Semi-Coercive Imperialist

Scratch. Scratch.

Under pale lighting, a man carved grooves into a steel plate with an engraving knife.

Scratch. Scratch.

Mana stone dust clung to the tip of the blade, taking the shape of a circuit.

Scratch. Scratch.

As he worked, the man muttered to himself.

"......Centric is the origin of humanity, born thousands of years ago at the heart of the continent."

Before the Empire had ever become an empire, before nations took the rigid shape they held now.

Centric rose from the center of the continent and spread outward to all of it. They crossed frozen peaks turned away from blizzards, evergreen coniferous forests, the monster-haunted Macken Mountains.

Most of Centric settled in the center, but some pushed westward. So that branch could be called a collateral line of Centric, and a few among those closest to the original stock could rightly be called the true heirs of the continent.

"That, we call Aran......"

Scratch. Scratch.

The engraving knife dug deeper into the plate.

"......But Sled arose from the eastern mire."

The man's voice sank low.

While Centric was being tempered at the center, Sled scattered and bred across the vast eastern plains. The endless expanse of land gave them no trial at all.

No trial meant no culling, and no culling meant only their numbers swelled. Aimless, directionless, like a herd wandering the open wild.

That is why Sled is a lesser race.

A bloodline set apart from Centric from the very start, different at the root.

What flows within them is an entirely different current from Aran.

Blood that has never been tempered runs thin, murky, and mixes easily. Proof of it lies in how they failed to protect their own bloodline and mingled wherever they went.

The strong stand alone, tall. The thin grows muddy in a crowd.

"Subspecies. Izenheim."

Scratch.

The blade stopped.

"Izenheim belongs to neither side."

Centric has a northern origin. Sled has roots too, however mired in the east. At the very least, an answer exists to the question of "origin."

But Izenheim doesn't even have that.

Izenheim has no history.

Go back thousands of years, and not a single ancient text on this continent records their founding ancestor.

No land of origin, no branch that spread from it, no years spent aging alongside anyone else.

They simply appeared one day, already fully formed, in the middle of the continent. Like a villain who suddenly turns up at someone else's doorstep. Like a parasite that crept in without anyone noticing.

Having no roots, they cultivate nothing.

They reap without sowing, and move in to live without ever building.

They feed off what the Empire's subjects built with blood and sweat, draining them dry, gutting the granaries to fill their own bellies.

Theft alone is their trade, and swallowing what belongs to others as if it were their own is the whole of their history.

That is why Izenheim is a contaminated race.

They stand against humanity itself.

If Sled is thin water, Izenheim is oil dropped into that water. It never mixes, only floats above and swallows what lies beneath......

"'Yaken' is very different from them."

Though grouped under the same label of subspecies, Yaken stood the farthest from Izenheim.

Above all, they have deep roots.

Before Centric was even being tempered at the center, Yaken already lived scattered across the continent's old lands. Their name turns up in some passage of nearly every ancient text.

Years that predate even the Empire's founding.

If Izenheim is defined by "rootlessness," Yaken is the exact opposite, one of the oldest roots on the continent.

And yet that root never grew down into a single trunk.

Yaken rarely formed groups. By nature, each of them scattered to their own valley, their own foothill, their own forge, choosing to stand alone, and so they never bound themselves into a single force.

Their numbers were great, but they never gathered that into power. Even so, that scattering was never weakness.

"Yaken has loyalty."

They never deceive others about what they possess, nor do they ever take up the trade of deceiving others with what they possess.

Where Izenheim swallows without building, Yaken devotes itself only to building.

Digging something out, forging it, raising it, cultivating it.

Finding the continent's paths and sensing the dark, all of it rooted in their instincts.

Yaken bodies aren't large, but they are sturdy. Their strength is the kind that belongs only to those who have handled earth, fire, and iron across long years.

Not flashy, but solid, not easily broken, never backing down.

A stubbornness rooted deep in that sturdy frame, one that would rather have its neck broken than bow its head before something it has judged right.

"So they are iron. Iron that can be held in Aran hands......"

Scratch.

The chisel stopped.

The man paused for a moment, gazing quietly down at the groove he'd carved into the plate.

"......So the order is self-evident. The continent must be led by the tempered."

Mana seeped into the final circuit, and a blue light pulsed hard.

Click.

Finished.

He held it to his chest and looked toward something in the distance.

"Moonlight Below," practically his own scripture. Its companion treatise, Johann Georg's paper "A Thousand-Year Empire."

He'd read it so many hundreds of times the pages were worn soft, and certain sentences had branded themselves into his heart.

"The tempered lead."

He himself was nothing but one individual. All he had was a pure bloodline.

An Aran father and mother, a great-grandfather, a great-great-grandfather......

To him, whose only pride lay in a bloodline that had run pure from the central highlands down to him, if he had one wish.

He wanted to meet you, even just once.

"......"

He gripped the plate without a word.

He was ready.

Now, he would deliver punishment to those who stood against the race.

* * *

The Lucen auction robbery had become, as it had before my regression, a fairly famous incident.

The Imperial Guard was furious, but they never got a single cent back in compensation. They had insurance, but there was no documentation to prove where the pieces had been purchased or for how much.

They hadn't been rightfully acquired to begin with.

I doggedly traced the Revolutionary Faction's Lucen money-laundering route.

I didn't rush in carelessly. I watched, quietly.

They'd been selling off the stolen goods in small batches on black markets, including the underground city. Some in the Empire, some in Prozen, some in the east... the Revolutionary Faction's reach ran wide, but based on the trade information, I pieced together the connections and struck the most promising location.

"......"

But the site I reached held only silence.

No one there.

Had information leaked from the inside, or had they anticipated this to some degree?

I glared into every corner of the hideout, focusing my mind.

Beneath my collarbone, the virus pulsed.

Thud.

Anyone who moves in a hurry makes mistakes eventually. Leaves traces eventually.

Even Izenheim.

Thud.

My vision tinted blue.

The grain of mana, invisible to human eyes, came alive.

A corner of the wall, faint graffiti beneath a coat of fresh paint.

At a glance it looked like a meaningless mark, but I saw it differently. Izenheim's eyes.

I broke the symbol apart the way they would read it.

【0820. Western Third Port. We go together.】

Fragments of words.

I couldn't say for certain, but it might mean that someone important to Izenheim was planning to leave the Empire.

"Hmm......"

I fell into thought for a moment.

Was there any related incident in my memory from before the regression?

Before that, Maximilian, back when you were a knight in name only, what were you wasting your time on around this period?

'Ha ha, truly, Sir Knight Maximilian. Wherever did you find such a precious wine!'

'Truly, Sir Knight!'

'Sir Knight. There's an excellent business opportunity that's come up this time......'

In my memory, I was always at some café, or some famous bar, or some high-end restaurant that never took reservations.

Days spent never assigning any real work to the working officers and staff officers, badgering them instead to somehow secure "reservations" purely for my own amusement.

The House of Ebenholtz and the rank of knight, both wasted entirely on being pampered and idling.

Squandering easily earned money on pointless vanity, while behind my back they treated me as nothing but a "rich fool."

"......Ugh."

What a pathetic way I used to live. I clicked my tongue at the bitter taste of it and stepped out of their hideout.

......Suddenly

My gaze caught on something.

The entrance of the building. The bottom of the first door leading into the hideout.

Some kind of "mark" had been left there.

A shoe print.

If someone came running in a hurry with no time to change footwear, the rubber heel of a combat boot would scrape hard against the door and leave a long, dark scratch, like crayon dragged across a chalkboard.

"Officer?"

"Yes."

Imperial agencies that wear combat boots each use different materials and colors.

Among them, Georgen, being a newly established organization, tends to use fairly new gear.

"This section."

I pointed at the evidence etched into the door.

"Pull it off and send it for composition analysis."

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

BOOOOOM!

In Imperial Central District 31, the factory of the chemical company Alchemia went up in flames.

The fire burned violet as it reacted with mana, and the supervisors and key researchers on site were either killed instantly in the blast or badly wounded.

"......Well, isn't this something."

The interrogation room of the newly founded political police, Georgen.

In a cramped, whitewashed room, Detective Gavin flipped through the case file, indifferent.

"Terrorism, at a time like this. You got two spines or something?"

Worse still, Alchemia was a company sponsored by the Martin Foundation.

"......Hey, you. Did you even know whose backing this company had before you touched it?"

Martin Himler, head of the Martin Foundation, was the strongest patron and partner of the current Georgen director, and a top-ranking officer in the Imperial Guard.

"Say something, you bastard."

Detective Gavin leaned in.

The terrorist tied to the chair, head hanging low, was Nico. He slowly opened his eyes. A dry voice slipped out through crushed lips.

"They......are Izenheim."

"Forget that. Tell me who's behind this."

Inspector Fried tossed something onto the desk. A circuit board recovered from the blast site.

"You're telling me you made this whole thing yourself?"

It wasn't even a proper bomb. Just an ordinary plate with mana stone dust engraved into it like a circuit, designed to trigger a mana overload at a specific signal. Its finish far surpassed any standard military ordnance.

Someone must have helped.

"I did it alone."

At Nico's answer, Inspector Fried let out a hollow laugh.

Detective Gavin picked up again.

"......Fine, let's say for argument's sake you did it alone. What's the motive?"

"Because they're Izenheim."

"What?"

"Izenheimisasubspecieswithnohistoryyoumustknowtoowhatschemestheyrehatchinginthereandhowtheyredrainingtheempiresbloodanyway......"

Nico spat the strange sentence out in a single breath.

BANG!

Inspector Fried slammed the table and barked.

"Cut the crazy talk and speak straight! Who's behind this, you bastard! Looks to me like you're a filthy little Izenheim rat!"

At that, Nico's eyes flashed. He twisted his body as if seized by a fit and shouted.

"Look at my family register! I'm pure Aran! That knight would know the instant he saw it!"

"What-"

"Izenheim! They destroyed my family! My father died because of their greed!"

"......"

Inspector Fried watched him quietly for a moment, then slowly unstrapped his wristwatch and set it on the table.

Then.

Thud!

He threw a punch.

Thud! Crack! Crunch! Thud!

The sound of bone and flesh caving in filled the interrogation room. The Inspector's fist ground into Nico's face.

"Inspector! Hold it, Inspector! He's actually going to die at this rate."

The Detective rushed to stop him. Fried, both arms restrained, breathed hard and turned to look at Gavin.

The intensity of his rage was strange. Gavin cautiously studied his expression.

"......Inspector, did you maybe get something from that company on the side too......?"

"......Don't cross that line, Detective."

At Fried's warning, Gavin quickly lowered his head.

"Sorry. Let's just, let's just talk. He's actually going to die at this rate."

"......"

Only then did Fried check on Nico's condition. The gurgle of blood foaming from his mouth wasn't a good sign.

"Get him settled down."

Fried wiped away his sweat and walked out.

Left alone, Gavin let out a hollow laugh.

"Beats the hell out of him and then says settle him down...... Hey. Talk straight. Or you're actually going to get beaten to death in here, you understand?"

Nico shook, trembling, his eyes glazed and unfocused. Gavin murmured low.

"Who's behind this, I said."

Then, from that ruined throat, an answer finally scraped together.

"The letter......"

"Letter?"

"My......letter......"

Detective Gavin rifled through the evidence list and found a letter. It had been recovered from Nico's home.

"This one?"

"Yes...... that one......"

"......Huh?"

Gavin's eyes went wide when he checked the letter's addressee.

"This knight you keep talking about, this is him?"

Gavin let out an incredulous laugh. Nico pressed his hands together desperately, pleading.

"Please send it...... I wrote it...... myself......"

What a joke.

Gavin sneered and shot back.

"Come on. You think this knight is gonna write back to a piece of trash like you? Wake up, man."

"The letter......"

Even so, watching Nico, seemingly out of his mind, still fixated only on the letter, Gavin's eyes lowered as though a good idea had struck him.

"Okay. So, if I send this letter, will you tell me who's behind this, and who helped design that circuit board?"

"......"

Nico nodded slowly. Detective Gavin glanced toward the closed interrogation room door and said.

"That's a promise, right? Even if no reply comes, you talk the second it's sent?"

"Yes, yes, yes......"

"Okay."

The destination this letter wanted to reach was the desk of the most dangerous man in the Empire.

But the odds it would ever actually get there, well......

"Then watch closely. I'll put it in the envelope right in front of you."

Slim to none.

In this Empire, a single minute of that knight's time mattered more than this vermin's entire life.

* * *

The Order's training hall.

Lately I'd been using it regularly, refining myself.

I'd found a pretty decent sparring partner recently.

Yulian was a fine opponent, of course, but he never had enough time, and more than that, sweating it out with him still felt a little awkward.

Leon and Tiana had become mid-tier knights now, too busy running the field to spare time. Schatz was the trump card I needed to keep hidden until the very end.

CLANG!

The roar of blade meeting blade rang through the training hall. Dozens of exchanges flowed smoothly one after another, but the sheer mass bearing down through the blade's surface was a different class entirely. The brute force made my wrist go numb.

"......Hah."

I stepped back, catching my breath, and worked my fingers around the grip of my longsword.

"You're strong. Every bit the senior knight."

At my words, Cliff's eyebrow ticked up slightly.

"It's still just a fight on the ground, isn't it."

Cliff's voice stayed flat.

On the ground.

Just as he said, a knight was only truly complete once they could fly.

Thanks to years of relentless propaganda and promotion I'd pushed, "the sky" had become a knight's domain. A point of pride, a mark of honor. And further still, a required condition for knighthood itself.

"In the sky, you're the first among knights. Everyone knows that."

Just as the eastern Great King Fiort once broke a famine by declaring the potato "food of the nobility" and spreading it to the people, I had packaged aerial transport as a mark of high status and worked it into the Order.

"Good work today."

"Heading out on assignment now?"

Cliff asked, sounding a little regretful.

"Yes. I'll probably be gone a few weeks before you see me again."

【0820. Western Third Port. We go together.】

To get to the "Third Port," the lead I'd gotten from Izenheim, I'd already had a false identity prepared.

Being a knight made infiltration missions like this convenient. A forged ID wasn't actually fake. It was a real entity, folded into the Empire's administrative system and fully authenticated.

"Right. See you then."

Cliff smiled and sheathed his sword, and I headed back to my office.

[Maximilian's Office]

I was packing up a few things when,

"Sir Knight."

A working officer came in and handed me a paper envelope.

"A letter came in for you."

"Letter?"

"Yes. But...... apparently it's from a terrorist."

[To Sir Knight Maximilian.]

[Nico Beber]

The fact that he was a terrorist only sharpened my interest.

I tore the envelope open and read the first part, then asked.

"This person's in Georgen right now?"

"Yes."

"......That works out well."

I smiled faintly and tucked the letter away.

Georgen. I needed to stop by there eventually anyway.

The composition of the combat boot print found at the Revolutionary Faction hideout had come back matching that agency.

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