Princess Isis Is Not the Heroine
"...If I followed my heart, I would see them dead. They may be unable to threaten me, but I cannot deny they are shoots that could threaten Arthur."
"Is it really that serious? They're just an adopted daughter and a bastard, aren't they?"
Lee Han could not understand why she fretted over them so. Yes, topping the Academy was impressive, but their blood was nothing beside that little one's. The others might have been born with diamond spoons, yet set against the child's lineage they would shrink to cheap tin from the neighborhood market.
"Yes. For the present, that is so."
"...For the present?"
"What I am about to tell you is a secret known to three people alone, myself among them. You are not to go babbling it anywhere."
"Then I don't want to hear it."
"I decline. You will listen."
...What a tyrant.
"First, Irene Windler. They say my uncle adopted the child because Irene looks exactly like the wife he lost."
"Tsk. Trust a noble to have a refined hobby. Taking in a substitute."
"Do not sneer. Longing is the same whether one is common or noble. He must miss my aunt dearly."
So it was understandable that he would take in, as a foster daughter, a woman who resembled his wife well enough. And yet—
"This is the royal house's analysis, but there is a high chance Irene Windler is my uncle's blood child."
"...Huh?"
"Irene Windler may be the only daughter of my uncle, second in the line of succession. My aunt's cause of death was a fall. She was full-term at the time, and it is highly likely she passed after bearing the child."
"She f-fell, and she still could have lived?"
"My aunt was a fairy. A noble lady who carried a Mystery hardly inferior to royalty's, so it is far from impossible that she lived long enough to give birth, and only then departed."
"......"
"Does it astonish you so? Certainly, I myself was shocked in more ways than one when I learned of it."
"...Hmm."
Well. Whatever had startled him and whatever had startled her were probably not the same thing.
Why does this feel familiar...
A secret of birth. Extraordinary blood. A mage risen out of poverty who entered the Academy at the head of her class. And last of all, taken into the ducal house of a man who might be her true father, because her face resembled the duchess.
This was completely...
Isn't this the setup for a romance-fantasy heroine?
Back in his NCO days, among the comics he read to endure the boredom of night duty, there had been a genre like that. Possession inside a romance game or novel, and a life turned clean around...
No. I'm reading too much into it.
Lee Han tried to shake the idle thought off. She was a woman with a sad past; looking on her warmly was the normal reaction of an adult...
"—There is, however, something peculiar about Irene Windler. Day after day she says, as if by habit, 'I have somewhere else I must return to,' and there is word that she made a strange contract: should my uncle take in another foster daughter who is not her within two years, the adoption is to be canceled at once."
"Yeah. This is the real thing."
"Hm? What did you say?"
"Ah, nothing."
"...?"
Lee Han was certain. That woman. No question.
...So I wasn't the only one?
He had never arrogantly assumed he alone had landed in a situation this strange. He simply had not expected one to turn up so suddenly—and in a genre this painfully obvious.
Then this world was a rofan world?
But why was it so hopeless, so utterly shitty, without a dream or a hope in it?
Just as that thought struck Lee Han—
"However, as yet there are only grounds for suspicion. That she is my uncle's daughter has not been confirmed. If some means of proving her his true daughter should appear later, that is another matter, but until then Irene Windler is no more than a latent enemy. The young lord of Lionel is different."
"Why him?"
Was the kid one of those future grand dukes of the North who turned up all the time in rofan?
"Because that young lord stands under suspicion of possessing Foresight."
"......"
"They say the whelp called Roen began, seven years ago, to distinguish himself all at once. At thirteen he defeated a trainee knight of the grand ducal house and took the man as his squire. Every venture that all the world said would fail, he made succeed the moment he laid a hand on it. On top of that, he unveiled a far more advanced new Fighting Art and proved himself a genius."
"...Hah."
"Since then that whelp has become one of the leading candidates to succeed House Lionel. Bastard or not, he showed achievement and talent to that degree, so the grand duke must have valued it and granted him the chance. In which case—"
The explanation that followed barely reached his ears. No—he did not need to hear it to grasp the shape of it. This was a cliché every bit as obvious as Irene Windler's.
What is it this time? A regression story?
One of the genres that had been wildly popular for a while. If he had to put a title on it, something like I Regressed from a Ruined World and Saved It would do.
Is this for real?
Just as Lee Han's feelings grew more tangled, her explanation drew to a close.
"—And so, nothing he does is the sort of thing that succeeds unless he knows the future. We are surmising that he may have awakened the Mystery of Foresight, which legend says a great mage once possessed. And should a man of that order become grand duke, he comes upon the royal house as a threat beyond compare."
"...I doubt it."
"Hm? Have you some guess?"
"Ah, no. Just... from the look of him, he doesn't seem like that kind of guy."
"Ho. That, too, must be bound up with your 'instinct'? I shall bear it in mind."
"...Ahem."
He had not exactly lied, but it left him strangely uneasy.
Sis is definitely grabbing the wrong end of this... but there's no way I can say so.
Starting from his past life and trying to explain possession and regression would only wear his mouth out, and earn him nothing but the name of a madman.
Forget it.
Better to spare his words. Keep still, and you were already halfway there. That law held even in a medieval fantasy world. What did it matter whether this world was a rofan, or a world inside a regression story?
As long as I eat well and live well, that's enough.
...And if someone made a nuisance of themselves, he could just break them. Lee Han had already declared that he would live simply, rather than complicate the world.
"—In any case, if you have heard my explanation, you know why I want them dead."
"Yes, yes. Dangerous people."
"...Your face is not, in the least, the face of someone who agrees."
"I am agreeing. I've heard the explanation well enough, so just say it. What is it you want to ask of me?"
"...You really are ill-mannered."
She was in earnest, and he answered so flatly that the mood simply would not catch. Isis spoke in a curt tone.
"I need to know that these are people who will not become a threat to Arthur's power."
"Then why not just bring them in and ask?"
"How is one to trust what a person keeps inside? I do not trust people's words."
"Then what do you trust?"
"......"
It was a rather fine line. One that struck deep. A tongue like that was probably what it took to become a king.
"That is why I would have you come to know them. With your eyes—no, with your senses—you ought to be able to learn something."
"...The explanation was so damn long I thought the favor would be something enormous, and that was all it was?"
He nearly gaped, then stopped short of it. In the end, wasn't she just telling him to use his senses, judge clearly whether they were threats, and come back? After a speech that grand, the conclusion left Lee Han feeling nothing but flat.
"No. It must not be decided from a single meeting."
"...??"
"They are still young. Just now they may have no hunger for power, but if time passes, their nature may change. So they must be supervised and watched at all times."
"...Just asking. How long is that?"
"At least the three years they attend the Academy, I should think. By then the measure of them ought to be clear."
"......"
"So I shall ask it of you, you—"
"Not buying it. Not buying."
"...Cutting someone off is an exceedingly bad habit."
"In the present situation, I'd say it's an excellent one."
"...Mmm."
"Ooh?"
Arthur, unused to seeing his mother displeased when things failed to go as she wished, tilted his head with a cute little cock. Lee Han paid it no mind. He simply held his ground and watched.
"We're done, right? Then..."
He meant to leave without so much as a glance back. There was a limit to playing along with a cruel game of make-believe—
Thud.
"...Huh?"
"Drink it."
A small glass bottle was flung, out of nowhere, at the man who had been about to rise without a moment's hesitation. Purple liquid sloshed inside, and Lee Han blinked.
"You want me to drink this when I don't even know what it is?"
"You will not regret it. And I swear upon the name of Pendragon. There is no trick in that medicine."
"......"
A royal putting their house name on the line. That was an oath sworn upon the soul. To give an example: some wretch who scattered campaign promises made that oath, and later, if he failed to keep them, the pain of a soul being torn apart came calling tens of thousands of times in a single day. In the end, an oath was a life of nothing but pain and curses until you finally took your leave of the world.
And so Lee Han—
"For crying out loud."
Then he had better drink it.
Pop.
Lee Han yanked the stopper without hesitation and downed the liquid. She had said it would not be a loss. Which meant it was something capable of tempting him, and sure enough...
"...Mmm?!"
"Hah."
Lee Han was aghast, and Isis wore the smile of a victor, as if the winner of this game had just been decided. Nor could he deny it.
...I have to take this. No question.
And for good reason. A signal had come from the part of him that had been rendered impotent. At a sensation he had not felt in fifteen years, he thought the tears might actually come.