Chapter 197: Emotion (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 197: Emotion (3)
Silence settled over the boarding house.
Maximilian slowly surveyed the interior of the room where the Class-1 fugitive, Dominic, had stayed. As his golden eyes meticulously scanned every corner, a sudden blue hue bled into his pupils. He was reading the Active Residual Traces.
“……”
“……”
“……”
Hermann, Mia, and the Imperial Guardsmen watched him, holding their collective breath.
Just as their racing hearts—still shaken by the summary execution moments before—began to settle, Maximilian stepped forward and tapped the family tree a guardsman had just inspected.
“It’s a fake.”
“...Pardon?”
The flustered guardsman took the family tree back.
“Ah, yes! It certainly appears to be so!”
It didn’t look like a fake at all, but who would dare insist otherwise? The guardsman plastered on an agreeable smile, ready to nod along with whatever Maximilian claimed, until the knight pointed to a specific section of the parchment.
“The ink.”
“The ink… you say?”
“On an official Imperial family tree, the parents’ names are entered first. When a child is born later, their name is added below.”
Maximilian’s voice grated like coarse sand in the guardsmen’s ears.
“The oxidation levels of the ink used for the two names shouldn't be perfectly identical. There should naturally be a gap of over a decade. They tried to mimic that aging, but it’s a crude attempt.”
Maximilian glanced at the corpses of the mother and child, already stiffening with rigor mortis.
“Therefore, they forged a family tree and harbored a Class-1 fugitive.”
He turned to look at Hermann and Mia.
“Furthermore, they don’t seem to possess any meaningful information, so there’s no need to waste manpower by keeping them alive.”
“...Yes.”
“Your words are wise!”
Mia barely managed to choke out a response, while Hermann agreed emphatically.
“Ah. And.”
Maximilian stepped out onto the balcony. Leaning against the railing, he gestured for the guardsmen to approach.
“Come here.”
“……”
The guardsmen walked over, tense. One step, then another. Their legs nearly gave out from under them.
For them, this entire ordeal felt like a slow, blood-draining torture. A scorching desert heat. Like a hot, sandy wind wrapping around their skin…
“That building,” Maximilian said, pointing across the street. Its exterior wall had been obliterated by the aftershock of a mana trap. “Did you say it was the private property of an Imperial Guard Colonel?”
“...Ah, you—you heard. Yes. Th-that’s right, but, well, I’m sure the Colonel won’t be too concerned about that much damage!”
The guardsman hastily waved his hands in dismissal.
“What’s his name?”
“Yes, pardon?”
Their faces went pale in an instant. To ask for a name meant—
“The name.”
Maximilian pulled a checkbook from his coat. Despite the mundane action, the guardsman’s voice was still bone-dry as he answered.
“...Ah. It’s Colonel Ross. Emeran Ross…”
Swish. Maximilian scribbled a name and an amount with his fountain pen, then tore out the check.
“This should be sufficient compensation.”
“No, it’s really fine—”
“A junior knight made a mistake during a mission. As his senior, it is my duty to take responsibility. Take it.”
Faced with Maximilian’s unyielding demeanor, the guardsman accepted the check with both hands. His eyes bulged when he saw the amount.
“...Thank you. I will deliver it to the Colonel.”
They bowed deeply and retreated. Maximilian then instructed the remaining knights.
“Gather all the evidence. Leave nothing behind.”
…
They exited the boarding house. A police line had already been established at the alley’s entrance, with dozens of officers busily securing the scene.
“Sir!”
Receiving the salutes of the lined-up officers, Maximilian walked on impassively. Hermann and Mia followed close behind him.
Before getting into his car, Maximilian paused and looked at the two knights in turn.
“Hermann.”
“Yes, sir!”
After the crisp reply, silence fell.
—Tick.
The faint sound of a ticking second hand.
Maximilian’s gaze drifted toward Hermann’s wrist.
“...The Knights Order issues Mana Stone Watches that are far more accurate.”
Maximilian frowned.
The unspoken question hung heavily in the air: Why bother wearing that primitive thing when you have a Mana Stone Watch—an incomparably precise and, above all, silent device?
“Ah… that.”
Hermann clutched his wrist and lowered his head.
“It was my older brother’s… a memento.”
“Then you should treasure it at home. From now on, leave that watch behind when you report for duty.”
Hermann’s expression hardened. Beside him, Mia cautiously watched his reaction.
“...Yes. I will do so.”
Fortunately, Hermann quickly yielded. Mia breathed an inward sigh of relief.
Maximilian gazed at him for a moment before lightly tapping his shoulder.
“I’ll leave the cleanup to you.”
He got into his car.
Vroom.
The two knights held their salutes until the car was completely out of sight.
“...Wow.”
Hoo.
Mia let out a massive exhale. Hermann ran a hand through his hair.
“It really is hard to breathe around him.”
To Mia, his presence was far more suffocating than any instructor at Empire Point. Not even the veteran knights she had idolized as a cadet, nor Dane, the Cadet Corps Commander, operated on this terrifying level.
“But still, really.”
She wiped the sweat that had beaded on her forehead and added, “I never thought he’d actually shoot the child, too…”
Hermann replied curtly to Mia’s muttering.
“...That is what it means to be a Knight of the Empire.”
“Knight of the Empire, my ass. Hermann, are you crazy?”
“What? Why so suddenly?”
Mia pointed at his wrist.
“That watch! I told you, be careful.”
Maximilian Ebenholtz was notoriously sensitive about watches.
No one knew the exact reason, but rumors ran rampant throughout the Knights Order and even back at Empire Point: he was violently hypersensitive to the ticking of any 'analog' clock, be it a wristwatch, pocket watch, or desk clock.
“...It’s a memento.”
“So keep it at home! If you really want to wear it, at least take out a screw or something to stop it from moving!”
“Stop it?”
Hermann’s face instantly froze. Faced with his impossibly cold gaze, Mia cautiously turned her head away.
“I just meant, if you take out a screw, it won’t make a sound or move anymore…”
“...I get it. I’ll keep it at home. Let’s head back.”
Hermann took off the watch, shoved it into his pocket, and started walking.
When he gets like this, he really is a stubborn fool, Mia thought, shaking her head as she followed him.
* * *
In the deepest dungeon of the Sentinel headquarters, between thick cement walls untouched by a single ray of sunlight, a cold, stagnant draft whistled emptily.
“……”
Under the dim flicker of a single bulb, Julian quietly looked down at Laura, who sat curled up in heavy handcuffs.
For a long time, he said nothing.
“...A lot must have happened.”
A low question broke the silence.
Laura gave a bitter smile, her face drawn and weary.
“Yeah. It did. A lot happened. To both of us.”
She raised her gaze to meet Julian’s. He did not look away.
In each other’s eyes, they saw the reflection of their verdant youth.
The days when they were much younger.
Days when they were ignorant of the Empire’s cruel reality—or perhaps vaguely aware, but drunk on the naive hope that they would be different.
“...Julian. I’m going to die in the end, aren’t I?”
At her calm question, Julian slowly shook his head.
“Do you know Dominic’s current location?”
A faint smile spread across Laura’s lips.
“He’s a much more important person than I am, isn’t he?” she replied, evading the question to protect the greater cause.
A tightness gripped Julian’s chest.
“This is the only way you survive.”
It was fine if she didn’t know where Dominic was. She just had to pretend to cooperate with the investigation.
Laura was a Pure Aran, a mage from the Sentio Magic Tower. She was also a noble. In fact, killing her would be complicated. No Sentinel knight would dare execute her rashly.
…Unless it was Maximilian.
“……”
Instead of answering, Laura’s eyes darted to a corner of the prison ceiling.
Will you be okay? she asked Julian soundlessly, forming the words only with her lips. Saying something like that.
She was a mage from the Sentio Magic Tower.
The Sentio Magic Tower and the Sentinel Knights. It was an open secret that the Imperial Palace had hidden ears planted within both organizations.
“This is a standard interrogation process. I am persuading you.”
Not to save her life, but to catch the Class-1 fugitive, Dominic.
Julian lied to her.
“...If you can’t persuade me, I’ll end up being assigned to Maximilian, is that it?”
“Thirty days.”
Julian tapped his wristwatch.
It was the maximum period a knight could independently detain and interrogate a suspect. If thirty days passed with no results, the case would be circulated throughout the entire Sentinel headquarters. In other words, any knight could take it on.
Most knights would shy away from someone of Laura’s status, but…
“If you don’t talk for thirty days, Maximilian will likely take you into his custody.”
Laura leaned her back against the cement wall and let out a dry laugh.
“Mmm… This brings back memories. From the day we first met until now, everything.”
Their days at Empire Point. The afternoon Julian and Ashton had been eating at a city restaurant and happened to share a table with a young mage-in-training.
That was how it all began.
“...Julian. I have a favor to ask,” she mouthed soundlessly. Go to that place.
That place.
He knew where ‘that place’ was without her having to say it.
The place only the three of them—Ashton, Laura, and Julian—knew about.
Julian did not answer her request.
“...The next time I come, I hope you’ll be ready to talk.”
He turned away, leaving only that short admonition.
He climbed the prison stairs and arrived in front of the elevator in the Sentinel headquarters' first-floor lobby, only to run directly into someone.
“Knight Julian. You’ve just come from the prison.”
Maximilian.
Julian gave a stoic nod.
Ding.
Just then, the elevator doors opened, and the two men stood side by side in the small space.
Tick.
Maximilian suddenly lowered his gaze and stared at Julian’s left wrist.
Tick.
Sensing his gaze, Julian asked, “Do you have something to say?”
Tick.
Maximilian listened to the rhythmic ticking of the wristwatch for a moment, then gave a faint smile and shook his head.
“No. It’s nothing.”
The elevator doors opened. Maximilian stepped out first.
Suddenly, he turned back to Julian and asked.
“...Ah. Knight Julian. By any chance, would it be alright if I took charge of Miss Laura’s interrogation? It seems to be related to the Dominic case.”
Julian answered curtly, his expression unreadable.
“In thirty days.”
A small smile spread across Maximilian’s lips.
“Two weeks. This is a joint case with Hermann, is it not?”
Thirty days for a single knight. Half that for two.
Julian could theoretically take the full thirty days if he secured Hermann’s consent, but that was highly unlikely.
“I suppose so.”
Hermann would do whatever Maximilian told him to.
* * *
Tick, tock.
Time flowed on indifferently.
Two weeks had already passed since Laura was locked in the dungeon, and lately, I had been lost in thought.
“This is the report on the pursuit of Dominic.”
My aides handed me the documents. Using the forged ID and encrypted communication logs Hermann had recovered from the boarding house as clues, I had cast a wide investigative net across the Empire.
In other words, I was relentlessly tracking Dominic.
“However, there have been no results yet. He is exceptionally elusive…”
“It’s fine.”
He was certainly one of the ‘heads’ of the revolutionary group. A very important figure who threatened the security of the Empire.
But for some reason, a different suspicion kept sprouting in a corner of my mind.
Julian and Laura.
Before my regression, I had been a powerless invalid, leaving me with no way to uncover the full truth hidden behind these events.
But now, the scattered fragments of this case were assembling themselves into a strange, cohesive shape in my mind.
The Imperial Palace weren't the only ones with ears lurking within the Knights Order.
I, too, had planted my own spies in various places. I had already obtained the transcript of the conversation Julian had with Laura in the dungeon.
“...Laura.”
The revolutionary group. What was their true objective?
Laura. Why was she, of all people, caught by us at this particular time?
“Julian.”
Suddenly, a name surfaced in my mind.
An intuition flashed through my brain.
The time of Laura’s arrest—it was shortly after Julian had returned to the Empire from the East.
The operation had occurred at an all-too-opportune moment.
“……”
I thought.
What Laura and the rest of the revolutionary group truly wanted, their real objective…
Could it be… Julian himself?
If so, then why?
“...Because of an emotion called love.”
Laura had lost her lover, Ashton.
What if she was convinced that the cause of his death was ‘Julian’?
No, what if that damn Izenheim bastard had ‘guided’ her to that conclusion?
It wasn't a certainty yet, but it was more than suspicious enough.
I shot up from my seat.
…
On the outskirts of the Empire, deep within a quiet, secluded forest.
Julian arrived at ‘that place’ Laura had asked him to visit. A cabin where, long ago, he, Ashton, and Laura had often hidden away to spend the day. It was one of Laura’s family’s properties and had been a decent hideout for escaping the world’s eyes.
—Creeeak.
He pushed open the groaning door and climbed up to the attic with familiar steps. In the corner sat a wooden chest, blanketed in a thick layer of dust.
Julian opened the lid.
“……”
Inside, Laura’s diaries were neatly arranged. As he picked one up, a faded black-and-white photograph fell out.
It showed Laura in her Sentio Magic Tower robes, alongside a young Julian and Ashton in their Sentinel uniforms. It was a record of a time to which they could never return—the three of them smiling broadly, arms slung over each other’s shoulders.
Julian stared down at it for a moment, then discovered one last letter tucked into the very back of the diary.
The recipient of the letter read:
[ To our friend, Julian ]
The familiar handwriting burned into Julian’s weary retinas.
…
“Where the hell is this now?”
At the same time, not far from the cabin Julian had entered, Hermann crouched in a thicket of dense bushes. He watched Julian from under a camouflage net, holding his breath.
“...Tsk.”
Staring at the cabin’s silhouette through his binoculars, Hermann frowned.
Julian had gone into that dilapidated-looking place and hadn’t come out for a long time.
Even so, Hermann wouldn’t give up.
After all, Julian’s recent actions were suspicious beyond measure.
From deleting the interrogation record to secretly visiting a remote place like this.
Everyone in the Knights Order must be thinking the exact same thing I am.
“Knight Julian is at this location. He is clearly hiding something. In preparation for any unforeseen circumstances, I am…”
Recording his own words, Hermann took a picture of Julian and the cabin.
—Click.