Reunion? (2)

The exam scores came out roughly in line with the extra credit.

I scored 475 points, Alice 492. Both of us ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blew past the acceptance threshold with room to spare.

For me, it was a rather surprising result. Naturally, I had missed more questions than she had, so the gap itself was expected, but in the game, Alice had entered the academy with 487 points and been hailed as a prodigy. The game's score had never been low by the standards of the setting, yet the Alice in front of me now had posted an even higher number.

"Remarkable, Your Highness."

I said it that way. Perhaps a sliver of genuine feeling slipped in, but nothing she would fixate on. I did, on occasion, let a faint hint of emotion show in front of Alice. Given that my whole reason for entering the academy in the first place was to meet the original protagonist and heroines, relaxing just this much in front of Alice wasn't going to be a problem.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠since we would be seeing each other every day from now on, hiding everything forever was going to be impossible anyway.

I still had to stay guarded around the emperor and his other children, though.

"Hmm..."

But Alice's reaction was somewhat different from what I'd expected. The pitch of that "hmm" was a good deal lower. Unlike the pleased hum she usually made, this one sounded like she was openly suspicious of me.

Alice narrowed her eyes at me and asked,

"You. Is this really your true ability?"

The question caught me completely off guard.

"..."

Hm.

I'd been caught red-handed.

"You said to me that day, walking down the corridor, that the exam was easier than the mock exam. Yet your score didn't go up—it dropped. Doesn't that make any sense? Coming from someone as meticulous as you."

"..."

"Did you do that on purpose, to make sure your score came in lower than mine?"

"..."

Hmm.

She really was the emperor's daughter. The talent had clearly been passed down.

Or maybe I had just been that obvious.

"You."

Alice spoke.

"Don't do that from now on. You're going to be working under me, aren't you? For that, I need to grasp your abilities properly. If you keep holding back just to prop me up, how am I supposed to judge what you can actually do?"

I stared at Alice as she said that.

The Alice before me had diverged a great deal from the Alice I'd once known.

That "Alice whom I'd once known" didn't mean the Alice of childhood. She had, of course, changed plenty since she was small... but the Alice I was referring to was the Alice from the game.

From an early age she had devoted herself exclusively to swordsmanship and books, chasing after her father. She had attended a ball or banquet only briefly as a very young child and never engaged in the sort of active social life expected of imperial royalty.

In truth, becoming emperor also required building rapport with the nobility... but Alice had been young. Fourteen is about the right age for a full-blown chuunibyou flare-up, isn't it? She likely thought, "While others were wasting time on foolish things, I was studying statecraft."

So far, this Alice more or less matched, but her attitude was different.

In the early stages of the game, despite her high character stats, Alice's self-esteem had been extraordinarily low. Outwardly, she gave the impression of an arrogant princess, yet several scenes had shown her envying someone more skilled with a blade or more accomplished in academics.

Which meant that a scene like this, in which she openly acknowledged another person's ability, never appeared that early in the game.

Except now, we weren't even at that "early stage." Both Alice and I had turned fifteen, and the attitude Alice sometimes directed at me wasn't that of a whining child. It was far more composed and mature.

"What? Why are you staring at me like that?"

When I silently kept looking at her, Alice spoke up as if she felt a little unsettled.

"... Nothing."

I answered and dipped my head slightly.

"I apologize. I will refrain from hiding my abilities from Your Highness going forward."

"Huh? Ah, oh, um, yes..."

When I admitted it so readily and apologized, Alice answered, sounding a shade flustered.

And that reaction was very much like Alice. No matter which version of Alice I compared it to.

*

To be honest, I was a little excited.

No—actually, I thought I could drop the "a little."

No, no. In the space left by dropping it, I thought I could plug in "enormously."

Truth be told, even "enormously" was not a word that could perfectly express my mood. There was no word in the world that could accurately capture this feeling. To unravel it a bit: I wanted to leap up onto the bed and bounce around, cheering like a child who had just received a console game system for their birthday.

Ten years. I had waited an entire ten years.

It had taken ten years from the time I arrived in this world at the age of five and realized it was the world of the game I remembered to finally meet the characters I'd loved in person. In truth, the actual elapsed time was probably far longer than that. I had rewound time more than once, after all.

Even I found it remarkable that I'd managed to stay this patient.

After all, the time I'd spent playing the Aetherna Chronicles series was only seven years. Shorter than the time I'd waited in this world.

Even after becoming one of the emperor's children, I had wondered many times how long these feelings would last. Often enough, a childhood dream looks trivial once you've grown up, or the thing you desperately wanted as a child leaves you with nothing but emptiness once you finally possess it as an adult.

But... thinking it over, maybe it hadn't been purely that way.

Sherlock Holmes fans had waited seven years for a new story, and the same sometimes happened with game or film series. Besides, it would be more accurate to say that time had simply passed while I'd been occupied with this and that in between, rather than that I'd spent the entire stretch doing nothing but waiting. Even if you start out counting the days, eventually you forget you were counting.

I supposed, well, in hindsight, that might have been the case for me too.

If not, perhaps it was because the real, existing characters near me had kept me aware that I was still inside this world. So long as the emperor's children, Alice, and Claire existed, it meant Leo Grace and the other characters were also out there somewhere, living and breathing.

"Hoo..."

I let out a long breath, trying to ease my tension.

It felt exactly like I was on my way to meet a celebrity. I already had Alice and the other characters around me, and I'd even met Claire in person, but when I'd met Claire, I'd had to worry about escaping before I could even feel glad. And Alice, whom I'd first encountered as a child and had been with ever since, felt more like a younger sister than a celebrity. Though Alice would be appalled if she heard that.

Besides, meeting people one at a time was a different matter entirely from suddenly meeting several of them all at once.

I had finished packing my luggage the night before. There hadn't been that much to pack in the first place. The school uniforms were scheduled to be issued at the academy, and the same went for textbooks and such. There had been mention that we could bring personal items to place in the dormitory, but my only personal belongings were my weapons.

And those weapons were to be checked directly with the school. Several characters who used firearms had already existed in the original story. Even for non-firearm weapons, it was a natural precaution, since every weapon students brought was a live combat implement designed to kill people. What if some lunatic opened fire with a gun in the middle of class?

That was also the reason the academy conducted background checks on incoming students.

In any case, I had no need to pack anything extra. Which meant I had no means of redirecting my thoughts. I doubted I'd absorb much even if I tried to read a book right then.

So I'd been pacing around the room for a while. Still, even I couldn't bring myself to literally bounce on the bed. I had to maintain character, for one thing.

After I'd been wandering back and forth for some time, I heard someone knock at the door.

[Lady Sylvia, we've come to move your luggage. May we enter?]

Commoners would carry their own luggage to school, but royalty and nobles had people under them. Items like luggage could be sent ahead through such attendants and placed in the dormitory in advance.

This was permitted only on the first day of enrollment and the two days following the closing ceremony. A reasonable safety measure essential for protecting students—no cause for complaint.

I steadied my breathing, then opened my mouth, hoping my voice wouldn't tremble.

"... Yes, please come in."

Ten years of acting practice seemed to have paid off quite well.

*

The imperial palace and the Imperial Rondarium Academy were not very far apart. The area near the palace enjoyed the best security in the imperial capital, making it an ideal site for an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠academy. Besides the Imperial Academy, quite a few other institutes were clustered nearby. Most of them accepted only children from reasonably famous houses, or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠those with wealth.

It was close enough that walking wouldn't have taken very long, but we didn't commute. The same applied to students whose family homes were in the imperial capital. The Imperial Academy enforced a mandatory dormitory system for the entire student body.

Not that there was no public transport like hired stagecoaches, but cramming people in like a modern bus was difficult. And no matter how safe an area was by imperial standards, it wasn't the same as standing in the middle of Seoul. So, for the students' safety, or to put it another way, to avoid liability if a student came to harm, many institutes, not just the academy, had adopted full-board dormitory systems as a matter of course.

As an added point, riding somewhere was far safer for protecting the person under escort than walking, so we were traveling even that short distance by carriage.

"Are you excited?"

"Pardon?"

Alice asked out of nowhere, and I turned my gaze from the window toward her.

Had my heart been that restless lately? I'd been startling like this more and more often. That said, since it was Alice, it wasn't much of a problem.

Seated across from me, Alice wore an incredibly... smug expression.

Her range of expressions seemed to have grown a lot richer. Had she found more room in her mind? If I was the reason for that, then at least all my efforts to soothe and coax her over the years hadn't been a bad idea after all.

"What made you think that, Your Highness?"

Though I still had questions. I was maintaining a blank expression. I knew that without having to touch my face or look in a mirror. From ten years ago, I had consciously and persistently practiced keeping my face expressionless, so at least this much was within my control.

Which made the fact that Alice had noticed my mood a rather important development. If Alice could tell, it meant there were tells that someone else could also pick up on.

I would need to identify and correct them.

"Because normally, you have so little interest in the scenery outside. And right now you have a book on your lap, yet you aren't reading. Usually, you'd be coolly reading your book no matter what was happening around you."

"..."

"And besides, there's not much new to see in the imperial capital, is there? I may not know it, but for you, it's a view you've seen until you're sick of it."

I had run all over the place on the emperor's errands, so I knew it better than Alice, at least. In truth, I had repeatedly checked every corner of the imperial capital and was confident I could find my way no matter where I was dropped on the capital island. Even in an alley I had supposedly never seen, I had memorized every visible landmark.

"So I simply concluded that you weren't able to concentrate on your book. If I was mistaken, I apologize."

Of course, when she said "I apologize," she was still smiling that smug smile, which made it absolutely clear that the preceding "if I was mistaken" held not the slightest sincerity.

"..."

I chose not to answer that Alice. If I denied it, she would simply go, "Oh, really?" and if I admitted it... that would be a touch too soon.

So I merely turned my eyes back toward the window.

And for that short stretch until we arrived at the academy, I had to endure Alice's smug expression the entire way.