Interlude
Interlude
"Lucas, what do you think of Sylvia?"
"Huh?"
At the sudden question, Lucas looked blank for a moment. What did he think of Sylvia?
But there was no way the emperor's words lacked deeper meaning. At the very least, this was not genuinely asking for an opinion. Whatever Lucas answered about how he thought of Sylvia, another instruction from the emperor would surely follow.
If he showed here that he had failed to properly grasp Sylvia's nature, Lucas might be classified by the emperor as a "useless person."
Well, considering that even Jaden, who had the situational awareness of a brick, didn't receive that sort of treatment, perhaps that judgment was a bit extreme.
"......."
And so, Lucas took the time to think about Sylvia.
Expressionless, always using unfailingly polite speech, and whenever Lucas tried to so much as lay a hand on her, she would bat it away immediately. At first glance she seemed to have a bad personality, but in truth, she had a soft side as well. In particular, Sylvia was weak toward Alice.
It didn't seem to be simply because they were the same age. Sylvia, who possessed a strangely mature side for her years, often behaved as though she had stolen Alice's place. If there was something requiring consideration, she was considerate. If there was something she could yield, she yielded.
She even extended the subject of this "theft" beyond herself alone to all of "the emperor's children," so that even when it was the turn of Lucas or Jaden or the other siblings, if Alice's turn overlapped, Sylvia would stand in front like a shield and ensure that Alice could benefit first.
Regrettably, Alice, being the imperial princess, appeared not to appreciate that sentiment of Sylvia's in the slightest.
It had happened just a moment ago. Originally, the next in line after Sylvia to have a private audience with the emperor was Lucas. Though Lucas himself had nothing in particular to discuss, the emperor had said there was an urgent matter to talk about.
But Sylvia, as if it were nothing, had sent Alice in ahead of him.
...... If Alice had arbitrarily pushed her way in rather than being sent in by Sylvia, she would have been scolded by the emperor on the spot, but since the emperor knew that Sylvia had let her go first, he did not blame Alice.
And Alice, too, must have been subtly aware of that. Which was precisely why she grew even more irritated with Sylvia.
If Sylvia were truly a being who acted like an emotionless machine, Lucas would not have interpreted that behavior as "soft-hearted." He would have taken it for mechanical conduct designed to protect the emperor's only true blood relative.
But Sylvia was not some kind of emotionless clockwork doll. When Lucas or Jaden annoyed her, she got irritated, and she would run this way and that to evade her older brothers. Of course, the process was less the hide-and-seek of a "little child" and more something approaching a professional operative concealing herself and going underground, but still.
The same had been true when she returned from her mission this time.
Sylvia's expression suggested she was in a poor mood. At first glance one might assume it was because Lucas was riding beside her, but in her hand she held a newspaper with the article about the count's murder splashed across the front page.
He had already witnessed Sylvia kill a person once...... but this murder was not a spur-of-the-moment crime. It was an assassination she had thought out herself, meticulously planned, and then carried out.
"A bit...... soft-hearted?"
"Ho-ho."
At Lucas's assessment, the emperor raised the corners of his mouth slightly and smiled.
"Did I say somethin' wrong?"
Because that smile was subtly unpleasant, Lucas asked with a somewhat flippant attitude. Of course, Lucas always had a flippant attitude in front of everyone, but that was beside the point.
"No, you did not. In a sense, that aligns with my own thinking."
But if their thinking had been perfectly aligned, he wouldn't have tacked on a qualifier like "in a sense."
"Wasn't that the reason Your Majesty asked Sylvia? Knowing her disposition......"
The emperor was cold-blooded enough to order a twelve-year-old child to assassinate a count, but at the same time, the affection he showed his children was genuine. At least, that was how it felt to Lucas, who had lived alongside him from childhood until now.
In the first place, if he had thought Sylvia would fail, the emperor would not have entrusted her with such a mission.
"Perhaps so."
The emperor once more gave an ambiguous reply.
Looking up at the emperor vacantly, Lucas was met with another question.
"Lucas. Can you imagine yourself cutting Sylvia down?"
"That's—"
He had been about to say, Obviously, but Lucas stopped himself.
"......."
And soon he became lost in serious thought.
Could he cut Sylvia down?
No, this was not an emotional evaluation, but a question assessed purely on ability.
If Sylvia were unarmed, he didn't know if he could manage it somehow. Every time Lucas had swung a sword at Sylvia, she had evaded it with everything she had. Judged purely on physical ability, Lucas was several steps above her. That was only natural, given that Sylvia was still twelve years old.
But...... Lucas could not imagine a moment when Sylvia did not have a gun.
Ever since that childhood day when Sylvia had first been brought here, she had always carried a gun.
No, there were moments when she was not armed. When attending important ceremonies, or when she had to wear form-fitting clothing that made it impossible to conceal a weapon. At least when she was resting comfortably, Sylvia didn't seem to go armed, either.
And yet, even so—
Strangely, Lucas could not imagine Sylvia being empty-handed when she fought someone.
It wasn't because he had never seen Sylvia fight barehanded.
It was simply that, if it were Sylvia, then whenever Lucas tried to cut her down, she seemed as though she would "always" and "certainly" be armed. A strange conviction took hold: perhaps when he went to strike her, Sylvia would be absent and only a pile of bombs would be rigged in her place; perhaps her presence there was nothing but a trap, while the real Sylvia was far away, aiming an Ergensen rifle at Lucas's head.
Because that was how Sylvia had always been, all along.
Even if he lay in ambush where he was certain she could not see and then lunged, she evaded by a half-step.
Even if he approached while suppressing his presence so thoroughly that not even an imperial guard knight could detect him, Sylvia noticed exactly where Lucas was without the slightest difficulty.
As though she were reading the future.
"Indeed. I am the same."
As if perfectly aware of what Lucas had been thinking, the emperor nodded.
"No matter what I tried, even if I imagined mobilizing tens of thousands of soldiers to kill her, I could not kill Sylvia. Somehow, I simply could not imagine an 'unprepared Sylvia.' If I devised a plan she could never evade, then without a doubt, Sylvia would never be there. That is the Sylvia inside my head."
The emperor leaned slightly toward Lucas and spoke.
"Now, let me ask again. Do you believe Sylvia is merely soft-hearted?"
"......."
"Yes, perhaps that is so. In reality, she might be capable of dragging that small body through this imperial palace, slaughtering everyone within, and slipping away unhurriedly, and yet she does not. She may be holding back because she finds us 'pitiful.' But is Sylvia, 'that' Sylvia, really acting that way?"
"...... Uh......."
Lucas hesitated to answer.
"That was my reason for ordering her to kill the count this time, as well. I handed Sylvia not a single piece of information about the count. I only said, 'kill him.' I did not tell her how to kill him, nor why. And I assigned you to surveillance duty. The reason I chose the count was nothing else. Count Crowfield was the sort of man Sylvia would loathe beyond measure, so I picked him deliberately."
Indeed, Sylvia had once been part of a supply network that "sold" such orphans. If she had possessed the same insight back then that she did now, she would not have believed that place was merely an orphanage.
And she would not have burned that orphanage to the ground the way she had.
"If Sylvia were not a creature of emotion, she would surely have eliminated only the count, as I ordered, and returned. But Sylvia, though I have no idea how she uncovered such facts, realized in just a few days that the count was a client of that orphanage. Moreover, she went on to blow up every carriage that followed him. Do you understand what this means?"
Leaning even closer toward Lucas, the emperor spoke.
"It means that Sylvia...... is not attached to my side out of consideration for my great cause, nor to bring some benefit to this empire. She merely 'stays with us' because what she wants to do right at this moment happens to be here. In truth, her nature is thoroughly self-willed, and she does only what she herself wishes. Think about it. If the count had been a purely good man, someone who loved his people, how would Sylvia have acted? Even if she had defied my order and smuggled the count away, could we have stopped her?"
He could not know.
He could not know, but...... at the very least, it did not seem likely she would have acted the way she did this time.
"Are you...... considering eliminating Sylvia?"
At Lucas's question, the emperor burst into loud laughter. As Lucas stared at him in bewilderment, the emperor spoke.
"Ah, my apologies. That is a misunderstanding. I, rather, think precisely for that reason that Sylvia is a lovable child. To put it the other way, so long as we continue to stay in her good graces, Sylvia will remain here. And she will bring us victory. Goodness, as her father, I shall have to be even more attentive going forward."