Malice (3)
Whoooooosh──
One morning, with a cutting wind howling through the air, there stood a prison somewhere in northern Lobrus, hemmed in by slate-colored outer walls.
“......”
At the sentry post, a guard examined the ID booklet with suspicious eyes. He looked back and forth between the photo and the man standing before him, then flatly read out the name.
“Maksim Eduardovich Voronin. Profession is...... lawyer?”
“That’s right.”
The low, calm voice, one no one would hesitate to take for a man’s, belonged to Yelena Ilinachina Yumanov.
She had disguised herself as a man named Maksim.
“Go on in.”
The guard jerked his chin.
──Kuuuuung!
The prison’s heavy iron gate scraped across the ground as it opened.
Step. Step.
Yelena walked down the dim corridor and arrived at a cramped visitation room. She sat quietly in a metal chair and waited.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
But even after some time passed, the prisoner she had requested never appeared. Instead, the guard returned and told her, “The warden wants to see you.”
She had expected that.
“Let’s go.”
Yelena went up to the warden’s office.
There was a great deal of red inside, and above the warden’s head hung a framed portrait of Bartun.
“Sit.”
The warden, Petrin, pointed to the seat across the desk. Yelena sat down and asked,
“What about my visitation request?”
Petrin gave a small laugh.
“Counselor. Did you really come here to defend someone?”
“Yes. I heard there’s a person imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread.”
Pft. A disbelieving sneer slipped out.
“So? Is stealing a loaf of bread not a crime?”
“It is a crime, but is that person also being sent to a labor reeducation camp?”
“I suppose so.”
“For stealing a single loaf of bread?”
The corner of the warden’s mouth curled.
“The Party’s discipline has grown very strict. Are you planning to defend a petty thief like that?”
“What if I am?”
“In that case, I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up here as an inmate yourself before long.”
It was an outright threat, but Petrin truly did have powerful backing within the Party. The northern prison oversaw three or four labor reeducation camps, so his authority in this area was considerable.
“Ah...... actually.”
Yelena leaned forward.
Her voice dropped low.
“I didn’t come here to defend someone who stole a few loaves of bread. I came to defend you.”
“......What?”
The warden’s brow furrowed sharply. That whole face twisted as if to say, What kind of nonsense is that? But Yelena calmly spoke a name.
“Do you know Ivan Katrovich?”
“......”
The warden’s complexion froze.
Ivan Katrovich. A political rival at the Party center, and one who had been quietly aiming for Petrin’s throat.
Watching the warden’s face go rigid, Yelena added softly,
“Ivan plans to accuse you of being a reactionary.”
* * *
Long ago, in a company somewhere in the western Empire, there was an incident of mana intoxication.
The cause was illegal mana stone. Illegal synthetic mana stones had been used at one company worksite, poisonous gas had leaked out, and dozens of employees were poisoned. Hermann had been one of them.
Hermann, Otto’s younger brother, had his circuits destroyed by mana intoxication syndrome. He developed an incurable heart condition.
But the power behind the illegal mana stone distribution was a powerful noble, Gregory, who had advanced into central politics, so the entire incident was thoroughly covered up.
Hermann was abandoned by the company without even proper treatment, let alone compensation.
Otto, who had been a soldier, learned of it too late and brought Hermann home, but by then it was already too late.
Hermann died a death that was, for all intents and purposes, murder.
That was why Otto chose revenge.
He took on his younger brother Hermann’s name and face. With the Revolutionary Faction’s meticulous support and technology, he remade himself completely.
Otto never reported Hermann’s death. Instead, he had the Revolutionary Faction erase the identity of Otto, then entered Empire Point under his younger brother’s name.
Before I regressed, his plan had clearly succeeded.
The Empire fell, and the revolution was achieved.
But in this life, his house was wiped out.
He was erased from this continent as merely one among countless individuals.
What remained for me was this: to publicly announce Hermann’s death.
I prepared a press conference.
I intended to leave Hermann as only Hermann. I altered the traces he had left behind and the evidence to suit my purposes, and even reconstructed the course and circumstances of his death into a form favorable to the Order.
Otto had been a spy for the Revolutionary Faction, but I could not allow Sentinel to be tarnished.
No, a stain itself could be allowed. If it created a cause that had to exist, then it might even be worth accepting.
But it could not come about through the Revolutionary Faction’s intent.
That was why......
......
One day, under a clear noonday sky.
Leutern II came to the Sentinel Order.
There was no particular reason. He was simply bored. He was sick of being cooped up in his private rooms all the time.
“......What is this?”
But the square in front of Sentinel headquarters was packed with people.
Buzz buzz. Swarm swarm.
Most of them were reporters carrying cameras and notebooks, and among them were quite a few knights in uniform, as well as familiar nobles from the Imperial Palace.
Buzz buzz. Swarm swarm.
“Oh? It’s Duke Leutern.”
Someone in the crowd spotted Leutern. He gave a slight nod and asked,
“What’s going on? What’s everyone doing here?”
“Ah! My apologies! Please, come this way!”
He had only asked out of simple curiosity, but the people hurriedly stepped aside.
“No, I asked what’s going on.”
“Ah, yes. Understood. Everyone, please move aside! Duke Leutern is coming through!”
They went so far as to clear a full path for him.
“No......”
“Please, this way.”
Leutern followed along for the moment.
And so, practically ushered forward, he ended up in the front row of Sentinel’s auditorium.
“Oh? It’s Max.”
Maximilian was seated in the center of the platform. Before he knew it, Leutern had dropped into the empty seat beside him.
“......”
Maximilian looked at Leutern without a word. Leutern blinked and answered,
“They told me to come in.”
“......Did they?”
“Did you call for me, Max?”
“......As if I would.”
Leutern lowered his voice to a whisper.
“But what kind of press conference is this?”
Maximilian replied just as quietly.
“Hermann is dead.”
“Who’s Hermann?”
“......”
Whisper whisper. Whisper whisper. A photograph was taken of the two murmuring in each other’s ears.
“The knight we saw at that little theater.”
“Ah, that guy? Why’d he die?”
“He was attacked by the Revolutionary Faction.”
“How terrible.”
Maximilian stared at Leutern for a moment, then nodded.
“Well, I’m glad you came. Duke Leutern was involved in this incident as well.”
“I was?”
“Yes. This is naturally a place you ought to attend.”
He immediately drew the microphone toward himself and began the briefing.
An ambush had occurred while Hermann was transporting Dominik, and Hermann and his staff aides had been defeated by Dominik. They had succeeded in pursuing and killing Dominik himself, but Hermann’s body had yet to be recovered......
Leutern II stroked his chin and merely nodded with a grave expression.
“......Duke Leutern, a few words from you as well, please!”
One of the reporters shouted it. Maximilian smoothly passed the microphone to Leutern.
“Uh......”
“You may say anything.”
“Ah, right. Ahem.”
He cleared his throat and took the microphone. Then he pieced together a few suitably impressive lines off the top of his head.
“This incident is truly a tragic and regrettable one. For a talented knight like Hermann to...... however, to the Sentinel Order, which moved quickly to contain this situation and prevent even greater harm...... and to those who unfortunately lost their lives, I offer my condolences......”
Click! Click! Click! The reporters pressed their shutters. Leutern puffed out his chest as much as possible and kept his face as solemn as he could.
“Mm.”
At his side, Maximilian gave a quiet nod.
Leutern II.
He was hardly a variable worth calling a variable, but when used like this, he could become a fairly useful tool.
This incident was no different. A few words spoken under the weight of his authority would lend our version of events a legitimacy and credibility no one would dare challenge.
“......Duke Leutern. That new accessory suits you very well.”
Maximilian said it with a small smile.
“Hmph! You’re only noticing it now?”
At last someone had recognized the necklace, and Leutern grinned boldly.
......
Beneath a gray sky, silence settled over a green field.
Sentinel’s knights had gathered at Sention, where only the Empire’s heroes were laid to rest.
[ Hermann von Berg ]
Today was Hermann’s burial ceremony.
The coffin itself was empty, but it was there for the day his body would someday be brought home.
“......Hermann. All you ever did was suffer.”
Mia carefully laid a single white chrysanthemum before the gravestone.
She was not the only one.
There were several fellow cadets, including Mia, Leon, and Tiana, senior knights including Hanna Usar, and even the high-ranking knights who formed the pillars of Sentinel.
Only solemn silence hung over the faces of those standing in mute formation.
“Idiot......”
A restrained note of resentment slipped out through Mia’s teeth.
The one who had always rushed to the front and thrown himself into missions harder than anyone else.
A noble who treated commoners without the slightest prejudice, who struggled desperately and burned himself to the last.
He had burned so fiercely it seemed dangerous, and she had worried about him in the back of her mind, but in the end he had gone out this pointlessly.
“......Ah.”
At that moment, the knights’ gazes turned in one direction.
──Step.
Walking along the path through the drizzling cemetery came Maximilian Ebenholtz.
His uniform was more immaculate than usual, and his golden eyes were cold and still.
He laid a chrysanthemum before the gravestone. With his eyes quietly closed, he observed a brief moment of silence.
“The deputy commander is coming.”
Someone whispered, and Deputy Commander Kairon followed.
Kairon first placed a hand on Maximilian’s shoulder, then laid flowers at Hermann’s grave.
He clenched his teeth, then quietly turned and looked at the knights standing in formation.
“......Everyone.”
Kairon’s grief-laden voice cut through the damp air.
“I believe each of you has felt something from this incident.”
His gaze touched the knights one by one.
The death of a knight at the hands of the Empire’s enemies.
The sacrifice of a young rookie.
“──Sentinel.”
Kairon clenched his fist.
“Sentinel does not compromise.”
The plain words echoed across the field.
He did not raise his voice, nor did he shout, yet that sentence drove itself clearly into every knight’s ears.
“Though our comrade has lost his life.”
Kairon raised his clenched fist.
“We will turn their malice back upon them with our own will.”
All the knights looked at Kairon.
─Tap. Tap.
Raindrops fell from the sky and struck Kairon’s face, leaving trails like tears.
“......We will forge this grief into anger and tear the Empire’s enemies apart.”
───Sshaaaaa.
The faint rain struck the knights’ shoulders and scattered.
Having lost one of their own, Sentinel could only sink into a heavy silence without a word.
* * *
“Sir Knight. A letter has arrived from the East.”
A letter from Yelena had been delivered.
“......Hmm.”
It was a report on the labor reeducation camps that had recently begun springing up all across the Eastern Alliance like mushrooms after rain.
They called them reeducation camps, but in truth they were little different from extermination camps that few entered alive and ever left alive.
Still, there was a clear difference between them and the Empire’s camps.
If the Empire’s camps existed solely to exterminate certain races and reactionaries, the East’s labor reeducation camps worked their prisoners without pause.
Atone for your crimes by reclaiming barren land. That was the idea.
[ The purges in Lobrus are being carried out against nobles, bourgeois elements, and key figures in the military. ]
Yelena’s neat handwriting continued.
[ But Varmil’s hunger for power is immense. The suspicion and paranoia born from it seem to be spreading gradually even to ordinary civilians. At present, if the Secret Police LKGD catches even the slightest pretext, they drag people off to the labor reeducation camps...... ]
As I read through her letter, my gaze suddenly stopped.
“Paranoia.”
Varmil Makstun had fallen into paranoia.
Before my regression, that had been a well-known fact.
Even after the Empire fell, Varmil remained obsessed with his own power, and the labor reeducation camps stayed in operation for ten years after the war.
To me, that was strange.
Could Izenheim, which shared only the grand cause of humanity’s extinction, really suffer from paranoia and suspicion simply out of fear that its own power might be threatened?
No. That could not be.
Their way of thinking had to run along lines entirely different from human lust for power.
“......Labor.”
Suddenly, an intuition flashed through my mind.
“Labor.”
They forced the prisoners into brutal labor. They dug up the earth and carved away mountains.
Across the East’s vast unexplored lands, they established dozens, hundreds of labor reeducation camps, wringing labor out of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people as they excavated “something.”
“......”
Izenheim.
History judged Varmil, the East’s leader, as a man afflicted with severe paranoia and suspicion. The labor reeducation camps, too, were treated as one more atrocity born from that trait.
But why had paranoia and suspicion led specifically to labor reeducation camps?
Why had he thrown not only power holders, but countless civilians as well into those places?
By grinding down that many humans, what exactly had he been trying to uncover beneath the deep, deep earth of the East, or what had he been trying to build there?
“Underground city.”
At some point, Edmund’s voice rose in my ears.
“......Do you remember the underground cities they dug?”
The starting point of my regression.
“We thought they had gathered there to survive, but it was to develop the Dimension Gate. Those devils fooled us......”
The hint spoken by an aged Edmund as he set me free.
“I should prepare for a trip.”
There was no time to remain sprawled out in my office.
It seemed I would have to go east one more time.
