Semi-Coercive Imperialist

The Meaning of Disposition

Imperial Regular Army 7th Armored Grenadier Brigade, frontline command post. A border zone next to the Eastern Alliance’s “Krasnaya.”

Inside the rear bunker, surrounded by blast walls and reinforced concrete, cool, dry air hung heavy.

Chzzzt, whiiiiiiing.

Lieutenant Adel of the regular army sat in the communications control room with a headset on, absorbed in his work. He scanned the enemy nation’s external frequency bands, intercepted drifting mana waves, and logged encrypted transmissions.

Whiiiiing, beep, whirr.

Signals kept pouring in, and Adel kept scribbling nonstop with his pen.

“Haaah-yawn~”

A lazy yawn broke the silence from the seat right beside him. It was Lieutenant Bernhardt, his old military academy classmate.

“Hey… take it easy, man.”

Bernhardt muttered with his boots up on the desk.

“Just make the juniors do this crap. Why are you busting your ass for no reason?”

“I have to finish all this today.”

Records piled up every day in mountain-sized stacks, hundreds of pages at a time. Their job was to pick out suspicious passages or anything worth watching.

“Hey, just stamp it all ‘no notable findings’ and shove it into the shredder. Pro tip. Write that down.”

Bernhardt snorted.

“Those bastards are just yapping about what they ate for lunch and what tomorrow’s weather will be. Why are you staying up all night reading that?”

He waved a hand dismissively and grabbed his own console.

“More importantly, I cracked into something funny.”

He twisted the military receiver’s frequency and caught a popular sports broadcast from an enemy civilian channel.

“Their horse racing commentary is insane. The announcer loses his mind every time. It’s hilarious.”

Kiiiing! Quartkan Kiorien! Kiorien! Kiorieeeeeeeen!!

Shrieking Eastern-language commentary blasted through the room.

Then it happened.

Bang. The steel door swung open, and a gust of cold air rushed in. The two men turned and jumped to their feet.

“Loyalty!”

“Loyalty!”

Perfectly rigid salutes. It was Lieutenant Colonel Eaton of the 7th Armored Grenadier Brigade.

“Lieutenant Bernhardt. What was that sound just now?”

Eaton’s sharp gaze pierced Bernhardt.

“I was checking for any hidden secret frequencies, sir.”

Bernhardt answered in a hurry. Eaton kept a hard expression and looked at Adel.

“Anything unusual?”

“No, sir. No meaningful movement has been detected yet.”

This was the easternmost frontline border region. Around this area, it was not only the Eastern Alliance. Tribal groups infested the rough mountains too.

They controlled monsters and practiced bizarre sorcery, and their presence gave a convenient excuse to station troops along the border in force.

“…”

Eaton stared at Bernhardt in silence, then turned and left the barracks.

Bang.

The moment the door shut.

“Hah. That mutt acts tough every single day.”

Bernhardt muttered like he was spitting the words out.

“Hey, but that guy, you’ve heard the weird rumors lately too, right?”

It was only natural. Eaton was mixed blood with a Zerpan maternal line.

“That rumor about him being a subversive. A Revolutionary Faction lackey, right? They say he supports Zerpa’s Republican faction.”

Bernhardt chuckled with total confidence. Adel clenched his jaw and gripped his pen tighter.

“Watch what you say.”

“…What?”

“Zerpan mixed blood does not violate the 「Imperial Civil Law」, and the law clearly states they are to receive rights and treatment equal to Aran.”

At Adel’s textbook-correct reply, Bernhardt tilted his head. His lips twisted upward.

“Hah. Watch what I say?”

He stood, walked over, and tapped Adel’s cheek with his finger. Tap. Tap.

“Wow, Adel. You grew up, huh? You little loser bastard.”

He grabbed Adel by the collar and yanked him up with a growl.

“You think same rank means we’re the same, asshole? I was supposed to go Imperial Guard. I only stayed in the regular army because of my dad. You and me are not the same class. Not even close.”

“…Then you should’ve gone to the Imperial Guard.”

For a second, Bernhardt’s face went rigid.

“Hey. What did you just say? Say it again.”

Bernhardt glared at him from inches away, breathing hard.

“Say it again, you crazy bastard!”

Fweeeee.

A lazy whistle drifted in.

“Hey there~?”

It was a familiar voice. Bernhardt flinched and let go of Adel’s collar. Both men snapped to salute.

“Loyalty!”

“Loyalty!”

Major Goetz.

An officer with bulging eyes and neatly slicked-back curly hair, giving off a strange and sinister impression.

“Did you mean what you just said?”

Goetz approached, the corner of his mouth lifting with interest. Bernhardt swallowed.

“S-sir, that was…”

“No, no. It’s fine, speak comfortably.”

“Uh…”

Goetz patted Bernhardt on the shoulder.

“Lieutenant Bern. I met your father on my last leave. He was very proud of you serving at the border.”

“Ah… I see, sir.”

Bern’s lips moved awkwardly.

His house was one of those noble families with real pull inside the military. Goetz was the type who carefully maintained connections like that and never let them slip.

“Well…”

Bern shot a glance at Adel and smirked.

“Did you need to speak with me separately, sir?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Eaton was just here.”

“Ah, yes sir.”

“Tell me more about that rumor.”

Goetz wrapped an arm around Bernhardt’s shoulder with a sly smile.

“Not in a place like this. Somewhere warmer.”

“Y-yes, yes sir! Understood!”

Bern nodded eagerly and followed Goetz out. He did not forget to shoot Adel a sideways glare first.

The kind of superiority that said, this is the difference between you and me.

Bang.

The heavy steel door shut. Adel let out a short sigh and dropped back into his chair in front of the receiver.

Beep. Beep.

Only meaningless machine tones kept repeating through the headset.

Adel pressed his tired eyes and reached for the switch to fully cut reception on the useless frequency band.

Then.

“…?”

His finger stopped.

Beep. Brrrik. Beep.

A faint variation had mixed in. It was not white noise from a bad frequency lock.

Someone had intentionally split mana fragments into tiny pieces and arranged them in a fixed pattern.

“…!”

He cranked the receiver output to maximum. His pen hand moved urgently.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Irregular crackling sounds drifting through empty air poured onto the paper as letters and symbols. He scraped together every trace of that suspicious mana pattern and recorded it all.

* * *

What did Sentinel mean in the Empire?

Hanna Usar sometimes thought about that. When she walked the streets in uniform, children looked at her with admiration, and adults stepped aside in reverence.

Politicians and power brokers did not dare treat Sentinel lightly, and even ordinary roadside diners offered special respect.

Still, Sentinel’s weight could not be limited to perks and privilege alone.

Lately, Hanna had been trying to find that “meaning.”

“Is this year’s salary system for real?”

Inside the Sentinel lounge, Hanna leaned in over the documents spread out by her classmates Royce and Dare Tan.

“Yeah, it’s real.”

“No way, it hasn’t even been officially announced yet. They’re paying this much?”

“Hah. This is what happens when someone grew up with nothing…”

Dare Tan clicked his tongue, but Hanna’s eyes stayed locked on the numbers.

“Anyway. This base pay is confirmed, and performance pay comes separately.”

A first-year knight’s pure base salary was 1.5 million imperial dollars a year.

That alone was shocking, but the real benefits were elsewhere.

“Wow…”

Hanna was briefly stunned.

The office budget ceiling needed for staff retention had been sharply raised.

The cap on “activity funds” that required no expense documentation had also been raised.

And all of that was just the baseline.

Meaning, depending on results and performance, an individual knight’s budget could more than double.

Funding had ballooned compared to previous years, but treatment like this was never handed out for free.

Ding!

At that moment, Hanna’s terminal rang. It was an emergency call from the informant she had planted.

Today was the execution date of the mission Hanna had been tracking this whole time.

Her expression hardened.

“I’m heading out first. I have something important.”

“…Who asked? Just go, idiot.”

“You barge in whenever you want, then suddenly you’re leaving or staying…”

She ran out of the Order immediately.

Five armed operatives were waiting in the parking lot. She got in with them, and after a hard rush they arrived at Imperial Central District 29.

In front of a parts factory.

At a glance it looked ordinary, but her informant had infiltrated this place.

“Let’s go.”

Usar got out of the car. She entered the factory with the operatives at her back and shouted.

“W-what is this? Who are you people-“

“Sentinel! Everyone step back and put your hands on your head!”

The operatives subdued the factory workers.

Hanna strode through the interior, scanning it. One hand held the sword at her waist as she reached the manager’s office.

“K-Knight, why are you here…?”

On one wall was her informant’s mark, a very faint trace of cigarette ash.

Hanna drew her sword.

Shhk!

The mana-coated blade sliced through the wall. Beyond collapsing plywood and concrete, a hidden chamber appeared.

“…Hah.”

Hanna frowned. Even at first glance, it was full of suspicious high-performance wiretap and communication equipment.

“W-wait! T-those are only equipment needed for our factory operations! To contact our business partners…”

The factory manager stammered with a pale face. Hanna did not answer. She simply reported the scene to her superior.

“It’s true! Knight!”

“You can explain later.”

Hanna smiled slightly and walked back out. The operatives cuffed the factory executives, while the other workers knelt in fear.

Several dozen minutes passed like that.

Step.

The moment those footsteps echoed at the entrance, the air froze.

Step.

The noisy workers went silent, and the manager who had been making excuses held his breath.

Step.

Because one person had arrived.

Maximilian Ebenholtz.

“Sir Knight.”

Hanna greeted him with a respectful nod. Maximilian acknowledged it lightly, then went up to the manager’s office and checked the evidence beyond the broken wall.

“What do you think?”

“Secure it.”

“Yes.”

He came down again and slowly swept his eyes across the factory personnel.

There was a blade hidden in that gaze.

“S-sir Knight! T-there seems to be a misunderstanding! Those machines are…”

Maximilian pulled a pistol from his waist.

.

He fired without hesitation. A mana-compressed bullet pierced straight through the manager’s forehead in perfect silence. The body collapsed backward.

It did not end there. Maximilian shifted the muzzle slightly and blew out the temple of another trembling executive behind him.

.

Two people were gone, and two corpses were left behind.

Every worker in the factory clamped both hands over their mouth.

“Unregistered mana communication devices with no serial number.”

Maximilian lowered the gun and recited in a dry voice.

“Unauthorized individuals or corporations cannot possess them. Grounds for summary judgment.”

It was the newly revised 「National Security and Communications Control Act」.

He aimed the muzzle at the forehead of the final executive, an Izenheim.

After watching him shake in terror for a moment, he slowly lowered the gun.

“Hanna Usar.”

“Yes.”

“You do not need to report to me every single time something like this happens.”

His golden eyes looked directly into hers.

“Follow your instincts and your decision.”

An order to carry the responsibility required of a Sentinel knight, as one who executed imperial power.

“Whatever result comes, Sentinel will bear it in full.”

Hanna understood the weight of those words.

From now on, she had to shake off the hesitation and fear engraved in her bones as a commoner.

She took a short breath.

“Yes.”

Feeling Maximilian’s gaze still resting on her, she gripped her sword.

Then she swung it.

Shhk!

The man’s head rose into the air, and red blood stained the factory’s cement floor.

“We will take the rest into custody.”

“The weight of the punishment may differ. But the standard is not the crime itself. It is-“

“Aran.”

Hanna answered. Maximilian did not tell her she was right. Without a word, he turned and walked out of the factory.

* * *

I assigned a new staff member to Hanna Usar.

A Yaken trained at the Gennen branch office. A hunting dog that could identify the scent unique to Izenheim.

Yes, Hanna was earning my trust.

She was becoming the kind of person I wanted.

It was a change she was meant to go through. Before regression, Hanna Usar had been betrayed by Izenheim and might have met a horrific end.

Knock knock.

The office door opened with a light knock.

“Sir Knight.”

An operations officer stepped up and placed a document envelope on the table.

“The status report you ordered, on the Imperial Regular Army 7th Armored Grenadier Brigade.”

The eastern border region. Around this same time before regression, a fairly major incident had broken out there.

“…It seems there are serious internal issues. There have also been consecutive suicide cases among lower-ranking officers…”

An army had always been a brutally closed group, in any era. The eastern border unit had existed continuously for two hundred years.

That meant the chance it was deeply, deeply, deeply contaminated was high.

For the sake of the eastern front in the future, it needed to be turned over once.

“…Keep watching it closely.”

Quite a few people of interest were lurking inside the eastern military units.

Take the ones worth taking, discard the ones to discard, leave the ones to leave.

“Also watch carefully for anything like complaint letters coming up from that side.”

If there were soldiers suffering abuse or being crushed by hierarchy, the Sentinel Order was their last option.

In truth, that was the same for all imperial citizens.

When people were wronged, they threw in complaint letters at the very last moment, sometimes knowing they would never be delivered, sometimes clinging desperately to a thread of hope. The place those letters went was the Sentinel Order.

“Yes. Understood.”

We could not grant all of their wishes, but we had to be able to grant some of them once in a while, so the Sentinel Order’s authority would hold.