Chapter 108
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 108
Memories of my time at the orphanage came flooding back.
Back then, I used to gaze up at the Upper District, visible through a messy tangle of power lines. I believed that if I just worked hard enough, I could make it there someday. That was what the Empire's propaganda had taught us.
Then the selection test revealed I had an aptitude for the Imperial Guard. I clenched my fists and let out a silent, triumphant scream inside.
My hard work had paid off. I could finally escape this gutter. I wouldn't have to live in constant fear of dying at someone's whim.
But it's no different here.
The Upper District and high society were exactly the same. Only the clothes and the food were better.
...We were all someone's slaves.
There were only miserable slaves, and those who were slightly better off.
Just look at how those proud, powerful noble families could crumble overnight.
More than a hundred Imperial Guardsmen had gathered here today. It was a staggering number.
On paper, the Imperial Guard numbered one thousand. In reality, the count always fell short. At best there were eight or nine hundred; during severe shortages, only five or six.
Even in peacetime, guardsmen were constantly dispatched on missions across the Empire. Gathering several hundred of them took months of preparation, and assembling even a hundred overnight was no easy feat.
The Corobus family estate.
We stood before it. At the center of the estate loomed a structure too peculiar to be called a mere mansion.
It was a massive residence retrofitted from a colossal airship. Word had it that it was one of the original imperial colony ships that had departed from the Ark Planet during the early days of settlement. The captain of that very ship had founded the Corobus family.
"A family with a long history. They were even maternal relatives of the Imperial Family once," Ilay murmured beside me. Cadets from my class had come to serve as auxiliary support for the Imperial Guard.
But there would be no battle today.
This massive gathering of the Imperial Guard was merely a show of force. Unless the Corobus family wanted to face total annihilation, they would meekly admit their guilt and surrender.
The Corobus family dared to lay a hand on an Imperial Guardsman.
The mastermind behind the attack on Iskan and me was a member of the Corobus family. One of their kin had been a regular at the torture facility before dying at Iskan's hands, and they had sought revenge.
That information had reached me through Kinuan, and I had reported it to Heilas.
The Imperial Guard had entered negotiations with the Corobus family. Having apparently reached an understanding with the military high command, Heilas was now moving officially.
Beep.
Summoned by Heilas, I stepped to the front of the ranks. The gazes of the other guardsmen swept over me. I, too, was now a prominent figure within the Imperial Guard.
Just as I had wished in my childhood, I stood on the threshold of success.
"Once we presented them with the list you provided, the Corobuses confessed to their crimes. They begged only to be spared total annihilation. It seems it was the work of a few fools within their ranks. A handful of idiots ruined the entire family," Heilas said, standing alone with me at the front.
"I'm glad I could be of help. Things are proceeding smoothly."
"If this were made public, every last one of their relatives would be executed. They should count themselves lucky they're only being demoted to minor nobility."
"I didn't expect the Corobus family to give up without a fight."
"They haven't produced a high-ranking public official in over a century. They've only lived in luxury this long thanks to ancestors who secured a prime piece of land."
The Corobus family was the epitome of decadent nobility. They possessed their own estate—and one with a highly lucrative mine, at that.
The Catacomb Mine.
It was a mine that yielded vast quantities of high-quality minerals. Because of it, they had maintained their family's prestige without ever needing to produce high officials or military officers.
"They had so much they never needed to lift a finger. Simply selling the mining rights was enough to sustain their wealth and power," Heilas said, his voice laced with contempt.
Before long, five nobles with their limbs severed were wheeled out before us in iron carts. They were the masterminds behind the incident.
The ones who tried to kill Iskan and me...
I didn't even feel angry. To someone, even trash deserving of death was still family.
...And they, too, were victims.
The Empire simply wants to reclaim the rights to the Catacomb Mine.
It had been nearly two hundred years since the Akresia Empire settled on Planet Novas.
The chaos of the early settlement era had long since subsided, and the balance of power had solidified. The Empire had entered a period of stability. There was no longer any need to share lucrative interests. Whenever a justification presented itself like this, they no doubt wanted to reclaim those rights and consolidate a powerful, centralized regime.
This was a dangerous, subversive thought. The old me would have denied it outright.
But it was the undeniable truth. The Empire must have thought they'd stumbled upon an excellent pretext.
Even nobles never know when they might be purged.
From this day forward, the Corobus family would walk the path of ruin.
"Follow me, Luka. You need to learn how to negotiate as well."
Heilas led me and five of his close aides into the Corobus mansion. Iskan was among them.
"We return the right of governance to the leader of the subjects and the guardian of the Empire. We, who are lacking and weak, merely borrowed this land..." The head of the Corobus family spoke while kneeling. His complexion was deathly pale.
There had been a fight.
There were traces of combat inside the Corobus mansion. It seemed the family had fractured into factions.
Humiliating as it was, the Corobus family had made their choice to avoid total annihilation.
"It's water under the bridge now... but instead of squandering the profits from this land on decadence and pleasure, you should have prepared for the future."
"We are not fools either, Heilas Custoria. We did try to prepare," the Corobus Family Head said quietly. He said no more. It seemed he truly wasn't a fool.
Heilas narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin, then gave a slight nod. The contempt he had held for the Corobus family vanished.
I, too, understood what the Corobus Family Head meant.
The Empire and the Imperial Family had blocked the Corobus family's expansion and their entry into high-ranking positions.
The negotiations and administrative processing between the Corobus family and the Imperial Guard proceeded as smoothly as if they'd been rehearsed. On the surface, the Corobus family was stripped of their rights and land on charges of mineral smuggling.
The funny thing is, the smuggling wasn't entirely a lie.
I stared at the hologram flickering rapidly over the table. To secure slush funds, the Corobus family had indeed siphoned off minerals to trade with alien species.
The Empire won't touch the slush funds they amassed that way. At least for this generation, they'll be able to live like nobles. Or perhaps it'll serve as seed money to rebuild the family down the line.
This was the Corobus family's preparation. It was the price for handing over their rights without resistance or conflict.
They anticipated that their rights would be seized one day, so they steadily built up their slush funds through smuggling.
Cause and effect had been reversed. Yet on the surface, the blame lay entirely with the Corobus family.
If they refuse to accept the smuggling charges... the Empire will reopen the investigation into the Kartika Building attack—currently labeled a terrorist incident—and pin it on the Corobus family.
If that happened, the Corobus family would be completely wiped out. They wouldn't be able to set foot in high society, let alone the Empire. That was why they meekly accepted the smuggling charges they could easily have contested.
Squeeze them slowly, secure a justification, then quietly put them down.
In this manner, families that had "outlived their usefulness" vanished one by one. If the Empire had relied on brute force alone, a rebellion would have erupted long ago.
Blink, blink.
I closed and opened my eyes over and over.
...Damn it.
At first, I thought my prosthetic eye was malfunctioning. But that wasn't it.
Hallucinations.
Right now, the head of the Corobus family looked like Heilas in my vision. There was no way Heilas would ever grovel like that, yet their figures kept overlapping.
Slide.
I squeezed my right prosthetic eye shut. Looking only through my left biological eye, the hallucination soon faded. Disabling the cybernetic prosthetic significantly reduced the strain on my nervous system.
It's all because that damn Director Jin Gau said those weird things...
His warning to watch out for hallucinations had undoubtedly affected my psychological state.
Does this mean the Custoria family will end up like this too if we don't hurry?
While I struggled internally, the negotiations continued.
"The mining rights and profits of the Catacomb Mine will be split fifty-fifty between the military and the Imperial Guard."
Heilas spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. The aides who had accompanied him whispered among themselves. His words quickly spread to the other guardsmen via communicators.
To be clear, this was not a secret pact. It was an official negotiation.
"Is this the decision of the military... no, of the Empire?"
The Corobus Family Head was genuinely taken aback. Heilas, resting his arm calmly on the armrest, replied, "The meaningless wealth once squandered on pleasure will now be repurposed into a fund for the Empire's wounded soldiers."
I clenched my teeth, desperately trying to stop my lips and jaw from trembling.
The Imperial Family would never allow this, Heilas!
This was an arbitrary decision made solely by Heilas and the military. But by announcing it as a fund for wounded soldiers first, the Imperial Family wouldn't be able to revoke it without losing face.
The real power struggle had begun.
Heilas knew. He knew the Imperial Family was trying to oust him.
That sly old fox...
Even I, who had watched him so closely, hadn't noticed. In my shock, I opened my right prosthetic eye. The remnants of the hallucination still lingered.
Sss.
Heilas's hair and dark red uniform seemed to bristle, transforming into what looked like dozens of spears and blades rising up. It was as if he were declaring that anyone who dared kill him wouldn't walk away unscathed either.
* * *
I ended up reuniting with Director Jin Gau much sooner than I'd expected.
Hallucinations.
The hallucinations that had started at the Corobus estate kept plaguing me in small ways.
When I stared into the darkness, it felt as though something in human form was watching me. Sometimes the statues or portraits of past emperors seemed to come alive, their pupils shifting to track me.
Above all, since that day, there were many times when Heilas didn't look normal. Whenever my focus slipped even slightly, he appeared as a wild beast—a dark red beast bristling with fur, casting a menacing glare wherever he went.
The manifestation of anxiety.
I tried to view my symptoms objectively.
This is why users of Akies Victima and those with modified nervous systems go mad.
If this continued, my condition would only worsen. And I wasn't in any position to simply cut back on pressure and stress.
I needed professional help. But if I went to the medical staff of the Imperial Guard or the military, my condition would be reported directly to my superiors.
I walked down the pristine white corridor of the 4th Research Institute. Beside me, the blonde young master was grinning ear to ear.
"Are you sure it's okay for me to come along?" Ilay asked in an excited voice, as if he were out on a picnic.
"You're already here. Besides, it's better to have you with me. The director seems to like you well enough."
There was no telling what Jin Gau might do to me. Among the people I could trust right now, Ilay was the only one who could serve as reliable backup.
Click, hiss.
I stopped before the laboratory I'd been guided to. The lock on the door disengaged with a hiss, revealing the interior.
"Ah, you're here, Luka. I've prepared everything. Have a seat over there."
Clad in a white lab coat, Jin Gau pointed to a chair in the lab without any pleasantries. A chair draped with all sorts of menacing surgical tools and mechanical devices was waiting for me.
Even I couldn't help but flinch at the sight.
Whirrrr.
Jin Gau pulled and released the trigger of a sharp electric drill, over and over.
"Oh, and since you're in the Imperial Guard, you don't need anesthesia, right? You've been trained for it."
"I'm still human. I do feel pain."
I wondered if this man even saw me as a human being.
"Skipping the anesthesia makes it faster to check your symptoms."
It seemed he'd never intended to use it in the first place.
"Luka, want me to hold your hand?" Ilay offered with a gentle smile. Scowling, I threw my coat right into his face.
Thud.
The moment I sat down, the restraints locked my limbs in place.
Whirrr.
Jin Gau thrust the electric drill toward my face. My eyes widened in shock.
Surely he isn't about to shove that into my eyeball...
"Good, good. Excellent reaction."
Jin Gau smirked at my response.
Screeech!
The electric drill collided with my right prosthetic eye. I barely managed to hold back a scream.