Semi-Coercive Imperialist - Chapter 198

What Emotion Is. (4)

I arrived at the village where Laura and the Revolutionary Faction had been captured.

The Revolutionary Faction’s hideout. Whether the information leaked on its own or someone sold it. The very place where Yulian, who used Ashton as kindling to accomplish his goal, met Laura as if by fate.

From a nearby hill, I looked down over the area and sank into thought.

“I’ve put a tail on Knight Yulian.”

At Schatz’s report from behind me, I only nodded.

“Is there a problem?”

Lately, Schatz had started asking me questions more often. Compared to how passive she used to be, it was a small change, and I liked it.

“A few things. I think there’s something I overlooked.”

I kept fitting the pieces of the case together in my head, but one part of the puzzle kept bothering me. It just wouldn’t fit.

One piece, maybe two. It felt like something important was missing.

──Whoooosh.

A mountain wind blew through and shook the branches. I stared blankly at that bleak scene, and then a thought suddenly struck me.

Can something that wants to sway ever truly be still? The wind that rises in the heart never scatters so easily.

‘……Max.’

At the same time, Yulian’s voice spread like an auditory hallucination.

The last words he left me from beyond those bars before my regression.

‘I would rather have died by your hand.’

The puzzle piece I still hadn’t found.

It was probably……

* * *

A hut stood precariously near the edge of a cliff.

Hermann stayed hidden and watched it closely. Not long after, Yulian came out and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

“……”

Hermann lowered himself, pushed through the brush, and moved in silence.

Creeeak.

The wooden door made an unusually loud noise. Hermann searched every corner of the dark interior. As he looked around, he went up to the attic and found items inside a chest.

“……Well, well.”

A smile spread across Hermann’s lips.

Photos. Laura in her Sentio Magic Tower uniform. Two knights in Sentinel uniforms. One of them was clearly Yulian.

Hermann gathered every useful piece of evidence, photos and journals, and tucked it into his coat. He smiled in satisfaction and was about to leave the hut when,

──Creak.

A sound rang out, like a military boot crushing a wooden board.

Hermann froze.

A low voice came from the darkness. Hermann swallowed and turned.

Yulian. He had returned before anyone noticed, and now stood at the attic doorway, facing him.

“……”

Hermann hid his emotions and wiped his expression clean. Instead, he smiled as he stared at Yulian standing in the shadows.

“Knight Yulian. What were you doing here?”

Yulian answered indifferently.

“I was indulging in old memories for a moment. You?”

“……I came to collect evidence related to Laura.”

Hermann tapped the photos tucked in his coat and looked at him.

“Laura seems to be connected to Dominik, so…… would you mind if I took these photos and notebooks?”

There was a strange provocation in his voice. Yulian answered as usual.

“As you like.”

“……Hm. Yes. I’m very curious what Knight Maximilian will say when he sees these photos……”

Yulian’s gaze sank. He looked Hermann over without emotion.

Slicked-back blond hair. Clear golden eyes. A neatly fitted uniform. Even that voice, deliberately pressed low.

“Are you imitating the image of an Aran?”

“……Imitating?”

Hermann’s brow twitched. The air in the hut turned cold.

“But Hermann, no matter how hard you try.”

Yulian spoke as if Hermann were pathetic. No, almost pitiable.

He let out a deep breath and murmured.

Maximilian Ebenholtz.

Different from birth. Different in the weight he carried, different in the depth of his gaze.

There was only one person like Maximilian: Maximilian himself.

“Ha. Is that so?”

Crunch. Hermann ground his teeth but forced himself to stay calm.

-tick

Suddenly, the sound of a second hand. Hermann glanced at Yulian’s wrist and twisted his lips into a smile.

“You should change your watch. Or maybe you still haven’t been issued a mana stone watch?”

Yulian didn’t even answer. He didn’t criticize Hermann’s insolence, and he didn’t get angry. He simply accepted it.

“Keep up the good work.”

Yulian turned and walked out of the hut.

“Where are you going?”

At Hermann’s sharp question, Yulian gave a short answer.

“It’s a senior knight’s mission.”

“I’m saying this because it doesn’t look like a mission.”

Laura’s ties to the Revolutionary Faction, the photos Hermann had secured, Yulian’s secret movements. In Hermann’s eyes, these were obvious signs of treason.

Yulian gave a small nod and answered without looking back.

“Then think whatever you want.”

One step. He seemed to walk forward, and then Yulian’s figure vanished in an instant.

Left alone, Hermann stood in the doorway and stared hard at the trail through the forest where Yulian had disappeared.

“Fuck!”

He spat the curse, grabbed the evidence, rushed down the mountain road, and got in his car.

Vroooom!

He slammed the accelerator and returned to the Sentinel Order in an instant.

As expected, Yulian still had not returned. Hermann came down to the underground prison with the evidence from the hut tucked against his chest.

“Hey.”

Bang. Bang bang bang!

“Hey!”

He kicked the bars and woke Laura from sleep.

“Nice life you’ve got there. Just sprawled out sleeping.”

“……”

Hermann shoved the photos at her first.

“This. You know it, right?”

“……”

“Why don’t you say something?”

He leaned his face close to the bars and glared at Laura.

“You. If you keep your mouth shut, that neck of yours is definitely getting cut. You should be grateful this case is still in our hands.”

Even with Hermann’s threats, Laura’s expression didn’t change. Instead, she answered weakly, eyes tired.

“Yulian told me the same thing.”

At Yulian’s name, Hermann gave a mocking smile.

“Knight Yulian…… what exactly is your relationship with Yulian?”

“Friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yes.”

Laura leaned against the bars.

“……A long time ago, we were friends.”

Friends.

Hermann rolled the word over in his head and took another step closer.

“Then what did you tell that precious friend? What did you say that made him run around outside? Did you tell him where Dominik is?”

Hermann’s eyes flashed with obsession. He looked around the underground prison. He had to find out what was said in that private conversation Yulian had tried to hide, even deleting interrogation records.

Laura quietly looked into Hermann’s vicious eyes.

For a moment, her gaze seemed to waver faintly.

“……Who knows.”

Without a sound, only her lips moved, forming a few words.

……

Second week of Revolutionary Faction detention.

These days, something baffling had happened to Kairon, deputy commander of Sentinel.

He was already swamped preparing for his upcoming commander inauguration speech and official hearing, and on top of that, a strange rumor was quietly spreading through the Order.

“Deputy Commander.”

Political prisoner Laura, and senior knight Yulian.

Speculation about their relationship drifted through the Order and the Imperial Palace, petty but persistent.

“……It seems it has already reached the Palace’s ears.”

Yulian seemed to hold personal feelings for Laura. He wasn’t returning to the Order and was moving urgently somewhere. Maybe he was prioritizing saving an old friend over first-class wanted criminal Dominik……

“It’s not certain yet.”

For Kairon, it was complicated.

Yulian was a good man. In this mud pit of an Empire, he was one of the few who still tried to keep his beliefs and conscience, and the only comrade Kairon could truly trust.

But that was exactly why his goodness might become a noose around his own neck.

“You know the new knight Hermann, right?”

Knight Raynel carefully held out an envelope of documents.

“This is a top-secret report Hermann submitted.”

Hermann. Evidence that venomous brat had secured at the hut.

Kairon looked down at the photos.

“……Ashton.”

Ashton. The Sentinel knight they had failed to save. The key trigger of the operation called Path of Dreams.

“Yes. It’s Yulian, Ashton, and Laura. And just now, Hermann gave up the Laura case himself.”

Just as expected.

Two weeks had already passed, so now the sharpest blade would take hold of this case.

“Knight Maximilian has officially taken this case.”

There was no one else but Maximilian.

Right now, Laura’s family was flooding the Order with petitions every day to save her life, if nothing else. Her siblings also served as high-ranking mages, so it would be hard for a mediocre rank-and-file knight to withstand that political pressure.

Sentinel had not responded to them at all, but once it was announced that Maximilian would handle this case directly……

That family would have no choice but to give up.

“Where is Yulian now?”

Kairon frowned as he asked.

“……We don’t know. Contact is cut off, and his location can’t be tracked.”

Raynel shook his head, troubled. From one day on, Yulian had vanished without a trace. More precisely, from the day he had some kind of conversation with Laura in the underground prison.

Kairon let out a deep sigh and pressed his forehead.

“And also.”

“After the Laura case is closed……”

Kairon picked it up. This one was more serious: a document sent by Maximilian.

“He says he will begin an internal investigation into Knight Yulian.”

“……Tsk.”

This was Sentinel. If not just Yulian but anyone bearing the title of knight showed suspicious signs, Maximilian moved.

Maximilian was not a man swayed by petty attachment.

He judged the whole only by the facts before him.

So if Yulian had embraced weak emotion, if he was trying to do something harmful to the Empire for Laura…”It can’t be helped.”

Kairon, too, would have no choice but to let him go.

* * *

In Maximilian’s office at Sentinel, I watched Laura, seated in the chair across from me.

With handcuffs on her wrists, she truly looked like someone with no lingering attachment left.

“Your younger brother came to the Order today.”

A young man who came all the way to Sentinel headquarters, begging to see his older sister’s face just once.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t grant his request.

“This is truly foolish.”

Her family’s safety and her bright future as a talented mage.

She had thrown all of it away, been gaslit by that Izenheim bastard Ashton, blinded by fake love, and crawled into a death pit on her own.

“I know. I know that too.”

Laura smiled faintly even at my criticism.

“That I’m foolish.”

She met my eyes and asked calmly.

“So…… does that mean I’m going to die now?”

I nodded without hesitation.

“Yes. You will be sent to knight trial. I will seek the death sentence, and the judge will follow my will.”

Was being deceived a sin? Was being foolish a sin?

Either way, she had crossed a river she couldn’t return from.

“Poisoning, shooting, or hanging.”

I closed the file folder and added,

“You’ll probably be allowed to choose the method of execution.”

A gentle arc formed in Laura’s eyes.

“Thank you. Really.”

She was calm even in front of death.

That made me curious.

What could possibly overpower even the most primitive human instinct, survival itself, like this?

“……Foolish.”

I criticized her once more.

But this time, it meant something a little, no, very different.

“I know. Even if you say it again and again-“

“No. You still don’t understand.”

Tap. I set my fountain pen on the table.

“I’ll ask you.”

There was no Palace wiretap in my office. The vermin there couldn’t steal my words.

“Yulian.”

The man named Yulian.

He was someone whose depth even I didn’t dare measure.

A man who never revealed what he truly wanted, who hid everything about himself completely, and walked through the dark in silence.

As a regressor, I could make guesses about him through that asymmetry.

Even so, the one truth I had inferred by my own will was this.

“Do you think he doesn’t know your real intention?”

For a moment, Laura’s gaze shook. Her violently pounding heartbeat reached me too.

“You really think Yulian doesn’t know about the revenge on Ashton you’re trying to carry out?”