Semi-Coercive Imperialist

──18 hours before Citizen’s Day

6:00

Beep.

I pressed my identification card against the Gigantes check-in terminal.

[Confirmed.]

The state-of-the-art reader scanned my identity card and lit up green. I had expected some analog method like punching a hole in a paper card, but the Palace bastards had spared no expense when it came to systems for controlling workers.

I entered Gigantes. Thousands of pipes were entangled like blood vessels. The sky, barely visible, was obscured by gray smog. The industrial complex looked like a massive labyrinth.

“What kind of… structure is this?”

I walked while picturing the map I had obtained beforehand, but the actual Gigantes had already been expanded far beyond what the map showed.

Thunk─! Thunk─! Thunk─!

Each time the press machines thundered and shook the ground, the workers with expressionless faces moved like machines themselves. There was no vitality in their eyes. Their oil-stained uniforms and numbness that didn’t even flinch at the supervisor’s curses, these people were consumed not as humans, but as parts.

The reason for the revolution clearly lay here.

[Security Rest Room]

Before I knew it, I had arrived at the security rest room.

Gigantes’s structure was extremely complex, but I had no risk of getting lost. Thanks to the virus inside me.

My guess was that it stored all the visual information I observed as mana data and projected it back into my mind when I needed it.

A convenient talent.

But whether the virus was on my side, whether it was a friend, I still didn’t know. It was, after all, a fragment from another world of uncertain origin.

“…….”

As I entered the security break room, I was at a loss for words for a moment. It was a space too embarrassing to call a break room. Just a few dented metal lockers and one long bench with peeling paint. The phrase in a frame hanging in the middle of the moldy wall stabbed my retina.

「Your sweat for His Majesty the Emperor creates the Empire’s steel.」

“Haa…….”

A sigh, like a hollow laugh, escaped me.

What a fucking hellhole I’ve ended up in.

Me, you, all of us.

“……Hmm.”

I looked up at the ceiling of the security rest room.

Before my regression, the exact details of how this terrorist attack had failed were never revealed. The internal situation of Gigantes had been thoroughly classified, and only the identities of the revolutionary members who were captured and executed had been made public.

Therefore, I had to hide myself for a while and pick the right moment and place to intervene in their operation, as a thorough observer and assistant.

“There’s nothing around here.”

There was no suitable hiding place.

There were two conditions for a hideout.

1. It had to be as close as possible to the heart of Gigantes, the ‘power source.’

2. It must never be discovered.

I left the security rest room and walked down the hallway. Then a thought suddenly came to me.

“……You.”

I spoke quietly while placing my hand on my collarbone.

One of the properties of a mana core is ‘emission’. If the virus shot out fine waves of mana like a radar, couldn’t I detect empty spaces not visible to the eye through the echoes?

“Transmit the data.”

It seemed this thing would be more efficient at finding a hideout than I was.

Sssssss───.

Mana spread beneath my feet. Beyond the concrete walls, between the gaps of the pipes, the structures and geometries of those spaces were drawn three-dimensionally in my mind.

“Hey! Who are you!”

At the sudden shout. I flinched and opened my eyes. The twisted face of a pig-like supervisor was right in front of me.

I nearly punched that mug on reflex.

“……I’m security.”

“I’ve never seen your face before? Show me your ID!”

I held out the card. The supervisor scanned it with the reader. Beep. It was a valid ID.

“You’re security, you bastard? Why are you loitering around here?”

“I received specific orders. To patrol this area.”

“Tch, fuck, then do it properly. You had your damn eyes closed. I’ll let it slide since tomorrow’s a holiday.”

The supervisor touched my cap, spat on the ground, and walked away.

“…….”

I memorized that bastard’s face.

I closed my eyes again.

As before, mana spread beneath my feet, tracing the spaces in the darkness.

***

──12 hours before Citizen’s Day

: 12:00 PM

A tranquil consultation room at noon. Orphanage Director Entikkan looked at his niece Yukia sitting across from him.

“Don’t worry about the shop. Tomorrow’s a holiday.”

“…….”

Yukia panted as she looked around the interior of the consultation room. However, no matter how hard she searched, there was no clock to be seen.

“What time is it now?”

“Have you heard of ‘Citizen’s Day’? You know what it is?”

Yukia gave a short reply.

“No. What time is it now?”

“……Take a look at this.”

Entikkan pointed to the documents spread out on the table. Her gaze briefly lingered on them. Report cards and certificates she had received during her time at the academy. Records filled with praise calling her a genius, on top of those, a single document was laid.

[Referral to Disciplinary Committee – Reason: Attempted Murder of a Fellow Student]

It was a ridiculous false accusation.

“……Why is this here?”

Yukia had a talent for handling objects. In fact, it went beyond just being good with her hands, it was a special ability to instinctively understand the structure and origin of objects and maximize their potential.

Even an ordinary branch or pebble could become a special weapon in her hands.

That was the reason she had opened the shop.

“Sir Knight feels sorry that a talent like yours is rotting away.”

“It’s not rotting.”

“Then what are you now?”

Entikkan looked at Yukia, who had been beaten in several places. Her eyes were swollen, and her teeth were broken like a beast’s.

“Do you want to be exiled and go wandering again?”

Since childhood, Yukia had wandered across the continent, following her father. It was because her father had worked as a guide.

“…….”

Yukia looked silently at Entikkan. He sighed and brushed back his hair.

“Knight Maximilian wants to keep you by his side.”

Suddenly, Yukia’s red pupils wavered.

“By his side?”

“Yes.”

Yukia sensed the weight hidden in those words belatedly.

“He probably wants your Yaken tracking ability. The Imperials are aware of it too.”

The Yaken considered themselves a race chosen by spirits and nature, and in truth, their five senses were far superior to those of other races.

“…….”

Yukia bit her lip, as if pondering. Entikkan inwardly sighed.

This was basically a call to become the dog of a high noble family of the Empire. Considering her pride and stubbornness, she would naturally refuse.

“Forget it. I wasn’t even seriously asking.”

“I might do it.”

“……What?”

Yukia looked at her uncle and gave a small nod.

“I might do it.”

Her answer was not surrender. The longing for revolution, the fury over her father’s death, were still burning deep and blue within her heart.

The place her hatred aimed for was the deepest part of the Empire.

The Imperial Palace.

“Pass the message along.”

If it meant staying near a knight named Maximilian, then maybe she could reach that heart.

That was her calculation.

***

──6 hours before Citizen’s Day

: 18:00

I discovered an empty space hidden underground, between the pipes and outer wall of Gigantes. I didn’t know how it had come to be, but it looked like a hideout built long ago by workers.

“…….”

There was a wooden box someone had brought there, and in the corner, a sleeping bag so rotten it looked ready to crumble was crumpled up. On the wall, there were faint remnants of graffiti left behind by the workers of the old Gigantes.

I brushed my fingers across them.

─Ah, my back’s about to snap

─Still, endure it. Your kids are waiting for you at home~

─You crazy bastard. If we get caught doing this here, we’re all fired, you know?

─Fuck.. I lost all thirty dollars I won yesterday. Damn, my stomach hurts

─Anyone want to take my shift on the weekend? I’ll give you a pack of smokes

Rough and crude handwriting. Mixed with cursing, but it carried a strange liveliness and scent of life no longer found in today’s Gigantes.

A smile naturally formed.

It felt like I had found an unexpected treasure.

“Feels just like a treasure hunt.”

I no longer feel much about money. I have so much of it, and I know now that those precious and valuable things are ultimately meaningless. In fact, it’s these traces of life that feel more valuable to me.

Creeeeak.

I opened the dust-covered wooden box.

Inside were canned goods so rusted that their labels were unreadable, yellowed newspapers from that era, chess pieces and a board worn smooth from hands over time, and playing cards with edges completely worn out.

I could roughly make out the date on the newspaper. It was from about sixty years ago.

Back then, Gigantes was at least a place where one could breathe.

It was an era when even workers could gather away from the eyes of supervisors, puff on cigarettes, play cards, and enjoy a bit of romance and leisure.

How did it fall so far into ruin?

Looking for the reason, or even thinking about it, felt meaningless now.

All old things eventually break, and stagnant water is bound to rot.

Tick.

Regardless, I had found a place to hide.

I sat quietly in this hideout, listening to the sound of the second hand ticking from deep within my heart.

Tick.

The flow of absolute time.

Tick.

Perhaps this is the pulse of my soul.

***

──30 minutes before Citizen’s Day

: 11:30 PM

Time passed.

In the underground where the facilities of Gigantes were slowly coming to a stop, revolutionaries quietly slipped into the darkness one by one.

The operation name was [Steel Mole].

Under the singular cause of revolution, they operated as a thoroughly compartmentalized cell. Even if this operation were to fail, the roots of the revolutionary forces would remain unshaken.

“Installation complete.”

Explosives had been placed at every designated point. The leader, wearing a tiger mask, pointed at the blueprints as he reviewed the plan.

“Not a single worker must get caught in it.”

The operation was already laid out.

First, when the bombs attached to the outer facilities detonated, Gigantes’s external structures would collapse inward. The steel debris would become obstacles themselves, limiting the routes into Gigantes. The revolutionary group would then build barricades at those points and hold their ground, delaying the advance of the Imperial Army.

Mines and bombs had also been planted along the main roads leading to Gigantes, allowing them to buy time before reinforcements could arrive from the outside.

During that golden time they would secure, the revolutionaries would destroy the mana stone vein in the underground heart of Gigantes once and for all.

“Get ready.”

At that moment.

Ding ding ding ding──

A chime echoed, announcing the end of the workday in Gigantes.

Ding ding ding ding──

It was the bell of revolution.

──Citizen’s Day

I stepped outside the hideout to match the timing of the workday’s end.

“It’s quitting time! Tomorrow’s a holiday!”

The supervisor shouted, the iron doors of the worksite opened, and tens of thousands of workers poured out.

I watched them with my security hat pulled low. Though soaked in grease and sweat, their faces were lit up with joy at the thought of the rest they were granted for tomorrow.

“Citizen’s Day.”

“Man. I’m jealous. We’re on duty.”

“Living the easy life, aren’t they. When do we ever get a break?”

“It’s shift work anyway, idiot.”

The fellow guards beside me clicked their tongues and grumbled.

Just then, a hurried order came through the radio.

“Ah. They’re on their way now. Get into position!”

In an instant, the atmosphere among the guards changed. The chatter stopped, and military discipline tightened.

“Line up! Clear the path!”

The supervisor moved the team in perfect sync, lining them up on both sides of the road from the main gate. They were preparing to receive them, who would soon arrive.

Thud. Thud.

Heavy footsteps rumbled through the ground. The guards swallowed hard and sweated with tension.

Thud. Thud.

At last, the elites of the Empire marched in solemnly, their backs to the darkness outside. The Imperial Guard Corps in pitch-black armor. They did not rest, not even on Citizen’s Day. Because they were the limbs of the Emperor.

“…….”

The presence of the guardsmen was overwhelmingly oppressive. With their chins raised and eyes fixed straight ahead, arrogance and conceit clung to them like mud.

Was I once like that too?

I pretended to lower my head and observed them thoroughly from beneath the brim of my cap.

“All right. Security resumes duty! Shift change!”

The supervisor rang the bell, signaling the start of the next security shift.

I returned to the hideout to wait until the proper signal arrived.

***

Beep.

A single spark

Sssssssss──

Inside the destroyed Gigantes, in the midst of chaos where pipelines were torn apart and steam billowed in every direction.

From within that, a man walked up from the underground.

“For the cause.”

The tiger mask drew his sword. Dozens of shadows surged forward behind him.

The battle had begun.