Semi-Coercive Imperialist - Chapter 197
What Emotion Is (3)
Silence settled over the boarding house.
Maximilian slowly surveyed the room where the first-class wanted criminal Dominik had stayed. His golden eyes swept every corner, then suddenly turned blue. He was reading activated residue.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Hermann, Mia, and the Imperial Guard members held their breath and watched him.
Just as their rattled nerves began to settle after the summary execution, Maximilian stepped over and flicked back the family register the Imperial Guard had inspected.
“It’s fake.”
“…Pardon?”
Startled, the guard took the document back.
“Ah, yes. It does look that way!”
It did not look fake at all, but maybe this meant they had to call it fake no matter what. As the guard stood there smiling, ready to obey anything Maximilian said, Maximilian pointed to one part of the page.
“Ink.”
“Ink… you mean?”
“In an official imperial family register, the parents’ names are entered first. When a child is born later, the child’s name is added beneath them.”
Maximilian’s dry, grainy voice carried to their ears.
“The oxidation level of the ink used for those two entries cannot be perfectly identical. Normally, there should be over a decade of aging. They tried to imitate even that, but it’s crude.”
Maximilian glanced at the stiffened corpses of the mother and child.
“Therefore, they forged the family register and hid a first-class wanted criminal.”
He turned toward Hermann and Mia.
“Also, even if we had kept them alive, they didn’t seem to know anything useful. There was no need to waste manpower on them.”
“…Yes.”
“Your words are absolutely correct!”
Mia barely got the words out, while Hermann agreed loudly.
“Ah. And one more thing.”
Maximilian stepped out onto the balcony and looked outside. Leaning against the railing, he beckoned to the Imperial Guard members.
“Come here.”
“…”
The guards walked over, tense to the limit. One step, then another.
Their legs nearly gave out.
To them, every moment felt like a burning sandstorm.
As if hot, gritty wind were wrapping around their skin…
“That building.”
Maximilian pointed across the way. Its outer wall had been smashed by the aftermath of the mana trap.
“Did you say it belongs to an Imperial Guard colonel?”
“…Ah, yes, you heard that. Y-yes, that’s true, but I don’t think the colonel will mind much over damage at that level.”
The guard hurriedly waved both hands.
“What is his name?”
“Y-yes?”
They went pale in an instant. Asking for a name meant…
“The name.”
Maximilian pulled out a checkbook. Even then, the guard answered in a dry, parched voice.
“…Ah. Colonel Ross. Emeran Ross…”
Scratch. He scrawled the amount and name with a fountain pen, then tore the check off.
“This should be enough compensation.”
“No, it’s really fin-“
“A rookie knight made the mistake in the line of duty. As a senior knight, this is naturally my responsibility. Take it.”
Faced with Maximilian’s firm tone, the guard accepted the check with both hands. The moment they saw the amount, their eyes went wide.
“…Thank you. We’ll deliver it properly to the colonel.”
After bowing deeply and stepping back, they heard Maximilian give orders to the remaining knights.
“Collect every piece of evidence. Leave nothing behind.”
……
They came out of the boarding house. By then, a police line had been set at the alley entrance, and dozens of officers were busy controlling the scene.
“Loyalty!”
Receiving salutes from the lined-up police, Maximilian walked on without expression. Hermann and Mia followed behind him.
Before getting into the car, Maximilian stopped and looked at the two of them in turn.
“Hermann.”
“Yes!”
After the short reply, silence settled again.
──Tick.
The second hand sounded from a wrist.
Maximilian’s gaze shifted toward Hermann’s wrist.
“…The Order has already distributed much more accurate mana stone watches.”
Maximilian frowned.
Mana stone watches were incomparably more precise than this kind of analog wristwatch, and above all, silent. He was asking why Hermann still wore this one.
“Ah… that…”
Hermann grabbed his wrist and lowered his head.
“It was my older brother’s keepsake.”
“Then keep it safe at home. Don’t wear that watch to work.”
Hermann’s face hardened. Beside him, Mia carefully watched his reaction.
“…Yes. I’ll do that.”
Fortunately, Hermann bowed his head quickly, and Mia swallowed a quiet sigh of relief.
Maximilian stared at him for a moment, then lightly patted his shoulder.
“I’ll handle the wrap-up.”
He got into his car.
Shhhh.
Until the car disappeared completely, neither of them lowered their salute.
“…Wow.”
Hoo.
Mia let out a long breath all at once. Hermann ran a hand through his hair too.
“It’s hard to breathe around him.”
In Mia’s eyes, he was far beyond the Empire Point instructors. Even the former knight instructors who had seemed sky-high when they were cadets, even Dane the cadet commandant, had not felt this intense.
“No, but seriously.”
Wiping the sweat that had gathered on her forehead, she added,
“I didn’t think he’d shoot the kid too…”
At Mia’s mutter, Hermann replied firmly.
“…That’s what it means to be a knight of the Empire.”
“Knight of the Empire, my ass. Hermann, are you insane?”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
Mia pointed at his wrist.
“That watch. I told you to be careful.”
Maximilian Ebenholtz was extremely sensitive about watches.
No one knew the exact reason, but rumors were everywhere in the Order, even at Empire Point, that if it was a ticking analog clock, wristwatch, pocket watch, table clock, anything, he reacted badly.
“…It’s a keepsake.”
“Exactly, so keep it at home. If you really want to wear it, loosen the screw a little so it stops moving.”
“Stop it?”
Hermann’s face froze for a moment. His gaze turned ice-cold, and Mia quietly looked away.
“No, if you loosen the screw a bit, it won’t move and won’t make noise…”
“…Fine. I’ll keep it at home. Let’s head back.”
Hermann took off the watch, put it in his pocket, and started walking.
He really is a total meathead. Mia shook her head and followed him.
* * *
The deepest underground prison in Sentinel. Between cement walls where not a shred of sunlight entered, stagnant air whined in circles.
“…”
Under a dim electric light, Yulian silently looked down at Laura, crouched in handcuffs.
For a long time, without a word.
“…Looks like a lot happened while we were apart.”
At the low question that broke the silence, Laura gave a dry, bitter smile.
“Yeah. A lot happened. To both of us.”
She raised her eyes and looked up at Yulian. He did not avoid her gaze.
In each other’s eyes, the blue past reflected back.
Days when they were much younger than now.
Days when they did not know the Empire’s reality, or half-knew it and still got drunk on the vague hope that they would be different.
“…Yulian. I’ll end up dead, right?”
At the calm question, Yulian slowly shook his head.
“Do you know Dominik’s current location?”
A faint smile spread at Laura’s lips.
“He’s someone far more important than me.”
She dodged a direct answer and put the cause first.
Yulian felt his chest tighten.
“It’s the only way you survive.”
It did not matter if she really did not know where Dominik was. She only had to pretend to cooperate with the investigation.
Laura was a pure Aran, a mage from Sentio Magic Tower. She was also nobility. Killing her was actually more troublesome. No Sentinel knight would dare execute her carelessly.
…Unless it was Maximilian.
“…”
Instead of answering, Laura rolled her eyes and glanced toward a far corner of the ceiling.
Without making a sound, she shaped the words with her lips.
“Will this be okay, saying something like that?”
She had been a mage of Sentio Magic Tower.
It was an open secret that hidden ears of the Imperial Palace were planted in both Sentio Magic Tower and the Sentinel Order.
“This is a normal interrogation process. I’m persuading you.”
Not to save your life, but to catch first-class wanted criminal Dominik.
That was how Yulian deceived Laura.
“…If you fail to persuade me, then I get assigned to Maximilian in the end?”
“30 days.”
Yulian raised his wristwatch.
The maximum period an imperial knight could detain and interrogate a suspect on their own authority. If 30 days passed with no results, the case circulated across all of Sentinel. In other words, anyone could take it.
Most knights would avoid someone of Laura’s status, but…
“If you keep your mouth shut for 30 days, Maximilian will probably take you over.”
Laura leaned against the cement wall and gave a faint, empty laugh.
“Mmm, this brings back memories. From the first day we met to now, all of it.”
Back at Empire Point. The day Yulian and Ashton were eating at a city restaurant and ended up sharing a table with a mage trainee by chance.
That was where it began.
“…Yulian. I have a favor.”
Again, she moved her lips without sound.
“Go there.”
That place.
There was no need to say where. Ashton, Laura, and Yulian. A place only those three knew.
Yulian did not answer her request.
He left only a short warning, then turned away.
He climbed the prison stairs, and by chance met someone in front of the elevator in Sentinel’s first-floor lobby.
“Sir Knight, you’ve come back from the prison.”
Maximilian. Yulian gave a calm nod.
Ding.
Right then, the elevator doors opened, and the two stood side by side in the narrow space.
Tick.
Maximilian suddenly lowered his gaze and quietly looked at Yulian’s left wrist.
Tick.
Feeling that gaze, Yulian asked,
“Do you have something to say?”
Tick.
Maximilian listened to the second hand of the wristwatch for a moment, then gave a faint smile and shook his head.
“No. It’s nothing.”
The elevator doors opened. Maximilian stepped out first.
Then he turned back and asked Yulian,
“…Ah, Sir Yulian. Would it be possible for me to handle Ms. Laura’s interrogation? She seems connected to the Dominik case.”
Without showing emotion, Yulian gave a short answer.
“After 30 days.”
A small smile spread at Maximilian’s lips.
“Two weeks. It’s a joint case with Hermann, isn’t it?”
30 days for one knight. Half that for two.
Of course, if Hermann agreed, Yulian could still keep the full 30 days, but still.
“That’s true.”
Hermann would follow Max’s words anyway.
* * *
Tick, tick.
Time passed indifferently.
Before long, two weeks had passed since Laura was locked underground, and lately I had been deep in thought.
“This is the report on the Dominik pursuit case.”
The officials handed me documents. Using the forged IDs and encrypted communication records Hermann recovered from the boarding house as clues, I spread an investigative net across the Empire.
In other words, I was tracking Dominik relentlessly.
“But we still have no results. He’s too elusive…”
“It’s fine.”
He was definitely one of the Revolutionary Faction’s leaders. A highly important figure threatening imperial security.
Still, for some reason, a different doubt kept rising in the back of my mind.
Yulian, and Laura.
Before regression, I had been a powerless idiot, so there was no way for me to know the deeper truths hidden behind these incidents.
But now, fragments of events scattered in my head were assembling into a strange shape.
The Imperial Palace’s ears were not the only ones hiding inside this Order.
I had planted my own ears in many places too. I had already secured the conversation Yulian had with Laura in the underground prison.
“…Laura.”
Revolutionary Faction. What was their real goal?
Laura. Why did that woman get caught by us at that exact moment?
“…Yulian.”
Suddenly, a name came to mind.
A flash of instinct struck me.
Laura’s arrest came shortly after Yulian returned to the Empire from the East.
The operation happened too perfectly in step with that timing.
“…”
I thought it through.
What if what Laura and the Revolutionary Faction truly wanted, what they were really aiming for…
was Yulian himself?
If so, why?
“…Because of the emotion called love.”
Laura had lost her lover, Ashton.
If she was convinced Yulian was the one responsible.
No, if that damned Izenheim bastard had led her to believe that.
It was not certain yet, but the suspicion was strong enough.
I rose from my seat in a hurry.
……
On the Empire’s outskirts, in a quiet forest with little human traffic.
Yulian arrived at the place Laura had asked him to go. An old cabin where Yulian, Ashton, and Laura had often hidden away and spent whole days long ago.
It was one of Laura family’s private properties, a decent hideout for staying out of public view.
──Creak.
He opened the groaning door, walked in with familiar steps, and climbed to the attic. In one corner sat a wooden chest coated with dust.
Yulian opened the lid.
“…”
Inside, Laura’s diaries were neatly arranged. When he picked one up, a faded black-and-white photo slipped out.
Laura in a Sentio Magic Tower robe, young Yulian and Ashton in Sentinel uniforms. The three of them smiling brightly with their arms around each other, a record of days they could never return to.
Yulian looked down at it quietly, then found one last letter tucked into the very back page of the diary.
The recipient of this letter was──
[ To our friend Yulian ]
That handwriting reflected in Yulian’s worn-out retinas.
……
“Where the hell is this place.”
At the same time, not far from the cabin Yulian had entered, deep in thick brush, Hermann lay hidden under camouflage netting, watching Yulian.
“…Tsk.”
Staring at the cabin’s silhouette through binoculars, Hermann frowned.
He had gone into a place like a ruined shack and had not come out for a long time.
Even so, Hermann did not give up.
No surprise there. Yulian’s recent movements were suspicious beyond belief.
From deleting interrogation records to secretly coming to a remote place like this.
Everyone in the Order probably thought the same as I did.
“Sir Yulian is here at this location. He is definitely hiding something. To prepare for any possible situation…”
Recording his own words, Hermann photographed Yulian and the cabin.
──Click.
