Smuggling (2)
As expected, catching the ones named in the smuggling report didn’t take long at all.
But while I was watching in real time over the comms as the agents treated them to a special session of the Foreign Executive Ministry secret base’s exclusive “Water Knows the Answer” lecture, I suddenly realized something that should have been obvious.
“Riel, this is a little late to be thinking about it, but… why are we the ones handling this?”
“Took you long enough, yeah. You’re usually so quick on the uptake—why’s it only slow when it comes to stuff like this?”
Because when you really thought about it, this wasn’t our job in the first place.
Strictly speaking, it should have fallen to the Internal Affairs Ministry’s Public Security Bureau or the National Military Police—the actual, proper “police” uncles.
Not the Gestapo-like secret police (question mark) that we were.
While I was chatting with Riel about that, one of the agents who’d been deep into the “water lecture” for a while contacted us, saying he had something to report.
“Minister Arto, Your Excellency—may I make a report now?”
“Mm. Results already?”
I asked back, thinking the water lecture must be ridiculously effective. The agent shook his head firmly and spoke again.
“No, sir. Not from the interrogation—information came in from elsewhere.”
“Hmmm?”
Curious what that meant, we decided to hear him out first…
And it didn’t take long for the words coming out of the agent’s mouth to make it clear the situation was taking a bad turn.
The seriousness of what we heard from the secret base wasn’t anything else.
“What exactly did you say the smuggling route was again?”
“Starting from our Empire, then to Kar-Du and Rixi, back to Kar-Du, then Ztrakfor, back to us again—and from there half goes to Prosnak, half to Ztrakfor, yeah.”
Just as Riel’s unnecessarily detailed route description laid out, at the end of that complicated path designed for laundering materials…
The problem was that Prosnak—widely regarded as the most dangerous nation in the current galaxy—sat there as the final destination.
“And that route is only a portion of the ones they were running.”
“…”
“We’re still tracing the other detailed routes, so I don’t have anything more to report on those yet.”
“No, you’re all doing more than enough. You don’t need to put it like that.”
“Your Excellency…!”
On top of that, other routes were still out there.
“For now, get a firm grasp on the intel. If you find anything additional, report back.”
“Understood, Minister!”
So I gave the agents on the other side of the screen a brief set of instructions and was about to close the call.
“Minister? There’s still one more thing I need to report…”
“Mm.”
That is, if the agent—who for some reason was suddenly hemming and hawing—hadn’t spoken up about an additional report in a completely different tone from a moment ago.
“…”
I could feel Riel’s gaze beside me turning extremely complicated, but I deliberately ignored it and decided to take the rest of the report.
“Ah, right. What’s left that has you acting like that?”
But for some reason, the agent who’d been so confident just earlier now looked extremely hesitant.
“What’s wrong? Is there some kind of problem?”
“Ah—no, sir.”
Where had the guy who’d been proudly boasting about torturing them and digging up the smuggling routes gone? Now he was hesitating over the report, which left me puzzled—until finally, as if steeling himself, the agent took a deep breath and opened his mouth with a grim face.
“The truth is… during the interrogation, the subjects mentioned something about His late Majesty the Predecessor Emperor.”
And with the report that followed those words, for the first time in a long while—
A truly long while—I felt the onion-like Predecessor Emperor’s dogshit schemes crashing down on us once again.
After the agent’s report ended, I closed the comm screen, pressed my throbbing temples with my fingers, and sank into the plush sofa.
Seeing me like that, Riel—who’d stepped out briefly during the report to handle something else—came over and spoke.
“The Predecessor Emperor again, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“No, for real? Not just some smugglers throwing his name around to save their skins?”
In the past, criminals caught for smuggling and other offenses had sometimes peddled the Predecessor Emperor’s name to stay alive.
Riel offered the somewhat optimistic take that this might be the same thing again…
“Haah. The Purge Squad ran high-intensity interrogation, and they even brought in a psionic from the unit to check the mental image.”
“Ah, so that means it’s real, yeah.”
Mental image—meaning they’d even called in a psychic who could read deep psychology and memories. At that, Riel immediately accepted it.
“Yeah. Thanks to that, it’s confirmed this is one of that damn Predecessor Emperor’s schemes…”
“Going to the Emperor, yeah?”
“Have to. It’s a Predecessor Emperor problem, so the current Emperor Artraia needs to know at least.”
And since what the agent reported didn’t end there, I decided—like it or not—to go report the matter to Artraia.
“Halt. What business brings you here?”
“Good work. Nothing else—just a direct report to Her Majesty.”
“Is that so? Her Majesty happens to be resting at the moment, so you may enter at once.”
Perhaps because Artraia had ordered the Imperial Guard to let me through whenever I came for a “direct report,” the guards—who’d been standing like solid rock—immediately changed their blocking stance and allowed Riel and me inside.
And when we met Artraia, our Emperor’s face was blooming with a full smile, as if something had her especially happy.
True to the guards’ words that she’d been resting, she was wearing only an unusually thin, light T-shirt instead of her usual attire.
…That T-shirt is holding up against that?
I was marveling at the world-class durability of that T-shirt—one of the Seven Wonders—when Artraia opened her mouth, smile still overflowing.
“Arto! It’s been ages since you came to make a direct report yourself, hasn’t it?”
“Mm… has it?”
“So? What brings you?”
“The truth is…”
And as my report continued, dark storm clouds rapidly gathered over Artraia’s bright expression.
“No—why is that bastard showing up again…!”
Especially since Artraia had never held a single good feeling toward the Predecessor Emperor.
Unlike usual, she looked so overwhelmed her eyes even seemed a little teary. With a face on the verge of tears, she grabbed my collar and vented her irritation.
“Tell me about it. Peel one layer and another just keeps popping out.”
Still, if possible, I’d prefer she let go of the collar while talking.
Every time I come out of a talk with Artraia with a wrinkled collar, the whispering from the Imperial Guard and attendants gets worse…
Anyway, with those idle thoughts in mind, I continued accurately laying out the report I’d received from the agent.
That the smuggling personnel had been under the Predecessor Emperor’s orders, smuggling materials and leaking confidential data and technology to Prosnak.
That even though the Predecessor Emperor had been dead for a full fourteen years, the core personnel—not just the rank-and-file—were still carrying out that will, continuing smuggling that harmed the Empire.
And that it even included materials and technology for gate construction…
“I don’t think I need to hear any more.”
Artraia’s expression hardened completely as she shot up from her seat.
“In the end, they’re the Predecessor Emperor’s loyalists, right? After all that purging we did, some were still left…”
Venting anger and irritation equal to the size of the rage pouches that the T-shirt could barely contain as they shook wildly, Artraia—
“Arto. Including those bastards, deal with every single person connected.”
—revealed, for the first time in a very long while, the full murderous face of a tyrant ready to dance with her blade.
“Uweh.”
The killing intent was so thick that even Riel, standing at attention behind me, took a step back. But I instead strode right up to Artraia, grabbed her hand without hesitation, and spoke.
“Artraia, calm down for now.”
“…”
Even if this was an extremely rude thing one should never do to an emperor, I acted on the thought that if I didn’t do at least this, Artraia would charge out herself and start swinging her sword.
Of course, even so, I didn’t have the courage to look directly at the face of an Artraia who would be pissed off by this, so I just stared at the hand I’d grabbed and urgently opened my mouth.
“They’re not loyal to the Predecessor Emperor. More precisely, it’s a case of loyalty to the Empire—to the Imperial House.”
“…”
“So rather than just launching a purge out of nowhere, shouldn’t we first think about whether we can make use of them somehow?”
“…”
But even after I rattled that off like a machine gun, no answer came from Artraia’s mouth.
“…Artraia?”
Puzzled, I lifted my head—and there was, how should I put it…
Artraia, ears and cheeks flushed red as if the spirit of Hongik Ingan itself had taken form, staring at me while her lips kept moving soundlessly.
And seeing that, I realized I’d succeeded in redirecting Artraia’s anger—
But that the new direction was me.
“…Sorry. Spare me.”
I let go of her hand and naturally planted my head on the floor, begging for forgiveness.