99
Chapter 99
"...That concludes my report."
The Imperial Palace of the Empire.
In the Third Princess's office, Balzac made that declaration.
The blonde girl frowned and pressed her hand to her forehead. Her head was starting to throb from the headache that was creeping in.
'Why does nothing seem to go right lately?'
It wasn't like her to blindly trust her instincts and act on them without reason. Her intuition actually had a fairly high success rate.
It was supposed to be reliable.
But lately, that instinct seemed to have completely gone haywire.
"Did you really investigate this thoroughly? You didn't just half-ass it and miss something important, did you?"
The Third Princess asked, but all she got back was a flawless report.
Making her suspicions seem pointless, the woman named Rubia was just an ordinary entrepreneur.
She hadn't hidden her identity because she had some grand secret. She was simply afraid that people already in the potion business would sabotage her.
Rubia had no connection to Black Fang whatsoever.
Having explained those facts once more, Balzac turned to leave.
"Wait."
Something about his demeanor bothered her, so she stopped him.
"......Never mind. Just go about your business."
She eventually let him go.
Even though she tended to act on impulse rather than carefully planning things out, there was still a line she wouldn't cross.
That face, that tone, those mannerisms—they were all the same as usual.
She couldn't exactly interrogate someone just because she had a vague feeling something was off.
Her condition lately must really be terrible.
With that thought, the Third Princess sank into her plush chair and let out a sigh.
"Maybe there really is something wrong with me...."
Her personality just leaned toward following intuition over logic. It wasn't that she couldn't think logically at all.
Come to think of it, investigating Rubia had been a meaningless choice from the start.
The Second Prince.
That wretched brother of hers was being petty, refusing to share information with her. But he still didn't know about the puppet's existence.
She had been briefed.
The Leader of Black Fang.
That bastard hadn't stepped out of his quarters once in 30 days. Even the Executives rarely left their quarters.
Black Fang was a more meticulous organization than she'd thought.
They weren't running around causing chaos in the Empire. They were lying low, making calculated moves to overthrow the Empire.
And that kind of organization would be involved in the potion business?
Selling potions at a discount to save people, risking exposure to the Empire just to run a business?
There's a limit to how little sense something can make.
It was true that Black Fang frequently conducted relief activities. But relief activities only had meaning when done openly.
Hiding her identity and doing good deeds wouldn't increase her support base at all.
Black Fang had absolutely no reason to engage in such meaningless activities.
In other words, it was reasonable to conclude that the woman named Rubia's actions had nothing to do with Black Fang.
In truth, she had vaguely known that all along....
"I can't help but worry about it...."
She couldn't hold back and ended up meddling.
And that led to the worst possible outcome.
That wretched blood relative.
The Second Prince, who had been riding high lately.
For some reason, the heavyweights of the Imperial Intelligence Department had thrown their support behind him in the succession struggle, making his faction more powerful than before.
He had been itching to take her down for a long time.
And then, boom! A perfect justification appeared.
-Father entrusted me with command. Surely you wouldn't prioritize your private investigation over Father's wishes.
Words that came from his own mouth.
The day this came to light, that brother of hers would enthusiastically try to bury her.
She just needed to hide it well, right?
But it was impossible to comfort herself with the thought that silencing Balzac would be the end of it.
-Knock knock!
Because she had absolutely terrible luck with brothers.
"...Come in."
The moment those words left her mouth, a man appeared with shimmering golden hair and blue eyes.
Her blood relative.
Not the gorilla-like one with the burly build who always had a cigar in his mouth, but a more slender, pretty-boy type.
In other words, her eldest brother.
The First Prince had come to visit her office.
"You haven't forgotten our promise, have you?"
That was the first thing he said upon entering, so naturally her brow furrowed.
She couldn't help it.
She was already caught by the short hairs.
The fact that she had used Balzac without authorization, and that the Second Prince would tear her apart if he found out.
That bastard had figured it all out.
He must have used magic or something.
She didn't know how he'd reached that level, but the man before her was undoubtedly an Archmage.
"I know, so stop pestering me. When have you ever seen me break a promise?"
With those words, she pulled out a necklace.
An artifact created with their father's power.
Something she had received as a reward for her past achievements.
A precious item that allowed her to control a Corpse Puppet made by recycling the corpse of a Hero's long-dead companion.
"But what are you planning to use this for?"
But if it was just lending it temporarily as hush money, it was a reasonable deal.
She handed the necklace to the First Prince and asked.
Truth be told, she hadn't expected an answer. She figured he'd just brush it off.
But for some reason.
"I need power. I'll be facing a formidable enemy, and one can never have too many countermeasures."
The First Prince answered her question plainly.
That smile on his lips. The Third Princess could tell that the man before her was uncharacteristically excited.
"Did you eat something wrong? Usually you're stingy even with unimportant information. What's gotten into you today?"
"...If only you watched that mouth of yours, you'd have been far more successful. Your blessed intuition is entirely undermined by your careless personality—it's truly a shame."
A veiled insult with no attempt to hide it.
It was essentially the same as saying, 'Please show some manners when you speak, you classless bastard.'
Normally she would have blown up and cursed him out. But strangely, his words gnawed at her.
The phrase 'blessed intuition' nagged at her strangely. For someone who always sneered at her for relying on some weird gut feeling to suddenly say that—it felt completely off.
Her frozen face was soon painted with horror. There was only one possible explanation.
He must have picked up on something from the careless words she'd thrown out. Add that to his claim of preparing to face a powerful enemy, and the answer was obvious.
"...Don't tell me you found it?"
He had found it.
Black Fang.
A way to capture that bastard.
As if confirming her suspicion, the First Prince flashed an unpleasant smile.
"Whatever I do has nothing to do with you. Just sit back and watch."
Her Older Brother spoke in that grating tone of his.
Naturally, her teeth ground together....
But damn it all, she had no rebuttal.
Which of her guesses had been right. What he was planning to do with that information.
Even if she found out, there was nothing she could do about it. She was already in hot water over the Balzac situation.
She couldn't afford any more rogue actions.
The First Prince departed leisurely.
His face filled with certainty of his own victory.
The Third Princess kept grinding her teeth and fuming until he closed the door and left.... Then she stopped.
Because a strange, profoundly strange intuition washed over her.
Her brother's plan would succeed. But that success would become poison—an intuition that made no logical sense.
She had no intention of telling him anyway. So it didn't really matter....
But regardless, it started to bother her.
'What kind of organization is Black Fang, really?'
She couldn't grasp their true nature at all. No matter how hard she tried to chase them, she couldn't catch them. She couldn't even imagine a future where they lost.
Her intuition wasn't always right. But she still couldn't shake the unease.
...The Leader of Black Fang.
What kind of scheme was that monster hatching right now. The Third Princess began to feel genuine fear.
*****
I genuinely started to become afraid of the girl before me.
The mansion was practically a ruin.
Ciel approached me as I lay resting on a makeshift bed.
Without a word, Ciel very naturally slipped under the covers.
I stared at her with bewildered eyes at her utterly bizarre and shameless behavior, and the question she threw back was.
"Does it bother you?"
It was a dilemma of the century where either choice led to my doom.
If I said it did, I'd be a crazy pervert. If I said it didn't, I'd obviously have to spend the night like this.
This was the most troublesome situation imaginable.
I certainly thought so, but...
"......Why are you guys here too?"
I was wrong.
A blue-haired girl and a white-haired girl had appeared before my eyes.
"The fortress is destroyed, leaving us exposed to danger from all sides. For security purposes, it would be best to stand guard nearby."
Lucy declared.
"Y-yeah. That's what I was thinking too."
Saying that, Rien sneakily tried to slip into the bed.
"What a relief. Please take care of the blind spots, Rien."
The dumbfounded girl was caught by Lucy. Rien, who had been trying to invade the bed, was forced to volunteer for night watch duty alongside Lucy with a bitter taste in her mouth.
And the last to appear in that exasperating situation was...
Rubia, her face flushed as red as a beet.
Unlike the others, she seemed aware that she was doing something embarrassing.
'...Did she come here because she's scared?'
Well, a ruined mansion in the middle of the night was pretty scary. Considering what happened recently, it made sense she'd be frightened if everyone suddenly disappeared.
I definitely understood how she felt, but.
As the only sane person here, I had to say what needed to be said. So I opened my mouth and spoke.
"What are you all doing here? You need to get proper rest. It's not like four people can sleep in a single bed."
But...
I should have realized.
That common sense would never work on the people here in the first place.
"Don't worry."
A voice called out from beside me.
At the same time, Ciel climbed on top of me.
Our bodies completely overlapped.
After pulling off such a bizarre stunt, Ciel proudly announced her amazing and revolutionary discovery to the world.
"If we do this, multiple people can sleep in one bed."
...I decided to stop thinking.