Chapter 198: Emotion (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 198: Emotion (4)
I arrived at the village where Laura and the Revolutionary Group had been captured. Their hideout. Whether the information had been leaked or deliberately fed to us, this was the very place where Julian—having used Ashton as kindling to achieve his own ends—had come face to face with Laura as if by fate.
I gazed down at the scene from a nearby hill, lost in thought.
"We have a tail on Sir Julian," Schatz reported from behind me.
I simply nodded without a word.
"Is there a problem?"
Lately, Schatz had taken to asking me questions. It was a slight shift from her perpetually passive demeanor, and I found it rather agreeable.
"A few. I think there’s something I’ve overlooked."
I was fitting the pieces of the case together in my head, but a mismatched puzzle piece kept nagging at me.
One piece, or perhaps two. It felt like something vital was missing.
Whoosh.
The mountain wind rustled the tree branches. As I stared blankly at the desolate scenery, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
Will there ever be an end to the things meant to be shaken? A wind that rises in the heart does not scatter so easily.
'...Max.'
At the same time, Julian’s voice echoed through my mind like an auditory hallucination.
His last words to me from behind bars, before my regression.
'I would have rather died by your hand.'
The puzzle piece I had yet to find.
It was, perhaps...
*
A cabin stood precariously on the edge of a cliff.
Hermann watched it carefully from his hiding spot. Before long, Julian emerged and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.
"..."
Hermann lowered his body and moved silently through the undergrowth.
Creeak.
The wooden door let out an exceptionally loud groan. Hermann scanned the dark interior. After searching the ground floor, he climbed up to the attic and discovered a few items stashed inside a chest.
"...Well now."
A smile spread across Hermann’s lips.
A photograph. It showed Laura in the uniform of the Sentio Magic Tower alongside two knights in Sentinel uniforms. One of them was unmistakably Julian.
Hermann gathered all the useful evidence, including the photograph and a diary, and tucked it inside his coat. Just as he was about to leave the cabin with a satisfied smile...
Thump.
The heavy thud of a military boot on the wooden floorboards echoed through the room.
Hermann froze.
"Are you done playing detective?"
A low voice drifted out of the darkness. Hermann swallowed hard and turned around.
Julian. He had returned at some point and was now blocking the attic doorway.
"..."
Hermann masked his shock, wiping his face clean of any emotion. Instead, he plastered on a smile as he gazed at Julian, whose face was mottled by shadows.
"Sir Julian. What were you doing here?"
Julian replied indifferently.
"Just reminiscing. And you?"
"...I came to collect evidence related to Laura."
Hermann patted the spot over his coat where the photograph rested and looked at him.
"It seems Laura is connected to Dominic... May I take this photograph and notebook?"
His voice was laced with a strange provocation. Julian answered just as he always did.
"Do as you please."
"...Hmm. Yes. I wonder what Sir Maximilian will say when he sees this picture... I’m quite curious."
Julian’s gaze lowered. He stared at Hermann impassively, his eyes slowly traveling from the top of the man's head to the tips of his toes.
The neatly combed-back blond hair. The transparent gold eyes. The impeccably fastened uniform. Even his voice, which he had deliberately and heavily lowered.
"Are you trying to imitate the paragon of the Aran?"
"...Imitate?"
Hermann’s brow twitched. The air inside the cabin grew cold.
"But, Hermann, no matter how hard you try..."
Julian spoke as if he found him pathetic—no, pitiful.
He let out a deep sigh and murmured.
"You’ll never even come close to him."
Maximilian Ebenholtz.
He was different from birth. The weight he carried, the depth of his gaze—it was all on another level.
The only person like Maximilian was Maximilian himself.
"Ha. Is that so?"
Grit. Hermann ground his teeth but forced himself to feign composure.
Tick.
Suddenly, the ticking of a second hand broke the silence. Hermann glanced at Julian’s wrist and twisted his lips into a smirk.
"You should probably change your watch. Have you not been issued a Mana Stone watch yet?"
Julian didn’t even deign to reply. He didn’t criticize Hermann’s insolence, nor did he get angry. He simply accepted the situation for what it was.
"Good work."
Julian turned and left the cabin.
"Where are you going?"
At Hermann’s sharp question, Julian gave a curt reply.
"A senior knight’s mission."
"I ask because it doesn’t seem like a mission."
Laura’s connection to the Revolutionary Group, the photograph Hermann had just acquired, and Julian’s secretive movements. To Hermann, this was a clear sign of treason.
Julian gave a small nod, answering without looking back.
"Then think whatever you wish."
He took a single step forward, and in the blink of an eye, Julian’s form vanished into the night.
Left alone, Hermann stood on the cabin’s threshold, glaring intently at the forest path where the senior knight had disappeared.
"—Son of a bitch!"
He spat out a loud curse and gathered the evidence. Heading straight down the mountain path, he got into his car.
Vrooooom—!
He slammed on the accelerator, speeding back to the Sentinel Knights headquarters.
Julian, of course, had not yet returned. Clasping the evidence he’d secured from the cabin, Hermann descended into the underground prison.
"Hey."
Bang. Bang, bang, bang!
"Hey!"
He kicked the iron bars to wake the sleeping Laura.
"Must be nice, just sprawling out and sleeping like that."
"..."
Hermann shoved the photograph through the bars, right in her face.
"This. You recognize it, right?"
"..."
"Why don’t you say something?"
He pressed his face close to the bars, glaring at Laura.
"You. If you keep your mouth shut until the end, you’ll lose your head. You should be grateful this case is still with us."
Despite Hermann’s threats, Laura’s expression remained unchanged. She replied with tired eyes, her voice listless.
"Julian told me the same thing."
At the name Julian, Hermann scoffed.
"Sir Julian... What exactly is your relationship with Julian?"
"Friends."
"Friends?"
"Yes."
Laura leaned sideways against the bars.
"...A long time ago, we were friends."
Friends.
Hermann mulled over the word and took a step closer.
"So what did you say to your precious friend? What did you tell him that has him running around outside? Did you tell him Dominic’s location?"
Hermann’s eyes glinted with obsession. He glanced around the underground prison. The contents of the secret conversation Julian had tried to hide—going so far as to delete the interrogation record—he had to find out what it was.
"..."
Laura stared quietly into Hermann’s venomous eyes.
Her gaze seemed to flicker faintly.
"...Who knows."
Without a sound, she moved only her lips, silently mouthing a few specific words.
...
Two weeks into the Revolutionary Group’s detention.
Chiron, the Vice-Commander of the Sentinels, had recently found himself dealing with a bewildering situation.
In the midst of his busy schedule preparing for official hearings and his upcoming inauguration speech as Commander, a strange rumor had slowly begun spreading within the Knights Order.
"Vice-Commander."
The ideological criminal Laura, and the senior knight Julian.
Speculation surrounding their relationship was circulating persistently in hushed whispers throughout the Knights Order and the Imperial Palace.
"...It seems the rumors have already reached the ears of the Imperial Palace."
The reports from the noble knights under Chiron’s command were as follows:
It seems Julian harbors personal feelings for Laura. He isn’t returning to the Knights Order and is hurrying about somewhere in secret. Perhaps he’s prioritizing saving his old friend over capturing the Class-1 fugitive, Dominic...
"It’s not certain yet."
For Chiron, it was a deeply frustrating situation.
Julian was a good man. In this mud pit of an Empire, he was a rare individual who strove to uphold his beliefs and conscience—the only comrade-in-arms Chiron could truly trust.
But for that very reason, that goodwill could easily become a noose tightening around his neck.
"You know the new knight, Hermann, right?"
Sir Reynel cautiously handed him a sealed document envelope.
"This is a top-secret report submitted by Hermann."
Hermann. The evidence that venomous brat had acquired from the cabin.
Chiron looked down at the photograph.
"...It’s Ashton."
Ashton. A Sentinel knight they had failed to save. The most important trigger for the operation known as 'Dream Road.'
"Yes. It’s Julian, Ashton, and Laura. Furthermore, just a moment ago, Hermann voluntarily dropped the Laura case."
It was just as expected.
Two weeks had already passed. Now, the sharpest blade would take hold of the case.
"Sir Maximilian has officially taken over."
It had to be Maximilian.
Laura’s family was currently flooding the Knights Order with petitions to save her—or at the very least, to spare her life. Her siblings were high-ranking mages, meaning a run-of-the-mill knight would have a hard time withstanding the political pressure.
The Sentinels had not responded to them at all, but if the news that Maximilian was personally handling the case went public...
Her family would have no choice but to give up.
"Where is Julian now?" Chiron asked, frowning.
"...We don’t know. We’ve lost contact, and we can’t track his location."
Reynel shook his head, looking troubled. Julian had vanished without a trace one day. To be precise, he had been missing since the day he had that conversation with Laura in the underground prison.
Chiron let out a deep sigh and massaged his forehead.
"Sir, and..."
Reynel hesitantly handed over the next document.
"Once the Laura case is closed..."
Chiron took it. This one was far more serious. It was a document sent by Maximilian.
"He says he will proceed with an internal investigation into Sir Julian."
"...Tsk."
This was the Sentinel Knights. If any knight—not just Julian—showed even a hint of suspicious behavior, Maximilian would make his move.
Maximilian was not a man to be swayed by mere sentiment.
He judged the whole picture based solely on the given facts.
Therefore, if Julian had harbored some weak emotion, if he was plotting something detrimental to the Empire for Laura’s sake...
"It can’t be helped."
Even Chiron would have no choice but to cut him loose.
*
In my office at Sentinel headquarters, I closely watched Laura as she sat in the chair opposite me. With her wrists in cuffs, she truly looked as if she had no lingering attachments to this world.
"Your younger brother came to the Knights Order today."
A young man had come all the way to the front gates of Sentinel headquarters, begging to see his sister’s face just once.
Unfortunately, I could not grant his request.
"It’s truly foolish."
The security of her family and a brilliant future as a talented mage.
To throw it all away for the phantom of revolution, to be deceived by the gaslighting of that Izenheim bastard Ashton, to be blinded by a false love and walk willingly into the jaws of death.
"I know."
Laura simply smiled faintly at my criticism.
"That I’m foolish."
She met my eyes calmly and asked.
"So... am I going to die now?"
I nodded without hesitation.
"Yes. You will be referred to a Knight’s Trial. I will demand the death penalty, and the judge will follow my will."
Is being deceived a sin? Is being foolish a sin?
Either way, she had crossed a river of no return.
"Poison, firing squad, or perhaps hanging."
I closed the file and added, "You will be allowed to choose the method of your execution."
Laura’s eyes curved into a gentle arc.
"Thank you. Truly."
She was serene, even in the face of death.
I, for one, was a little curious.
What on earth was emotion, that it could sometimes overwhelm even survival, humanity’s most primal instinct?
"...How foolish."
I criticized her once more.
But this time, the meaning was slightly—no, very—different from before.
"I know. No matter how many times you say it—"
"No. You still don’t understand."
Tap. I set my fountain pen down on the table.
"I’ll ask you a question."
There were no Imperial Palace listening devices in my office. The vermin there could not eavesdrop on my words.
"Julian."
The man named Julian.
He was a person whose depth even I dared not fathom.
A man who walked silently through the darkness, never revealing what he truly desired, thoroughly concealing his entire self.
With the asymmetrical knowledge I possessed as a regressor, I could make assumptions about him, but he remained a variable I could never fully grasp.
And yet—there was one truth I had managed to deduce on my own.
"Do you think he is unaware of your true intentions?"
In that instant, Laura’s gaze wavered. The violent thumping of her heart reached even my ears.
"I’m asking if you think Julian is unaware that you’re trying to avenge Ashton."