Anti-Regime (3)

The northern prison, reached after pushing through the snowfall peculiar to Lobrus.

Strangely enough, the weather was clearly summer, yet a blizzard raged all the same.

"This is it."

One of the Adversaries assigned as my escort and watchman stepped forward and announced it.

For the record, the position of prison warden in Lobrus was far from a light one.

The further Varmil's Great Purge pressed forward in earnest, the more the power of wardens overseeing some of those "labor reeducation camps",wringing out countless political prisoners and reactionaries,would swell by the day.

"Open it. There is a distinguished guest from the Empire."

Kuuuuung!

The prison's heavy iron gate scraped open.

We stepped inside together.

"By the way, Sir Knight. Where on earth did you learn Lobrus's language?"

The Adversary walking beside me asked with curious eyes.

The three assigned as my escorts were well-disposed toward me. Rather than wariness toward a knight, their gazes held something closer to a strange admiration.

"Lobrus is an extremely important nation that shapes the political situation of the continent, is it not? For a knight of the Empire to learn its language is only natural courtesy and proper cultivation."

At my answer, the Adversaries broke into very pleased smiles. They seemed quite taken with the attitude of respect toward their homeland.

"Sir Knight, are you aware? Our Adversaries were in fact created as an organization to stand against the Empire's knights."

Walking down the corridor, one of the Adversaries added proudly.

It amounted to telling an enemy, "you are my enemy," but, well.

"Yes. Of course I know. I find it quite sobering."

"Hahaha. Then that is a relief."

As sides that would soon be each other's chief rivals, we shared a strange conversation and laughed together.

Diplomacy was, at its core, an elegant performance of wearing masks and keeping the other party pleased.

Led by the Adversaries, we arrived at the prison's visitation room.

A space ringed on all sides by iron walls, with a cold chill hanging in the air. Across the heavy iron table set in the center, Warden Petrin and a neatly dressed lawyer,Yelena,sat side by side.

"Good to meet you."

I settled into a chair in the visitation room without hurrying.

At that moment, one of the Adversaries jerked their chin toward Yelena and asked with clear displeasure, "Who are you?"

"Ah. I am Warden Petrin's lawyer."

Yelena answered calmly, but the Adversary's eyes sharpened to a hostile edge.

"Lawyer, you say...... Get out. Now."

They moved to drag Yelena out, but I raised a hand to stop them.

"Ah. It's fine. Leave her."

The Adversaries halted, uncertain.

"The Empire guarantees the right to counsel as a matter of course. If anything, this kind of arrangement is the imperial way,it feels far more familiar and comfortable to me."

I turned to them instead.

"Would the Adversaries be willing to wait outside for a moment?"

A polite request, yet one that left no room for refusal.

"Yes. Understood."

The Adversaries filed willingly out of the visitation room.

It was bugged to the rafters inside anyway.

Thunk.

The door closed, and the air settled.

I let the smile drop from my face. I watched Warden Petrin, who had gone rigid across the table, and asked, "Warden Petrin. Are you acquainted with the Imperial Central Station bombing from several decades ago?"

"......I-"

The instant Petrin opened his mouth, Yelena swiftly cut him off.

She whispered something in his ear, then spoke to me in fluent imperial.

"Sir Knight. Before anything else, please state clearly what specific connection my client is alleged to have with that incident, along with the precise charges."

Petrin looked blankly uncomprehending, not appearing to understand imperial at all, but I gave a thin smile.

"You speak imperial well."

"My language ability has no bearing on this matter whatsoever."

A performance played for the listening devices surely packed throughout the room.

"Well, fair enough. Warden Petrin's grandfather carried out a grave act of terrorism at Imperial Central Station, then fled east and settled in Lobrus."

At my words, Yelena fired back with a deliberately pointed manner.

"Are you saying, then, that you intend to hold my client responsible through guilt by association for an act committed by a grandfather who died decades ago?"

"You could say that. How could we stand idle in the face of a traitor's bloodline,one that threatened the Empire's security?"

That was how it went: attack and defense, thrust and counter. Meanwhile, Warden Petrin, understanding not a word of the imperial we exchanged, kept darting anxious glances at Yelena.

"Sir Knight. Are you aware? Under Imperial Law Article 92, even in cases of treason, there is no legal basis to punish a 'foreigner' without direct evidence of involvement. That provision applies only to 'imperial subjects.'"

As Yelena held her ground with firm conviction, the gaze Petrin turned on her slowly filled with trust.

In that situation, she was the only one on Warden Petrin's side.

"......Foreigner?"

I furrowed my brow.

"Yes. Warden Petrin is no longer an imperial subject. You must know that."

I let out a short, disbelieving laugh, as though mildly surprised.

"You've studied imperial law as well?"

"I know nearly every legal system on the continent. If you attempt to forcibly detain my client, I will file a formal diplomatic protest with the Empire."

I held that gaze for a moment, then let my eyes drift sideways.

Warden Petrin. Looking at him, I said it with my eyes.

You found yourself a good lawyer.

The warden hastily ducked his head.

"......You are well-versed in legal theory. However, a knight's authority sometimes transcends the law."

"In the Empire, perhaps. As I said, this place is-"

"Lobrus?"

"Yes. Does Lobrus look like the Empire to you?"

Trading lines back and forth in the taut, coiled tension of it all, like shooting a courtroom drama.

Petrin's face was still frozen with anxiety, but Yelena's composed bearing had spread some degree of relief across it by now.

"......Hm."

And so, our plan was coming together well enough.

Petrin would come to believe Yelena was his ally, and Yelena would have the warden of the northern prison as a piece on her board.

It was a business trip that cost me precious time, but the returns were not bad.

* * *

"Huuuu......"

Zerof paced his office in agitation, breathing out cigarette smoke. The floor was already littered with burned-out stubs, and the ashtray, overwhelmed by the mountain of ash piling up inside it, scattered black powder across the surface around it.

"......Damn it."

Zerof ground his teeth together, hands braced on the windowsill.

Should he keep Petrin alive,his capable and trusted subordinate? Or, for the greater cause of the state and the sake of the secret pact with the Empire, should he willingly offer him up as a sacrifice?

As someone close to the supreme authority, the anguish he had to carry was this heavy and this relentless.

"Does our General Secretary Varmil......

Has he always reached his decisions through this kind of grinding torment?

A fresh sense of reverence rose within him.

"Hah."

Trying to soothe his gnawing stomach, Zerof was just bringing a new cigarette to his lips when,

Briiiing!

The direct line on his desk rang loud. He snatched up the receiver.

"......"

A report came through from the other end. Zerof's eyes grew wide enough to burst as he turned the words over and over in his mind.

"......Is that true?"

He asked again, unable to believe it.

The words that followed from his subordinate stirred up a tangle of emotions,bewilderment and elation at once.

......

The northern outskirts of the Eastern Alliance. At a train transfer station set in a rugged mountain pass.

Railway tracks stretched in a single straight line, balanced precariously across plunging gorges between sheer cliff faces, flanked on both sides by drops of several thousand meters that gaped open like jaws.

Whooooooosh.

In that place, where a cutting wind howled as if it might reach out and drag a person off at any moment, Zerof stood side by side with Maximilian, both of them watching the tracks.

"Sir Knight Maximilian."

Zerof broached the subject carefully.

"It seems you removed the northern prison warden from the list."

Maximilian nodded without particular feeling.

"Yes. One lawyer made a reasonable argument, and on top of that the man gave me a small piece of information in passing."

"A piece of information?"

The wind lifted the hem of Maximilian's uniform. He turned to look at Zerof and held a brief, easy smile.

"That the northern warden is one of your people, Committee Member Zerof."

"......"

That easy manner of his left Zerof slightly wrong-footed.

"You could have given me advance warning."

Zerof covered it with a deliberate cough.

"Ahem. Even one of my own people,I would have been perfectly willing to offer him up for the sake of diplomacy between our nations."

"That is exactly what I would expect of the Committee Member. Even so, that level of consideration is something I ought to look after myself."

As the two of them went back and forth,

Kuung. Kuung. Kuung.

A thunderous mass of steel broke through the stillness of the gorge, shaking the ground as it approached. A train, shrieking its whistle from somewhere beyond the dark clouds.

Screeeeech.

It came to a stop at the platform.

"These are the initial one hundred and fifty to be handed over."

Zerof indicated the train as he spoke.

"They have received the personal authorization of General Secretary Varmil. Thirty-three are engineers and intellectuals who formerly defected from the Empire, fifty-six are prisoners of imperial origin held in the northern labor reeducation camps, and the rest are their families."

Maximilian raised an eyebrow.

"You've worked hard. The Empire will shortly hand over the Lobrus-born reactionaries it promised in return."

Screeech.

The train doors opened, and a line of gaunt, hollow-looking prisoners and technicians descended one by one.

One of them, gathering his belongings as he stepped down, caught sight of Maximilian's face. He froze for an instant, then shook with shock.

"Com-, Committee Member Zerof!"

He moved fast. Desperate to survive, he threw himself toward Zerof, clutched at his trouser leg, and wailed.

"Committee Member Zerof! I am a man who swore to lay his bones in Lobrus! I have always revered Lobrus's ideals, and for twenty years since crossing here, I have given my entire life to the East's technological advancement!"

"No, no-"

Even Zerof was caught off guard by the sudden outburst.

"I want to stay here! Even if I die, I want to be buried in Lobrus's soil!"

"You, you fool......"

"Committee Member! Committee Membeeeeer!"

Zerof tried to pull his leg free, but the man clung on desperately and screamed.

"Long live General Secretary Varmil! Long live the great Lobrus Eastern Alliance! Long live Committee Member Zerof! Long live! Long live!"

That desperate cry was still ringing across the platform when, at some point,

Maximilian moved without a sound.

"......"

He came over without expression and seized the man by the scruff of the neck with one hand.

Then, as casually as throwing out garbage, he tossed him over the edge of the cliff beside the platform.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The technician's body arced up through the air and plummeted down the cliff face. The scream grew faint and distant. The cry was swallowed up, and the sound faded slowly.

It settled into quiet.

Whether the body shattered on the rocks below or caught on a mountain branch and met its end there, no one present could know.

"......"

Maximilian. Having thrown a fellow countryman over the edge without blinking once, he dusted off his gloves and spoke to Zerof.

"Committee Member Zerof."

His dry voice swayed in the mountain wind.

"There is no need to listen to a worthless voice for long."

Without quite knowing why, Zerof swallowed.

"......It seems the Committee Member is a man of far too merciful a nature."

Maximilian's golden eyes caught the moonlight and flashed,as if they were looking straight through his weak inner core.

"To pursue great things, one must sometimes set that kind of compassion aside."

Only then did Zerof understand.

Why everyone in the Empire feared him.

Why he was called something like "the monster of Ebenholtz."

"Is that not so?"

Maximilian smiled, bright as a crescent moon, and Zerof stared up at him blankly. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"......"

A face so handsome it was almost maddening to look at. Perfect proportions, a beautiful frame.

But inside that sculpted exterior, the most warped madness and an uncontrollable killing intent......

pressed deep into Zerof's chest.

* * *

The warden's office of the northern Camp, in the Eastern Lobrus Alliance.

The warden had sent for the lawyer Maksim.

"You called for me."

Maksim took a seat, and the warden stared at that face for a long time.

"......"

After a suffocating silence, a short word dropped from the warden's lips.

"Thank you."

In that sigh of a sentence, genuine relief and gratitude ran deep.

"Have you heard the rumor? They say that butcher, that Maximilian, threw the imperial prisoners off a cliff."

The warden shuddered, rubbing a dry hand over his face.

"......So he did."

Yelena thought of Maximilian and sank into a strange contemplation.

He was a man who moved only by his own convictions.

But what was his true cause?

He seemed to act purely for the Empire's sake, yet something was missing in him,and Yelena still could not tell what.

"If you hadn't stopped Maximilian that day...... I'm certain one of those people would have been me."

The warden wiped at a cold sweat, as though the fear of that day had not yet left him.

"Maksim. You said you wanted the position of labor reeducation camp warden."

"Yes, that's right."

"Very well. That much I can certainly arrange. But there is one condition."

"Lately, rumors about you have been spreading quite widely, all the way to the Party leadership. They're calling you a person of justice,someone who stood their ground even before the Empire's monster, Maximilian, and negotiated the outcome."

In fact, word of Maksim's exploits was showing signs of spreading beyond the Party's interior and into featured articles in the state-run newspapers.

The brave lawyer who stood against the devil of the Empire. Several reporters had already sent interview requests, treating it as propaganda to rouse the public and unify the ranks.

"So what I want from you is-"

The warden lowered his voice and whispered.

"Become one of our comrades."

Comrade. A call to join the faction of "Zerof," one of the true powers in Lobrus at this moment.

"What do you think?"

At the tense question, Maksim made a show of deliberating,but only for a moment.

The answer came back, resolute.

"Yes."

It had been the goal from the very beginning.

To bring down those damned men inside the Party and the General Secretary himself, she had come back to her homeland.

"I will become your comrade."

Performing the loyalty of the lawyer Maksim, Yelena bowed her head without hesitation.