other motive has been…… discovered yet…… well, actually, there was one, but he destroyed that mine with his own hands, so…… Yes. That is the case.”
It was beyond belief. So absurd that he couldn’t even muster a hollow laugh.
“…….”
Frank stared into empty air with vacant eyes.
“Status. Birth. Royalty.”
Their sacred revolution, the republican cause they had prepared for decades, trampled this pathetically, all because of some petty bond of blood.
“Unbelievable…….”
Frank pictured the Empire’s arrogant aristocrat, Maximilian Ebenholtz. He imagined that loathsome face, the so-called paragon of the Aran people.
“…He really is an Imperialist through and through.”
Crunch. Swallowing the boiling hatred, he clenched his fist until it bled.
* * *
“Completely demolished.”
Engineers from Lorenzo Academy visited Jeronika Mine, now reduced to ashes by the bombardment.
“Is restoration possible?”
“Yes. It will require a considerable amount of manpower and funding, but it’s not impossible. However, there is a significant issue with profitability.”
“In what way?”
“We would need to clear away the existing facilities, which are already scrap metal, and rebuild from scratch. But Jeronika has been drilled for a long time, so whether the remaining Mana Stone reserves will justify the cost is uncertain.”
Of course, if one only looked at the visible reserves, they were right. But deep beneath Jeronika, a kind of resource the world did not yet know about lay dormant.
That was the real reason I had involved myself so deeply in Zerpha’s civil war, and had flown here at great risk, exploiting the chaos of political infighting in the Imperial Palace.
“It’s fine.”
Knowledge of future, from before my regression. A headline from the mana-technology section of some newspaper. A substance called “Room-Temperature Liquid Mana Stone” would be discovered in Zerpha.
Because it maintained a highly viscous liquid state even at room temperature, miners would occasionally see it seeping from cracks in the rock while digging, never realizing what it was.
“Instead, dig much deeper than the existing shafts.”
This Mana Stone contained Zerpha’s unique mana, concentrated within it.
A hollow basin of land, enclosed by rugged mountains. Room-Temperature Liquid Mana Stone, steeped in the dense mana and natural energy that had accumulated in the earth over thousands of years.
“You never know. Something else might turn up.”
Mana Stones were nothing more than Mana Stones. Currency was just currency. I don’t know much about economics or money, but I did know that in the end, they were not “real” things, merely promises.
And in war, where every agreement breaks down, only tangible things matter.
That was why Room-Temperature Liquid Mana Stone was an invaluable strategic resource.
Ordinary solid Mana Stones were used as energy sources, and if their purity was high enough, they were processed into exorbitantly priced high-tier artifacts, equipment, valuables, and luxury goods, but Room-Temperature Liquid Mana Stone could not be utilized that way.
Its true value lay elsewhere.
When diluted with water and spread across the land, the mana would seep deep into the soil, dramatically boosting the earth’s fertility. It meant that even depleted soil could be transformed into rich farmland in an instant, enabling explosive increases in production.
“Yes. Understood. However, we are short on manpower to mobilize immediately…….”
“There are strong, able-bodied soldiers scattered all over this place. What do you mean, short?”
When I jerked my chin toward the rear, Major General Schweitzer and his adjutants, who had been watching from the side, wrinkled their noses in displeasure.
“……Sir. We are soldiers.”
Schweitzer stepped in, making his irritation plain.
“Soldiers don’t do grunt work meant for miners. How would you feel if we told you to sit behind a desk and push papers?”
Schweitzer was always running his mouth. No matter how many times I put him in his place, he’d claw his way back up to butt heads again.
It was that foul temper and combativeness that had gotten him this far, though.
“Grunt work? This is a critical national industry for the future of the Empire.”
At my words, Schweitzer scoffed, and just as his adjutant was about to voice his agreement─
Vroom─ Vrroom─
A convoy of trucks arrived from the distance, kicking up clouds of dust.
“Special reward packages.”
I said, nodding toward the trucks.
“They’re loaded with a modest cash bonus for every soldier who participated in the operation, top-grade cigarettes, and cookies, chocolate, and whiskey shipped from the homeland.”
“Wha- really?!”
The adjutants’ defiant postures changed in an instant.
They already looked ready to put the soldiers to work, but there was still one more thing.
“I’ve also brought along letters from the families back home for the soldiers of the Durkon Legion.”
Before my regression, I had once read about with soldiers who had gone to war.
It was a truth that hardly needed proving, but the treasure soldiers had cherished most dearly on those hellish battlefields, the thing they would have risked their lives to protect, was a single letter from home.
“…Do they really need something as trivial as letters?”
The fundamental workings of human nature, something Schweitzer, somewhat lacking in empathy, could never fathom.
“No! No, sir! They are necessary!”
Startled by Schweitzer’s indifference, the adjutants rushed to interject.
“We’ll start taking volunteers from the soldiers right away. Probably…… it’ll fill up in no time.”
I told them to do just that, and sure enough, thirty minutes later.
Nearly every soldier of the Durkon Legion, aside from the essential perimeter guard, had assembled at Jeronika Mine.
…….
The reconstruction of Jeronika began immediately. After entrusting the site to the engineers, I returned to the Zerpha capital and sought out the Crown Prince.
“…….”
Crown Prince Alonso lay bedridden, looking haggard and gaunt. His very condition spoke of helplessness. He was utterly ill-suited for times of upheaval like these.
“Are you all right?”
He was a bit lacking, but a decent man…… He kept overlapping with who I had been before the regression.
Alonso looked up at me with hollow eyes and gave a feeble nod.
“I’m fine.”
His face said he was anything but fine.
“Thank you, Sir Maximilian. You saved my life.”
“……It was nothing.”
“The loyal retainers at my side all lost their lives trying to protect me…… and the military that believed in and followed me drove a knife into my back.”
Alonso murmured, tears sliding down his face, tinged with self-mockery. I approached his bedside and quietly spoke.
“There are still people who pledge their loyalty to you, Your Highness.”
In any case, the vacancies left by agents who had faked their deaths and exited the stage would be filled with yet more of my people.
New officials of Zerpha, bought with my capital or indoctrinated by the Empire’s power. Going forward, they would continue to blindfold the Crown Prince, covering his eyes and ears, slowly coaxing him along inside a cradle of lies.
“……If there is anything you desire, name it. I wish to give anything to you, the man who saved me and this nation.”
The Crown Prince’s offer was heartfelt.
But if I accepted such one-sided generosity without limit, it would amount to exploitation.
Zerpha still needed to remain the most important bridgehead and railroad for the Empire’s advance into the western continent.
Every time war broke out, the waste of time and supply lines from circumventing Zerpha’s rugged Alberon Mountain Range was far too severe.
For that reason, I wanted coexistence.
Before my regression, the Empire had exploited the surrounding nations it conquered. But for precisely as much as it exploited, or even more, it had squandered resources trying to control resistance forces and independence movements.
What a monumentally stupid thing to do.
“Your Highness. I have already received more than enough.”
I produced a single document from inside my coat and held it out. It was a negotiation guideline on profit distribution following the restoration of Jeronika Mine, drafted in advance by the Crown Prince’s finance officials and handed to me.
[ We make clear that ownership of the Jeronika Mine belongs to the Zerpha royal house. The right to profits from the vein currently under extraction shall likewise remain exclusively with the royal family……
However, in the event that new veins are discovered through future exploration, initial development costs and facility investment shall be borne in full by the Empire, or by companies designated by the Empire, while profits generated shall be divided at a ratio of 40 for the Zerpha royal house to 60 for the Empire (or companies designated by the Empire), and all technology and facilities shall be transferred in stages over a period of 30 years……]
After reviewing the document, Alonso shook his head in alarm.
“……No, Sir Maximilian. The situation has changed. This throne was as good as saved by you. Surely more than just this-“
“Let us proceed with this as it stands. This is more than sufficient for me.”
I cut him off firmly. For a moment, Alonso’s eyes froze, then filled with deep emotion.
“I did not come all the way to this brutal battlefield to take from Your Highness or exploit you.”
Once the Liquid Mana Stone was discovered, the investment costs could easily be recouped many times over. The Empire would purchase Zerpha’s entire supply of Liquid Mana Stone.
“Then what? What did you see in this, insignificant little country that brought you here, Sir?”
The Crown Prince asked, his voice trembling with emotion.
I paused to think. It was a question I hadn’t expected, but well, whatever.
“……Your Highness, you are different from the greedy aristocrats of the Imperial Palace.”
Reasons could always be fabricated.
“Simply being able to stand alongside someone as genuine and noble as you, Your Highness, that alone is enough for me. So please, rise from this sickbed.”
“……Sir Maximilian!”
Alonso clasped my hand tightly, eyes glistening with tears.
“However, Your Highness.”
There were, admittedly, a few more things I wished to request.
Fine Zerpha cattle I had come to learn about without even meaning to, and unusual ingredients including mushrooms.
Zerpha was mostly mountainous terrain, so it produced all manner of raw goods.
“Those mushrooms from Zerpha were absolutely delicious.”
A mushroom I had tasted by chance at that village in the gorge, some time ago. Finely ground and placed atop meat, or simply floated in a soup, yet the flavor had been extraordinary.
“Mushrooms?”
“Those wrinkled mushrooms. They had an aroma I’d never encountered in my life.”
“Ah~”
The Crown Prince wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and smiled.
“I know what you mean. In the Imperial language, they’d be called something like ‘tree mushroom’. In Zerphan, we call them ‘truffles’.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. What I’m hoping for is the right, or commercial license, to distribute and exclusively manage such specialty goods for export to the Empire.”
Beyond the Mana Stones mined from the mines, I would contract the exclusive distribution rights for such ingredients under the name Maximilian Ebenholtz. Truffles and Zerpha-raised cattle would reliably drain the pockets of nobles who lived and died for luxury.
And in fact, before my regression, Zerpha had earned a reputation as a nation of fine cuisine.
I’d never gotten to visit, of course, having already fallen from grace.
“Hah… Maximilian, you really are…”
The Crown Prince stared at me in disbelief for a moment, then let out a bewildered laugh.
“An impossible man to stop.”
He seemed to be under the delusion that I was acting purely for his sake.
And indeed, on the surface, I was the saint walking away with mere cows and mushrooms instead of a stake in the mine.
But those cows and mushrooms would soon become precious commodities, and more importantly.
“……This, too, is a testament to your capabilities, Your Highness.”
I needed to elevate Crown Prince Alonso into a “reasonably competent monarch”.
Because until the war came, Zerpha needed to hold its place as the Empire’s ally.
They still had much more to give me.
