A Small and Precious Newspaper Company
A Small and Precious Newspaper Company
Daniel's eerie voice seemed to tighten around his throat.
He knew the correct answer was to say no, but he couldn't bring himself to utter the words.
How could he lie to a lunatic pulling the trigger of a loaded revolver?
"I-I am......."
Kembal's eyes trembled as he trailed off, but Daniel did not rush him.
He had decided to wait until the fear now taking root in Kembal's heart bore fruit.
'The human imagination is boundless, after all.'
What would happen if you learned that the man sitting across the dining table was a heinous bastard who pulled the trigger of a loaded revolver?
What if you were consumed by the terror that this man might kill you at any moment?
'You'd start making judgments in the worst possible direction.'
The more a man had to lose, the more he tended to think negatively about the threatening situations that befell him.
'And.......'
Daniel Steiner had already taken steps to ensure that Kembal's negative thinking would expand.
Meaning, he hadn't had his armed soldiers take Kembal's wife and son away for nothing.
Just as Daniel had predicted, Kembal was thinking of his family now.
'Surely not my family too.......'
The moment Kembal realized that Daniel Steiner's threats didn't end with mere 'words', worry for his family had flooded his mind.
'Demian.'
Kembal, who had been picturing his son's smiling face, barely managed to calm his breathing and looked at Daniel.
"If I tell the truth, will my safety be guaranteed? I mean......."
Daniel raised his hand to halt Kembal's words and pressed the pause button on the tape recorder.
It would be troublesome if strange words got mixed into the recording.
"Are you referring to the safety of your family?"
At Daniel's question, Kembal gave a small nod.
Thinking he had almost won him over, Daniel allowed a faint smile.
"If you cooperate with me, I will take responsibility and ensure the safety of your family, Party Leader. So I would like you to tell me everything you know."
"......."
"Party Leader. Furthermore, I will request that Her Highness the Princess take your confession into account as a mitigating factor. Afterwards, I will consider parole. Then all you have to do is spend a few years in prison and come back out."
After taking a deep breath, Kembal opened his mouth but produced no sound.
The remnants of his hesitation still lingered in his heart.
"Daniel Steiner. Even if I cooperate with you......."
Fear seeped into Kembal's eyes.
But this was not fear directed at Daniel.
"......My superiors will not leave me be. Eliminating traitors is their way. In the end, wouldn't dying here be the same as dying at their hands?"
This was an answer that slightly deviated from Daniel's expectations.
He hadn't known that the entities giving Kembal orders treated human lives like flies.
'Come to think of it.......'
He had seen articles from time to time about politicians or low-ranking nobles being attacked by robbers or targeted by the mafia, unable to escape death.
It would make sense if all of those were on the orders of the 'superiors' Kembal was talking about.
'This is troublesome.'
It was not easy to persuade someone belonging to a group that demanded excessive loyalty and held their lives as collateral.
'In that case.......'
The best course of action was to give him hope that he could survive by switching sides.
"On the assumption that you tell the truth, I will thoroughly protect your family. Then what you must be worried about is your own life......."
Daniel, who had been tapping his hand on the dining table, nodded.
"Very well. I will take special measures to ensure you do not meet a mysterious death inside the prison. I will also exclude you from forced labor, so you can serve your sentence comfortably."
"......That's not what I'm talking about. Even if my safety inside the prison is guaranteed, I will be killed by them after I am released."
"Released. A confession would indeed reduce your sentence, but even at the very least, Party Leader, you would have to serve over eight years for violating the Secrets Protection Act and leaking military secrets."
Kembal, unable to follow the flow of the conversation, furrowed his brow.
"I'm not trying to discuss the length of my sentence right now. The fact that I might die the moment I'm released, regardless of how many years I serve......."
Kembal stopped mid-sentence and closed his mouth.
Because Daniel was smiling from within the shadows.
"Party Leader. How long do you think it took me to rise to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel? Think about the time it took for an orphan like me to speak to you, a party leader of noble birth, as an equal."
Daniel slowly raised his hand as if it were being drawn up by a net, extending his index finger.
"One year. It didn't even take a year. Then......."
His index finger curled in, forming a fist.
"What kind of person do you think I will be in the world eight years from now?"
In eight years, the one you need to fear won't be the group of nobles, but me.
It was exactly as if Daniel Steiner was saying just that.
The eerie, gripping atmosphere prevented him from daring to refute it.
After swallowing hard, Kembal nodded after a great deal of deliberation.
He thought that taking the hand of Daniel Steiner in front of him was the only way to preserve his life.
"......I will speak. I will tell you all of the truth I know."
*
After an hour had passed, Daniel, having heard all of Kembal's testimony, came out of the residence.
Amidst the lined-up soldiers taking the position of attention, Daniel nonchalantly adjusted his clothes.
'So he was following Hendliem's orders.......'
The scale of this was getting bigger than he had thought.
There was no way Baron Hendliem had planned all of this by himself.
'Perhaps I've just declared war on every noble in the Imperial Capital.'
It was a worst-case assumption, but if all the nobles in the Imperial Capital were in league with each other, Daniel would have to continue a difficult fight.
'I just wanted to settle down in a peaceful place and spend the rest of my life eating desserts. Why have things gotten so twisted.......'
In his heart, he wanted to voice his resentment and even protest, but there was no time for that now.
"Adjutant."
As Daniel quietly moved his lips, Lucy stepped forward.
"Yes. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel."
Daniel handed the tape to Lucy, who was waiting for orders.
It was the tape containing Kembal's hour-long testimony.
"Take the troops to General Headquarters, and based on the testimony recorded on this tape, find items among the seized materials from Kembal's residence that hold legal validity as evidence."
It was slightly distasteful to leave the task to an Allied Nations spy, but since Ernst would take over command once they arrived at GHQ anyway, there was nothing to worry about.
'There's no way it would happen, but even if Lucy were to intercept the tape.......'
He wasn't too concerned because he had made an extra copy using the tape recorder hidden inside his coat for personal use.
Of course, contrary to Daniel's worries, Lucy had no intention of betraying him, as she had already fallen out with the Allied Nations.
Lucy, who received the tape from Daniel, nodded.
"I will follow your orders. But are you not returning to General Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel?"
"No. There's a place I need to stop by with Frien."
"Understood."
Lucy gave a salute without bothering to ask the reason.
As Daniel returned the salute, Lucy turned around and began to command the troops.
Seeing the soldiers boarding the military vehicles one by one, Daniel looked to his side.
"Frien."
Frien, who had been looking at Daniel with eyes of admiration, nodded.
"The sedan is parked just across the road. You can get in right away."
He had instructed Frien before coming here to prepare a readily available sedan if possible, and it seemed Frien had managed to borrow one and have it waiting.
'Even if there wasn't a sedan, I could have just walked or used a military vehicle.......'
He had been worried that doing so would draw people's attention, so this was fortunate.
'But.......'
He could trust Lucy to handle things, but Frien made him feel uneasy for some reason.
"Frien. Just to be sure, do you have any driving experience?"
"Of course. I even have a driver's license, so don't worry."
His beaming smile didn't inspire much confidence, but since he said he knew how, Daniel decided not to stop him.
"Good. Then let's go."
Daniel, who had walked across the street, opened the door to the back seat and boarded.
A moment later, Frien opened the driver's door, sat down, and started the car's engine.
After starting the car, Frien smoothly turned the steering wheel and began to drive.
As it was a better drive than expected, Daniel was just beginning to relax when Frien looked at him through the central rearview mirror.
"Where should I go?"
"Go to 11 Volberferk Street."
"......Not the baron's mansion?"
Since Frien had also been listening to Kembal's confession from the side, he knew that the mastermind who had given Kembal orders was Baron Hendliem.
So Frien had naturally assumed they were setting off separately to conduct some kind of transaction with Baron Hendliem, and was puzzled when Daniel suddenly gave a strange address.
"If you fly too close to the fire, your wings will burn."
As Frien blinked, not understanding what he meant, Daniel added to his words.
"Frien. Think about it. Rumors that I raided and searched the residence of the Liberal Society Party leader will soon spread throughout the Imperial Capital. What do you think will happen then?"
"......Lieutenant Colonel Daniel's name will be plastered all over the press, won't it?"
"Right. Then who controls the major media outlets in the Imperial Capital?"
"As far as I know, it's the Imperial Ilbo Newspaper."
"And who sponsors the Imperial Ilbo Newspaper?"
Only then did Frien have a quiet realization.
He recalled that the biggest sponsors of the Imperial Ilbo were the nobles.
"The media will start attacking you, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel."
"That's correct. There will probably be a barrage of biased reports. Those bastards will arbitrarily define my political leanings and incite conflict, encouraging the public to condemn me."
"Then the place we're going now is......."
"The Melbaroten Newspaper."
Melbaroten was a small, independent newspaper company untouched by the nobles.
Frien now understood Daniel's intentions, but there was still one part that didn't make sense to him.
"Why did you choose Melbaroten of all places? There must be quite a few mid-sized newspaper companies that would cooperate with you, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel?"
At Frien's words, Daniel let out a low laugh.
"Lieutenant Frien. A news outlet that can cooperate with me is also a news outlet that can cooperate with the nobles. So what I need right now is......."
Daniel looked into the rearview mirror, his smile fading as he quietly continued.
"A news outlet that will submit to me absolutely."