Semi-Coercive Imperialist

The Prozen World Expo had succeeded.

It might have been the greatest success in expo history.

Visitor numbers had long surpassed pre-event projections. After the Imperial Pavilion's nightly display became a hot topic, crowds crossed borders every day just to see that light, filling the train stations.

Every hotel in the capital was booked for the next six months. Railway lines and passenger ships kept adding service, while every business in the city, from restaurants and theaters to tailoring shops, drank in the expo boom.

Factories that had shut down because of strikes started running again to churn out souvenirs, while the assembly waved around falling unemployment figures and congratulated itself.

But Jean Pierre knew what lay behind those dazzling numbers.

Whose brother-in-law had received the contracts to build the pavilions and tear them down afterward? Which assemblyman's nephew had won the right to operate the food stalls and entertainment district inside the expo grounds? Why had the exclusive contract to print commemorative stamps ended up with the printing house run by the in-law of the ruling party's financial adviser?

Corruption concentrated solely among the ruling party's families and their acquaintances.

Jean Pierre could only hope the country would not be left with nothing but debt.

"......Haa."

He felt powerless as a professor. Yet there was nothing he could do as an individual.

His family was considered respectable, but its influence went no further. He owned a few properties in the capital, but his wealth went no further.

He was not Maximilian.

He had neither the standing to change a nation nor the desire to do so. He was only a scholar.

"We'll assist you with entry into the Imperial Pavilion!"

Jean Pierre stood at the Imperial Pavilion entrance amid the crowds. Even during the day, the line was long.

"Please enter!"

Guided by an attendant, he walked down the passage.

"Please remain quiet from this point onward."

Then, the moment he crossed an inner threshold, the sounds of the world vanished.

The space turned completely dark. Just as his eyes began to adjust, an aurora of mana stone light surged from the ceiling to the floor.

"Wow."

"Whoa."

"......This is insane."

The Empire's light was being used inside as well as outside.

Past the dreamlike corridor lay a gallery displaying Imperial art. People packed the room, and every language on the continent rang through the air.

The most successful pavilion at the most successful expo in history.

Lobrus had been thoroughly defeated by the Empire, inside and out.

After spending some time in the Imperial Pavilion, Jean Pierre returned to the expo grounds and walked around.

The Izenheim Pavilion and the Mer Pavilion caught his eye. Each handed out promotional goods and held modest events of their own. Imperial citizens looked at them as if they were filthy animals, but did nothing more.

Maximilian's control extended to this as well.

Just as he minimized civilian casualties during military operations, he treated actions that strayed from the objective and pointless hostility as waste.

Maximilian would never persecute minorities clumsily enough to turn them into martyrs.

Rumors kept reaching Jean Pierre that Maximilian had helped the pavilion of war-torn Mekerel and supported Zerpha's "that painter."

As a scholar who studied people, every scrap of news about them found its way to him.

"Hm? Jean!"

He ran into Arthur Winston of Hailand on a street. Arthur's expression was not especially bright either.

More than the Empire's success itself, he seemed displeased that the entire continent had translated that success into peace and felt relieved.

"Ah, Sir Arthur. Good timing. There was something I wanted to show you."

The Zerpha Pavilion had been quiet at first, but these days a fair number of people lingered around it. Jean led Arthur inside and stopped before 「Guernica」.

Arthur smiled faintly.

"It seems you and I have similar tastes. I came to see this as well."

"I see."

Black and white. A collapsed mine shaft and broken outlines. Mouths opened in the shape of screams, arms reaching into empty space before stopping short.

A painting of shattered people, crying out in their broken state, as though it struck the viewer in the pit of the stomach.

Massacre and destruction.

Many had once dismissed this abstract painting as bizarre and passed it by. Lately, though, it had begun drawing serious interest in Prozen.

Those who had laughed and asked, "What even is this?" along with critics and painters, returned day after day.

"Pablo Sovakin. Do you know him?"

"Yes. He's a very renowned painter."

A once-in-a-lifetime painter produced by Zerpha. A prodigy who had won unanimous approval from the judges of the Zerpha Royal Salon at fifteen. A monster of traditional realism, praised for not only recreating the styles of great masters perfectly, but also capturing a model's entire life in a single portrait.

Then one day, that genius destroyed his own perfect technique and finally arrived at this point.

Whether this was a disaster or an achievement, later generations would likely decide.

"Excuse us. Please step aside."

At that moment, Zerpha officials approached through the crowd. They carefully carried a canvas wrapped in white cloth.

It was hung on an empty space prepared along one wall of the pavilion, and the cloth was removed.

Arthur and Jean's gazes naturally turned toward it.

"Let's go."

"Yes."

Together, they moved to where they could see the canvas clearly.

Its title was 「Where the Light Points」.

The canvas was not as large as 「Guernica」, but it was clearly bigger than an ordinary oil painting.

It contained the face of a man.

Or what had once been a face.

"......"

The painting was split exactly in half along the bridge of its nose. One side was submerged in darkness, the other in white light.

Both halves stared beyond the canvas, somewhere the viewers could never see.

Blond hair and golden eyes. Its features had been distorted and overlapped through Pablo's distinctive deconstruction, but the form remained recognizable.

The brush had stopped just before complete abstraction.

As though even the painter himself could not bring himself to destroy this face entirely.

"There's something strange about it. As though the painting stands between darkness and light......"

Between reality and form. Between representation and abstraction. Between darkness and light.

The painting stood on every one of those boundaries, without descending to either side.

"......"

Jean Pierre studied it for a long time. He had no interest in paintings, but perhaps because it depicted a person, he tried to grasp its meaning.

Arthur Winston stood beside him.

No, it was not only the two of them.

One person, then two, then four, then eight. Before long, hundreds of visitors slowly gathered, staring up at the canvas in silence.

Even those who had shrugged or frowned at difficult paintings before walking past stopped in front of this one.

"......Ah."

Suddenly, Jean Pierre caught hold of the familiar impression flickering through his mind.

Darkness and light.

The being who embodied the darkest ideology of the present Empire while becoming its brightest reason.

"......Maximilian."

He spoke the name aloud.

At the low voice falling into the silence, several nearby visitors flinched and looked at the painting again.

* * *

The 「Sentinel Service Examination」 was considered the most difficult and most respected examination in the Empire.

It was the test through which Sentinel Knights personally selected the staff officers, clerks, and agents who would work under them.

For some, it mattered dozens or hundreds of times more than the World Expo.

It was nearly the only ladder by which an ordinary citizen could reach the heart of the Empire, the highest gateway to advancement.

And among those examinations, Maximilian had announced public recruitment for the first time in a very long while.

Everyone in the Empire knew how well Maximilian's staff officers were treated. Their base salaries alone supposedly reached hundreds of thousands of imperial dollars.

Hundreds of thousands of applications had arrived, but after the first written exam held across the Empire, the second essay and ideology test, and the third lie detector test, fewer than a thousand remained.

Then came the final stage.

Today was the fourth round of Maximilian's service examination, the interviews.

Hundreds of interviewees and their families crowded outside the Sentinel Knights headquarters.

"Good luck! You'll make it, no question!"

"If you get in here, three generations of your family will be set!"

"Don't be nervous. Getting this far is already a qualification......"

A mother straightened her son's collar again and again, while his father silently patted his shoulder twice. A young sister slipped a note, folded like a charm, into her older brother's pocket.

A group of men who looked like former soldiers shouted encouragement with their friends.

The scene before the gateway to advancement had always been the same.

"......Whew."

One man entered the crowd.

After saying goodbye to his family, he stepped into the Sentinel Knights' annex.

"Hoo......"

With a number tag marked "37" pinned to his chest, he sat on one of the long waiting benches and repeatedly took deep breaths.

"Numbers 1 through 10, come in."

Ten at a time, people went in and came back out.

Most emerged looking paler than when they had entered.

"......Haa."

The waiting room felt damp with tension.

"Excuse me...... Are you Yaken?"

At that moment, an interviewee in the next seat asked cautiously.

"Yes. I am Yaken."

"Whew...... That's a relief. I thought so. You look pretty solidly built."

"Thank you."

Maximilian had understood early on the backlash that would come if people formed the prejudice that knights preferred Yaken.

The sense of defeat among Aran candidates, thinking, "I, a pure Aran, failed because of the Yaken."

Left to build up, that became hatred, and hatred ate away at an organization from within.

So from the start, he had set aside separate positions for Yaken.

Yaken competed only against other Yaken.

In other words, having a Yaken in the same interview group meant one less competitor for the remaining Aran.

"Good luck!"

"Yes. You too."

As they spoke, the door opened.

"Numbers 31 through 40."

The man entered.

At the interview table sat Hans, Maximilian's first staff officer, Otto, and an unfamiliar clerk.

Among applicants dreaming of working for the Sentinel, Hans and Otto were fairly well-known figures.

"Hm. Number 37 is Yaken?"

Hans asked Number 37.

"Yes, that's right!"

"Then your aptitude would be for the agent track."

"Yes!"

At his energetic answer, the other nine, who were not Yaken, let out quiet sighs of relief.

"Looking at your essay answers...... it seems you practically memorized 「Moonlight Below」."

"Yes, that's true! I memorized all of it!"

That was how Maximilian's agent interviews proceeded.

* * *

I returned to the Sentinel Knights to a warm welcome from the entire order. In truth, I barely managed to stop Kairon from firing a commemorative volley.

"Everyone's taking time off in shifts right now. They're going to Prozen."

I smiled faintly at the staff officer's report.

"Tell the agents to go as well. It's worth seeing."

"Yes. I'll do that. But, right now......"

The staff officer lowered his voice and delivered the news.

Hanna had detained nine suspicious Izenheim in a suspicious sewer, and they appeared to be connected to the Blue Rose Society.

"Izenheim. Are you certain?"

"The Yaken confirmed it."

Staff Officer Milan answered. He was Yaken as well.

"Then......"

I started to rise to verify it, then paused.

"......"

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

Until now, I had never skipped the final review. When it came to Izenheim, I had always been the last pair of eyes.

But now, there were people other than me who could recognize them.

The Yaken and Leo.

They eased my crushing workload, my solitude, and my isolation.

Even so, was there any reason I had to distrust them and inspect every single one myself?

No, before that, did I even have time to recheck them all?

I sat back down.

"If the Yaken confirmed it, it must be certain."

"Then how should we handle them?"

Digging into their other crimes was a nuisance. It was difficult and took effort.

"Create a connection to the Blue Rose Society. Make it convincing and obvious."

"Yes."

The easy path was simply to fabricate evidence and kill them.

Not all Izenheim were equal. These small fry were not worth spending time on.

"Also, one Yaken agent candidate has passed the final interview. The remaining Aran candidates are still being evaluated."

I might delegate other reviews, but I still handled the final interviews myself.

"Send him in."

"Yes."

The staff officer left first.

Those outside seemed to make their own preparations, and before long, a man entered.

"......?"

His face seemed familiar.

He had a somewhat guileless impression, but his features were much sharper than the vague face in my memory. The softness of boyhood had been carved away, leaving the bone structure of a man.

"......It is an honor. My name is Yan Novak."

That name brought a smile to my lips.

My memory came back clearly.

I folded my arms for no real reason.

"Hmm......"

Back when Gennen was at its most unstable, he had been a Yaken boy who joined a protest, got caught by the police, and was driven to the brink of death before I saved him.

It seemed he had faithfully followed my instruction to hide his power until he could take care of himself.

"You seem to have grown quite a lot."

At that moment, Novak's eyes trembled. He quietly bit his lip.

For a long time, no words came out.

He seemed moved.

Moved that I still remembered him, someone I had crossed paths with only once, years ago.

"......Yes."

His voice trembled with tears as Novak lowered his head.

"It was all thanks to you, sir."

His shoulders shook faintly beneath his thick hair.

The Gennen delinquent I had freed had returned like this.

Gratefully, he had already maxed out his loyalty before coming back.

"You've passed."

* * *

Hanna arrived at the location Julian had given her.

A basement in an industrial district on the outskirts of the imperial capital.

The air was stale. Every wall was covered with unknown writing, while bundles of documents lay scattered across the floor, trampled underfoot.

"......Sir Knight."

Several bodies lay strewn among the papers. Julian stood in the middle of them, his back turned.

Hanna scanned the writing on the walls and asked, "Have you also learned the Izenheim's way of communicating, sir?"

The foul scribbles from the sewers. Could Julian have deciphered their code?

He shook his head.

"I don't know their code."

"Then how......"

"I used an Izenheim. One of them led me here."

Julian pointed with his chin.

Among the scattered bodies was one individual that had died more recently than the others.

"......An Izenheim traitor?"

"Who knows. It may have been betrayal, or it may have been a sacrifice."

Julian's answers were always vague.

Hanna picked up a list from among the documents on the floor.

"......"

As her eyes moved down the page, they gradually narrowed.

Professors from one prominent university in Zestpol, mid-ranking clerks, newspaper editorial writers, and even literary figures whose names anyone would recognize.

The signatures and fingerprints of Zestpol's intellectual class.

"......All of them?"

At that moment.

Crash!

The basement door burst open.

"Huh?"

Inspector Gewin.

Behind him, Georgen investigators poured in.

"Good to see you, knights. Wow...... So it really turned out this way."

In a basement full of corpses and writing, he walked in briskly with an oddly bright smile.

As though he had expected this sight all along.

"We'll collect the evidence."

The investigators spread out in perfect order.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing......"

Hanna instinctively moved to stop them.

Tap.

Julian's arm stopped her first.

Footnotes:

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