Editing Tytania:Volume 2 Chapter 2 (section)

=== II ===
Was this an example of how, when people come together to form a group, areas of responsibility naturally fall into place? Within Fan Hyulick’s gang, the person who came to be in charge of the accounts was Alan Mahdi.

Although he loved his savings with all his heart, even this tender affection was thwarted by the power of Tytania. Unable to give full expression to his love for his own savings, he awoke to a spirit of universal love for money in general and began to raise his voice.

Regardless of the volume of Alan Mahdi’s voice, it was a fact that the party needed funds for its activities. The spaceship ''Honest Old Man'' was an armed smuggling vessel brimming with glory and pride, but, unfortunately, it was not brimming with wealth. Mahdi, who detested the God of Poverty far more than the God of Death, could not tolerate his fellow passengers’ lack of financial sense.

“Why don’t we raid a mining planet or a merchant ship to raise some money? If we’re serious about taking on Tytania, we’ll need military funds. Enough that even if every star in the galaxy were turned into gold coins, it still wouldn’t be enough!”

While there was some room for doubt regarding the “serious” aspect, the core of Mahdi’s argument was correct. As long as human society as a whole was based on a monetary economy, without war funds there was simply no way to pick a fight with Tytania.

“Yeah, right. Just do something about it then.”

As far as Alan Mahdi was concerned, while he had every reason to loathe Fan Hyulick, there was absolutely no necessity for him to feel any goodwill or sympathy towards him. He’d like to sell him off to Tytania, but it was all too clear that such an act would only end up cutting off his own nose to spite his face.

As someone who had once belonged to one of Tytania’s subordinate organisations, and had effectively defected from it, Mahdi knew that unless Tytania were to fall from grace, he would be unable to rescue his lost lover. Fan Hyulick was a man he detested down to his very cells, but it was a fact that an extraordinary military talent had taken up residence within a part of his genetic makeup, so he could not simply put this man up for sale at a bargain price.

Consequently, Mahdi was devising a plan of his own to convert Fan Hyulick’s military talent into economic value. Wherever Hyulick looked, meddlesome strategists were busy drawing up equations.

In any case, Fan Hyulick had grown weary of behaving like a fugitive on the run. Doctor Lee had observed as much. If that were the case, he was just a hair’s breadth away from his pent-up energy exploding, and as far as Doctor Lee was concerned, he needed to have the needle ready to burst that balloon.

Doctor Lee was a man who spared no effort in the pursuit of academic truth. And in the fairy tales that moralising adults were so keen to impose on children, it was always the diligent who triumphed over the lazy.



And so, while the leaders of the Tytania clan were debating about Fan Hyulick, the man himself made no attempt to devise a counter-strategy, merely squandering a great deal of time and a little money. Just when one might have thought he was deep in thought in the ''Honest Old Man''’s cabin, he would shove his remaining money into his pocket and head out, without even contacting his comrades. It was a rather pathetic state of affair that his former subordinates, who had gone to look for him on the assumption he would be in the red-light district of Latour, spotted him almost immediately.

“Where is Admiral Hyulick?”

“Under the ceiling, atop of a woman.”

In that situation it could hardly even be called a joke. Fan Hyulick was not a young man who could be described as particularly lecherous or licentious. He was merely the possessor of a healthy body with ordinary cravings. If one could not find anything else to do, it was only natural for an ordinary person to choose pleasurable activities over painful ones. However, there was certainly an element of unconscious escapism at play. Whenever he was alone, he would inevitably find himself recalling Lira’s expressions and words, and Hyulick would become utterly despondent.

The two former subordinates accompanying Fan Hyulick, Mikhail Walenkov and Louis Edmond Pagès, expressed a decidedly optimistic view upon seeing the wanted poster of their superior.

“Well, Admiral Hyulick’s become quite the celebrity, hasn’t he? To think only a short while ago, he was just a hired commander.”

“We’d love to rise to a position where such a bounty is placed on our heads, wouldn’t we?”

Of course, despite their words, they weren’t actually optimistic about their own situation. After all, they had made an enemy of Tytania. It was tantamount to having the whole of human society against them. While they could not help but feel a shudder of dread, when they thought about it, a more terrifying situation was simply impossible.

Given that, the only way to maintain their mental equilibrium was to throw caution to the wind and remain defiant to the end. Both Walenkov and Pagès quite naturally chose to laugh it off rather than wail and lament. That said, as one’s jaw could sometimes dislocate from laughing too hard, both the burly Walenkov and the medium-stature Pagès were eagerly awaiting the day their superior would get serious.

Like them, there was a married couple waiting for the day when Fan Hyulick gets serious: Compton Casimir, the shipowner of the ''Honest Old Man'', and his wife, Miranda.

Miranda possessed a spirited temperament, but she was by no means lacking in intelligence. Her husband, Captain Casimir, while appearing gentle and thoughtful at times, has also taken resolute action: he threw his lot in with the anti-Tytania faction, took Hyulick under his wing, and participated in the assault against Count Arses Tytania. His actions were nothing short of daring. “His boldest act was definitely marrying Mrs Miranda,” remarked Doctor Lee. But since Miranda herself agreed with a laugh, this could hardly be considered an insult.

One day, a man became entangled in the web of connections of Miranda and Captain Casimir. Having once been Her Highness the Princess of the Principality of Casabianca, Miranda possessed a rather extensive network of contacts.

“His name is Salam Amzekar. So? Does that ring a bell?” asked Miranda, her expression suggesting she was undoubtedly overestimating Fan Hyulick’s memory.

It took him a moment to recall the name, but in the end, Fan Hyulick managed to pinpoint it correctly. Salam Amzekar was a young admiral who had served in the Vardana Imperial Army and had acted as military adviser to the Duchy of Turanzia’s fleet during the Battle of the Syracusa System. Defeated by the flawless combat command of Duke Ariabert Tytania, he was unable to return to his homeland and had gone into exile from the battlefield. He had been given no opportunity to demonstrate his abilities, and the defeat could not be attributed to him. Even so, the fact that he was on the surface of the same planet as Hyulick was surprising.

However, this was likely less a matter of chance than the result of both parties making unremarkable choices. It was, so to speak, common sense for a fugitive to choose Bargash as their immediate destination. Upon arriving in Bargash, they made the decision whether to blend into the planet’s population or to set off once more on a journey to another star.

To cater to their needs, people from various professions and their respective groups thrived on this planet. Orthopaedic surgeons, document forgers, people smugglers, make-up artists, anyone who would certainly never be commended by those in power were all active here. It was through these channels that Miranda was able to make contact with the disgraced defeated general.

“Admiral Amzekar hates Tytania, and he’s got connections. I reckon we’ll be able to join forces in future. You’ve probably got your own plans, but why not at least go and meet him?”

Without a word, Hyulick nodded.