Semi-Coercive Imperialist

After returning to the Empire from Prozen, I toured studios and ateliers across the country.

These were the artists I had personally recruited for the stage that was the World Expo. In the history before my return, most had fled abroad to escape the Empire's oppression, or only found recognition after returning following its downfall. This time, I would secure their genius before anyone else.

"I'm Max Riefenstahl."

The middle-aged sculptor, chisel in hand, introduced himself and held out his hand.

"I heard your name was Max as well. We're namesakes, then."

He was an eccentric artist. The moment he called me Max, the staff members' expressions stiffened, but I answered calmly.

"Yes. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Riefenstahl."

I took his rough hand. Riefenstahl's eyebrows rose, as though my reaction had caught him off guard.

"Your people always came here borrowing your name, so I thought I'd never see the real man himself."

"How could that be?"

Of course, Max Riefenstahl was still an artist known only to those in the know. Yet before long, sculpture would merge with mana stone engineering, magic, and morphology, blooming into an enormous industry.

In my memories from just before I was imprisoned, Max Riefenstahl had been a luminary revered across the continent.

"Hmph. I've made a sculpture according to your commission, but......"

He pulled away the cloth.

Rustle.

An unfinished statue stood revealed.

Its aesthetic was the complete opposite of Pablo Sovakin's twisted abstractions.

Taut muscles, as though the human trapped within the marble was trying to walk out on its own. Tendons that looked ready to pulse at any moment. Skin that made one forget it was stone.

A weight that pressed down on the space itself, almost sacred in its presence.

"Still, the deadline is far too tight. Two months is no more than an instant."

"That's fine. It can be displayed after the opening. Even if it takes longer to finish, I don't mind."

I looked up at the marble sculpture. It seemed to hold the majesty of an Empire slowly rising to its feet, and the rumble of a war that would soon shake the earth.

"Sometimes, an unfinished work remains longer in memory than a completed one. I only need you to show the resolve held in your fingertips......"

......

The next person I met was a man with a camera.

His name was Lenny Lant. His studio reeked of developing chemicals, with thousands of strips of film and unfamiliar visual media piled in disarray.

"Could I...... take a picture of you, sir?"

He carefully asked for permission from the outset, and I readily nodded.

"Thank you! I swear it will never leave this studio!"

Lenny captured me on film as I moved between the shadows and light of his workspace.

"Right now, I'm thinking about how to capture the Expo on film, how to make it better. I've also finished interviewing the artists participating in the Expo."

Then he carefully brought out a large cylinder wrapped in gold foil.

"And, sir! Look at this. It's color film, which I was able to obtain thanks to you. We can give moving pictures their real colors. It's extremely expensive and difficult to make, though."

I planned to leave behind footage of the Empire's greatness at the World Expo.

It would become the beginning of the medium later called a documentary.

"That's fine. A moment of color is enough."

Looking at him through the lens, I added, "The color only needs to appear in the instant when light cuts through space. The rest can be black and white."

That would imprint the beauty of that moment as though it were eternal.

......

The final place I visited was the estate of the master musician, Richard.

He was an old man already hailed as a legend in the Empire's music world.

"A piece to perform at the Expo, you say."

Richard gave a quiet snort with a long pipe between his lips.

"Yes. I've come to request chamber music to play softly throughout the Expo grounds, as well as the Imperial anthem."

What I wanted from him was an arrangement of the Imperial anthem that would make it more sacred and grand.

"That won't be difficult. It gives me an excuse to travel, too."

He exhaled a long stream of smoke, then asked, "Then what kind of performance do you want, young man?"

I needed a sound that would stop people's hearts when pillars of light formed a space in the sky.

Music was the best means of elevating humanity. That was why I had sought out this seasoned master.

"On the opening day of the World Expo, I'll bring in an orchestra. Please call everyone who has worked with you until now, Sir Richard."

"......Explain in greater detail. What the venue looks like is important."

"Yes. First, the performers will sit in the darkness of the hall, out of the audience's sight."

Richard's gaze rested in empty space for a moment.

He looked as though he were imagining my words.

"The sound will travel through mana stone amplification devices and spread across the entire Expo grounds. To the hundreds of thousands gathered in the square, the whole space will sound as though it has become a single instrument."

Dozens of orchestral instruments would fill the air through the resonance of mana stones.

Music whose source could not be found would soon be indistinguishable from a melody descending from the sky.

"I want those notes to reach the heavens."

The key was to make it seem as though they reached the sky.

The pillars of light and the sound had to surge upward together, making everyone gathered there believe it.

"Hmm......"

Richard fell silent for a moment, pipe still between his lips.

Then a smile spread across his face, like one welcoming a difficult problem he had not encountered in a long time.

"......An interesting request. Very well."

His face became boyish as he nodded.

......

On the drive home afterward, I picked up a pen.

Scratch, scratch.

I wrote.

Perhaps it was my own kind of art, inspired by artists throughout the continent, including the Empire. What I wrote this time was not knowledge from the future.

I had always borrowed or stolen knowledge from before my return to shape the present.

But Pablo's brush, Riefenstahl's chisel, Lenny's camera, and Richard's staff paper belonged to them alone.

Then what was mine?

......Massacre?

Listening to the pen scratch against the paper, I wrote something wholly my own.

I didn't know what these sketches, no, these scribbles that could barely be called sketches, would become to later generations.

Philosophy, literature, culture, trash, or perhaps the last testament of a loser.

Scratch, scratch.

For some reason, I felt as though I had to keep writing without end these days, because thoughts that devoured each other lived inside me.

Scratch, scratch.

The calculations that killed people for humanity, and the faces that weighed on my chest every night even as I remained certain of those calculations.

The conclusion that the Empire had to win, and the eyes that knew better than anyone what that Empire was.

My pure hatred for Izenheim, and the people who had to be sacrificed to kill Izenheim.

The fingertips that had trembled before them, if only for a moment.

Scratch, scratch.

I had a justification. I had a cause. There was an objective I had to achieve.

Yet it would not settle easily.

It was difficult to cut away cleanly with a blade.

That was why I wrote.

If I didn't hold it down with ink, it was a muddy torrent that would one day swallow me from within.

Scratch, scratch......

Then, when I arrived at the estate, some Imperial Guard bastards were waiting for me.

* * *

"I'm sorry to interrupt you while you're so busy preparing for the Expo."

Colonel Gehmann of the Imperial Guard and two majors entered the estate, walking down the halls while constantly looking around. The expressions on their faces as they inspected the interior were somewhat strange.

"It's fine. This is official business."

This was a space that fully reflected my aesthetic sense.

I may not look it, but I came from the future. This estate contained the essence of aesthetics that had not yet been born.

"Hmm......"

"Uh......"

The Imperial Guard members' eyes moved about as though evaluating the place.

The nobles of this era loved excessive decoration and ornate furniture. They considered filling every inch of a space to be beauty.

The Imperial Guard members had probably been steeped in that luxury as well, obsessed with layers of embellishment and decoration.

"Still, sir, this is rather......"

The scene seemed completely different from what they had expected. Looking perplexed, they carefully chose their words.

"Ah, are you currently redoing the interior? It appears not all the furniture has arrived yet."

It was a question that tried, in its own way, not to cause offense.

I smiled faintly and answered, "No. The interior is complete."

"Ah......"

Their eyes swept through the room again.

Smoothly plastered white walls without a single decorative molding. The only thing cutting across them was the shadow of carefully calculated straight lines.

The floor was black stone without visible seams. With every step, the grain of the stone reflected light low across its surface.

There was barely any furniture. A few chairs that artisans had spent months carving for the curve of a single backrest, a solid wood table shaped according to the nature of the material, and an unnamed white porcelain vase by the door.

"Filling a space is too easy. Anyone can do it if they have greed."

I guided them to the center of the reception room.

"The difficult part is throwing things away."

They still looked as though they didn't understand.

Naturally. This was a sensibility too far ahead of its time.

Still, the real thing would eventually look beautiful even to old-fashioned eyes.

Once we reached the depths of the reception room, a waiting servant silently pushed aside the wooden screen covering the entire wall.

The wall disappeared.

A full wall of glass had replaced it. Beyond that transparent boundary, stripped of pillars and window frames as much as possible, the snow-covered garden and winter sky hung like an unframed painting.

Whoooosh......

Afternoon sunlight poured deep into the room, filling every corner of the space they had thought empty.

The white walls became a canvas that received the changing angle of the slanting sunlight. Tree branch shadows fell across the stone floor and swayed.

"Only by throwing things away do you make room for light, shadow, and the seasons to enter."

A truly picturesque view, redrawn every moment with the passage of time.

The Imperial Guard members' mouths slowly fell open.

"This is how a space is completed."

I sat in the seat of honor and gestured.

"Please, sit."

The Imperial Guard members swallowed dryly and cautiously took their seats. In their eyes, a desire to possess the place had appeared, going beyond mere admiration.

The Imperial Guard were loose-lipped and quick to talk. Their need to show off was strong, they wanted many things, and they were experts at envying what belonged to others. Many of them seemed to live for the sake of envying others.

The sight they saw today would probably spread through their circles in no time.

That was why I had deliberately shown them this reception room.

Rather than pursuing pointless luxury, they should learn to live with less.

"Um, sir. If it wouldn't be too rude, may I take a few photographs? I truly want to show this view to the major general as well......"

One of the majors touched the camera hanging around their neck. I gave a small smile and allowed it.

"Only in this reception room."

"Yes! Of course! Thank you. It really is so beautiful......"

The shutter clicked several times.

"Develop them and send some to me."

"Print dozens."

"You did well bringing the camera."

After listening to them chatter among themselves, I sobered the mood.

"What did you come here to say? You didn't come just to look around my house."

Only then did the Imperial Guard members come to their senses, their expressions turning stiff.

"......Sir. Do you know of a group called the Blue Rose Society?"

* * *

One month before the opening of the World Expo.

"The air is poor underground, so perhaps you should wear a mask......"

"I'm fine."

Guided by the Imperial Guard, I descended into an underground prison.

It was a place of rusted iron, with no trace of aesthetic sense.

"To continue, we don't know why they call themselves Blue Rose, but......"

The Blue Rose Society.

It had begun in Zestpol.

A group formed by intellectuals, university students, and scholars, people who called themselves the conscience of the Empire. Seditious seeds within the Empire who advocated freedom and equality.

Zestpol truly was a troublesome city.

"Here we are."

[Evidence Storage Room]

Creak.

The colonel opened the steel door to the evidence storage room.

"Take a look. These are the leaflets scattered around by those Blue Rose Society bastards. There are an absurd number of them."

Collected printed materials lay scattered across the table.

I picked one up.

[ What is an Aran? Is it acceptable to persecute others simply because one is Aran? ]

They denied Aran supremacism, opposed discrimination, argued for equality, and asked whether we were not afraid of history's judgment.

They were not wrong. In fact, they were absolutely right.

But crying out for such morality in the face of the reality before us was nothing but the stupidity of fools with heads full of flowers.

"You called me here to show me scraps of paper like this?"

"Ah, well...... Actually, we have already identified the most likely suspect."

"Identified?"

"Yes."

I sat on a chair in one corner of the evidence storage room.

"This is the bastard's personal record."

The colonel handed me the documents, and I looked them over.

The person in the photograph was a young man.

A face that had shed the look of a university student and was growing into that of a scholar.

"Joshua, the son of the head of Zestpol University."

"Yes, that's correct."

Was he asking me to crush someone with connections through sheer authority?

The colonel noticed the meaning in my gaze and cleared his throat.

"Ahem. In fact...... the Sentinel already has this man in custody."

My brow twitched.

"The Sentinel?"

"Yes. You know Knight Yulian Askar, don't you?"

Yulian.

The moment I heard that name, memories from before my return concerning the connection between Yulian and the Blue Rose Society crossed my mind.

"......This happened while Knight Maximilian was in Prozen. Georgen first secured a witness to the leaflet distribution, and they naturally moved forward with an investigation to make an arrest, but......"

The colonel continued, trying to hide his discomfort.

"Knight Yulian took the suspect away, almost as though he had snatched him from us."

"What do you mean, took him away?"

"......He used detention authority."

It was the authority that the high knight Adria had once misused and been expelled from the Sentinel for. It was also the authority I had used during the "Head-Eater" case while enduring enormous risk.

Of course, detention authority was not as weighty now as it had been then. The Sentinel's authority had grown in proportion to my actions.

Now even a knight like Hanna could use it once or twice a year.

"It appears that Knight Yulian is conducting the investigation alone for now, but......"

Watching my expression, an Imperial Guard member held out another leaflet.

"Please look at this leaflet. It openly demeans your book, Moonlight Below."

It held a mocking illustration that grotesquely caricatured me, Maximilian.

Not Moonlight Below, but a pig stuffing itself with a moon shaped like a mana stone. A pig with blond hair and golden eyes. There was even a silver longsword on its back.

"......"

Was this an attempt to drive a wedge between us? Or did these Imperial Guard bastards truly want to catch the culprit and were putting me forward?

Either way, it didn't matter.

"That bastard should be killed."

The Imperial Guard member's expression immediately brightened.

"......Yes, yes! That's exactly what I'm saying, sir!"

The Blue Rose Society.

Those within the Empire who spoke of conscience, peace, and equality did not help humanity's greater cause.

Unfortunately, they were the group that had to be sacrificed first.

Their ideas were the kind humanity could only follow after it had won.

"I will meet Knight Yulian."

Therefore, cutting them down as quickly as possible would benefit both the Empire and Yulian.

Footnotes:

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