The Protagonist Always Shows Up Late! (※Not an Attention Seeker)
—Clank-clank.
If anyone asked what the hottest topic on the continent was right now, one hundred out of one hundred would answer without hesitation: the Emperor’s railway industry.
It was the industry that had completely overturned the flow of the era and smashed the long-standing balance of the Three Kingdoms into pieces.
What everyone had shaken their heads at as pure delusion from the Emperor had become reality under the name of revolution, and that revolution had become the beacon of a new age.
The reason the Empire’s influence had grown even inside Lyceum—the city once called inviolable—was ultimately because of these railways as well.
“Damn it.”
The one-way train from the capital bound for Lyceum.
The splendid golden train, operated entirely under the Imperial Family’s name, was racing toward Lyceum at high speed.
Even if the railways had exerted enormous influence on the Empire’s development and wealth, running the trains themselves demanded astronomical sums of money.
And yet this train was racing to Lyceum for the sake of a single person alone.
The Empire’s Third Princess, Lucia von Melizeus.
Her striking golden hair gleaming, she sat by the window and watched the scenery outside transform in an instant.
It felt as though they had only just left the capital, yet the train was already running through the outskirts of Lyceum.
The sheer speed and convenience were on an entirely different level from any existing means of travel.
It was the very symbol of the Empire’s power, and the tip of that power had now reached Lyceum as well.
This was the fruit of the Emperor’s hard-won bargain at the Three Kingdoms Conference, though even his own daughter Lucia had no idea what methods he had used to pull it off.
The only fact she truly knew was this: she was heading to Lyceum as a political tool.
From long ago, Aegis Academy in Lyceum had frequently received exchange students—major figures from the Three Kingdoms sent both to cultivate goodwill with Lyceum and to prevent the other nations from expanding their influence there.
In truth they were national envoys wearing the mask of students, and this time the role had been scheduled to fall to the young lady of House Leonhart, the family that had risen to the Empire’s highest ducal seat.
But with the railway now laid into Lyceum, the Emperor had pushed for his youngest daughter Lucia’s enrollment at Aegis, and so the envoy’s duty had fallen to her instead of the Leonhart daughter.
His calculation was simple: placing a member of the Imperial Family directly inside Aegis would strengthen the Empire’s voice within the academy, and greater Imperial standing at Aegis would make contact with Lyceum itself far easier.
Moreover, the mere presence of an Imperial bloodline at Aegis would serve as pressure and a check against the other two nations.
As a result, Aegis was about to welcome the largest number of Imperial students in its history, and the other two countries—wary of that fact—had also dispatched their own royalty or equivalent figures to Lyceum.
The tension born from the shattered balance of power was now spreading with Lyceum at its center.
“That damn father of mine.”
Originally Lucia had been set to enter the Imperial Kazin Academy in the capital, and she herself had wanted exactly that.
She had no desire to become Emperor, but she did want to carve out a position that no one could push around.
Admission to the Imperial Academy had been the most necessary step for that, and she had planned to build her own faction there. Now that she was instead attending Aegis Academy, that plan had completely fallen apart.
“Rotten father.”
She looked down at the white-and-blue Aegis uniform she was wearing.
A uniform she wanted to rip off this very second.
Soon she would have to stand before everyone as the representative of the new students, wearing this very outfit.
Even as an Imperial princess, she would have to show the world the sight of herself being used like a tool by her nation, by the Imperial Family, by her own father.
Will I really be able to endure this goddamn academy life?
While others carried vague expectations about the academy, Lucia carried only anxiety.
Aegis Academy.
Located in Lyceum, one might assume its primary purpose was teaching magic, but that is only half true.
It is true that Aegis possesses overwhelmingly superior magical curricula and research facilities compared to other academies, yet that does not mean the other areas are lacking.
Aegis maintains a near-perfect educational system in every field; the only academy that can even be compared to it is the Imperial Kazin Academy.
And now that news has spread that the Third Princess is entering Aegis instead of Kazin, Aegis’s prestige has risen to a completely unparalleled level.
Students who enter this continent-renowned academy usually fall into one of two categories.
The first is connections.
Children of the continent’s most prestigious houses or wealthy families, or those backed by such people.
My young lady and I fall into this category.
Of course, even those who enter through connections have usually completed rigorous education from childhood, and those under a great house’s patronage have had their talent recognized by that house, so criticism of this path is relatively mild.
There are occasional unqualified, talentless students who slip in, so negative opinions are not entirely absent—but my young lady and I are among the top talents of this year’s intake, so that criticism has nothing to do with us.
The second is ability.
Passing the separate entrance examination held by Aegis and earning the right to enroll.
Lower nobles and commoners usually take this route into Aegis Academy.
I have heard that a few radical types who take pride in this path criticize high nobles who entered through connections, claiming they got in “just because of their bloodline,” but such people are a tiny minority.
After all, if someone entered Aegis through connections, their parents must be truly formidable people. What lunatic would casually insult a family like that?
No matter how much Aegis preaches equality, unless someone genuinely wants their entire family dead, no one is crazy enough to openly display that kind of hostility.
“New student representative Lucia von Melizeus, step forward.”
And so, when the Empire’s princess stood before the podium as the new student representative, a heavy silence settled over the freshmen.
Brilliantly shining golden hair and flawless, blemish-free skin.
A presence that, the moment she appeared, filled the entire auditorium with the pressure of Imperial blood—as if to prove she was no ordinary royal.
Lucia von Melizeus, the 5-star character whose popularity had been most divided in Destiny.
“Ugh, for a princess like me to end up like this…! What are you staring at?! Do you want to die?!”
—Grit.
And she was also one of the great sinners who, together with the original Noir, had insulted maids.
I had already accepted that my young lady was a different person from the original Noir, so I no longer had to fight to restrain my rampaging Maid Soul the way I had at our first meeting. Even so, I could not completely control the wariness I felt toward the princess.
When enrollment at the academy had been decided and I had reviewed my knowledge of the original story, the first thing I had resolved was my young lady’s safety and well-being. The second was to prevent that bitch from ever putting on a maid bikini.
In my young lady’s case I now had both belief and confirmation that she would never commit such a blasphemous act. That princess, however, was different.
Considering that it was currently April, the time remaining until that lunatic put on a maid bikini was a mere four months.
No matter how different this world might be from the original, how different could a person be only four months earlier?
Perhaps I should simply treat that princess as completely identical to the original.
That was why my attention remained fixed on the princess—and on the protagonist who still had not appeared.
If that princess once again fell for the protagonist’s sweet talk and ordered such an outrage, I would burn this body of mine to ash to stop that catastrophic event.
When that time came, it would not be the ultra-perfect☆ maid Blancjean who acted, but the assassin Nameless who would eliminate the princess.
But why was the most important person—the protagonist—still nowhere to be seen?
I had marked him as the highest-priority surveillance target because countless incidents, including the maid bikini, would revolve around him. Yet no one who looked like the protagonist was anywhere in sight.
In the original, the protagonist heroically saved an extra, woke early thanks to nursing from Noir—who was an acquaintance of that extra—and arrived at the entrance ceremony by the skin of his teeth.
That was how he was supposed to build a connection with Noir and let the story progress. Yet even though I had been stuck to my young lady’s side the entire time, no one resembling the protagonist had appeared even after the entrance ceremony began.
Hmm, did I mix up the original story somehow?
It doesn’t feel like it…
Ah, whatever.
It’ll work out somehow.
Noir’s eyes sparkled as she continuously surveyed the entire auditorium where the entrance ceremony had begun.
When does the entrance test start?
Aegis had no particular entrance test.
Of course, children who entered through the ordinary route did take an exam, but that was a completely different kind of test from the one Noir had in mind.
What kind of entrance test was it if they did not throw you into a subspace or a forest and order you to kill each other from that moment on?
At the very least there should be oral examinations that verified internal mana and sorted students by rank, or one-on-one duels to verify ability, before something could truly be called an “entrance test.”
According to what Noir had investigated, however, Aegis had never had any such entrance-test process up to now.
Which left only one remaining possibility.
When is the magic-beast attack?
A test disguised as an entrance ceremony, designed to gauge the students’ level.
A sudden appearance of a dangerous large-scale magic beast that would take down the faculty, followed by a check of how the panicking students handled the crisis—that was what remained.
Noir casually shifted her gaze to Blanc’s shadow.
In preparation for exactly that moment, she had ordered Blanc’s shadow “Bokja” to swallow a full set of magic-beast extermination equipment.
Blanc had worn an expression that suggested she had no idea why any of it was necessary, but soon enough Blanc would be astonished by her foresight.
—“To have anticipated and prepared for something like this… as expected of Young Lady! I, Blanc, have completely fallen for your wisdom.”
—“Heh heh. Blanc, it’s still too early to be that surprised. I’m a far more amazing person than you think.”
—“Please, grant me permission to remain by your side for the rest of my life.”
Hehe. Hehehe…
Come on, then! Bring it!
No matter what magic beast shows up, I’ll handle it!
“I, Lucia von Melizeus, representing the new students of Aegis this year…”
—Creeeak, bang!
While Noir was doing her utmost to keep her expression neutral and stay ready for the magic-beast attack, the auditorium doors suddenly slammed open with a loud noise.
Finally!
Every gaze in the auditorium—including Noir’s—snapped toward the doors. Lucia, forced to break off mid-sentence, swallowed her irritation and also turned her eyes that way.
“Huh…?”
But contrary to Noir’s expectations, what stepped through the auditorium doors was neither a gigantic magic beast nor a blood-soaked guard coming to announce an attack.
The one who opened the doors was a shabby-looking girl whose forehead was swollen red and whose entire body was covered in dust. She looked around as if she could not comprehend the situation, then hurriedly scrambled toward her seat.
“What the hell is that kid?”
Someone muttered in disbelief at the anticlimactic behavior after such a dramatic entrance.
It was a thought shared by every single person in the auditorium, Noir included.