Anti-Regime (2)
Rustle...... Rustle......
In Lobrus's northern prison, where ominous sleet dripped down outside, there was the warden's private room, sealed off completely from the world beyond.
Warden Petrin glared at Maksim, who was actually Yelena in disguise, seated across the desk.
"......The party center is targeting me, is that what you're saying?"
A deep crease formed between the warden's brows, but he soon let out a dry laugh and asked,
"What are you basing that nonsense on? Do you even know who I work for?"
"It's simple."
Yelena leaned back in her chair with easy composure.
"Where was your grandfather from, Warden?"
At that moment, the warden's face hardened. Decades ago, immigrants had crossed east to escape the Empire's oppression. The warden's grandfather had been one of those imperials who rode that wave and settled in Lobrus.
"......That's right. My grandfather was from the Empire. That was decades ago, nearly a hundred years now. And that's enough reason for a purge?"
Yelena nodded.
Just as the Empire hunted down subspecies, the Eastern Alliance was much the same in practice. The General Secretary's Great Purge would claim millions of lives.
"You know it yourself. These days, even the slightest connection to the Empire is enough to get someone dragged off to a labor reeducation camp. Do you think you'd be the exception?"
The warden tried to stay calm, but the hands resting on the desk betrayed that fear.
"So. You can defend me?"
At that, Yelena's lips curled.
"Think of it as buying the bare minimum of insurance. In times like these, a private lawyer may no longer be optional."
"......"
The warden stared at her.
Tap. Tap. He drummed his fingers on the desk, then took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips.
Yelena leaned forward and flicked her lighter. Click. Fzzzt. Her flame touched the end of the cigarette.
The warden let out a short laugh.
"......Fine. Let's say I do need you. What do you want?"
"Out of the many labor reeducation camps in the East, one of them, maybe two. I want to become the master of a place like that."
The warden's eyes widened. He said nothing for a while, then let out a disbelieving breath.
"Hah!"
A hollow laugh filled the sealed room.
"You dream big."
"It has been my dream for a long time. In a barren, freezing place like this, I want to build a domain of my own, a place where no one interferes with me...... something like that."
"I could have you imprisoned right now for ambition like that."
The warning drifted through the cigarette smoke.
"You may."
Yelena smiled.
The warden waved a hand as if she was not even worth dealing with, but she had something to rely on.
Soon, before long, he would come here......
* * *
The Empire's oppression crushed anyone who stood against the system.
Forbidden books. Forbidden theories. Forbidden ideas. Countless people had turned their backs on home because they could not endure that suffocating pressure. Not just the pure Aran people the Empire held sacred, but also the other races and subspecies it oppressed.
Naturally, the Empire tried to stop them from emigrating. It imposed the Imperial emigration tax. On those whose intentions were too obvious, it even issued travel bans.
Even so, there were those who fled beyond the Empire to survive, or to follow their own beliefs, westward, to Kanillan, and here as well, to eastern Lobrus.
People who called themselves the "Imperial Communist Party," who followed and praised the eastern system......
Thump.
At Balshor Theater, the National Ballet Company was in the middle of a performance.
Dancers in pure white costumes leaped gracefully through the air, then landed as lightly as feathers. It was delicate, dynamic art shaped by the human body.
But murderous intent lay hidden beneath those graceful movements. After all, it became widely known after the Empire fell that some of the dancers on that stage had been Adversaries.
Thump.
My heart beat.
There were many Izenheim agents here.
Thump.
For the record, Zerof was not in his seat.
He had probably gone to discuss my proposal.
Alone in the VVIP balcony box, I watched the dancers and analyzed their movements as though I were taking them apart. The swelling and contraction of carefully controlled muscles, the flow of mana slipping softly through the narrowest gaps.
Honestly, this was the first ballet performance I had ever seen.
Even so, as I watched those perfectly controlled movements, ways of grafting them onto my sword and my own motions came to mind with startling ease.
As the future house head of Ebenholtz, I would have to complete a swordsmanship of my own someday.
The ultimate state pursued by the Ebenholtz secret arts was elegance without a single flaw. Precision that did not go against the flow of nature, and cut off the enemy's breath along the most beautiful trajectory.
Thump.
With the lines they traced across the stage etched into my eyes, I sank into thought.
......
Led by the theater director, I headed backstage to the waiting room.
I exchanged brief greetings with the dancers, their bodies still damp with sweat.
Thump.
Naturally, some Izenheim agents were mixed among them. Every time I smiled and shook one of their hands, murderous intent welled up inside me, but for now there was nothing I could do. I simply maintained the bearing of a noble.
Afterward, Zerof returned.
His face was much stiffer than when I had first made the proposal. He guided me into a sealed meeting room protected by soundproofing magic.
Fzzzt. Scratch!
The moment we sat down, Zerof struck a match and lit his cigarette.
Ssssss......
A harsh cloud of smoke rose.
Lobrus tobacco did not smell good. Rough, bitter, foul. The sort of scent I had no desire to breathe in.
Zerof stared at me and slowly opened his mouth.
"Duke Ebenholtz, many immigrants who crossed over from the Empire in the past are currently imprisoned in our labor reeducation camps."
It was the opening I had expected.
"From the Empire's point of view, they must be counterrevolutionaries, a thorn in its side."
"You could say that."
At my answer, Zerof's eyes narrowed sharply.
The Eastern Alliance did not trust imperial immigrants. Because of General Secretary Varmil's paranoid suspicion, or at least what looked like that from the outside, anyone marked as an "immigrant," whether intellectual or laborer, was being swept away by the icy winds of the Great Purge.
"Then, in exchange for handing those people over to the Empire."
Leaning over the table, Zerof finally came to the point.
"The bloodlines of the old monarchy and the remnants of the nobility who fled to the Empire during the eastern revolution."
Lobrus had originally been a monarchy. When Varmil rose through a revolution soaked in blood, some of the old regime's powerful figures escaped execution by fleeing to the Empire.
"A fair number of them are still alive and breathing in the imperial center even now."
Zerof's proposal.
We hand over people tied to the Empire, and you hand over people tied to Lobrus.
"Very well. Reasonable enough."
Smiling, I nodded.
Handing over the remnants of a fallen state to the East and bringing back imperial people in return seemed, in both principle and practical value, like a fairly decent deal.
"However."
I clasped my hands together and looked straight at Zerof.
"There is one more person I want, personally."
"......Personally?"
"Yes. The descendant of the terrorist who led the old bombing at Imperial Central Station."
My voice cut through the stale air of the room.
"That traitor's descendant fled to Lobrus, laundered his identity, and has been living here."
Zerof's brows drew together. He ground the cigarette out in the ashtray.
"Who is it?"
With a genial smile, I named the place Yelena had gone to.
"Petrin Miller. I hear he is currently serving as warden of Lobrus's northern prison."
At that moment, Zerof's face twitched.
Zerof Nikolai. He longed to become Varmil's second-in-command and carried out mass purges across the populace, yet kept a third-generation descendant of imperial immigrants as one of his close confidants.
That was exactly why I had gone out of my way to make this proposal to him.
* * *
......Rumors spread in an instant. The deal with Maximilian became an open secret inside the party. In several labor reeducation camps across Lobrus, laborers of imperial origin were sorted out, and in the party center, meetings were convened.
"Markovich Miller. Warden of the northern prison. Descendant of imperial immigrants."
At the round table of the Party Central Committee, Georg, Zerof's sworn enemy, slapped a file down and sneered.
"I never trusted that bastard in the first place. He's an imperial mongrel to the bone."
One of Maximilian's conditions for the trade had been Petrin, warden of Lobrus's northern prison.
"......"
Zerof glared at Georg while forcing down his boiling anger.
Petrin belonged to Zerof's faction. The warden was the source of the tribute money flowing into the secret vault.
"And, as it happens, multiple counterrevolutionary charges have also been filed against him."
It was a report passed up by one of Georg's direct subordinates.
An open political maneuver to cut off Zerof's money line and check his power.
"......Is there really any need to hand over a capable prison warden to those imperial bastards? We could just throw them some other man and be done with it."
Zerof forced himself to object gently, but Georg gave a mocking snort as if he had been waiting for it.
“That imperial knight specifically asked for him. What do you expect us to do? If we want those remnants of the old order back from the bastards, we should at least show proper sincerity.”
Heh heh heh. A snakelike sneer slipped from Georg's throat.
"Or perhaps, Committee Member Zerof, you mean to defy the will of our great General Secretary?"
The will of the General Secretary. At those words, Zerof's jaw twitched like a spasm.
"Committee Member Zerof. Think it through. You can't keep hugging a lump of dead meat until you rot with it."
Georg shook his head as if he truly found it regrettable.
"Ah, that's enough from me. I have another engagement......"
Then he rose from his seat and left the meeting room first.
Crrrk.
Zerof ground his teeth as he glared murderously at Georg's back.
Yelena knew the man called Zerof.
She knew every secret tie in his web of power, every one of his close men.
So of course she also knew that Warden Petrin was one of Zerof's confidants.
She was not a fool.
Her House Yumanov had been exterminated by those people, but even back then they had never been careless when preparing for political enemies.
"......"
Yelena quietly watched Warden Petrin seated across from her.
The warden's full name was Petrin Markovich Miller. The surname Miller was a Lobrus-style twist on the imperial Muller.
"Last time, you acted like you were ready to throw me into solitary on the spot. So why did you call for me all of a sudden?"
Last week, Yelena had been driven out after barely managing to leave behind a single business card.
"......"
Today, Warden Petrin had summoned her himself.
"What is it? Have you come down with something fatal?"
Even at her sarcasm, Petrin tried to keep composed, but that face was already pale, as if several nights had passed without sleep.
"Warden. Can you not hear me?"
"Shut your mouth."
"Ah, yes."
"......I've verified your identity."
Flap!
Petrin threw a thick bundle of papers onto the desk. They were forged documents, perfectly prepared by Maximilian's spies.
Date of birth, place of birth, university graduation certificate, lawyer's license, even the smallest bits of personal history, everything was there.
Most likely, they had stolen the identity of a real person and laid it over her wholesale.
"Still, counselor. What you were babbling about a few days ago was wrong."
"Wrong?"
"That bastard Ivan did report me to the party, yes. But what has come down on me now...... what has come for me isn't just the accusation of that little rat. It's something far bigger than that......"
Petrin let out a heavy sigh and trailed off. The two hands resting on the table trembled. The warden lowered them quickly so it would not show.
"A damned tank of a man suddenly appeared."
Tank.
At that weighty word, Yelena's brow twitched.
"......A tank?"
Then Petrin, in the rough accent unique to the East, ground out a man's name.
"Maximilian Ebenholtz."
The moment the name she had been waiting for came out, Yelena swallowed her laugh.
Instead, she widened her eyes and put on a shocked expression.
"Maximilian...... you mean that knight from the Empire?"
"That's right. That mad human butcher."
Petrin bit his lip hard.
"The damned bastard came all the way to the East just to kill us too......"
Petrin's cheek trembled. Yelena watched closely.
Everything was unfolding exactly as she had expected.
This was why she had risked her life and crawled all the way into this northern prison.
Why she had set the meeting place here, and why she had approached Zerof's confidant.
Bang!
The iron door to the warden's office flew open, and a subordinate rushed in.
"W-warden! People from the party center have arrived! And......"
A dry swallow.
The terrified voice continued.
"They say the imperial knight Maximilian is with them as well."
This, from the very beginning, had been planned.
A joint move, secretly coordinated by Maximilian and Yelena.
"......"
Petrin, now white as a sheet, shot to his feet. He glared at Yelena with bloodshot eyes and growled,
"I am going to introduce you to them as my lawyer."
Grip. Petrin seized her by the collar and yanked her upright.
"If you fail to defend me."
In Yelena's own view...... well. Before a man like Maximilian, one of the Empire's rulers, and the party officials of Lobrus, what use could a mere lawyer possibly be?
"Then today, in this place, you will die with me."
It did not matter.
Things were already moving according to the promised script.
"Let's go."
"......Follow me."
Step. Step.
Petrin kept stumbling as if the strength had gone out of his legs. Yelena drew a slow breath and followed behind him.
Step. Step.
From here on, I would save Petrin from Maximilian's threat, and Petrin would come to trust me.
Step. Step.
That was the new starting point for "us."
