The Empire of Reimia (3)

Marey was angry. Angry at Rinze. Angry at Mari. Angry at Shogo. Angry at himself. Throughout October, he endured terrible, pointless, exhausting training sessions. He choked on bloody phlegm, fainted, and his face took on the appearance of blood-stained snow – a red flush on his cheeks against an overall deathly pale complexion. In general, nothing out of the ordinary for him, but it didn't boost his enthusiasm. He had to skip Astilbe's lecture. Tom Shogo was literally relegated to the back burner – time and again, he would start reading, but he couldn't get past the first dozen pages. Instead of forming a coherent chain, the words clumped together in his head into an unsightly mess, and after half an hour, Marey completely stopped understanding what information he had read. On his day off, the aspiring demonologist finally abandoned his futile attempts and, annoyed by his imperfect mind, picked up the codex to read.
Smoothing out the crumpled pages – a reminder of his first attempt, when, particularly enraged by some "truth" from the first chapter, he threw the ill-fated book against the wall – Marey began to skim through page after page. He skipped the first part.
Chapter 2.
"Courage... Honor... Poisoning of the soul... Poisoning of the soul and brain decay will happen to me if I take all this nonsense seriously. Not a bad attempt to make me charge at machine guns with a katana, but no. Next..."
Chapter 3
"Justice... And am I not just? Am I not impartial in my judgments? Utter nonsense, all boiling down to the same thing – listen to Mother Rinze and don't be difficult."
Chapter 4
"The feelings of those around you... Ha, I understand too well what those around me are like. Go to hell, Rinze, all you want to do is standardize and paint interpersonal relationships gray. A world of faceless dummies who even speak according to a standard you invented, an identical mass of zombified people – that's your dream. Ugh, disgusting!"
Chapter 5
"Sincerity... Ha, what irony, how cleverly you slipped in this amendment. If I were sincere, I would be rewarded with a stake. Although, thinking about it... At least we can be free in our thoughts – some are not even given that. Eh... It's actually comforting. And in the realm of slavish identity, I am free to be myself, free in my thoughts."
Chapter 6
"Cosmetics? Ugh, you can't turn me into an old woman. When Larian has dolls, we make uniform dolls directly from people. Thousands of identical, plastered, trained soldiers... Brr."
Chapter 7
"And... is it even good? Well, the thought is correct. You can actually achieve a lot with patience and effort. And it even gives practical advice? Apparently, even here you can find some benefit, I didn't expect... I'll keep that in mind."

When the results of the history test were announced, Marey had to clamp his hand over his mouth to avoid bursting out laughing – the demagogic nonsense he had concocted in half an hour was given almost the highest score! Perhaps Marey had never lied so brazenly in his life as he did in his essay, but Evrial ate it up and even praised it.
"That's it, that's your sincerity and courage. You didn't write a single honest, original thought, and it turned out better than anything..."
Nevertheless, no matter how much Marey cheered himself up, no matter how much he smiled, inventing another patriotic lie, the test left a very unpleasant aftertaste. The need to lie was humiliating, each lie was an extra reminder of his true thoughts, and despite all his attempts to justify himself, Marey felt that by lying, he was betraying himself, and the irritation against the Empress and the new order gradually turned into a burning hatred for those who had put these invisible shackles on him.