Revenge (1)
Revenge (1)
If I had been a real student, the break period would have been genuinely welcome.
Attending school was similar to holding a job. It was the reason you had to get up when you didn't want to, why you had to shove a breakfast you couldn't swallow into your mouth and drag your unwilling feet forward, and once you were inside, you had to endure and sit through the hours until the day's classes ended.
Of course, school was still better than a workplace. School ended a little earlier, and it had two long, long breaks every year.
But I was no ordinary student. And it wasn't just me—Alice was the same. We were both imperial princesses, and we had a great deal of work to do during the break.
Whether I should call it fortunate or take it as a sign that I'd failed to properly notice the foreshadowing of some future event, either way, the emperor had not yet assigned me any task. He hadn't proposed any sort of deal, either. Most of all, he didn't appear to know that I had entered the Forbidden Library.
And on the basis of that fact, I could relax a little. The emperor had deduced my ability through his own reasoning, not through some supernatural power that saw through my capabilities.
At least that one thing was a relief.
*
"You don't need to follow me around like this."
Inside the jolting carriage, Alice spoke to me. A genuinely apologetic expression surfaced on her face as she said it, and I nearly smiled without meaning to.
"Even if I said I'd stay in the Imperial Palace, I'd have nothing to do."
"You spent the start of the break holed up in your room."
That was the result, yes.
In reality, I'd been running around the interior of the Imperial Palace, sneaking aboard the aerial battleship Dreadnought while it was docked for regular maintenance to examine its internal layout, throwing bombs at various palace facilities to destroy them and observing the results, or timing how long it took for soldiers to swarm in.
Not just once or twice, but ten times, twenty times, repeating the process to calculate the average time, memorize it, and record it all in my notebook. Every bit of it in Korean, naturally. I wrote the numbers in an artillery-style notation, too, not Arabic numerals.
Once the emperor learned of my ability, I kept that small notebook inside my clothes at all times, so no one ever had the chance to read it.
And I carried out all those processes during the hours when Alice was absent. I didn't shoot anyone directly, but by the Empire's standards it was unquestionably an act of treason, and whatever other people might think, I didn't want Alice to look at me with eyes filled with a sense of betrayal.
I had seen the emperor's reaction a few times, too. He looked completely unflustered every single time, which was infuriating.
His expression seemed to say, "You're just going to undo this anyway, aren't you?" Though I supposed the emperor would have phrased it somewhat more gravely.
"...... The place you're going now is far more dangerous than anywhere you've been all break."
"Even so, they wouldn't kill an imperial princess openly. No—setting aside outright murder, even an accidental death would see their entire territory wiped out."
"But the other party is House Crowfield."
"In that case, shouldn't you be the one being careful?"
While I had spent the entire break making all sorts of excuses and watching for opportunities from inside my room, Alice had openly carried out official activities the whole time, as if she wanted to make it widely known that she was the next emperor.
If her face had previously been unfamiliar even to commoners, now she'd moved so diligently that many people would come to know Alice's name and face—enough that even the press had raised questions about it.
"I've already dealt with House Crowfield before."
"That was several years ago. The security and facilities have become far more grim since then."
Hearing her say "have become" rather than "must have become" with such certainty, I turned my gaze from outside the window toward Alice.
"Did you think I wouldn't investigate at all after hearing your story? I'm serious when I call myself your older sister."
Alice spoke in a slightly firmer voice.
"And protecting you is also my duty as your older sister."
"In that sense, protecting the imperial princess, who is the next emperor, is also—"
"No."
Alice cut off my objection mid-sentence.
"The emperor is precisely the one who protects their loyal retainers under their own name. If you are to follow me, then I must protect you without fail. I......."
Alice paused for a moment, then looked straight at me and spoke.
"I won't simply use you, the way Father does. Because I am not like him."
"......."
I didn't know what else to say.
It made me happy that she was thinking of me. Especially since she was one of the characters I had liked.
But, at the same time, it also worried me.
Because in the original story, Alice had not been a character of such firm resolve at this point. She'd had a twisted side, had clashed with the protagonist out of a sense of inferiority, and had shown a fragile side as well.
Meaning that she was different from the Alice now standing before my eyes.
So I had no real sense of exactly what course the Alice before me would take from now on. If I had been trying to control events in order to steer future outcomes the way I wanted, I could probably say I had already failed.
"...... But still, there's no need for you to visit House Crowfield in person."
When I said that, trying to offer at least some objection, Alice gave a little "hmph" of a snort and looked out the window.
The view was a beautiful expanse of endless green plains, standing in stark contrast to the name Crowfield. So much so that it was hard to imagine several factories spewing black smoke occupied the center of the territory.
And hard to imagine that a place once existed there that sold young children steeped in drugs.
"So there are things even you don't know."
Alice murmured.
"Pardon?"
"Or is it that you 'don't know them yet'?"
"......."
Alice, who had been looking out the window, glanced over at me.
Those eyes were—
—well, I didn't know if Alice would like hearing this, but they actually resembled the emperor's a little.
*
"Your Highness."
The person who spoke those words while bowing gracefully to Alice was the Countess of Crowfield. I recalled that she, too, had grown up in another count's household in her youth. A distant relative of the Count of Crowfield, they said. By now, it was a matter of no consequence.
Pale skin, black hair. In truth, the Count of Crowfield also carried somewhat of that same atmosphere, so it was a little ambiguous to say that Mia Crowfield particularly took after one parent. Maybe I simply thought they looked alike because I knew the two of them were mother and daughter.
Alice accepted the greeting with an elegant posture, and the Countess of Crowfield turned toward me.
Not a trace of any negative emotion was visible in her gaze.
This was someone far better at regulating her emotions than her own daughter, at least.
That had been true in the original story as well.
"......."
For an instant, the countess's eyes, which had been looking at my face, dropped slightly downward. As she bent her knees in greeting, I returned the courtesy in kind.
Though this was the first time the countess saw me, I had already seen her several times. That was a story from a few years ago, of course.
I knew that from the one time I had succeeded, when I infiltrated the household disguised as a maid.
The Count of Crowfield, who had preyed on children far younger than himself without the slightest compunction, did not show that side of himself openly inside the manor. He acted, rather, like an ordinary and affectionate head of the family. I didn't believe it was an act. The count was simply...... sincere, I supposed. He probably truly loved his wife and was a kind father to his daughter.
He simply hadn't treated the children from the orphanage as people.
And that gaze of his had been perceptible, to some extent, even in everyday life.
Among the servants of the count's household were children from lower-ranking noble families and children of commoners. The count was always kind to the children from noble families. He addressed them in a gentle tone, as if speaking to a niece or nephew, and when one of them faced something uncomfortable, for instance, a girl who had just noticed the first signs of her body changing from a girl's into a woman's, he would kindly excuse her from work.
He was basically the same toward the commoner servants as well.
...... Basically.
But I had felt that licking gaze of the count's more than a few times. That was the very reason I, who had just become a maid, had been able to reach the count's vicinity in no time at all.
Ironically, that was also why I only succeeded once. I mean...... it was exceedingly difficult to secure an opportunity to slip something into the count's food without losing my virtue.
It made sense that in the original story, by the time of the main plot, the count had already been dead for several years, killed by Claire. Given Claire's background, she would not have been able to endure that kind of situation as well as I had.
I turned my head and searched for Mia Crowfield, who was nearby.
As befitted the Mia Crowfield who had directed an incredibly complicated look at me before the break began, her expression was still extremely confused now. Only just enough to maintain the proper decorum between an imperial princess and a noble.
The Countess of Crowfield shot a brief sidelong glance at that Mia Crowfield.
...... Wasn't that a bit harsh toward her own daughter?