Imperial Navy cruiser, 「Greif」.
Colonel Navid, captain of the Greif, received a letter from the Zerpa Kingdom Army. A small box accompanied it.
“Captain.”
The adjutant whispered something in Navid's ear. Navid nodded and pushed the box deep into a drawer.
“Let's go.”
“Yes, sir.”
They stepped out onto the deck together.
Four Zerpha soldiers and two Yaken stood off to one side, wrapped in blankets and giggling as they gestured at the sailors. Navid summoned his officers.
One of them stepped forward.
“I had them questioned through an interpreter. They claim to be Royalist troops who crossed over with the Yaken while fleeing Republican faction agents. According to their statements...”
“No. It's the other way around.”
“...Pardon?”
“They're Republican faction agents.”
Navid handed him the Zerpa Kingdom Army's letter. The officer read it blankly.
Numerous Yaken killed. Armed desertion. Request for handover.
“Send them back to Zerpha.”
“Uh... Captain, this concerns the Yaken. Regulations require us to report to the home country first and investigate further...”
“Are you the captain?”
Navid's deeply sunken eyes bore down on him.
The air across the deck froze.
“This is Zerpha's affair.”
His charisma was famous even within the navy. And this was the Greif, known throughout the fleet for its especially strict discipline.
“The Empire respects Zerpha's sovereignty. So do I.”
“...Yes. Understood. Loyalty!”
The officer saluted and withdrew. Colonel Navid fixed a steady stare on the six people on deck.
Before long, an escort vessel would be prepared, and they would be handed over to Zerpha once more...
* * *
A five-star hotel in Hailand.
“...The future.”
I sat across from Dieter and continued speaking. A glass of cola sat before each of us. At this moment, it was the most precious drink on the continent.
One thing I had learned recently: it tasted excellent with a squeeze of lemon.
“The future I saw was utterly ruined.”
Dieter listened. He had erased every unnecessary sign from his face, whether agreement, pretense, belief, or even doubt.
“Humanity had perished.”
Bubbles quietly rose and burst in the glass.
“Civilization had collapsed.”
Had I come to trust Dieter enough to say such things aloud?
Or was Dieter prepared enough to believe what I said?
“Dieter. The reason I hate the Izenheim...”
The first adjutant I had gained after returning.
Without asking a single question, without even sharing any particularly deep bond when I looked back on it, he had spent years at my side, building my foundation.
“It's because they're humanity's true enemy.”
He might have been the only man capable of believing words like these.
“The Izenheim did not originally exist in our history. They appear nowhere in the Empire's thousand-year history. They emerged suddenly one day, several centuries ago.”
It was a belief taught at Empire Point and nearly every other educational institution in the Empire.
“I don't know their origins. I don't even know where they came from. Whether they arrived from beyond the stars or arose naturally beneath this continent... But I know one thing for certain.”
Dieter listened quietly.
“They imitate us. That is the Izenheim's greatest weapon. They can imitate every part of humanity and become almost identical to humans.”
Dieter's expression remained unchanged. Because of that, I could continue more calmly.
“In that future, they opened a Dimension Gate and summoned beings from another world. We lost.”
Another world. Dimension Gate. Ruin. Imitation of humans. I calmly listed words better suited to a diagnosis from a mental hospital.
“...”
Even Dieter could not simply accept all of this without thought. But he would not laugh it off either. Based on everything I had done over the past few years, he had the willingness to consider it seriously, if only for a while. That was enough.
“My lord.”
At last, Dieter spoke.
“May I ask you just one question?”
Anything.
I set down my glass.
“What was I like in that future?”
Not the cause of humanity's destruction. Not the principle behind the Dimension Gate. He asked about himself.
“...You were the Empire's Chancellor.”
I spoke as I recalled those days.
“I don't know when or how you reached that position. At some point, you were simply there. But it was the right place for you. You managed the crumbling Empire all by yourself.”
“...”
“Even when unrecorded corruption surfaced, when unbearable expenses poured in, or when someone's whim overturned the entire budget.”
The Chancellor who counted numbers even with an empty treasury before him.
“You somehow kept it all running.”
That was how the war ended.
The victorious Allied forces executed most of the defeated nation's leading minds, but Dieter survived for quite a while. Though he had thoroughly overseen even the budget for the Extermination Camp, making him practically a war criminal among war criminals.
“The Republic tried to persuade you to work for them... But you rejected every offer. You could have survived. I don't know why.”
Dieter lowered his gaze for a moment.
He looked intently at the bubbles gathering in his cola glass.
“It was probably because it wasn't interesting.”
He answered as though he understood himself.
“Taking hold of money as it flows past and making it form a path. Having tens of thousands of streams of money and supplies fit together at my fingertips. Countless people's food and shelter gathering into numbers and being decided through them. I love such things.”
My eyebrows rose as I listened.
“But in the Republic, discussions and negotiations would have been routine, right?”
Only now did I feel I understood a part of Dieter.
“Yes. That is correct.”
A world where even moving a single number required legislative approval, where citizens' voices flooded in, and politics clung to every policy involving the budget.
Because future Dieter already knew all of that, he had rejected them.
To a man who had grown addicted to the taste of personally controlling the Empire's numbers as its Chancellor, the Republic's ways would have been nothing more than dull, troublesome busywork.
“I am fundamentally an addict.”
This might have been the answer to the gap within Dieter Schmidt that future scholars, despite studying many war criminals, had never managed to understand.
“I am addicted to something stronger than any drug.”
He was more rational than anyone, yet more irrational than anyone.
His ability to wield reason was exceptional beyond measure, but his attitude toward reason was one of fierce love.
“...I see.”
I smiled.
A person who devoted himself to and indulged in his work like a madman.
Then it had never mattered whether Dieter believed me or not.
Because Dieter would go with me to the very end.
“That's good.”
...Dieter Schmidt.
What a strange man.
Perhaps both of us had been crazy from the beginning.
That was why we suited each other so well.
...
[ Maximilian: The future I saw was utterly ruined. Humanity had perished, and civilization had collapsed. ]
Meanwhile, at Filty's 「Outcast Studio」.
Filty arranged the scattered pages in order.
[ Maximilian: Dieter. The reason I hate the Izenheim is... because they're humanity's true enemy. ]
[ Maximilian: ...In that future, they opened a Dimension Gate and summoned beings from another world. We lost. ]
A ruined future. Humanity's enemy. Dimension Gate. The Izenheim.
No matter how many times she read it, it was nonsense.
“...He's seriously sick in the head.”
And Dieter, who believed such nonsense without question, did not seem normal either.
“But...”
Filty hesitated for a moment, then pulled out a drawing of the Izenheim from an old comic she had made and placed it on the table.
She compared Maximilian's words with the suspicious appearances of several Izenheim for no particular reason...
Then she suddenly looked at a framed picture hanging in one corner of the studio.
“...”
All the members of Outcast were smiling in it, arms around one another's shoulders.
Meden, Elje, Pain, Kayden.
Companions who no longer existed in this world, killed by Maximilian.
...No.
They had been sacrificed to the Empire.
I must not fear Maximilian. There is no reason to fear him. He is only one part of the body called the Empire.
So the page currently holding her attention was not the prophecy of a madman named Maximilian.
“What is cola?”
That unidentified thing appeared on every page of the comic. On the table in scenes where people sat across from each other, and in Maximilian's hand as he muttered nonsense.
Fizzle. Fizzle.
She wanted to know what the black liquid was, bubbling as though sparks were jumping inside it.
It looked like he was drinking waste products left over from boiling mana stones... and gulping it down as if it tasted good.
“What is cola?”
Filty spent a long time trying to imagine its flavor from its appearance.
...
I returned to the Empire. Dieter left to inspect sites for cola factories that would be established throughout the Empire, Zerpha, and Kanilan.
The mass-production system would be ready soon. I had prepared the factories long ago.
Patter. Patter.
Snow fell outside the Sentinel office window. For the first time in a while, I was peacefully reviewing several approval documents.
“My lord. The Western Coastal District received this request for cooperation.”
The administrator handed me a letter. It had been sent by the Zerpa Kingdom Army to a regiment on the western coast.
──────────
...It has been confirmed that Republican faction remnants, who killed numerous Yaken and are now fleeing, seized a fishing boat and escaped into the sea toward their homeland. As these individuals are serious criminals in our country, we request that they be handed over...
──────────
Any document related to the Yaken, especially one this extreme, was always delivered to me regardless of its route.
The Yaken were humanity's fighting force.
“...Republican faction members who killed numerous Yaken?”
The instant I read it, I knew.
The Izenheim.
They had finally noticed the Yaken's intentions and begun to strike back.
I clenched the letter tightly.
...
The captain's quarters aboard the Imperial Navy cruiser 「Greif」.
Captain Navid had carefully removed his cap and set it on the table. He swallowed before speaking.
“I, I received word from the Zerpa Kingdom Army. They said they were Republican faction spies who had killed Yaken and fled, so...”
The adjutant stood rigidly beside him.
I asked Navid again.
“So you sent them all back? Two Yaken and four soldiers?”
“...”
The middle-aged captain did not answer.
I was quite angry.
They had entered Imperial waters, and an Imperial ship had personally carried them straight back.
This had forced me to go through an unnecessary extra step.
“Answer.”
“...Y-yes. I sent them back.”
“Then speak truthfully. What did you receive?”
The captain had rushed the handover, so he must have received payment equal to that haste.
“Well...”
The captain seemed to hesitate, but soon pulled a box from his drawer. His hands shook as he opened the lid.
Inside was a mana stone sculpture.
“...”
I fell silent for a moment. Tears welled up in the captain's deeply sunken eyes.
As I watched the tears about to fall, I drew my pistol.
Bang!
The gunshot struck against the ship's steel hull.
“Urgh!”
Navid bent over. The bullet had not struck him. It pierced the heart of the adjutant standing beside him, an Izenheim.
“...Give your statement.”
I turned my gaze to the captain.
“Tell me who gave you this, how they made their offer, everything.”
Afterward, I rose and stepped outside.
Sailors stood lined up in the corridor. The gunshot had left them all looking frightened.
I stopped before the man with the highest rank insignia.
“Major.”
“A, Adam Boven!”
“Major Adam. Clear out the body inside, take custody of the captain, and send him to the Order of Knights.”
“Yes, sir! E-everyone, move!”
Every sailor moved at once. I left the warship, feeling the fear, awe, admiration, and reverence mixed in their eyes as they passed me.
* * *
A dark prison.
Water stains ran down the stone walls, and a ceiling bulb flickered in the underground chamber.
The four Rangers hung limply in their chairs, each tied down.
Swollen eyes. Split lips. Specks of blood on the floor.
The same interrogation and beatings had been repeated there for days.
“Sergeant Gonzalo. I will ask again. Why did you kill the Yaken?”
At Captain Sesk's question, Gonzalo's voice slipped through blood-crusted teeth.
“You did all this... just to steal Yaken bounty money... No, that can't be right... If we killed them, we wouldn't get the bounty...?”
“You still haven't come to your senses.”
Sesk smirked and shook his head.
“Either way, you...”
Just as he reached for the fountain pen atop the report.
Crash!
The door flew open, and armed soldiers poured inside, aiming their weapons at the captain.
“...”
Sesk instinctively raised both hands.
Clack. Roll.
The fountain pen fell to the floor and rolled away.
“...What is this?”
None of the soldiers answered his question.
...
“Are we... really going to the Empire?”
Inside the moving car, Falcon anxiously watched through the window from the back seat.
“Yes.”
An unnamed sergeant answered.
“But... Mr. Gonzalo and the others, why...?”
“How should I know?”
He gave a short laugh. The smile reflected in the rearview mirror was oddly cold, but at least it did not carry that familiar fishy stench.
The car came to a stop at a quiet crossroads.
The man did not turn off the engine. He simply stared ahead, as if waiting for something.
“Excuse me...?”
“We're waiting. The people taking custody of you will arrive soon.”
The sergeant smiled. Falcon took hold of his wife's hand, and before long...
Vroooom!
Vehicles approached from ahead, kicking up clouds of dust.
“Ah, there they are...?”
Then the man's face suddenly stiffened. Perhaps they were not the vehicles he had been waiting for.
Boots stepped out of the vehicles.
The royal crest fluttered in the wind.
They were the newly organized elite of the Zerpa Kingdom, the Royalist Army.
“...What?”
Why would the Royalist Army be out in a place this rural?
The sergeant's face filled with confusion and fear.
...
The southern Zerpha garrison was thrown into uproar.
Faces normally seen only in the royal capital arrived one after another at the newly reclaimed south, where the officer in charge was only a lieutenant colonel.
The commander of Zerpha's central forces, the Inspector General of the Kingdom Military Police, and countless other general officers filled the corridors. Many more had yet to arrive because the blizzard had blocked the roads.
Every one of them served as a backdrop for the single man seated in the place of honor.
“...”
Captain Sesk's head had already been separated from his body.
“...I'm sorry! I'm sorry...!”
The lieutenant colonel could only repeat his apology.
Rustle. Rustle.
Rather than answer, Maximilian turned the pages of the report.
They were the Rangers' statements.
Thud.
After closing the final page, he spoke.
“Bring them in.”
The doors opened. Gonzalo and the Rangers entered, along with the Yaken couple.
They were in terrible condition. Military police officers tried to force them to their knees by pressing down on their shoulders, but Maximilian raised a hand to stop them.
“That will not be necessary.”
He spoke in Zerpha's language.
Though one of the Empire's greatest nobles, he was the only person who could communicate with all the people of Zerpha without an interpreter. That fact alone made him the most special and important person present.
“Gonzalo Pascal. Is that correct?”
“...Yes.”
Maximilian approached Gonzalo, who could not even properly meet his gaze.
“You have suffered greatly.”
He spoke with unexpected warmth as he gently placed a hand on Gonzalo's shoulder.
The eyes of several general officers widened at the sight.
* * *
Once the disturbance had mostly been settled, we set out to return to the Empire with the Yaken couple.
“My lord. You could have assigned this sort of matter to a subordinate or another knight...”
I gave a short laugh at the administrator's cautious words.
“At first, I thought so too.”
When I heard that numerous Yaken had been massacred, my anger suddenly surged. I had acted partly on impulse.
But thanks to one person I happened to encounter, it became something I needed to handle personally.
Gonzalo Pascal.
A famous name.
Before my return, he had been one of history's most notable opportunists, as well as a brilliant commander whose name appeared in the annals of war.
He began with the Royalist faction, then defected to the Republican faction. When the Empire occupied Zerpha, he distinguished himself on the Empire's side. When the Empire began to decline, he joined the Allied forces again and won three major battles.
Later generations judged Gonzalo Pascal as a double-edged sword.
He betrayed his side three times, and won with every faction he joined.
He always stood with the winning side, but he could also turn battles into victories.
His eye for reading the battlefield, his teeth for seizing opportunity, and above all, his ability to manage a legion were so exceptional that everyone wanted him and feared him at the same time.
“I gained a general just as valuable as the Yaken. It seems capable people always catch the world's attention eventually.”
Then he would not defect in this life.
The Empire would not lose.
Opportunist Gonzalo Pascal would take the field with unshakable loyalty.
“...Then that is fortunate.”
I looked at Zerpha's snow-covered plains beyond the car window and drew a glass bottle from my coat.
Tiny bubbles boiled within the black liquid.
Fssss.
The moment I opened the cap, Falcon looked at the bottle with interest. His nostrils even flared slightly.
“It's called cola.”
I smiled and handed it to him.
“Try it. I'm curious how it will taste to a Yaken.”
Falcon drank the cola.
Gulp. Gulp.
“Huh?”
Even I was surprised by how much he drank in one mouthful. Falcon's face twisted into a wild grimace.
I laughed at the sight. The administrator laughed as well, and so did Falcon's wife.
On a day when snow fell.
Small pleasures like this were not so bad.
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