Digging Into the Past (3)
The main storyline of Soul Academy branched off into three great threads.
First, there was the story tied to the Evil God faction, the ones working so hard right now to screw me over. It began from a single premise: ages ago, Grandpa and the rest of the Hero's party succeeded in sealing the Evil God — but no seal lasts forever. That premise lay underneath everything, the grand foundation of Soul Academy's entire narrative. Fail to deal with the Evil God within the time limit, and the words GAME OVER flashed across the screen. Whatever route you took, whatever concept you played, you had to crush the Evil God eventually if you wanted to see the ending at all. I figured that was exactly what the pathetic Chief God wanted from me, too. The way He overreacted the moment I compared Him to that petty Evil God told me He had plenty of resentment stacked up on that front. Then again, standing at the head of countless gods, I suppose it's hard to look kindly on a band of traitors who betrayed them all and tried to hoard their power for themselves.
One of the other stories was the tale of the corrupted Church of the Main God. Phoebe's case made it plain enough — that place was crawling with people you could never, by any stretch, call clean. Dig into that thread and you uncovered ugliness upon ugliness.
And the final main story was the one bound to the kingdom that Soul Academy called home. It was built on the chaotic free-for-all over who would claim the throne next — and cast in the role of final boss was the First Prince of the current kingdom. The man closest to the next crown. René Soladin. In other words, the very person Lucy had just been screaming about in that document as a gloomy, antisocial scrub of a prince.
Which meant that, without even realizing it, I had thrown down the gauntlet at the final boss. The Lucy of the past was a lunatic who had stood before the reigning king himself and called him a smelly livestock pig. Did anyone seriously believe a girl like that would watch her vocabulary when facing the First Prince? As if! She would have hurled every insult in the book straight into his face!
Haaah. This was a man who turned filthy and troublesome the moment you got on his bad side even slightly, and I have to start our relationship at maximum hostility. I honestly feel like throwing up. The academy tutorial isn't finished yet, so I won't have to look at his face for now — but the moment I become a second-year, we'll be running into each other constantly. Ugh. These days I already have to make emergency escape maneuvers whenever Cecil's face appears on campus, and now René gets added to the list on top of that... Horrifying. Genuinely.
"You were a girl, I see."
'What of it, Grandfather?'
"I offer you my deepest apologies. You have done wrong, truly — committing so many sins without a single thought for your own heart. Might I beg forgiveness for the karma of your former self?"
At first I assumed he'd simply been startled by how different I was from the girl I used to be, but as the conversation went on, I realized that wasn't it at all. Grandpa was mocking me. Blatantly. He had unearthed a diary stuffed with his granddaughter's black history and was now cackling his way through it, page by page. What a man who has aged for nothing. If he hadn't shown me this inside our mental link, I'd have doubted the man was ever a hero at all.
'You really think I'd act like that now?' But really, Grandpa — no matter how you slice it, none of it does me the slightest harm. It's not like I'm the one who did those things. When I met his string of mischievous jabs with perfect composure, Grandpa cleared his throat and moved on. "...Hm. That is true enough. People do change."
'Keep teasing me like this, Grandfather, and I might just turn back into her, you know.'
"Hahaha. Do be careful, then."
But honestly, the real mystery is how Lucy managed to survive this long. With the kind of trouble she stirred up, forget noble debutante — she should've ended up on a guillotine. Given that Benedict cleaned up the vast majority of her disasters, it must have something to do with him, but I can't help being curious. Would Alsaetin know about this too?
'Um, Alsaetin...'
"Hey, info peddler. Forget all that — I've got a better question for you. What kind of person is our idiot Lord Father, exactly?"
He smoothed things over when she insulted the king. Smoothed things over when she insulted the prince. Smoothed things over when she wrecked havoc in the Church. No ordinary man could pull off feats like that. What on earth is Benedict?
"...The daughter of Sir Benedict Aln tells me she does not know her own father?"
That was the question I'd asked Alsaetin, and he gaped at me in sheer disbelief — the look of a man who couldn't fathom how the daughter of House Aln, of all people, could possibly be ignorant of such a thing. Yes, yes, I know it's profoundly abnormal. But listen here.
'Why would I need to know that?'
"Why would I know what stupid messes my idiot father got up to?"
Think about it with common sense for a second. Would a woman who wiped the memory of insulting the king and the crown prince clean out of her head actually remember things about her own father?
I deployed the Invincible Lucy Shield, and Alsaetin — flustered for a moment — strangely came around to it, then stared off into empty air with a look of profound pity on his face. What. What's with that reaction.
"I find myself growing sorry for that Benedict fellow..."
'Why are YOU doing it too, Grandfather?!'
"Wretched as the girl was, the man did his utmost for her sake because she was his daughter — and the answer he received in return was 'what does that have to do with me.'"
Listening to Grandpa and thinking it over... yeah, there's really no excusing that wretched girl. Some father, however much of a mess his daughter was, ran himself ragged left and right to save her neck simply because she was his blood — and that daughter had the gall to spout things like 'whatever Father does is none of my business.' But I'm not Lucy! I'm just a poor victim who got possessed into Lucy's body thanks to that son of a bitch who programmed the Mesugaki trait! So how would I know anything about Benedict? The man never even appeared in the game!
I fought desperately, inside, to prove that I wasn't the trash she had been — but it was all in vain. It was nothing more than a hollow cry that could never be voiced to anyone else.
"Commit it to memory at the very least, and henceforth. From the sound of things, Benedict suffered mightily on your behalf — you owe him that much, surely."
'...Yeees.'
Grandpa's words were such unimpeachable common sense that nodding along was the only thing left for me to do. So unfair. I haven't done a single thing wrong.
"Sir Benedict Aln is a hero of national salvation."
As if there were no need to consult a single record, Alsaetin began reciting Benedict's deeds right there in front of me. The time he repelled a dragon that had stormed the royal castle, alone. The time an S-rank dungeon erupted and the nation teetered on the brink of ruin, and he led his family's knights to clear it. The time a dispute with a foreign power broke out, and his name alone was enough to bring the conflict to a halt. And there were more accomplishments besides — several more — from Benedict's prime.
"I knew the man was strong, but this is a monster on an entirely different tier."
When the word monster spilled from the lips of Grandpa — once a member of the party that had saved the world — it was safe to call Benedict a living, breathing legend. I marveled along with the story, but inside, I was thinking about something else entirely. The achievements Benedict had just racked up? Those were things that were supposed to belong to other characters.
The dragon-slaying deed, for instance, had been the Royal Knight Commander's — a piece of characterization meant to showcase the might of the kingdom's strongest fighting force. The S-rank dungeon subjugation was the same. That was never meant to be resolved by a single family's accomplishment; it was designed as a problem the kingdom barely solved through cooperation with the Church, a story beat intended to expand the Church's influence within the kingdom. Every other achievement followed the same pattern. Feats that should have belonged to others. Disasters that should have grown larger and inflicted far greater damage. All of them had been resolved by Benedict's hand.
With the situation like this, it was only natural that Lucy's neck was still attached to her shoulders. The achievements mattered, yes — but more than that, the sheer, overwhelming military power that Benedict and his house commanded was intimidating enough on its own. This was Benedict, famed far and wide as a fool for his daughter. Who, in their right mind, would step forward and denounce Lucy Aln to his face? And how would you justify turning a frontier count family — one capable of standing alone against an entire small nation — into your enemy?
I'd known House Aln was strong, but I never imagined it was this strong. So the count family backing me up was an absolute monster of a household?! My insight into the game's lore is failing me here!
"With Sir Benedict Aln watching over you, my lady, you may rest assured of your safety."
'Understood.'
"You thought I couldn't grasp something that basic, info peddler? Do me a favor and stop comparing your intellect to mine, thanks."
"...I am relieved you found it so clear, my lady."
But if that many things had been changed, the main storyline should have shifted in all sorts of ways too... I've only been able to look around House Aln and the Academy so far, but out there beyond, all manner of things must exist that I never anticipated. Even Bishop Johann being stationed with House Aln is something that never appeared in the game. If this were a game, adding a single mesugaki character would be a neat little line item. Reality, it turns out, makes everything this messy. I'm sad that the moments when my game knowledge becomes useless are only going to multiply from here on out. When that day comes, I suppose I'll just wail for Grandpa-emon and beg him to fix it.
"Is there anything else you wish to ask?"
'Yes...'
"Right, then, info peddler. That item you swore you'd get me — when exactly is it arriving? My patience with your incompetence has its limits, you know. Pathetic little info peddler."
Some time ago, after Phoebe had come to understand her own truth, I had asked Alsaetin to procure one thing for me.
"You mean the Scroll of Silence, of course."
The Scroll of Silence. A parchment crafted by the order that serves Harpo, the God of Silence, and its effect was this: it kept any conversation held within a room from leaking a single word to the outside. Simply put, it was an item that created a space where secrets could be spoken. The things Phoebe and I would need to discuss going forward were exactly the kind of talk that would cause endless trouble if anyone else overheard — and we couldn't exactly have those conversations just anywhere. So the plan was to bring Phoebe to my room and use the Scroll of Silence to seal it into a closed chamber. That way, even the most seditious of conversations wouldn't cause a stir.
"I was already intending to deliver it to you."
Alsaetin drew the scroll from inside his coat as if he'd been waiting for exactly this moment and held it out before me. Fast. Given how popular the item was among the upper crust, I'd half expected it to take longer. Say what you would — his talent for getting his hands on things like this was genuinely superb.
'Thank you, Alsaetin.'
"Hmph. Decent speed, for a useless loser."
"It is my honor, Lady Aln."
Well then. Time to go have that talk with Phoebe, I suppose. I wonder if I can actually pull it off.