Interlude
Interlude
After sending Sylvia back to her room, Alice rose from her seat and changed clothes.
She had still been wearing the bunny-girl outfit beneath her uniform.
She took off the uniform and was left in the rabbit costume—it felt embarrassing to even call it a costume—and as she looked at herself in the mirror, Alice flushed.
Even on second viewing, it was an excruciatingly cringeworthy outfit.
Unbelievable enough that Alice herself had actually resolved to wear this.
But....
At the same time, she also felt oddly unburdened.
It felt as though she had finally let out something she always kept bottled up deep inside. Perhaps she could feel that way because she hadn't gone to that place alone—Sylvia and the other friends who'd gotten dragged into it had been with her.
"......."
Sylvia had come to Alice's room completely unruffled, as though she had already known Alice was going to appear at that function in this outfit.
Even though Alice had deliberately not told her.
She had expected Sylvia to show up. Alice believed Sylvia somehow possessed insight into the future.
That belief had hardened after the time Sylvia returned victorious from the battlefield.
How many soldiers could go alone to the front and return without serious injury?
Even infiltrating the enemy camp was an extraordinary feat by itself. The gap between the front lines was called "no man's land" because every human who entered it died. Even if someone survived, they were quickly spotted and shot dead. Sylvia had crossed that hollowed-out dead ground by herself and laid waste to the enemy camp.
The fact that she hadn't sustained so much as a scratch in the process was an added bonus.
It was a feat impossible without complete knowledge of the enemy base's layout, troop deployment, weapon types, and bullet trajectories. Even Jennifer Winterfield clearly could not fight that way. If she could, she would have done it long ago.
So naturally, guessing what Alice was planning to do would have been easy for her.
In truth, Alice had also been relieved when Sylvia showed up in person.
Just like every time Alice stubbornly insisted on her own way, Sylvia had taken her side. This time, she'd even stayed silent beside her, as if to say Do whatever you want. She had done nothing but stand there silently, setting the mood so that Alice could maintain control of the situation to the end.
Of course, if Berati had lunged at her, Sylvia would surely have stepped in....
"At this rate, I'm disqualified as the older sister."
A deep sigh escaped Alice's lips.
To any observer, Sylvia looked much more like the big sister.
"Still...."
But a smile quickly spread across Alice's face again.
She'd seen Sylvia smile.
It had startled her in the moment, and Sylvia had wiped it away almost immediately, but she had definitely been smiling, just a little.
Alice could usually sense Sylvia's mood, so she knew Sylvia was hardly an emotionless monster, but this was the first time Sylvia had smiled at her so openly.
That smile—not one bit awkward, so utterly natural that she'd nearly let it pass without noticing.
Seeing it, a thought had briefly crossed Alice's mind.
Perhaps Sylvia didn't consider Alice the next emperor for pragmatic reasons at all.
Not because Sylvia had witnessed something from the future, but simply because she was "Alice Fangriffon."
Perhaps, because she believed in her.
"Not foresight, and not calculation."
She turned Sylvia's words over in her mind.
If that was true, then—had Sylvia actually lived through the future?
But that ought to be impossible.
Turning back time was scientifically impossible. Likely, even the faithful of the Church of the Goddess and the mystics would react the same way.
If it were possible, a sinner could make their sins as though they never happened, which would mean that proper divine judgment upon human sin was impossible.
Merely implying such a thing would make the faithful of the Church of the Goddess rise up and denounce it as blasphemy.
"No."
Alice chuckled to herself.
On the contrary, wouldn't they start treating Sylvia as a goddess to reconcile the contradiction?
How would Berati react if she were told that?
Her mood buoyed for no particular reason, and Alice wore a constant little grin as she finished changing.
*
"What do you think of my little sisters?"
Was this some sort of safehouse?
Blindfolded and brought here, it was a windowless basement. She had tried to memorize the route as the carriage jostled around, but the path taken was likely anything but ordinary.
Even if it had been ordinary, the erratic movements were probably meant to scramble her sense of direction.
Still, if this was within Northwood territory, she had confidence she could find her way.
She hadn't idled away these past several months. She'd made her presence known in the area, searched the forests, and even infiltrated the Northwood Duchy several times without detection.
She just hadn't identified the exact location of the Divine Treasure yet. She'd discerned approximate positions using various instruments brought from the Holy State, but hadn't been able to search all of them.
And recalling those "instruments," Berati felt a chill run down her spine.
The best way to find a Divine Treasure was to search while holding another Divine Treasure created in the same manner. Since they were treasures broken from one piece, if they formed a pair, it was possible to pinpoint a location based on their resonance.
... Would her collaborators be able to extract those Divine Treasures in time?
"You seem to be thinking quite hard."
The grating, high-pitched voice asked. It sounded almost like teasing, so Berati glared at her interlocutor.
The face was entirely concealed by a mask. The hair was probably not her real hair, either. Her ears were hidden under the hair, invisible, and even the skin of her neck was hidden by clothing.
Literally a head-to-toe concealment.
In a sense, it felt like a very fitting appearance for this region.
"...... Well, yes."
In truth, Berati had realized the operation had failed the moment she saw the imperial princesses. If the matter had been reported all the way up to two princesses, it meant the entire imperial leadership already knew.
But to think that the princess who seemed to be a mere figurehead was actually the one moving every other princess.
Could it be that even the Emperor could not ignore his bloodline?
"I don't know what misconception you're laboring under,"
the masked figure who had been called the other princess cut through Berati's ceaseless thoughts with words,
"but the imperial succession isn't decided yet, you know? Sylvia could become the Empress, or I could take that place. Or perhaps, one of the princes might ascend to it in the traditional way?"
"......."
"Today, I just helped because I wanted to. It was my cute little sister's request, wasn't it? As her older sister, I found it hard to ignore."
"How very impressive, Your Imperial Highness."
Berati ground her teeth.
"Well, separate from that, it is true that only one person here has any greed for the throne. But even we don't know whether our father is absolutely set on putting that one on the throne."
"Put someone who doesn't even want the throne on it, and you think the Empire will run properly?"
"The Empire does have a parliament, you know?"
"Nonsense."
Berati snorted.
"A place packed with nothing but the Emperor's puppets would never move against his will."
"That's only because imperial authority is strong at the moment. If it weakens in a later generation, maybe the parliament will get to stretch its legs a bit."
"The Emperor? Well, as someone who claims to be his daughter, you'd surely know his mind better than I do, but..."
Berati gave a leisurely shrug and said,
"At least, the Emperor seen from our Holy State is absolutely not that kind of person."
"You trust the Holy State's intelligence?"
"More than I trust yours."
"Impressive. I thought you became a Cathedral Knight just because you liked killing people, but it turns out you're actually quite devout?"
"......."
Berati fell silent.
And quietly, she glared at the fox mask before her.
"Well, it doesn't matter if you refuse to talk. You'll feel like it soon enough."
"Ha."
For the first time since entering, Berati relaxed.
"Planning to torture me?"
Torture meant nothing to her. In truth, she had a body that could, to a certain extent, even enjoy pain.
As long as she didn't die, the Holy State could fix her, one way or another. They had the Divine Treasures, after all.
So long as there was no proof she had betrayed them.
"No. We are gentlemen, after all. Or rather, should I say 'gentlewomen'?"
After that dull joke, the fox mask shrugged exaggeratedly, as if to ham it up.
"You've been making all sorts of speculations about the Imperial Family. If you're so curious, how about asking the person at the very top of the Imperial Family directly?"
"Wha—"
But before Berati could react further, the basement door opened and a blinding light flooded in.
She grimaced and looked up. Silhouetted against the light stood a man.
His face was hard to see. But.
Berati had glimpsed that imposing bearing a few times before.
"I told you. You'll feel like talking."
Was it because of the black clothes?
Wreathed in darkness, the woman seemed as though only her white fox mask floated in the void.