The Reluctant Imperialist
Chapter 1 (Redone)
To That Place
Tick-tock.
I am lying in the deepest, coldest part of an underground prison where not even a sliver of starlight can reach. The flow of time is imperceptible. I can’t tell if it’s day or night, yesterday or today.
Thump.
A heavy sound, the approaching footsteps. It is the regular, rhythmic sound of military boots—familiar, yet foreign.
A voice as sharp as a blade.
"It's already been a year."
Beyond the bars, his silhouette was as imposing as ever.
Edmond Bwindol. Once a fellow knight, he had at some point become one of the Empire's greatest enemies. Now, he stood before me as a member of the new cabinet.
I asked him.
"How are things outside? Is the weather nice?"
"More than nice. Every single day is golden."
His voice overflowed with confidence. Edmond had always been that way, but today he was particularly brimming with it.
"Oh? And did you get married?"
"There's much to be done. I suppose it'll happen soon."
When speaking to me, Edmond still carried a hint of his old mannerisms. A unique way of speaking that felt a bit apologetic, as if he were uncomfortable with the difference in our stations.
I offered him a faint smile.
"Congratulations."
"…There's no need for that."
Thirty-five. At such a young age, he had succeeded in bringing the Empire to ruin.
My father, a high-ranking noble of the Empire, was 'justly' executed, his head displayed in the central plaza. I, after years on the run, was captured.
Even one who holds a mistaken belief is respected if they devoted their entire life to it with loyalty. But a loser like me, captured after a desperate escape, is met only with disgrace and filth.
The only reason I am still breathing is entirely thanks to Edmond's lingering sentiment.
"Maximillian. You just keep watching from this basement. Watch how we, the ones who destroyed your Empire, soar."
His voice was filled with hope.
"Oh? Just watch? I thought you were my executioner."
"You're better off alive. Your father was a pillar of the Empire and had to be broken, but you're nothing more than a flawed jewel. Suitable enough to be taken as a spoil of war."
A spoil of war. I chewed on his words. A living spoil of war. It had a certain ring to it.
"Thanks. For letting me live."
I was being sincere.
Edmond turned with a faint smile. He left me in the basement and ascended the stairs.
His voice echoed in the emptiness.
"Farewell, Max. I'll visit from time to time when I can."
Maximillian von Ebenholz.
It was a name foolishly thrown away. My life had rotted away behind the shadow of my father's glory.
All I knew was a little swordsmanship and a little magic.
But thanks to that very ignorance, I had survived. In that sense, I suppose I could call myself the victor among my family.
Tick-tock.
How much time had passed? The cell bars opened again, and Edmond appeared. A few more lines were etched into his face.
It was only his second visit, but it seemed a fair amount of time had passed.
Being locked up made the flow of time feel foreign.
"...Oh, Edmond."
I raised a hand to greet him.
"Yeah."
"How many years has it been? The guards won't tell me a thing."
Edmond stared at me for a moment.
"Three years."
"That long, huh? Is the outside world any different?"
"...It's different."
He stated it as a fact, but his voice lacked its former confidence, carrying a subtle weariness instead.
"Three years? You must be married by now, with a kid, right?"
"..."
Edmond looked at me without a word. The eyes that once had to design a brilliant future after the Empire, the eyes that were once so busy with great works, were now shadowed with something.
"I postponed the marriage. I've been busy."
"When were you ever not busy? Did you get dumped?"
At my mischievous joke, the corner of Edmond's mouth twitched. He seemed to be fighting back a smile.
"You haven't changed."
His form of address had shifted from the informal 'you' to a more respectful one.
Was it a subtle distance, or was it respect?
"Ah, now I get it. You've had a taste of how terrifying politics can be, haven't you? The revolution was a success, but the aftermath has been a bit of a headache, eh?"
"..."
Edmond let out a sigh instead of an answer.
"It's more complicated than I thought. Still… this is the process of change, I suppose."
He spoke as if seeking my advice. But a prisoner in a dungeon had no words to offer him.
"...Who are you even asking right now?"
Edmond gave a quiet nod and turned to leave. The sword at his hip was gone.
He, who had been a candidate for the greatest swordsman in the Empire, had given up the sword.
It seemed that was how the world was changing.
Tick-tock.
I opened my eyes.
Thump.
The sound of footsteps returned. This time, the steps were a little slower, a little heavier.
"...Has it been ten years?"
Muttering to himself, Edmond approached me, illuminated by a small flame on the wall. I almost fainted at the state of his hair.
"Edmond, where did your hair go?!"
"My hair?"
"Yeah! Did the rats get to it?! Oh, my god."
Half of his once-thick black hair was gone, leaving his scalp bare, and what remained was streaked with gray. The wrinkles on his face had deepened, making him look decades older.
"Hair isn't important."
"That's what all the balding guys around me used to say."
"...You haven't changed. It's amazing how you're exactly the same."
He expressed not anger, but pure astonishment. Or perhaps it was the look of someone seeing a phenomenon they couldn't comprehend.
"My looks, my voice, everything…"
"Really? Maybe it's because I don't get any sun."
Edmond silently pulled over a chair and sat down. He was dressed in the attire of a full-fledged politician.
I asked him.
"Is the outside world different?"
"..."
He remained silent. The flickering lantern flame cast a shadow on his weary face.
"It will change… No, I have to make it change."
His face was one of resignation, of someone who had accepted reality.
"Politics must be tough. Seeing how your face has changed more dramatically than the world."
Pfft. Edmond looked at me and laughed. A single chuckle turned into a broad, open smile.
"Hahaha. Yes… Yes, I suppose so."
"They say you soften with age, and it must be true. You look like you've been beaten down by about thirty years of life. Where did the formidable knight go? All I see is a worn-out old fox."
"...I suppose he's rusting away somewhere."
Edmond smiled along with a short sigh.
"...Maximillian."
He said my full name for the first time. Back in the old days, his friends all called me Max.
It felt a little awkward, but not bad.
"Is it any different in here?"
He asked. I shrugged.
"I don't know. I just train in here, so I've built a wall against the world."
"Can you even train? In an environment like this?"
"You think it's possible?"
Khahaha. Edmond laughed loudly, and I laughed with him. For a moment, the laughter burst forth and filled the entire prison.
"Edmond."
At the end of our laughter, I nodded my head.
"It will change. The outside."
"..."
Instantly, Edmond's expression hardened.
"Because the outside world has people like you."
I looked him straight in the eye.
"A commoner who is far more valuable than a good-for-nothing noble like me."
His brow furrowed sadly.
I never thought I'd see the frail expression of an old politician on Edmond's face.
"My father used to say that. 'Edmond is worth more than most of the Empire's nobles.'"
"Duke Zebestian, that great old man."
Edmond picked up my words.
"I still think of it sometimes. How he cut down a dozen of the revolution's elite soldiers by himself…"
His sentence trailed off unnaturally. He seemed to glance my way, cautiously raising his eyes.
"It's fine. He's already dead. Besides, he's not a father I particularly want to remember."
I spoke calmly. My father was the very symbol of imperialism. He championed racial discrimination and segregation for the glory of the Empire more than anyone, and I had completely failed to live up to his expectations.
"Well then… Ah, I'm out of time."
Edmond rose from his seat. This visit felt unusually short.
"Leaving?"
"...Yeah."
Edmond looked at me and gave a faint smile.
"The next time I come, I want to be able to give you your freedom."
Edmond limped up the stairs. In his hand, where a sword once was, there was now a cane.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
The rhythmic ticking of this clock wakes me from my sleep.
An auditory hallucination that has long been echoing in the depths of my mind.
The pulse of a second hand that seems to swallow all the sounds of the prison and beat against my very soul.
Tick-tock.
I open my eyes in the darkness. A faint shadow is visible beyond the bars.
"Edmond…?"
I tried to make out his face. He had changed too much to be described as simply old. He looked like a man who had carried the weight of the world's suffering for a long, long time… He had become an old man.
"Max."
He pulled a chair over and sank into it, his body heavy with exhaustion. He looked far more frail than during his last visit.
I asked him.
"How many years has it been?"
"...Twenty years."
His raspy voice was barely a whisper.
"But you haven't changed. You're still… almost exactly as you were when you were first locked in here."
A mixture of disbelief and deep sorrow flowed from him.
"Nah, no way. I've probably gotten older too."
I raised a hand to touch my face. My senses were so dull I couldn't feel much.
I asked him the question I always did.
"Edmond, how are things outside?"
"..."
Edmond was silent for a long time. His silence was heavy with meaning.
"Max, I've been having a thought recently."
His voice was cracked, as fragile as a shattered glass.
"Perhaps if the Empire had lasted longer, if we hadn't brought it down, then maybe humanity… might have survived for much longer."
Humanity.
I frowned. It was too heavy a word for a withered old politician to utter.
"What do you mean by that?"
"The Izenheim. Do you remember them?"
The Izenheim. One of the many minority races the Empire had oppressed.
"I know them. Why?"
"The Empire was right. It labeled them a demonic mutation and thoroughly isolated them. We… we saw them as a people to be liberated and protected."
Suddenly, his face contorted in despair. Deep regret and self-loathing rose to the surface.
"But the Izenheim… they were the disaster. They weren't human. Those bastards have ruined the world."
"What?"
The Empire discriminated against minority races. It treated them not as other races, but as a subspecies. The basis for this was neither scientific nor magical. It was a policy akin to a witch hunt, based on the claim that they were descendants of demons.
"What are you talking about…?"
Edmond bowed his head deeply. His shoulders trembled faintly.
"I'm sorry."
"Explain it to me properly."
"...The Izenheim. They were a world-eating alien species. They were never human to begin with. Those underground cities they dug, remember? We thought they gathered there to live, but it was to develop a portal. We were deceived by those demonic bastards."
I asked blankly.
"…What?"
Had he been reading some bad fiction?
Edmond gave a bitter laugh. His complexion was already ashen, like a corpse.
"Under the Republic, those bastards showed their true colors. Through repeated research, they finally summoned their alien race. I'm sorry. If it had been the Empire, they would have been pressured to the very end and crushed, but we couldn't do that. We couldn't betray the cause we had established. We only tried to wage war at the very last moment…"
He looked at me, tears streaming down his face. I found myself asking without thinking.
"Did you get your asses kicked?"
"...We held our own for a while at the start, thanks to the Yaken clan."
"The Yaken?"
"Yes, they had the power to resist the dimension eaters. But there was a limit, and as a last resort, we tried a mana-core bomb."
Edmond shook his head.
"It didn't work. We, humanity, were utterly defeated. I'm sorry."
"..."
I still couldn't comprehend it, but one thing was clear: Edmond had broken.
And I had no choice but to believe the words of a broken man.
"No, no, you don't need to apologize to me. It's no wonder the food stopped coming a while ago. I guess the guards all ran away?"
For several days, not a single meal, not even a sip of water, had arrived.
Yes, several days.
In my perception, it had only been 'several days.'
"…That's what's so amazing."
Edmond's wrinkled eyes stared at me.
"This prison was officially closed and recorded as lost seven years ago. So I naturally assumed you were dead. I never even considered the possibility you might be alive."
The old man who was once Edmond paused, struggling to speak. It seemed his insides were in turmoil.
"Just on a whim, on a truly desperate whim, I came to find this place. And here you are… Are you a hallucination? Something created by my guilt?"
"Are you crazy?"
"…Ha."
Edmond let out a hollow laugh at my blunt reply.
"Max, it seems you were born with a talent that even you are unaware of. There's no other way to explain this surreal situation."
"Me?"
Edmond fumbled inside his coat. A hand of nothing but skin and bones trembled as it dropped a rusty key.
Clang, clang. The key bounced a couple of times and slid into my cell.
Ruuuumble!
A tremor ran through the ceiling. Edmond looked up at it.
"…I'll be going now. To accept the end that I deserve."
He slowly turned his back. His frail figure began to move away from me.
"Edmond."
I called out to the departing man.
"I never hated you. Not even once."
"..."
He said nothing. He simply smiled faintly and climbed the stairs. His slow form was quickly swallowed by the darkness.
I picked up the key and opened the cell door.
Thump.
The rusty lock that had imprisoned me for twenty years finally opened. I followed the narrow passage up the stairs, chasing after Edmond.
And so—
I discovered a world in ruin.
"…Holy shit."
The entire world was a pile of ash. Buildings were skeletal remains, collapsed and broken, and the traces of humanity were left as charred stains everywhere.
The underground prison was located directly beneath the Imperial Royal Palace.
In other words, this was the capital city. One of the world's greatest metropolises had been this utterly destroyed.
I found scraps of paper scattered across the devastated asphalt. The printed words were clearly visible.
[MANA BOMB FAILED]
[PREPARE FOR THE END]
[THE IZENHEIM CONSUME DIMENSIONS]
[…SENTINEL KNIGHTS DEFEATED]
[SUMMONING RITUAL PERFORMED…]
[MANA IS COLLAPSING.]
The things Edmond had told me were recorded as fact. I stared blankly at the combination of letters and muttered.
"What the hell did you idiots do?"
Suddenly, I felt a horrifying presence. I whipped around.
There was a grotesque creature.
A monster that existed as a mere form without eyes, nose, or mouth, without a distinct outline. It was like a steel wool scrubber, or maybe a gelatinous mass floating in the air, but the 'mouth' on the thing's maw opened wide and bit down on my face.
Tick-tock.
No, in the instant it tried to bite, everything stopped.
I don't know if I stopped, or if the world did.
Tick-tock.
The ticking that had started in my mind at some point grew louder.
It wasn't a simple hallucination.
Tick-tock.
The world began to turn back. The grotesque creature moved away, the destroyed city began to regain its shape, and the collapsed buildings returned to their places.
The days of my life rewound like a film in reverse.
My meetings with Edmond, my time in the dungeon, my father's execution, the fall of the Empire—everything rewound, and at the very end…
Tick-tock.
There I was, twenty years old.