A Snake in the Grass
The Grand Duchess tilted her head.
Only then was I able to leave the imperial parlor, where I had been lying about with nothing better to do, and make my way to the banquet hall.
The reason, naturally, was that I no longer felt the least bit ill.
The power of sacred power—my first experience of it since transmigrating—had proven far stronger than even I had imagined.
After all, it had completely cured a poison that had been smeared on the arrowheads.
Then again, this was the sacred power of the Saintess herself.
The one maiden who exists only once in a generation.
Having received a divine healing from *that* Saintess directly, it would have been stranger if I *hadn't* been perfectly fine.
"...Are you really sure you should be up and about?"
"Yes. I'm not ill in the slightest, so there's no need to worry yourself."
And so, even to Rebecca's concern-laden question, I was able to answer with perfect confidence that she had nothing to fret over.
Because I truly was fine.
"..."
Of course, hearing my answer didn't mean the Grand Duchess withdrew her suspicious gaze from me.
Rebecca's eyes were brimming with doubt—*are you sure it doesn't still hurt?*
Since any reassurance I offered here would only repeat the same pointless exchange, I decided to change the subject entirely.
"By the way, where have our parents and the Duke and Duchess gone off to?"
Partly to redirect the conversation, and partly because I genuinely wanted to know.
After all, the four people who had caught Rebecca and me in each other's arms only moments ago had vanished without a trace.
My father, Count Zernias, and the Duke of Valencia, taciturn fellow that he was, I could understand staying away.
But my mother and the Duchess of Valencia—two women who lived for teasing us—should never have let an opportunity like that slip by.
Despite bracing myself to be tormented the whole walk to the banquet hall, nothing of the sort happened at all.
When I asked my question, Rebecca simply stared at me as if I were hopeless.
"You didn't know?"
"Pardon?"
"The second day of the Imperial Banquet is reserved for the young nobles making their debut that year."
"...Ah."
I'd forgotten.
That the original novel had contained a setting like this.
It was precisely because of this arrangement that the protagonist Mikhail and Rebecca met for the first time on the second day of the Imperial Banquet.
"You really didn't know?"
"...No, I simply forgot for a moment."
Lately, I had the distinct feeling that I'd been mixing up the details of the original story more and more often.
Just earlier today I'd learned that Rebecca and the Crown Prince were already acquainted, for instance.
Was the original story shifting because of the existence of 'Albert Zernias,' a man who was never supposed to be there? Or was I simply, gradually, forgetting the original?
I couldn't say for certain—but I was sure that something unknown was changing.
"...You truly are hopeless without me."
"..."
"If I hadn't been here this time either, you'd have gone wandering off to the Count and Countess without knowing a thing."
Utterly oblivious to the complicated churn of my thoughts, the Grand Duchess, evidently convinced she'd scored a point, was busy lambasting me with words.
It was absurd.
"...And if I'd gone there and realized it was the wrong place, I could simply have come back, could I not?"
It was just a matter of forgetting which room we were supposed to be in—why on earth should I have to stand here and be scolded for it?
"Besides, as I said before, I have a beautiful and clever fiancée to set me right, so it hardly matters, does it?"
"..."
She would turn her head away the instant the counter landed, cheeks burning with embarrassment—so why did she insist on digging her own grave like this?
"Wouldn't you agree?"
"...Stop teasing me."
I honestly couldn't understand it.
*
Bantering back and forth with Rebecca as we walked, we arrived at the banquet hall before I knew it.
It was a hall slightly smaller than the one where the Grand Duchess and I had danced yesterday.
Presumably, this space had been designated for debutantes, while the nobles who had long since established themselves in high society were given the other hall to enjoy the banquet in.
It struck me as a pointless exercise. Why bother with such an tiresome arrangement?
'...Territorial behavior, I suppose.'
In word, it was a place for newcomers to society—but in practice, it was nothing more than the established nobles fencing off the new arrivals.
*'You're not yet ready to rub shoulders with us.' 'Go grind some more experience and come back.'*
Something like that, presumably.
The deeper I dug into the world of the aristocracy, the more childish it became.
"...There you are."
"Your Highness the Crown Prince."
The moment the Grand Duchess and I set foot in the hall, the first to greet us was the Crown Prince himself.
"How's your body holding up?"
"Perfectly well, thanks to Your Highness's concern."
"Speak honestly, at least here. When you get right down to it, what did I actually do? The Saintess did all the work, really."
"..."
That was decidedly not the sort of easygoing remark I remembered the protagonist Mikhail making.
How had he come to appear before me in such a guise?
*Nod, nod—*
Worse still, Rebecca at my side was nodding along earnestly, as if the Crown Prince had finally said something sensible for once in his life.
"...Your Highness, I believe I've mentioned this before, but when you put it that way in front of the person involved—"
"You don't really mind it anyway."
"That's true."
There they went, Rebecca and Mikhail, trading banter that wasn't even remotely funny.
"..."
I was beginning to doubt the authenticity of the original story I knew.
Were the people standing before me *truly* the cast of [The Crown Prince Holds the Sword], the novel that had moved me so deeply?
It felt as though some precious childhood illusion was being shattered.
If I kept watching this comedy routine any longer, I felt the wonder of reading the original might evaporate entirely.
"...On another matter, do the others not know?"
I asked the Crown Prince.
"Know what?"
Mikhail played ignorant as though he hadn't the faintest idea what I meant.
"The fact that the Grand Duchess and I were attacked by assassins."
"...And would you have the others know of it?"
At my more pointed follow-up question, he turned it back on me instead.
The Crown Prince, with every trace of the jesting playfulness from moments ago wiped clean, questioning me in that level tone—
it was more than enough to blow away all the irreverent thoughts I'd been entertaining just before.
"...I wouldn't say I particularly *wish* for others to know..."
Caught off guard by Mikhail's sudden shift, I stammered out my answer.
"Then that settles it."
"..."
And Mikhail concluded the matter just like that, with infuriating ease.
"Everyone is enjoying the Imperial Banquet held only once a year. There's no need to go dousing it with cold water."
"..."
"Don't concern yourself with compensation. I am fully aware that the attack on you and the Grand Duchess was a failure of the Imperial Family's responsibility."
Simply enjoy the banquet, the two of you, and be on your way.
The Crown Prince closed the conversation as though he had no intention whatsoever of continuing down this thread.
"Now off with you—go enjoy the banquet together. I have ladies waiting on me, so I must be going as well."
"...Understood, Your Highness."
"Then, until later."
With those parting words, Mikhail withdrew.
As though his only purpose from the start had been to show us the way, with no intention of lingering in conversation.
As the Crown Prince's figure receded further and further from us—
"...A snake in the grass."
"Pardon?"
"Just how many serpents do you keep coiled up inside you?"
"..."
Rebecca murmured quietly, pitched so that only I could hear.
On the surface, that exchange had looked like Mikhail doing a courtesy for the Grand Duchess and me.
But in truth, aside from the promise of compensation to House Zernias and House Valencia, every piece of it meant the matter would be handled in a way that favored the Imperial Family alone.
Concealing the assassin attack meant keeping the other nobles from learning that the Imperial Family's supposedly ironclad security was, in fact, full of holes.
And concealing the fact that the Saintess had arrived a day early meant burying the knowledge that there were matters of the Church the Imperial Family knew nothing about.
In other words, it had all been damage control for the crown, through and through.
"...His Highness the Crown Prince is a far more frightening man than I gave him credit for."
I spoke with genuine admiration.
Until just moments ago, I'd written Mikhail off as a comedian.
And it was precisely *because* of that that my admiration ran deeper.
To wear such a good-natured face in public at all times, while quietly entertaining calculations like those beneath it—what a thought.
Traditionally speaking, a man whose inside matches his outside is far less fearsome than one whose insides are the exact opposite of his face.
It also deepened my sense of unease.
Because the Mikhail Schuelgart, protagonist of the original as I remembered him, was never a man of two faces.
He carried a consistent set of convictions and pursued his will with them, always.
He had ambition, certainly—but he was never the sort to coil that ambition up and hide it like a serpent.
"...Are you being serious right now?"
"..."
My fiancée, of course, seemed to hold a very different opinion.
"What on earth is so frightening about a man who's simply rotten to the core?"
"...A person with a rotten core is frightening by definition, surely."
"You'd be far better off being scared of *me* instead."
Rebecca nodded vigorously as she said it, as though she genuinely believed every word.
Watching that adorable display—
a sudden urge to tease her welled up inside me.
"Do you truly mean that?"
"...Pardon?"
"Would you really like me to be afraid of you?"
"...That's—"
Rebecca, evidently not having anticipated this reaction, found herself unable to answer easily.
"If you genuinely wish it, my lady—me trembling in fear of you—then I could oblige you any number of ways."
"...In that case..."
"I would never tease you again, and I'd never bother you with any strange favors, either."
"...That's actually not half bad..."
Hearing that much, Rebecca tilted her head slightly, as if weighing the offer and finding it rather better than expected.
Compared to how tense she'd been, she was probably thinking this arrangement was a decent bargain.
However.
"In exchange."
"...?"
"I would never approach you first again."
My words, as it happened, were not yet finished.