Semi-Coercive Imperialist

Time had passed since the Titan sinking incident shook the entire Empire. It was now early autumn, when fallen leaves drifted down.

"......There you are."

The Imperial Central Cemetery. Far from the center, where the gravestones of famous families stood in rows, there was a quiet corner at the outskirts.

Celine Dubois, editor in chief of the Jemion Daily, approached the woman standing there alone.

"What are you doing?"

Charlotte Grossmann did not answer. Instead, she looked down at the small stone tablet at her feet. It was a neatly polished gravestone, standing modestly at the edge of the cemetery.

[ Eli Zella ]

The remains of a Mer buried in a resting place at the heart of the capital. Given the Empire's laws and customs, it was nearly impossible.

As if she had read Celine's thoughts, Charlotte gave a faint smile.

"That's why he could be buried here."

An empty coffin.

Ironically, that was why Eli Zella could rest in the central cemetery.

For holding order together aboard the sinking Titan at the cost of his own life, the Mer had received the treatment due to a quasi-applicable bloodline after death.

If there had been even the smallest bone fragment, the pure blood supremacists would have made a disgusting fuss. But there was not a drop of blood in his coffin for them to object to.

"Do you really think Victor Heim committed that act of terrorism?"

Celine suddenly asked.

Victor Heim's terrorist act. That was how the case had been closed.

But anyone who held even a fragment of the truth knew that conclusion was a story someone had carefully bound together.

Perhaps...

By Maximilian.

His name had become a vast, boundless curtain to them now, like an unseen force draped in endless layers around the Empire.

"......"

Charlotte stayed silent for a while. Only the sound of fallen leaves rolling across the ground filled the space between them.

"......Don't come looking for me anymore."

The words came after long consideration.

Celine's eyebrows shifted faintly.

"My brother went through a difficult time because of me. He must have already realized what I was doing behind his back. Kurt is frighteningly smart."

Charlotte smiled bitterly and brushed her hand across the gravestone.

"I'm going back to where I belong. I'll make my own effort, in my own way."

Celine quietly studied her profile.

Had someone Charlotte would never forget changed the course of her heart?

"But Mer will still face discrimination. Even if this made it a little less severe..."

"Do you know Halbert Goring?"

Goring. An Imperial Guard executive, and a member of one of the families of pigs that had benefited most from the Emperor's personal guard policies and imperialism.

"I heard he put a great deal of work into arranging this grave. He even lobbied for it, saying he wanted to give the Mer appraiser this place more than anything. Strange, isn't it?"

Halbert believed Eli Zella had stayed aboard the ship until the end for his sake. That Eli had sacrificed himself to preserve order that night, for the nobles.

This honor had come from that misunderstanding.

Charlotte chose not to correct his mistaken belief.

Misunderstanding or not, it was true that a man bearing the Goring name had gone out of his way to secure a grave for a Mer.

"The Mer appraiser succeeded. He discerned the genuine article. He even moved someone like Halbert."

She murmured as if speaking to herself, staring at the gravestone.

"Maybe the Empire isn't incapable of changing... Maybe no one has known how to change it. That's why I'm staying in the Empire."

"Even if war breaks out?"

"......"

Charlotte's fingertips stopped in the air.

War. The thing that sent hundreds, thousands, hundreds of millions of hearts collapsing in one direction. It was still a realm no one understood.

"......I don't know."

It was an honest answer, without pretense.

Celine realized there was no point in trying to persuade her further.

"You should go now."

Charlotte gestured somewhere with her eyes. Down below in the cemetery, a noble with a pocket watch hanging from their waist was making their way up.

Halbert Goring.

"......Yes. I understand."

Celine turned away. As she brushed shoulders with Halbert on the narrow cemetery path, the watch chain at his waist jingled.

"Ah, just as I thought! Young Lady Grossmann is here! Hahahaha!"

An interesting conversation seemed about to begin up above. Her instinct as a journalist briefly stirred, but she did not turn back.

Rustle. Rustle.

Stepping over fallen leaves, she left the cemetery.

* * *

The day of Victor Heim's execution.

I arranged a visitation.

The administrative staff thoroughly searched the room in advance and removed any possible listening devices or surveillance. Everyone, including the guards, had been dismissed.

"......"

Only silence filled the room.

I sat across from Victor Heim, who was bound in mana stone handcuffs.

The course of history had changed drastically from before the regression. It was all because of me. I could say that with certainty, because I was the only difference between then and now.

The Empire had also become stronger than before, but I feared the escalation that would bring.

The stronger we became, the more stubbornly Izenheim would respond in their own way.

"Congratulations on your execution."

In that private audience, I offered my heartfelt congratulations.

Victor Heim raised his head.

"When your neck breaks, your corpse will go onto an autopsy table. That's when proof that you're Izenheim will be exposed to the world."

A mocking smile tugged at Victor's lips.

"......Just as I heard. You're truly a demon."

A demon.

Hearing that from him was absurd enough to make me laugh.

Maybe I had come too far to feel anger over something like that now.

I slid the interrogation record across the table.

"Even if you weren't Izenheim, what you did aboard the Titan leaves no room for defense. You killed the captain, aimed guns at the crew, and stole the rafts. It is exactly what one would expect from a species that isn't human."

Victor's brow twitched.

He glared at me quietly, then spoke.

"I'm curious where that vicious hatred of yours comes from."

His cracked voice continued.

"We're all the same humans."

A vein rose at my temple.

"We feel pain just like you. We want to live just like you. We're the same people."

Anger surged up my throat.

How many people had I killed because of his kind? How many times had I repeated this damned suffering because of them?

"Inborn human rights. Wasn't that a value humanity had won through bloodshed across its history?"

If I got angry, I lost.

Their greatest weapon, and their greatest danger, was how they could use human language to appeal to human conscience.

I held back my emotions.

"You're not human."

Sometimes, I wondered.

Did some among Izenheim act as noble as saints, while others could not contain a momentary emotion and exposed themselves? Did some become consumed by rage and reveal the shame of their race?

Were they so similar to humans, even in the diversity where no two people were alike, that they could not help leaving openings for others to catch their tails?

"......Nico Beber. That commoner hero who terrorized your lot said this."

I recited part of the record.

"'Silent Communion. A ritual where they crush the heads of their own kind with stones. Izenheim carries out demonic rites, offering even their own lives.'"

It was not yet time to reveal Izenheim's language.

A blade had to plunge into the heart at the crucial moment, like an explosion.

"The goal is to open a Dimension Gate."

"......What?"

Victor's expression twisted horribly. He looked as though he had just heard a madman's delusion.

"Are you insane? The country's in this state because lunatics like you sit at the top of the Empire."

I smiled faintly and worked my mana.

"Then let me ask you just one final thing. It's a personal question, so I'd appreciate an honest answer."

My golden hair turned brown, and my eyes darkened to black. I took out the carefully preserved dentures and pushed them into my mouth.

Eli Zella's appearance.

Victor froze in agitation as he faced me.

Click.

I released his handcuffs.

"How did you know Halbert Goring's pocket watch was fake?"

It was a sincere question.

Even I had appraised the object with the virus's help, yet he had identified it with the naked eye from the lounge sofa. It was possible the virus and Izenheim shared some trait.

"......Ha."

He looked at his freed hands and gave a hollow laugh. He did not answer my question.

Then I leaned toward him.

I whispered in the language only his kind could understand.

【 You were in the palm of my hand from the beginning. 】

Victor Heim's expression collapsed. His pupils widened.

Then, for only an instant.

Only the briefest moment, his fingertips blackened with an unknown kind of mana.

"......"

His hands were free. The guards were gone. Surveillance had been cut off.

At that moment, every condition was in place for him to tear apart the enemy of his kind before his eyes.

Yet he swallowed once and easily composed himself. His blackened fingertips returned to their original color.

Eyes far colder than before stared at me.

"......It was you. The one who committed the terrorist act."

He did not take the bait until the end.

He understood the meaning of this situation. He knew showing his true nature would be a confession.

It was disappointing, but this was enough.

I returned to Maximilian's original appearance and murmured.

"That's right. Many more massacres will happen. All directed solely at Izenheim."

I stood and collected the interrogation record.

"Humanity has always fought for humanity's survival. And humanity has always won, until no enemy of humanity remained but humanity itself."

The result would be the same this time.

"The visitation is over."

I believed in humanity's destruction, humanity's unity, humanity's faith, and above all, humanity's will to survive.

"Goodbye, Victor Heim."

Leaving him with a smile, I walked out of the visitation room.

* * *

Victor Heim was executed as the mastermind behind the Titan terrorist attack.

After his death, he was officially identified as Izenheim. The details of his motive were not made public.

Instead, suitably plausible rumors spread that when the Alchemia affair cut off his escape route, he had tried to drag the imperial nobles down with him.

A few short articles also appeared, honoring the sacrifice of the Mer appraiser, Eli Zella...

Before long, the season changed again.

Winter returned.

I sat by the window of a cafe, watching the snow gather softly outside.

"Did you hear about this year's Prozen World Expo?"

Voices from the nobles at the next table drifted over.

"I heard, but does the Empire really need to participate? Our Empire is already so great. Going to that festival for those republic bastards..."

They talked however they pleased, but the Emperor's true feelings were the opposite.

The Emperor held a strange romantic longing for Prozen. He envied and admired their art and culture.

That was why this expo was a stage where the Emperor's pride was at stake.

I searched through my memories from before the regression.

At that time, a competition began between the Eastern Union and the Empire to build the tallest exhibition hall.

After their clash of pride led to reckless expansions, the Empire's structure collapsed before the expo even ended.

The Empire became the laughingstock of the continent. The Emperor's inferiority complex exploded, and most of those involved with the expo were purged by beheading.

"......"

I left the cafe.

At the appointed time, I entered the familiar shabby building. The space connected to Princess Justine's hideout.

As if she intended to test me again, she had left a pamphlet for the World Expo, to be held four months later, on the table.

"The news from the Titan was good. The clean love of the Aran, and the filthy true nature of the subspecies. It was good enough. Still..."

Justine narrowed her eyes.

"I find it deeply irritating that one insignificant Mer is being treated as a hero."

"......He is only dead, in the end. Please think of him as a disposable tool for soothing the subjects' feelings."

I had to be cautious about racial matters in front of the Princess. There was nothing to gain by going against her obsessive pure blood supremacism.

"Hm. I'll let it pass for now. They're things that will disappear anyway. More importantly, what do you think of this?"

Justine tapped the pamphlet. I picked it up.

"His Majesty the Emperor has been considering it deeply."

It was not so much consideration as a formality meant to reinforce a conclusion he had already reached.

"The Eastern Union and Mekerel have both said they will participate. Even that tiny country of Mekerel."

For reference, the Mekerel-Balkania war had entered a lull.

Balkania could not declare an end to the war because of its pride, but neither could it commit more forces. Internal opposition to a war that was dragging on without justification was too severe.

"All eyes on the continent are turning toward Prozen."

Every nation wanted peace, and wanted to stand on the stage of the expo.

But peace was not what the Empire wanted.

"What is your opinion?"

"Shouldn't the Empire participate as well?"

"Really?"

"Yes. At the very heart of Prozen."

I looked Princess Justine in the eye and spoke.

"We will raise a symbol of the Empire at the highest point. So no one can help but tilt their heads back and look up."

A deep smile spread across Princess Justine's lips.

"Then will you take charge of that stage?"

I had expected it before I came, but it was a heavy responsibility.

It might also be part of her effort to keep me in check.

Still, I had to endure it.

She would continue to suspect and test me, but at the end of this process, she would trust me completely.

She would have no choice but to.

"Yes. I will gladly accept."

The World Expo.

Let us show the Empire at its most beautiful there.

I had enough confidence.

I possessed an aesthetic sense ahead of the era, supported by memories from before the regression.

......

"......I don't recognize any of these names."

Schatz murmured quietly while looking through the list I had handed over. A puzzled look filled her eyes as she traced the unfamiliar names.

"Of course you don't."

She had clearly changed from before. The version of her that only said, "Understood," had faded.

Now Schatz asked me questions and wondered about the reasons behind my actions.

I saw it as a process of building trust.

And without realizing it, I seemed to be relying on Schatz as well.

Maybe I wanted her to become my new Engi.

"They're artists. Painters I've seen. Right now, they're hanging their paintings around the streets or in back alley markets."

I leaned back in my chair as I answered.

The Empire was crude. It had nothing but the logic of force and iron blood. Its sense of beauty had withered away.

That was the common view the continent held of the Empire.

The Emperor, who was unexpectedly delicate by nature, was angered by that judgment. Yet he could never erase his inferiority complex and longing toward Prozen's brilliant art, not even until the day he lost the war and took his own life.

"We have to prove how great Aran aesthetics are."

I intended to show the Emperor the fairy tale he wanted. As a loyal subject, I intended to show him Maximilian.

So I would secure the geniuses who, in my previous life, only gained recognition as masters much later.

Right now, they would be holding brushes in nameless slums or on streets at the edge of the world.

"Schatz, you're a pure Aran too, aren't you?"

"......Yes. I am."

Something like a smile passed across Schatz's lips.

I closed the list, imagining the brilliant paths the future masters would draw.

Now then, it was time to use the asymmetry of information and put together a dream team.

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