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Chapter 94: Document Containing Intent
เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มี.ค. 2569 10:49
I took Johann’s undergraduate graduation thesis that I had received from the department head, along with several articles he had contributed to the university press, and sat down in a corner seat of the library.
「A Study on the Economic Self-Reliance of the Aran People and the Parasitic Nature of the Bourgeoisie」
Even the title was seething with anger.
I turned the page.
────
......In other words, the Empire upholds the survival of the people, not the profits of corporations, as its banner. Therefore, financial capital and comprador capital that grow fat by exploiting the blood and sweat of the Aran people must rightly be eradicated.
────
Johann Georg Goetze pointed out the harmful effects of capital and emphasized the cohesion of the national community, and he poured out all kinds of related policies.
Because of that, the New Cabinet of the future analyzed Johann as if dismantling him. And among the ideas he put forth, they did not get rid of the “good” ones. Rather, they adopted them.
Representative policies were precisely withholding tax, restructuring of tax brackets, state-led construction of large-scale highways, and the introduction of value-added tax.
Before my regression, the Empire moved according to Johann’s intent. The Emperor drastically lowered the effective tax rate on Aran people, increased welfare to curry favor, and supplied jobs through massive civil engineering projects.
A boom that seemed to arrive briefly before The Empire’s downfall, a last flicker before the flame went out.
The plunder from before the war made those policies possible. Ruthless exploitation of numerous foreign corporations and minority races within the Empire became the financial source.
That is my first footprint.
Unfortunately, due to realistic constraints, Johann could not normalize the aristocracy. He seized the properties of aristocrats who fell out of favor and killed them with the help of the Imperial Guard, but that too was ultimately an act of borrowing the power of some aristocratic faction.
I am different.
As a noble of Ebenholtz, I will cultivate the power to make all of them kneel.
Under Ebenholtz, all nobles will become equal.......
“I listened well to your lecture.”
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from behind me.
Sonnet Kandel. She walked up with crisp steps and sat down across from me.
"It was a noble-like statement. Quite impressive."
“.......”
I let out a hollow laugh as I looked at her.
“Are you perhaps a stalker?”
“Oh, how interesting? I was thinking something similar too.”
Sonnet replied expressionlessly.
Dumbfounded, I pointed at my chest with a finger.
“Me.”
Then I pointed at Sonnet.
“Stalking you?”
“Yes. Everywhere I go, you’re there. The Underground City, brain-eater, the event crossing the forest last time, and even at the Prosperity Assembly.”
Sonnet counted off on her fingers one by one. But the order was strange. Deliberately, very deliberately, she left only the middle finger.
This woman is doing this on purpose.
“Ha.”
I was at a loss for words.
“And today again, it’s my lecture day, and the library of my alma mater.”
Sonnet folded even the last remaining middle finger.
“Think about it. Every time, it was Sir Maximilian who caught my eye first.”
“.......”
But when I actually think about it, that is indeed the case.
“It seems coincidences did pile up.”
“Yes. But.......”
Sonnet looked at me and asked casually.
“Are you serious?”
“About what.”
"The things you said at today's lecture were quite progressive."
Progressive.
The word is amusing, but my mind is certainly open. It cannot be otherwise.
I actually witnessed the New Cabinet, before my regression, soar the moment it abolished the status system, and the academic and technological advances they brought forth were to some extent inside my head as well.
“It’s only natural logic. I’m an honest taxpayer, and when I see other guys stubbornly refusing to pay taxes, I can’t help but get heated.”
Thinking that my taxes are being devoured by thieves makes me furious.
But it can’t be helped. This too is a process of building my justification and qualifications.
As I’ve said repeatedly, justification is important in the Empire. Perhaps it is the most important thing.
“Yes. I know about your diligent tax payments. Is that why you are so devoted to hunting corporations?”
Corporation hunting.
I smiled faintly. Sonnet was probably quite angry at me.
She had the Imperial Guard backing her, and I was preemptively taking what they would have taken.
“It’s for the Empire.”
“......For the Empire.”
“If a bunch of nobodies take it and can’t even handle it properly, then it’s far more beneficial to the national interest for me to have it.”
Sonnet nodded quietly.
Whether that meant she agreed, or that she meant go ahead and spout whatever bullshit you want, I still couldn’t tell.
“How admirable. I’ll be cheering for you.”
After saying that, she stood up from her seat and walked away with crisp steps.
“.......”
I stared blankly at her retreating figure, then furrowed my brow.
Anyway, dealing with Kandel people is exhausting. Every single one of them has a screw loose, so I can never figure out what they are thinking.
***
......Johann had come down with a fever.
For several days after collapsing in the lecture hall, he wandered through dreams where the boundary between reality and delusion had collapsed. In those dreams, someone’s back was always standing in front of him.
A blurred face. Yet unmistakably clear blond hair.
For reasons even he himself could not understand, Johann chased after that figure, and as he did so, he repeatedly woke from sleep.
“......Were you out of your mind at that time?”
Around the time he had somewhat recovered, his roommate Liam asked with a hollow laugh.
"Yeah. I must have been insane."
Johann muttered in a cracked voice.
“Haah.......”
He let out a sigh and covered his face with his hands.
He had spouted bizarre words at the knight of Ebenholtz. He had insulted the aristocracy to the most noble aristocrat of the Empire.
What would the price be for that.
Would the Secret Police or the Imperial Guard soon burst in and hang him by the neck.
“......Liam. Can you lend me some money?”
“Do you think I have any? I don’t even have enough to eat or die. Why, are you trying to run?”
“Yeah.”
He wanted to run.
Cross the border, slip into hiding in the Underground City, or fall into a river and drown right there.
Knock knock─
At that moment, the sound of knocking on the door rang out like artillery fire.
Johann and Liam both held their breath at the same time.
“......Hey.”
“I’ll open it.”
So it’s come. Johann stood up from his seat with a tone of resignation.
Knock knock─
“Whew.”
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
Beyond it would surely be uniformed police......
“......Department head?”
No, it was the department head standing there.
Dressed in a suit, he looked at Johann without a word. It was a rather ominous sight.
“Am I being expelled?”
Johann asked first.
The department head quietly shook his head.
“......Take this.”
Then he pulled out a white envelope from his chest and held it out.
“What is this.......”
Johann opened the envelope with trembling hands. It was a check.
An enormous sum with five zeros, something he had never even touched in his life.
“Why...... why? Is this the price for my life?”
“What price for your life. It’s a special scholarship.”
The department head placed a hand on Johann’s shoulder.
Johann flinched, but his touch was strangely careful.
“Sir Maximilian has taken a liking to you.”
“......Huh?”
Johann stared blankly up at the department head.
“From now on, refrain from such impulsive actions, but return to school as soon as possible. The school has also decided to accommodate you as much as it can.”
“.......”
Those words don’t make sense to him.
More than returning to school or scholarships, the fact that Maximilian has taken a liking to him.......
“Uh.......”
It felt as though his soul was disappearing in real time, as though his fever was recurring.
His head hurt.
His legs were losing strength and trembling.
His sense of reality was feebly scattering, and the ceiling seemed to be spinning around.
“Calm down. Calm yourself.”
To him, who looked like he was about to faint again, the department head handed over another item.
“There’s this too.”
“......What is it?”
This time, his roommate Liam received it from the side instead.
"It is an elixir said to be good for health."
A box containing ten high-grade elixirs. There was even a luxurious parchment note placed on top.
Liam handed it to Johann.
“Take a look.”
Johann swallowed his saliva. Wiping away the cold sweat beading on his face, he looked at the note.
[Those who must accomplish great things must first take good care of their physical health.]
A single handwritten line.
Yet just from its form, one could tell.
A handwriting imbued with elegance and dignity that even pigs of the same nobility, those who had not been educated or had neglected it, could never hope to imitate.
“......The semester has already begun, but tell me whenever you’re ready. We’ll keep your seat open.”
Tap tap. After patting Johann on the shoulder, the department head left.
Silence once again filled the cramped room.
“Hey.......”
His friend Liam stared at the number written on the check, his mouth hanging open.
"What is this? What the hell is this?"
“.......”
Johann couldn’t answer. He merely staggered back to the desk and sat down.
On top of it lay the materials he had gathered so far, scattered in disorder.
The Genen suppression incident, the Gigantes terror attack, and clippings on every case Maximilian Ebenholtz had handled.
Johann had, in truth, been studying Maximilian.
When, right after the Gigantes terror attack, he had saved the lives of Aran commoners by saying, “This is not something for commoners to take responsibility for”, Johann had been deeply moved by his intentions.
But the speech he directly witnessed at the podium today was too ordinary and clichéd, so all his expectations had momentarily turned to rage.
Stupidly enough, he had lost his reason.
──Even so.
'I very much agree.'
In front of a large audience, Maximilian had agreed with his words.
'The duty of a true noble. The attitude a noble must uphold.......'
Every word of his closely resembled Johann’s own convictions.
'And so, someday, not just I, but all the nobles and bourgeois of this Empire will finally come to realize it.'
Maximilian was not a fake after all.
The radiant genuine article among the rotten fakes he had searched for so desperately.
'Someday, not just I, but all the nobles and bourgeois of this Empire will finally come to realize it. That the privileges they enjoy are, in truth, the weight of responsibility they must willingly shoulder for the countless Aran people.'
When he heard those words, Johann felt as though he were dreaming for a moment.
Is this now a continuation of that dream?
So surprisingly, Maximilian had extended his hand to him first.
“.......”
He picked up his fountain pen. After staring intently at the blank sheet of paper, he pressed the nib down firmly.
[ On Nobility ]
He wrote down whatever came to mind.
[......A noble must?]
He still didn’t know what or how he should write.
Should he write a novel, or an essay?
[About nobles.]
[What is a noble......]
He was already agonizing over the very first sentence. Phrases surfaced in an overly complex jumble. Countless words collided and fused inside his head.
All kinds of flowing, ornate expressions tried to swell up at his fingertips, but that was not noble-like. A noble does not flaunt. Even by merely standing still, their dignity and the weight they bear are made visible.
[About the most beautiful things.]
[The precious values that must be protected in the Empire.]
[For Aran, by Aran, of Aran......]
After repeatedly crumpling, tearing, and discarding countless innocent sheets of paper, suddenly.
“......The nobles of the Empire bear obligations.”
𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶
As the words ‘that person’ said in the lecture that day rewound, a phrase assembled in his mind.
It is only a single sentence, but the introduction to the most important book.
The single proposition that would run through everything he would write from now on.
[ The nobles of the Empire bear obligations. This, in ancient Aran language, is called Noblesse Oblige...... ]
***
Sentinel Knight Order.
One day, without warning, Hannah knocked on the door of my office.
“......I’d like to ask you to review this.”
She looked terrible. Her eye sockets were sunken deep, and her lips were parched dry. It seemed she had been studying active traces far too diligently.
“.......”
I took the bundle of documents she held out.
Rustle. Rustle.
From the first page to the last page. The logic of backtracking Mana flow, and the insight of digging into the culprit’s psychology through the color of the traces.
“Hmm.”
By my standards, more precisely, by the virus’s standards, it’s still immature, but the direction itself is correct.
If she keeps working like this, she’ll be able to build up her skills sufficiently.
Honestly, she’s doing far better than I did back when I didn’t have the virus’s help.
Thud.
I closed the report and handed it back to her.
“Good work. Keep at it.”
Hannah let out a big breath and tucked the report under her arm.
“......Thank you.”
After bowing, she left.
Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
Her footsteps were much lighter than when she came in.
As soon as she left, Chiron entered as if in rotation.
“Max. Are you busy?”
For some reason, there were an unusually large number of visitors today. Unlike usual, Chiron wore a heavy expression.
“No. I’m fine.”
“.......”
He closed the door and approached, then jerked his chin toward the window.
“Can we talk for a moment.”
As he said that, he pulled out a small note and pressed it into my hand.
[We may be under surveillance. ]
Surveillance.
As far as I know, the only one conducting surveillance here should be Yukia.
I nodded. I stood up and followed him out.
Without speaking, we went down the hallway and up to the rooftop.
Under the wide-open sky, the entire view of the knight order came into sight at a glance.
“Whew.......”
Leaning against the railing, Chiron put a cigar to his lips.
“If possible, make frequent use of the rooftop. Even His Majesty can’t hear the sound of the wind here.”
He tossed it out like a joke, but it was a fact with weight to it.
Throughout the knight order, the Emperor’s ears had been planted.
“Max.”
Chiron exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke and spoke.
“I have an informant.”
Today, he looked strangely arrogant. Like he had an enormous gift to give me, that kind of face.
“The scale and depth are probably far vaster than you think. So, about that......”
Leaning on the railing, he whispered in a low voice.
“Among your staff who come and go from the knight order, there is a Revolutionary forces lackey.”
I didn’t change my expression.
He was talking about Yukia.
The scenario was easy to predict.
That day, the day I nearly got hit by a truck. Yukia had refused the Revolutionary forces’ orders. As the price, the Revolutionary forces, probably “Ezenheim”, decided to cut her off.
A spy who has betrayed even once can no longer be trusted.
“......Is that so.”
"It seems you did not know either. Well, it is darkest under the lamp."
Chiron nodded, seemingly satisfied with my reaction.
“I haven’t heard the details yet either. You can probably meet the informant directly and hear the explanation.”
He handed me another note. It had the meeting place and time written on it.
It was a quiet fishing spot on the outskirts of the Empire.
“Go and listen.”
Chiron’s way of running his intelligence network was quite refined.
He doesn’t insist on learning every piece of information himself. Information only needs to be delivered to the right person at the right moment.
Therefore, most of Chiron’s informants move without knowing who they’re working for, and Chiron controls only the flow of that cellular organization.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Whether the information Chiron obtained really was about Yukia, and if so, who the one trying to sell her out was.
I needed to check it in detail.
~~~
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