Gaston Philippe.
Enemy of immigrants and a racist, the unparalleled murderer who founded the Purification Alliance, the axis of evil—I’ve killed only one man.
Countless racists still remain. Sooner or later they will band together, and they will divide people into us (Aionios purebloods) and them (foreign outsiders).
Once the sorting is done, they will attach visual and verbal symbols and begin discriminating. When they enter the stage where propaganda and agitation peak, they will pour out every slur imaginable. The next stage will be to put it into law and begin social segregation.
Aren’t these the stages of genocide?
With my framing for treason and exile to Devil’s Island after I returned victorious from the war as the turning point, physical elimination began and led to mass slaughter=extermination.
After finishing the purification, the Empire erased the days of massacre and enjoyed nothing but peace.
Five million foreigners died in this Empire alone. On the bedrock built with foreigners’ blood and sweat, only the Empire’s purebloods enjoyed peace, well-being, and prosperity.
The Empire has no right to benefit from the technology my father created.
Nor does it have the right to win the Seven Years’ War I fought at the risk of my life while pushing its borders outward.
The infantry and the lightly armed cavalry, the archers and the spearmen—weren’t all those who served as meat shields foreigners?
The Empire deserves to lose the war and become a wasteland. On the ruined land, an empire of shared prosperity for all humankind has to be built anew.
Eight years until the war breaks out.
Seven years until victory.
Within that time, I have to change all of it: the racists and pure-blood supremacists who have eaten away at the Empire—the imperial family and great nobles who form their camp, the power of the feudal lords, the high clergy and the power of the vassal knights, the military’s power, the major newspapers, and the public opinion those newspapers stir up and steer.
If I can’t change them, I get rid of them.
Like Gaston Philippe.
It was just as I was turning away from the VIP room, hiding my humiliation while holding today’s injustice close.
“Well, who is this? Is that not Professor Eigenhardt?”
Marquis Leo Herzl, who had just stepped out of the VIP room, called my father to a halt and held out his hand.
With his tall, thin frame, goatee, and bow tie, Marquis Herzl looked feeble at first glance. He had a good-natured face that seemed as though it had never once insisted on anything, but the temperament that betrayed that face was famous.
“Drowpis, was it? Congratulations on your admission. First in theory, and barely chinning your way to a pass in the practical. You take after your father; you have the makings of a soldier who excels at theory. The army needs excellent tacticians and strategists. Nikol is weak at theory. Nikol!”
“Yes, Father.”
When Marquis Herzl called his son from the room, a muscle-bound pig came lumbering out. His drooping eyes made him look a little languid, but he was pigheaded and had violent tendencies.
What father and son had in common was that neither was what he looked like.
“So your Excellen classmate, young Eigenhardt, has come. Did you not say no one could beat him in theory?”
Excellen High Academy, the Empire’s top elite course, strangely graded practical subjects separately on the grounds that the mana of nobles and the mana of commoners differed in quality.
Something to do with the Empire’s national security, supposedly?
Theory subjects, by contrast, were graded across the entire year group. Since I was always first in theory, my name was well known.
“That’s right. I’ve never once beaten him.”
Nikolai Herzl looked at me, lowered his guard, and answered.
One of the four whose faces behind the masks I’d been sure of when they came to Potter’s Field to kill me.
Someone who had attended the magic middle school and Excellen High Academy with me.
At Excellen, the children of the imperial family, dukes, marquises, and counts formed one class, while the children of viscounts, barons, provincial lords, and high-ranking knights formed another. Next, the children of successful immigrants and of imperial-blooded merchants and industrialists formed yet another.
For that reason, we had never once studied in the same class or even on the same floor. Classmates in name only.
“I gave the practical exam everything I had because I was afraid of losing first place. It’s hard to beat Drowpis in theory.”
For someone with a fairly rough and coarse temperament, he spoke unusually kindly. The overwhelming first place he’d taken in the third practical exam and the 274th place I’d received had likely softened him.
General Military Academy’s curriculum weighted grades at thirty percent theory and seventy percent practical.
“I look forward to your guidance, Young Marquis Nikolai Herzl.”
I bowed my head to Nikolai.
“No, no. The military academy is equal. From now on, speak freely with whomever you meet. Do not make a mockery of the academy’s rules. Enjoy the Empire’s generosity.”
“Let’s get along, Drowpis Eigenhardt.”
I took the hand Nikolai held out and shook it.
‘Huh?’
The moment I took his hand, scenes I didn’t know came pouring before my eyes. For a moment, the scenes turned the ground into the inside of an artificial lake made of ether. The waterweeds in the lake moved like living rune fragments, and each leaf held a scene.
One of the scenes was Potter’s Field.
After I’d collapsed onto the corpses of the twelve, Hemiljulle got out of the military vehicle and pulled the masks off those pinned beneath me.
He was checking the dead one by one...... but somehow, only Nikolai’s face was clear. All the other faces were turned away.
‘So it was you.’
I hid my feelings behind a poker face. I tried to see more of the other scenes, but one of them rose to the surface. The scene moved like film and came with sound.
Nikolai Herzl was talking to someone.
From the looks of it, the place was some meeting room in the Senate.
-Annoyingly, Dro keeps winning battle after battle. Professor Eigenhardt is pushing an overwhelming amount of weapons to his son.
Nikolai was frowning, pressing as if demanding that a solution be found.
-Weapons get distributed elsewhere too. But they can’t put them to use. Idiots!
-His Majesty will be put in a difficult position.
-We can’t exactly hope for the Empire to lose, though. What a problem.
-The bigger problem, as I see it, is that one person holds wealth equal to thirty percent of the Empire. We have to solve this problem before the war ends.
Just as the owner of the voice seated across from Nikolai was about to come into view, the scene cut off.
What was this phenomenon?
The scenes that had surfaced the moment I took Nikolai’s hand were extremely blatant and vivid.
‘I knew it would be you.’
‘The slaughterer who poured out magic restraints.’
I decided to call the twelve assassins who had poured out magic restraints to kill me Slaughter.
Supremacists of the blood. Racists, and pure-blood supremacists who advocated anti-immigrant policies. The core members of the Purification Alliance.
Literally, they were slaughterers, but since they weren’t human, it was only right to cut the word off at “slaughter.”
The rough, husky voice that had shouted to sever my heart.
The Lord of Flame who had melted my brain with a staff.
Because they’d spoken with distorted voices, I couldn’t tell exactly who they were. I’d only made guesses that felt like certainty, based on the elements, but the moment I shook his hand, scenes I didn’t know had surfaced. If this was a special ability I’d gained upon regressing, it was very welcome.
[There is no law that says the things that betrayed their homeland once will not betray it twice.]
Using this logic, the Empire’s pure-blood supremacists opposed immigration policies. Simply because they were of the Empire’s pure bloodline, they rose to high positions without any administrative ability, discriminated against immigrants, and sucked them dry of their blood and fat.
“What say you? The table seats twenty-five, and we are seven in all. I understand Professor Eigenhardt’s family is three. Would it not be worth sharing a meal?”
In the past, with Duke Philippe’s family.
This time, with Marquis Herzl’s family.
I’d cleared away one bastard, and the next in line was already waiting. They all loved my father’s money.
“The family of the head of Puffer Solar is here. There are six of them. A married couple and four children.”
“They will join us.”
Marquis Leo Herzl decided on his own and went into the VIP room my father had reserved. It must have been a room he’d taken by driving out Armand von Klam’s family, who had arrived first, and as for an apology, he’d traded that off for taffy too.
Naturally, my father had no choice but to follow him in.
“I am counting on you.”
My father bowed his head to the general manager, asking him to show Armand von Klam’s family here.
A little later, the five members of Armand von Klam’s family came into the personal room. Upon entering, Armand bent ninety degrees at the waist and then had his children greet everyone.
“My apologies, Marquis. One of them is still too young and could not attend today.”
Armand directed toward Marquis Herzl the apology he should have made to my father.
“Four children—very commendable. Professor Eigenhardt, you ought to have more as well and leave the Empire a few more fine seeds. Is it not still possible?”
“My wife finds it hard. We barely managed to have one.”
“Then it cannot be helped.”
When the Aionios Empire accepted immigrants, it encouraged them to have three or more children if possible. Having fewer than three was tolerated only when there was a special reason they couldn’t have more.
―Immigrants have to have lots of kids so they can clear the tables we eat at, wash the clothes we wear, and clean up our trash and toilets, right? And that’s not all. They have to pay taxes so we can build all the infrastructure.
When someone was wary of the growing number of immigrants, Gaston Philippe repeated in front of me the things they said among themselves at the Imperial Palace or in parliament. He never kept in mind the fact that I was an immigrant.
Thinking about it again, I’d done well to kill him.
The Empire’s lower classes mostly worked in administrative posts at palaces and castles, in production, or in commerce. They didn’t belong to the nobility or the knighthood and formed independent households of their own.
Immigrants, their second generation, and migrant workers worked in the 3D jobs the Empire’s citizens avoided.
Work that was Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult.
Everyone knew the generous immigration policy existed to hand off the work the Empire’s citizens avoided.
Knowing this injustice, my father had provided stable employment by hiring mainly immigrants at the more than forty affiliates of the Dispazit Group he’d founded.
In the past, I’d criticized my father’s hiring policy. I’d believed, like a creed, that of all the reasons my success had been held back, my father was the biggest.
A life given to me again.
I decided to be a comfort to my father, who had grieved over the discrimination against immigrants and migrant workers.
“Now, let us bring in the meal.”
At Marquis Herzl’s words, CEO Armand promptly got up and went out.
The manager soon followed him in and set a menu down in front of the Marquis. After glancing at Marquis Herzl’s expression, the manager started to set other menus down in front of my father and Armand.
“No, we will follow whatever menu the Marquis decides.”
We, who had no right to decide anything. At my words, which I’d meant that way, my father glanced back at me. I didn’t so much as flinch.
When Marquis Herzl looked at me meaningfully, I bowed my head politely toward him.
“Pardon me for speaking up. I apologize.”
“Not at all. You look very strong. Professor Hubert must be proud.”
“Please look kindly upon him. I ask this of you.”
Marquis Herzl suddenly calling my father by his given name in such a familiar way was a course I’d foreseen.
My father bowed his head respectfully.
The past me, who’d believed I could break imperial law and rise to the highest position, had been naive. No—believing that without even being a romantic, I’d been lacking. Like a fucking idiot, I’d thought I was the only one who was special.
Following my father, who had bowed his head to Marquis Herzl, I bowed my head again.
Brazenly, for all to see, I decided to become the Empire’s dog.
To find those who had turned the Empire into a monster and assassinate them like Gaston, I had to wear a mask thoroughly. A mask of loyalty, which would be absolutely necessary when I tracked down and assassinated the racists.
***
After the meal, our whole party came out and stood in front of the hotel. While we waited for the cars to be brought around, I went up to Marquis Herzl and bobbed my head in a bow.
“Hm. Is there something you wish to say?”
“Forgive my presumption, but I would like to receive your congratulations on my admission to the military academy formally.”
“We just spent two whole hours at the table.”
“I...... I had to work up the courage. I didn’t want my introverted personality to show.”
Me, an introvert. The most ridiculous thing in the world.
I was on edge, afraid my mother might burst out laughing at my words.
Fortunately, my mother was busy heaping praise on the outfit Marquise Herzl was wearing. She was excited, making plans to go clothes shopping together. For the sake of her son’s success, my mother left her liver and gallbladder at home whenever she went out. Even though she wasn’t a rabbit.
The scenes that had surfaced when I took Nikolai Herzl’s hand might not have been a coincidence.
My delusion, my mistake, or a special ability...... Throughout the meal, I’d pondered the true nature of what was happening to me. To confirm it, one way or another, I had to take Marquis Leo Herzl’s hand too.
Since I’d decided to become the Empire’s dog as if putting myself on display, I also needed to fasten the first button properly.
The act of bowing at the waist with the reverence of someone gazing up at a person far beyond reach.
“Hahaha. I heard you were particular about making friends with your classmates. So it was simply that you find it hard to talk to people? Very well, congratulations on your admission. Youth is a dazzling thing. You and Nikol enjoy a fun school life together.”
Marquis Herzl grabbed my hand and patted my shoulder with his left.
“Yes, sir. I’ll work hard.”
“However I think about it, the rumors must have been exaggerated. Now that I see you today, I understand how you managed to take first place at Excellen. You have inherited Professor Hubert’s legacy. A waste of this build of yours, though. If the practical cannot back you up, you must at least come first in theory. Only then will you be worthy of the Eigenhardt name. Indeed.”
Marquis Leo Herzl held my hand for a long time, rattling on at length. A practical exam ranking of 274th was an extremely satisfying number in the eyes of the Empire’s high nobility.
In the past, despite the penalty they’d slapped on my interview, I’d become the representative of the incoming class in overwhelming first place and carried the flag. How galling must that have been for them?
Before my regression, I’d believed I could crush the Empire’s deep-rooted, chronic ills with my own ability and climb all the way to the sky. I’d planned to use the army as a stepping stone into central politics and didn’t go easy even on imperial princes. I crushed them with sheer skill alone.
Promotion was never mine. Every time I was passed over, I went before the Emperor, bowed my head to the ground, and pleaded. To make proper use of me. That failing to use me was the Empire’s loss.
Despite his immigrant blood.
Despite being the representative of the contaminated element.
Despite being the trigger of the ‘genocide.’
***
TL Notes:
“Traded off for taffy” — from the Korean idiom, after the old street peddlers who traded taffy for scrap. It means carelessly throwing something away; here, the Marquis had tossed aside any thought of apologizing.
“Left her liver and gallbladder at home… even though she wasn’t a rabbit” — in Korean, someone with “no liver or gallbladder” has swallowed all pride. The rabbit refers to the folktale Byeoljubu-jeon, in which a rabbit escapes the Dragon King by claiming he left his liver at home on land.