The Rebels and the Escaped Convict

♪ Modurato (present) ♪

I had intended to take a little more time, to plan things carefully before raising the rebellion. But things never go quite as smoothly as you want.

One of my subordinates made a blunder, and our plot was exposed to the palace police. So I had to improvise. I found a way to impersonate Poet and claim legitimacy to the throne. After all, the people were never going to rally behind a mere revolutionary army rebelling against oppression. Not on that alone.

But from an operational standpoint, failing to kill the real Poet was a blunder. The moment he tells the truth, the rebellion ends. And my dream turns to dust.

Under no circumstances can Poet be allowed to make contact with the kingdom’s people.

Originally, I had intended to hurl all our forces at the royal palace and bring it down quickly. But history shows that a rebel army stripped of legitimacy is swiftly crushed. After that, whether the ones who rule are remnants of the old regime or a completely new government hardly matters. Either way, we’d all be dead.

So I decided to redirect the troops that were meant for the palace toward occupying towns Poet was likely to stop in next. Economically, they all had some value, but militarily and geopolitically they were meaningless places, lightly guarded by the kingdom’s soldiers. They were easy to take, even without committing the bulk of our forces.

Still, that meant our proper strength was reduced. We needed reinforcements.

Today, I had come to a tavern to recruit a spearhead captain—someone who could tear through enemy soldiers. Since he was a wanted man, he was difficult to track down. But he was key to the operation, so I came to persuade him myself.

There was a man sitting blankly at the tavern counter.

“Bartender. Pour this man a glass of the finest whiskey you have. The forty-five-year one.”

At the sound of my voice, the man turned. Even in that shabby aloha shirt, he was clearly on guard.

“And you are?”

“Modurato. You are the infamous Allegro, I presume?”

The moment I spoke his name, the man fixed me with a razor-sharp glare. Naturally. He was a wanted fugitive, after all.

“Easy now. I’m not here to arrest you.”

Even so, he tensed his stomach as though preparing to unleash a shout spell. But when he noticed the rebel soldiers guarding me, he relaxed.

“Doesn’t look like you’re magic police. But you don’t seem to be regular Rabbit Kingdom troops either.”

The tension was so thick that the soldiers around us were twitching their whiskers.

“You’re searching for the truth behind an old murder case. Am I wrong?”

“You know who killed Serenade!?”

He dropped his lazy posture at once and leaned forward.

“I wouldn’t say I know the truth. But what if I could offer you the right to interrogate—or torture—Mr. Serpan directly?”

His eyes gleamed. Without blinking, his pupils narrowed vertically like those of a predator on the savanna.

“I see… Rebels, then. Aiming to overthrow the Rabbit government… I’ve heard the rumors.”

“If you know that much, then this should be simple. Let’s shake on it…”

I held out my hand, but he slapped it away. He turned aside and stared at the wall.

“Don’t lump me in with your kind.”

“Our goal is the same, isn’t it? Revenge. Hammering down the people who’ve mocked you all this time.”

“No. I set out on a journey of revenge because I was framed and thrown into prison. That’s about restoring my personal honor—nothing more. From what I hear, your rebel army is nothing but a knot of resentment and inferiority, people trying to get back at society for never recognizing instrumental magic users.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.”

So persuasion would be difficult. But I couldn’t back down here. I had my convictions too.

“Listen. The reason you were thrown in prison was hatred toward instrumental magic users. It was nothing but the self-preservation of entrenched interests—older men protecting their status against a new generation trying to change the old order, against younger people who threatened their position. It was the ego of elders who cast aside the future for the sake of their own short-term advantage. While you were rotting in prison, do you have any idea what kind of road we had to walk?”

He glared at me, so I glared right back and continued.

“For years, instrumental magic users were treated like dirt. We could barely become officials. There were steep barriers before we could even join most guilds. We were discriminated against. But I carved out new ventures in my own way. I created a place for those who had nowhere else to go. I restored the pride of the rabbitfolk. And because of that, society is finally beginning—little by little—to acknowledge us.”

“If that’s true, then stop disgracing your final years for their sake. Think about it. What do you suppose the people who’ve followed you up until now actually want? They want to work honestly, contribute to society, and restore their honor as members of that society. They’re not following you to overturn the world as rebels and make their parents and siblings worry themselves sick. What you’re doing is using the rabbitfolk you nurtured—those who chose to follow you—as disposable pawns. I may be pursuing private revenge, but I have no intention of dragging other people’s lives into it. I do things my own way.”

He slid the whiskey back across the counter toward me. Then he tossed down a coin and walked out of the tavern.

“Negotiations have broken down, then?” one of my men muttered.

“He’ll understand our position eventually. In fact, if he weren’t that stubborn, I couldn’t trust him with a job this big. Men driven only by greed or the hunger for fame are far less reliable than someone like that.”