62. A Beaming School Trip
62. A Beaming School Trip
The Empire's succession landscape was broadly divided into three factions.
The First Faction, which followed Leon.
The Second Faction, which supported the legitimate children with a modest age gap from Leon.
And the Third Faction, formed by Pia and the illegitimate children.
The imperial children had not all reached adulthood yet, so full-blown factional warfare hadn't broken out, and due to legitimacy and the sheer size of the forces involved, the First Faction was overwhelmingly dominant at present—but that didn't mean the other factions didn't exist.
Within the Second and Third Factions, there were also internal power struggles, and if you broke it down in detail, there were so many sub-factions that even I had trouble keeping track.
Of the three, the faction I loathed the most was the Third Faction.
The Second Faction, at least, maintained a degree of interaction with us.
That was partly because the possibility of the imperial child they supported succeeding was not literally zero percent, and partly because the faction had been created as a necessary counterbalance, since a monopolistic stranglehold was dangerous in politics.
In particular, even after Leon's enthronement, they would have to serve as the Noble Faction to keep the Imperial Faction in check, so their relationship with my First Faction was not, surprisingly, all that hostile.
Since they themselves knew they were a faction created out of necessity, they generally didn't cross the line.
The problem was the Third Faction.
Those bastards were like mold that had sprouted on its own without knowing its place.
Think about it rationally.
Why would anyone go so far as to form a faction to support an illegitimate child who had been pushed far down the succession order?
'Because they're easy to handle.'
Their reason for existing was never, in the first place, because they wanted the person I supported to become Emperor.
It was to suck up the honey that dripped from them—rotten though they might be, they were still imperial blood.
Of course, you couldn't call that unconditionally evil.
The reality was that for an imperial child with no succession rights to even survive, they had no choice but to accept the false loyalty of parasitic nobles like these, and even among the factions formed this way, genuine loyalty did surface here and there.
Moreover, the Third Faction was one that had been continually formed since the founding of the Empire, and one that the Imperial Family had, surprisingly, tolerated.
But there was another reason Leon and I despised them.
"Pigs who don't even realize the slop they're being fed is a favor, and dare to set their sights on climbing onto the table itself."
At my aggressive choice of words, Leon wore a surprised expression.
It was probably because he hadn’t expected me to use rhetoric, but as I’d stressed repeatedly, I avoided beating around the bush to prevent misunderstandings. It wasn’t because I couldn’t.
And the reason I used that expression now was because I genuinely couldn't think of any other way to properly describe what those people were doing.
The Imperial Household had tacitly permitted them feeding on the honey that dripped from the imperial children.
But human greed knew no end, and they were not satisfied with merely attaining their goal.
Their existence was tolerated solely so long as they upheld Pia's authority as an imperial princess.
But they were making Pia into a puppet.
Ordinarily, Pia had no need to study the art of kingship.
No—she wasn't supposed to learn it.
No matter how you looked at it, she didn't have the qualities of an Emperor, and the feasibility was too low.
If anything, learning the art of kingship would only make her ambiguous position more precarious.
Yet they had forced the girl, whose chances were slim at best, to study kingship, as if hoping to hit the lottery against all odds.
And while they were at it, far from nurturing any charisma she might develop, they used her kind-hearted nature to ensure that charisma could never raise its head.
They clung to her like treacherous sycophants, clouding her judgment and even egging her on to wield her authority irresponsibly.
They took the honey that flowed from all this for themselves and set Pia up as the scapegoat—an immature imperial child—so they were a breed I simply could not bring myself to like.
It was because of this fact that Uncle Emperor, the ministers, Leon, and I.
Could not bring ourselves to treat her harshly.
The guilt of having neglected her since childhood meant that when she caused accidents, we would silently clean up after her—but we could not bring ourselves to rebuke her.
Still, because her nature was kind, the accidents she caused always ended as nothing more than troublesome little incidents,
yet at the same time, that fact only intensified the rage I felt toward those pigs who sought to exploit the goodwill of her kind heart.
As I scowled at the stench of those pigs hiding their smiles behind her back, Leon jabbed me in the ribs.
"Fix your face."
"Sorry."
Before we came within their earshot, Leon said, “Let’s greet the pigs,” and took the lead.
"It's been a while, Pia."
"To think I'd see you here, Leon. So that scene left an impression on you as well?"
"It's the greatest scene created by my most treasured friend. How could I not come see it in person?"
When Leon subtly introduced me, I gave a curt bow toward Pia's entourage.
At that, Pia returned a barbed response aimed at Leon.
"Oh my. The greatest? I should think a word like 'greatest' hardly suits a scene so barbaric and shallowly provocative, don't you?"
It was a lie.
The last time filming wrapped and she came by the club room, she'd told me it was incredible, and had even gone so far as to copy and keep the original footage.
"Is that so. I take that to mean you count among your friends someone capable of producing an even more splendid scene."
"Heh heh. Naturally."
Afterward, the two led their respective retinues and strolled side by side, circling the tourist attraction.
The longer I listened to their conversation, the more my insides burned.
I knew the kind of conversations these siblings shared when her sycophants weren't around.
Leon dropped the royal “we,” while she called him “big brother” instead of using the hostile “Leon.”
Naturally, it was unavoidable in public, but I hated that the close siblings had to pretend to be enemies because they had to mind the pigs behind her, who manipulated her as they pleased.
Leon must have felt the same; a hint of melancholy lingered in his eyes as he looked at Pia.
Before long, Leon made a suggestion to her: why not explore inside the train, just the two of them?
It was probably because keeping up the hostile act would be too exhausting otherwise, and he wanted to get away from the followers' eyes for a while and compose his feelings.
Likely feeling the same way, Pia readily accepted Leon's suggestion.
The two told their retinues to wait near the escort train and headed for the Skeleton Train beyond the mounds of dirt.
As I stood silently watching the two of them disappear from view, the imperial children's absence sparked a battle of nerves among the nobles in the entourage.
It was mostly squabbling over who was more illustrious and whose family was more distinguished, but since I had no interest in any of that, I simply kept my gaze fixed in the direction Leon and Pia had gone.
Ready to sprint that way at a moment's notice should anything happen.
While I was focused on the two of them, someone spoke to me from behind.
"Are you the one called Allen?"
"?"
"You don’t know me? Figures. You’re exactly the sort of wastrel who skulks around the edges of high society."
What was with this guy?
Who meets someone for the first time and immediately beats them over the head with facts?
When you're meeting someone for the first time, aren't you supposed to gild their face with a few made-up lies?
What a coward.
"Yeah, I’m a wastrel and a social outcast because nobody ever invites me to gatherings. What’ve you ever done for me?"
Truth was, there were plenty of times I'd turned them down because my filming schedule was too hectic, but I figured denying the facts would just make me look pathetic, so I owned it cheerfully and moved on.
The delinquent (provisional label) in front of me clearly hadn't expected me to answer like that; his flustered expression was unmistakable.
"Wh-what’s with this guy?"
"So what do you want. Spit it out."
"Do you not even know the etiquette of the nobility? First, you ask after my family name—"
"Save it. Just tell me your business."
If it was a pissing contest he wanted, I'd let him win. Honor wasn't something that got tarnished by losing a pissing contest.
If it was criticism, I'd let it go in one ear and out the other. Baseless criticism couldn't wound me in the slightest.
If it was an attempt to drive a wedge, I'd welcome it. The bond between Leon and me wasn't so flimsy as to be broken by that.
As I looked down at the nameless delinquent with those thoughts in mind, something must have displeased him, because he spat on the ground right in front of my shoes before getting to the point.
"I am Talus Vandel of the Marquisate of Vandel. I'm told you were the one who created this train scene."
"And if I was?"
"Was your desire to fit in at the social gatherings really that desperate? Going so far as to steal the accomplishments of Sage Cervantes?"
"?"
What was this one babbling about now.
Was he honestly under the impression I'd swallowed Nikolai's achievements?
Well, well...
Now here was a kind of trouble I hadn't seen in a long time.
I urgently fired up my internal Emotion Control Tower.
I was on duty right now, and on top of that, I'd recently caused a mess and the cooldown period hadn't nearly run its course.
Since I was effectively on probation, I needed to avoid anything that could spark more gossip.
While Talus(?) was showering me with verbal abuse, the Mini Allens inside me convened an emergency meeting.
Reason: Right, deep breaths. One, two, one, two.
Rage: Forget deep breaths! Rip that bastard’s spine out and turn it into a bugle!!!
Forgiveness: Maybe he was just a troubled kid who had not received enough love—
Hate: Who gives a damn about that piece of shit's circumstances!
Bliss: Why so serious? How about we stop fighting and just try smiling?
Dammit. The Mini Allens.
Not one bit of help.