TN: Please read my translations only on my website since I never give my permission to any site to host my translations. And if you like my translations, please support this site on Ko-fi and Patreon to read several chapters ahead!
Sponsored chapter by Patreon. Enjoy~
Chapter 404 – The Wreckage of a Dream and the Hope that Begins
The battle seems to be over. Even the drone Rinko sent up shows no soldiers of the Imperial Army. The remnants of the army that have lost the will to fight have been disarmed, and the mages that showed signs of resistance have been subdued by old man Illidaf alone.
“What did Hjelmar do?”
“I am watching over them. Just like I did with Miss Eckenclaut. If they get out of control, I have to stop them with my own body.”
“…You work harder than you think.”
“Stop patting me! Don’t look at me with pity in your eyes!”
Not only beastmen but also elves and dwarves are honest in their emotions and curiosity, and if you put it badly, they’re easily influenced. They’re surprisingly ill-suited to situations that require calm judgment. What makes them even more difficult to deal with is that this becomes more pronounced as they gain status, experience, and knowledge.
“I don’t think it’s true to say that the younger you are, the more level-headed you are.”
“That’s just a comment. I’m young in terms of age, but I can’t help but lose sight of my surroundings. I can’t say the same for older people.”
“Well, I can’t say the same for me either.”
The residents of the fortress city begin to appear in the streets. Until now, they must have been hiding to avoid being caught in the conflict.
We make our way to the building in the center of town that the Imperial Army occupation forces call the Castle. It had three towers until it was blown up by a 100mm naval gun. As I had first thought, it looked like a government office, and it was originally the city hall and the city council building. But since the remnants of the Imperial Army had occupied it, it had lost its political function.
“In the end, we were lucky. There was a possibility that the city’s politicians and officials would have been affected.”
“If that had happened, it would have been politically irreversible. There’s no excuse for what happened.”
The tower was toppled, the building below was half destroyed, and the former parliament building was buried in rubble. As we roughly clear away the debris, we check for victims under the piles of rubble.
“There are 37 bodies. Most of them are in gray uniforms.”
There were two bodies in formal civilian clothes, but it was unclear whether they were residents of this town or military personnel. I felt that there was no point in investigating.
I continued to store the bodies while giving a brief explanation. When most of the bodies had been removed and the area was almost empty, Myrril-san, who had run off somewhere, quickly returned and told me.
“The thing Yoshua was talking about earlier was a secret Imperial Army intelligence unit called ‘Alacasta.'”
“Huh…?”
What were they doing with an intelligence unit when the Emperor had died, and the country was on the verge of collapse?
“Oh, I think it’s a little different than you imagine, brother.”
Mead, hovering behind Myrril―or rather, behind the “Sword of the Blood Oath” in her bag―gives me an additional explanation.
“The Alacasta is an independent organization directly under the Emperor, and it does information control and purges. It’s like the secret police in our former world, or the ‘political officers’ of a communist regime.”
I see. So they were the ones who planned to bring out the “new emperor. It looks like their plan collapsed with the Tower.
As representatives of the Republic Council, old man Illidaf, as the Kingdom’s Foreign Minister, Marquis Yerkel, and I, as the representative of the Demon King’s territory of Casemaian, requested a meeting with the representatives of the port city of Efan. We wanted to report on the current situation and discuss the next steps.
It seems that the representatives are a group of people who make decisions by consensus, so they asked for a full day to consider their response. I told them that I would leave the time and place of the meeting up to them and decided to ask Marquis Yerkel and the old man Illidaf to wait for me on the frigate moored at the pier while I went to fulfill my original purpose. I asked Rinko to take care of things while I was gone.
“I see. Come to think of it, I almost forgot that was your original purpose.”
“Oh, we’re going to the village of Surz.”
If you like my translations, please support me on Ko-Fi and subscribe my Patreon to read several chapters ahead!