Chapter 149: A Visit to Progen (3) In a cramped, one-room apartment, Clara Magal listened to Felix's story.
"At first, it was just the hospital bills. We urgently needed 5,000 livre for my mother's surgery… Last week, I heard about that Socialist politician, Lorraine. When he was caught gambling, a single one of his chips was worth 5,000 livre. Well, anyway."
He continued, his voice sounding thin and worn as he spoke of his deepest wounds.
"The bastards at the bank turned their backs on us completely. Their excuse was that we had no collateral and no proper jobs. In the end, my father turned to a loan shark."
It was an all-too-common story, and for that reason, it felt all the more despairing.
5,000 livre. It started as a sum that was nothing special, but the interest compounded at 10% every week. Unpaid interest was tacked onto the principal, trapping them in a lethal spiral of compound debt.
In just a few months, the debt reached 50,000 livre. A year later, it had ballooned into an astronomical figure that choked the life out of his family.
In the end, consumed by the guilt that her treatment had ruined the household, his mother took her own life. His father, despairing over his failure to protect his family, followed her just a week later.
"...That was exactly ten years ago. Nothing particularly special about it."
A heavy silence descended upon the room. Clara gazed steadily at Felix. Felix, in turn, met her eyes directly. Fury and murderous intent were coiled in his pupils.
"It may not be special, but it's more than enough for me to despise this country. I believe Progen is fundamentally broken."
Clara's eyebrows twitched—a silent gesture for him to continue.
"An incompetent government that, under the hollow veneer of a republic, allows immigrants and parasites to suck the lifeblood of its own people."
The words were precise, delivered in a pleasant, calm voice. Clara quietly closed her eyes.
Is his anger the same as mine? I can't be sure yet.
"I despise them. Especially those cockroaches called the Izenheim."
He had a clear justification.
*
The next day, late in the evening.
Clara Magal visited a jewelry shop in Progen's Malé District. She was there to exchange the mana stone Felix had offered as his membership fee.
"...Fifty thousand livre?" she asked, incredulous.
"That's right."
The owner set down his monocle, his wrinkles shifting as he spoke. Clara's brow furrowed.
"Anyone can see this is worth over 200,000. Are you kidding me?"
"Then go sell it somewhere that'll give you 200,000."
The owner sneered and pushed the mana stone back toward her.
"If you want full price, you'd better tell me where you got it."
"…"
"Or go ask somewhere else and see what they offer. You'll be lucky if they don't report you to the police."
Clara clenched her fists inside her pockets.
"...Sixty thousand."
"Forty thousand."
"What the hell? You just said fifty!"
"You failed to answer my question properly, didn't you?"
He grinned, revealing a gold tooth behind twisted lips.
"It's an item of unknown origin. That means I'm taking on a risk, so I'm docking 10,000 for the trouble."
Should I just kill this bastard? Or maybe just smash his face in?
All sorts of violent thoughts flashed through her mind, but she managed to suppress her rage.
"...Give it to me."
She held out her hand. In the end, she was handed 40,000 livre in cash.
"Filthy Izenheim bastard," she muttered under her breath as she left the shop.
Skin so pale it was almost white, an aquiline nose. Above all, there was an Izenheim settlement near this back alley. The way they clustered together, living only among themselves… just like cockroaches.
"What? Hey! What did you just say?!"
The owner's face contorted with rage as he started to come out from behind the counter, but Clara quickly ran back toward the university.
"…"
She stood before the Crystal Society's club room at Progen National University.
[Fucking morons]
[Get the hell out of this school now]
[Imperial bootlicking vermin]
[Bastards like you don't deserve to breathe]
[Just get lost, you fucking spies]
The door was plastered with curse-filled graffiti. Clara gritted her teeth.
"You're only 'free' when it comes to the things you want."
She opened the door and went inside. The members were lying on makeshift beds. To them, this cramped club room was their house, their room, and their home.
"...Ah, President. You're back?"
A member rubbed his eyes and sat up.
"What the hell happened to the door? Why'd you just leave it like that?" she asked, gesturing with her chin at the trashed entrance.
"...There were quite a lot of them this time."
The member glanced around nervously and scratched the back of his neck.
Clara let out a long sigh. She slumped onto the sofa, lost in thought.
"By the way, President, can we trust that friend of yours?"
"I'm not sure yet. For now… let's just watch him a little longer."
Clara pulled a wad of bills from her coat. The member's eyes lit up.
"And with this, let's get a new office first. This club room is too small for the scale of our cause."
*
──A Visit to Progen, Day 4.
Before my regression, the incident had unfolded as follows:
Prime Minister Bernard of Yursled arrives at Progen's First Port via warship. Minister Marceau greets him, and they ride together in a vehicle toward the capital's assembly. On 'Corme Boulevard,' packed with an honor guard and welcoming crowds, an assassin attempts a bomb attack. However, the explosion fails to detonate properly. The culprit tries to pull a pistol and open fire but is shot and killed instantly. For this reason, I had been visiting Corme Boulevard every single day without fail.
It's often said that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, but the reverse is also true. Before carrying out a major act, the culprit has no choice but to visit the scene to calculate the variables for their perfect scenario.
"You'd better show up tomorrow."
I was running out of time. No, it wasn't just me; it was the same for every human being breathing on this continent. The Izenheim weren't human, and the countdown to annihilation had already begun.
*
──A Visit to Progen, Day 5.
Today, as usual, I wandered the boulevard near the site.
I ate a sandwich, had a Progen-style meal at a restaurant, fed the pigeons, and gave some alms. At that moment—
Thump—
My heart began to beat with an unpleasant rhythm.
Thump—
I turned my gaze and stared at a certain spot.
Thump—
A man was sitting on a park bench. A figure in a gray coat. He pretended to be nonchalant, but his eyes darted around, surveying his surroundings. Most suspiciously, he was reading yesterday's newspaper. I presumed he was waiting for orders…
Thump—
My heart was reacting to him. Memories of the past surfaced in my mind.
[Progen's Minister of Defense, Yursled's Prime Minister, Assassination Attempt Thwarted]
[Culprit, shot and killed at the scene, identified as 'Thomas,' a radical from the Empire…]
[…Progen's Prime Minister formally demands an explanation from the Imperial Royal Family.]
Thomas.
A photograph preserved in black-and-white ink. That face overlapped perfectly with the face of the Izenheim man sitting over there now.
"...Ha."
A dry laugh escaped me. The gaps in the assassination attempt from before my regression were reassembling themselves. They fit together perfectly.
They never intended for the assassination to succeed in the first place.
"…"
It wasn't an assassination from the start. It was an operation designed to fail.
I replayed the coming events in my head. The assassin throws a bomb at the vehicle carrying the Progen minister and the Yursled prime minister. The attempt is thwarted, the culprit is killed on the spot, and the body is mangled beyond the point of autopsy. However, pieces of circumstantial evidence pointing to the Empire as the mastermind are discovered one after another.
Consequently, the leaders of Yursled and Progen accelerate their military alliance against the Empire.
"Now, I understand."
Just then, the assassin stood up from his seat.
I tailed him. The sun hung high in the sky. He moved along the boulevard crowded with citizens and reached a certain neighborhood.
Thump— Thump— Thump—
My heart throbbed in a complex rhythm. It wasn't just one. It wasn't two. It wasn't three, either. A large number of Izenheim had coiled themselves here.
I looked at the signpost.
[Malé District]
I'd heard of it. The Izenheim settlement.
"…"
I stared at the place in silence, then quietly turned away. The plan had changed.
Instead of 'help the assassination succeed,' it was now: 'I'll do the assassinating myself.'
*
Late at night, in a research office at Progen National University.
Professor Jean Pierre was grading pop quiz answer sheets one by one. It was a habit uncommon among professors, perhaps even an eccentricity, but he believed that true insight was born from the raw, unfiltered thoughts of those living in the era.
Within the words of his students, he often discerned the 'flow of the generation.'
"...Hmm."
A particular answer sheet had been resting in his hand for quite some time.
[…The foundation of imperialism is the Iron Man Ideology. The belief that only the most superior and perfect Iron Man can justly rule the masses…]
It was a sheet with no name written on it. The argument itself was intriguing. The sentences seemed to pierce the essence of the Empire, yet they held a conviction that relied heavily on the Empire's 'figures.'
He probably didn't write his name because of the content.
Knock, knock—
A knock broke the silence of the office.
"Who is it?"
"—Jean!"
The person who entered was Progen's Minister of Defense, Louis Marceau. Jean Pierre's eyes widened.
"Minister. What brings you here?"
"I have an important matter coming up… But you seem to be quite busy, don't you?"
Minister Marceau gestured toward Jean Pierre's desk, where the papers were piled like a mountain.
"Tsk, tsk, are you still doing all that trivial stuff yourself? You should have an assistant do it by now."
"I learn from my students through these papers," Jean Pierre replied calmly. Louis Marceau strode over and peered at the desk.
"Hmm."
He glanced at the nameless answer sheet Jean Pierre was holding and scoffed.
"What a garbage answer sheet. Why haven't you torn up this seditious nonsense that defends those Imperial bastards?"
"Progen is a free republic. The word 'seditious' doesn't suit us, Minister."
"...There you go again. This is a serious social problem these days. The number of young people in Progen who admire the Empire is growing. Foolish kids. It wasn't like this in our day."
Jean Pierre looked at Louis Marceau steadily. He was a handsome politician, possessing firm convictions and the ability to back them up. His only flaw was that he was too fixated on a single objective.
"How are the talks with Yursled progressing?"
"We are on the verge of a very important achievement."
Minister Marceau's eyes shone with determination.
"The 'Grand Imperial Containment Network' will soon be set in motion. I was hoping you would come to the assembly and give a keynote speech."
This was the reason he had come. A military alliance with the eastern nation of Yursled. It was a task Marceau had been planning since the moment he took office.
"Have you resolved the issue of defense taxes?"
"...Are you going to harp on about taxes too?"
"It is indispensable."
Even Louis Marceau was bound by his party's ideology. Mindlessly raising taxes was not the right way. It might be more beneficial to reduce taxes in certain sectors and allocate that portion to defense, but that would be going against his party. He could only add new taxes.
"Minister, to be honest, I am worried about the path you are taking," Jean Pierre said, his voice heavy.
"There's nothing to worry about."
Louis Marceau laughed heartily and shook his head.
"Because I've already prepared the perfect 'picture'."
Jean Pierre's brow twitched minutely. "A picture?"
"Yes. This weekend, it would be best if you stay away from Corme Boulevard. It could be dangerous." He added with a meaningful smile, "To write history for a righteous purpose, one sometimes requires a grand narrative."
Jean Pierre silently mulled over that dangerous statement. Louis Marceau placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Jean. I will stop those Imperial bastards with my own two hands, I swear it."
"…"
In Jean Pierre's view, Minister Marceau was a man who had taken on immense responsibility. He was a man worthy of that burden, and one who would live up to it.
He pointed to the exam paper on the desk and urged him, "And tear up that nonsense immediately. It's not even worth a zero."
He was truly a man of spirit—a man like a racehorse, possessing both a wild nature and a powerful drive.
"...Travel safely."
"Right. I'll see you again soon. Ah, and I hope that next time will be at the assembly. Hahaha."
If he could just survive long enough, he was a man who could truly change the world. A vessel capable of standing against the power of the Empire.
However…
Jean Pierre watched his powerful back as he left the office, then picked up the answer sheet Marceau had told him to destroy.
[The fact that a weak person like Alonso is the successor in Zerpa is, from Zerpa's perspective, a stroke of luck.]
If Crown Prince Alonso was someone who would flexibly bend and yield to the Empire's power, Minister Louis Marceau was a man of iron will who would break before he ever bent—Alonso's polar opposite.
[A leader with excessive pride and ego will not bend; he will be shattered by the Empire…]
A politician who fit this passage exactly.
A vague yet ominous premonition crept up Jean Pierre's spine, but he forced himself to shake his head and brush off the anxiety.
"...This is Progen."
The Empire was still far from them, and here in Progen, freedom and reason were alive and well. He murmured softly, as if to comfort himself.
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