NOVEL NEXT Chapter 95 - A Return to the Capital (VII)
[Volume 2.5 | Chapter 95: A Return to the Capital (VII)]
June 12th, 418 E.V. 2:34 PM.
San Corona's Southern Gate loomed before Siegfried and crew—a testament to imperial grandiosity disguised as security infrastructure. The picturesque winter wonderland of Siegfried's memories was utterly incongruent with the summer version of the capital, which presented itself as a gleaming monument to power rather than beauty.
It was like the difference between a weapon displayed in a glass case versus one aimed at your throat.
The migrant workers shuffled through the processing line with the resigned patience of livestock awaiting slaughter. Ahead, the framed Legionnaire had been segregated from the main group as his bloodied form was flanked by two Knights in ceremonial armor that seemed excessive for prisoner transport. Their polished silver pauldrons caught the afternoon sun as they half-dragged the sobbing man toward a waiting IPA transport vehicle.
"Please... I swear I never... the Grit wasn't mine!" His pleas dissolved into unintelligible whimpers as one of the Knights yanked roughly on his restraints.
"Pathetic," the Knight growled, loud enough for the waiting workers to hear. "You served in the Legion and this is how you conduct yourself? Sobbing like an infant? Man up!"
The second Knight laughed. "What did you expect from a drug smuggler, eh? A backbone?!"
"Heh, fair enough!"
Malleus watched the display contemptuously.
"Ugh! Scârbos! Look at him blubbering like an infant! In ze Wallachia, men would sooner bite off their own tongues than show such weakness in public!" she viciously muttered under her breath.
Roy shot her a sidelong glance. "Well ain't you just a wellspring of compassion, Emma. Man's about to spend the next decade in the slammer and you're judging him for cryin'?"
She didn't look at him, instead choosing to glare daggers at the former Legionnaire's back.
"A decade?" she scoffed, her Wallachian accent unable to mask itself. "It's just a secure building with regular meals. What's there to cry about?"
"...Secure buildin'? Are you dense, woman? Imperial prisons ain't exactly five-star accommodations. 'Specially for ex-military caught with contraband. They finna shank him like I do my meat and throw him into a cage with nothin' but a cot and toilet to his name. If he lucky, he ain't gonna have a roommate. If he unlucky, it'll be some crazy son of a bitch who's gonna try to skin him in his sleep. They'll work him to the bone from dawn to dusk, day in and day out, 'til his mind snaps and he goes completely cuckoo."
"Tch. Tachyon men are so soft." Malleus rolled her eyes. "In Kronburg's Girls Academy, we had mandatory daily combat training, obstacle courses, and endurance drills. Anyone who complained was put in stocks for a week. Zat's what builds character, not zis coddling nonsense."
"Combat training? Ya were raised in a friggin' battlefield or somethin'?"
"Nu, you idiot. It was Primary School."
Roy looked absolutely horrified.
"...Y'all was roggin' it out as lil' kids?! What kind of sick society makes its saps go through that crap?"
The irony of a Tachyonian criminal lecturing a Wallachian criminal on child abuse was not lost on Malleus, who merely smirked.
"Wallachian children are the strongest in the world, while yours are weak as kittens," she smugly declared.
"...Next you'll tell me ya walked uphill both ways in blizzards just to get to class."
"Eh? How else would you walk to class?"
"...Ya serious, ain't ya?"
"As ze plague."
"Ya know, for someone pretendin' to be from Fiora, ya nationalistic tendencies are showin' like underwear on a clothesline."
Siegfried suppressed a growl. Six years as their superior, and somehow, they still bickered like children on assignments.
The processing line inched forward.
"All I'm sayin'," Roy continued, deliberately lowering his voice to exclude nearby workers, "is that EVERY man fears prison, even for a day, specially when they gotta use the communal showers."
Malleus frowned. "Why? Are zhey cold or something?"
Roy opened his mouth to explain, just when Siegfried's fist connected with the back of his head like a battering ram.
"OW! Damn, boss! What's the deal?!"
"Can't you two keep it in your pants for ten seconds?" The ashen-haired man hissed. "You're holding up the line. Save your weird fetishes for when we're not surrounded by guards!"
Roy rubbed the back of his head, muttering Fioran obscenities under his breath. They moved forward toward the document inspection station.
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Siegfried's attention shifted to Victoria, who stood slightly apart from the other workers. Having completed her healing of the Legionnaire, she now waited placidly beside Ulysses, her expression neutral beneath a curtain of black hair. Something about her nagged at him—not just her competence with [Gran Sanatio], which far exceeded what any mere construction manager's bodyguard should possess, but something about her face, her bearing, her name…
Ulysses made sense as Dennis's muscle. The man had the dead eyes and brutish demeanor of someone whose intelligence matched his vocabulary.... limited and unrefined. But Victoria? She carried herself gracefully as if she were formally trained.
Before he could pursue the thought further, Dennis Sparrow shattered his concentration.
"FISCHER! Stop daydreamin' and get yer papers ready! Ya think these guards got all day to wait while yer brain catches up with the rest of ya?"
Siegfried gritted his teeth as he extended his forged identification documents to the bored-looking guard. The man scanned them disinterestedly before waving him through.
San Corona soon spread before them. An architectural symphony composed by a megalomaniac. In summer's unforgiving light, the city's concentric design revealed itself as what it truly was, with each ring representing another layer of security between the masses and the institutions of power. Dragon statues that had seemed whimsical in December of 411 E.V. now appeared predatory, stone eyes following the procession of migrant workers as they trudged through streets designed for processions of a very different sort.
The water in the canals gleamed metallically under the summer sun, gondolas filled with nobles and wealthy tourists floating past like insects skimming a stagnant pond. The contrast between their finery and the workers' sweat-stained clothing could not have been more deliberate if it had been choreographed.
It was utterly disgusting and Siegfried hated every second of it.
As the procession wound its way toward the city center, Siegfried's thoughts kept returning to the framed Legionnaire, now bound for Imperial custody. The man had been an obvious scapegoat, chosen to send a message rather than serve justice. And if Rocks had his way, the same would happen to him.
He would have been forced to reveal his powers... or break out of prison.
What other connections could Rocks possibly have in this godforsaken place to create a situation that was so convenient?
He had to be careful, because if he wasn't careful…
He would be a sitting duck in San Corona's prison, and that was a reality that he refused to entertain. He wouldn't let Rocks control the board.
He was Nemesis, damn it!
"Look, mother! Are those Irregulars?"
A child's voice, high and clear, cut through the ambient noise of the city. A boy of perhaps eight or nine pointed directly at their group from the safety of his mother's side. He wore a pristine academy uniform that probably cost more than a migrant worker's monthly earnings.
"No, darling," the mother answered. She didn't even have the grace to lower her voice. "Just laborers... though I suppose the distinction is rather academic at that level."
She laughed.
It was as pleasant as a crystal ball breaking. Several nearby adults joined in the casual cruelty. Some didn't even bother to disguise their contempt, staring openly at the workers as if they were a particularly disappointing zoo exhibit.
"Oh my days, they stink!"
"Indeed, like a pigsty!"
"Look at that one, he's huge!"
"Oh dear, is she a laborer or a gorilla?"
"His mother must be so proud, ahahaha!"
"Bah! Damn migrants! Infesting our glorious capital with their filth!"
"Ugh, the stench! They should bathe at least once in their life!"
"Ah... at this rate, we'll start importing Sugorokus and Hausans too! What next? They're going to be everywhere! Disgusting!"
Laughter. Always laughter. The sound grated against Siegfried's eardrums like a cheese grater against a live nerve. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache as he fought the urge to unleash his pent-up fury and slaughter everyone.
The gazes slid over him like oil, seeing the uniform but not the person within it.
For once, faces did not turn towards him out of fear.
They were out of disgust. A disgust equivalent to the rot of a corpse.
...Is this what it feels like?
A sudden, nigh perverse thought.
Is this how that boy lived every day?
Acacia Belmont. The Irregular he'd been hunting through Windsor as a guise to appease Cagliostro Narma. The child he'd been prepared to kill simply to draw out Pandora.
This humiliation—being pointed at, laughed at, deliberately snubbed—was nothing compared to what Irregulars endured. At least Siegfried could burn this city to the ground if he chose. At least he possessed power that these pampered aristocrats couldn't imagine.
Acacia had nothing.
No Thaumaturgy, no social standing, no protection beyond Pandora's inexplicable interest.
And Siegfried had hunted him like an animal and nearly killed him.
He pushed the thought away. Conscience was a luxury he couldn't afford, not with mercury ticking through his veins and fourteen days standing between him and either freedom or death.
The procession continued through San Corona's commercial district, past shops where a single purchase could exceed a migrant worker's yearly wages, past restaurants with armed guards stationed at entrances to ensure no undesirables disturbed the clientele's digestion. With each step deeper into the city's heart, the disparity between those who ruled and those who served became more pronounced, more deliberately constructed and essential to the Empire's functioning. After what felt like hours of public humiliation disguised as transit, they reached their destination. The Imperial Administrative Complex Expansion was a massive construction site where the skeleton of future government buildings rose from excavated foundations. Scaffolding wrapped the partially completed structures like metallic ivy, and cranes loomed overhead like predators.
Armed Knights and IPA officers guarded the perimeter, expressions suggesting they'd rather be anywhere else but were prepared to enforce security protocols with enthusiastic violence if necessary. Dennis waddled importantly to the checkpoint before proudly presenting his credentials.
After an interminable verification process, the gates swung open. Workers streamed onto the site, immediately being separated into task groups by supervisors who materialized with clipboards and scowls.
Siegfried observed it all, mind already mapping routes, identifying security vulnerabilities, and calculating angles of approach to nearby government buildings. Somewhere within that complex of offices and meeting rooms, Helen Vessalius maintained the headquarters from which she commanded the entire Imperial Legion.
Two weeks to infiltrate one of the most heavily guarded locations in the Empire.
Two weeks to eliminate one of the most powerful thaumaturges in the world.
Two weeks before the mercury in his veins reached his heart.
Welcome to San Corona, Nemesis.
The hunt begins now.