Student Council (4)
Student Council (4)
The moment I saw Mia Crowfield's eyes, one thought surfaced in my mind.
How much did she know?
Given the emperor's personality, he might well have revealed his involvement in that affair in its entirety. Flaunting and parading such things was precisely his style.
I dealt with your husband. So, if you want yourself and your surviving daughter to remain unharmed, do as I wish.
In this era, a recording device was excessively bulky, and its performance was poor. A Mana Stone could serve as an energy source in itself, but it could not replace all the other components of a recorder. So even if the emperor said such things openly, no one could collect them as evidence.
Magic was not omnipotent. At least, during all my time playing the game, nothing like a listening device had ever appeared—not even during conversations that touched on political or legal matters.
"......."
Both Alice and Charlotte could sense an opponent's bloodlust. Bloodlust, presence, concepts that sounded like they belonged in a martial arts novel... No, to put it in terms appropriate here, concepts that seemed ripped straight from 'Japanese manga or anime' were taken entirely for granted in this world. Scenes even featured people exclaiming in shock, 'How can such bloodlust...!', 'How could they conceal their presence...!'
...I could not feel any of that.
I could not use magic, and I could not sense presence or bloodlust. In truth, if I had been able to sense such things, my expression would have cracked long ago. Lucas tormented me not only by swinging his sword but also by directing his bloodlust at me. He apparently stopped after seeing that I did not even twitch an eyebrow.
The truth was, I simply could not feel it.
"......."
Everyone's gaze turned toward me. In other words, Mia Crowfield was most likely radiating bloodlust at me just then. She was not originally a sword-wielding character, so that bloodlust could hardly be called overwhelming, yet the others seemed to find it remarkable that I faced such an atmosphere head-on without the slightest fluster.
"Your Highness, do you participate in student council activities?"
She looked at me and asked, enunciating each word clearly.
In the original work, Mia Crowfield was a very quiet character. She had known that Alice's father, the emperor, had murdered her own father, but she did not direct more bloodlust toward Alice than was necessary.
She probably never imagined that Alice might have killed him directly. In the original, it was also Claire's doing.
She did struggle desperately to take Claire's life later on, though. She was simply subdued with ease and left screaming.
"I am curious as to the intent behind asking me that question."
I gazed steadily at Mia Crowfield and asked quietly.
... It was not as though I felt no guilt whatsoever. After all, a family had been destroyed because of my actions.
But that did not mean I thought I should not have done it. I was not sure if this sort of justification was correct, but at the very least, I had no intention of killing anyone 'if there was no reason to kill them.'
Yet I had seen that Count Crowfield in bed with a child who could not have been older than eight.
Both the child and Count Crowfield had been intoxicated on opium.
'When I killed him,' of course, the circumstances were not like that, but if I had let that man go, that scene would unquestionably have occurred in the future.
After that, such acts were strictly prohibited within Crowfield County. Not because they were immoral. The Countess of Crowfield had liquidated all those businesses for fear they would later provide a pretext for another attack.
When the countess learned the truth about the count, had she been disappointed in her dead husband?
Well, looking at Mia Crowfield before me then, it did not seem particularly so.
"I...."
She wore a slightly flustered expression, as if belatedly realizing that every eye around her had turned in her direction. The bloodlust she had been directing at me moments ago, or what had seemed like bloodlust, wavered slightly, and as she glanced around in apparent confusion, she did not actually seem like someone with that much nerve.
That was consistent with the original.
"Is it because I murdered your father?"
"...... Huh?"
The atmosphere in the student council room froze instantly.
The slightly relaxed mood was suddenly drawn taut, as if it might snap. So much so that even I, who could not sense bloodlust or the like, felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped several degrees.
Some in this room might have heard the rumor, but not a single person would have confirmed it so openly. An assassination was, by its nature, best kept entirely hidden.
"Y-you...."
"Yes, I killed him. By planting a bomb in his carriage. Twelve people died."
"What are you talking about...?"
Alice stared at me, her face deathly pale.
"I am speaking of the time I assassinated Count Crowfield. Were you perhaps unaware?"
Alice shook her head.
She probably had her suspicions, even if she answered that way. But she would not have imagined that I had killed Crowfield.
Because at the time, I was twelve.
"...... What do you mean? Sister, you killed someone?"
"I had already killed one person when I escaped the orphanage."
When I answered Claire's remark with composure, the faces of those around me turned even paler.
"If you had joined the student council... if I had become a fellow member of the student council with you, what did you intend to do?"
I looked back at Mia Crowfield and asked.
"...... How could you?"
But Mia Crowfield, who was looking at me, wore nothing but a blank expression.
It was the face of someone who, because the truth had been revealed so abruptly, had no idea how to react.
Was it because she had no weapon? She showed no sign of trying to kill me yet.
Thud.
As if the strength had drained from her legs, Mia Crowfield dropped to her knees right where she stood.
But no one moved to support her or help her up.
They simply stared at me as though I were some kind of monster.
"Had you not come here already knowing? Was that not the reason you glared at me like that?"
"......."
Mia Crowfield gave no answer.
"...... You."
As I stood quietly observing Mia Crowfield kneeling on the floor, a cold voice came from beside me.
Charlotte, who had set down the teacup she was holding, was glaring at me with an expression that looked as if her eyes could freeze solid.
"Are you saying, right now, that the Emperor of the Empire murdered one of his own vassal nobles?"
Was the fact that she still observed formal courtesy even in this situation a testament to how well she had been educated in etiquette?
"That is correct."
"Why?"
"For His Imperial Majesty's power."
Alice's face grew even more ashen.
I had already conveyed to Alice, unequivocally, my intention to support her. That if I were ever designated as the next emperor in her place, I would support only Alice.
To Alice, who knew that fact, my reason for killing that count might well have appeared to be the consolidation of her own power base.
"...... Do you believe that anything is permissible for the sake of power?"
Charlotte looked at me with eyes that held genuine revulsion.
"My personal judgment was also a factor."
"Personal... judgment...."
Claire murmured, echoing my words.
"...... And what do you mean by personal judgment?"
Though her eyes looked at me as if I were something nauseating, Charlotte nevertheless did not cut me off and pressed the question once more.
The princess of the kingdom was striving to look at me with impartial eyes even in this situation. Perhaps she could not fully believe what I said. To be sure, I claimed to have killed him, but there was no proof. Even if she thought the emperor had ordered me to do this and I was simply saying so, the circumstances would roughly fit.
"The count was engaged in the opium trade. There was an opium den within his county, and inside it, a brothel was operated using opium and children under the age of ten. Even if the count did not conduct the trade directly, he was unmistakably a customer of that brothel."
"...... Your evidence?"
"I confirmed it with my own eyes."
"...... An investigation and a trial—"
"Were impossible."
If they had been possible, such a thing would not have occurred within the county to begin with. No matter how powerful the emperor of the Empire was, the count was the supreme authority within his own territory. The emperor could have visited Crowfield County in person and wielded his power. And that was precisely what the emperor had done. He had wielded the power called violence and blown the count away.
"Would it have been possible in the kingdom?"
"......."
When I asked in return, Charlotte closed her mouth.
The expression that had resembled looking at a monster had changed, becoming a little strange. It was difficult to determine exactly what that emotion was.
"...... Father......? Why......?"
Mia Crowfield, who had listened to my account, muttered to herself.
"Mia Crowfield. I have not yet heard your answer."
I looked at Mia Crowfield and asked again.
"If you had joined the student council, what did you intend to do? Once you realized I was the one who killed the count, did you intend to murder me on the spot?"
"......."
Mia Crowfield said nothing for a moment and simply stared up at me blankly. Then,
"I'll kill you."
She said it.
"I'll kill you!"
"Even if your father was a man who committed such deeds? Even if he was someone who sacrificed countless children!"
"I don't believe it! I said I don't believe it!"
"Lady Crowfield!"
The student council president finally came to her senses and shot up from her seat. Mia Crowfield had risen as if ready to throw herself at me at any moment.
"So you are willing to believe my claim that I killed your father, but you refuse to believe the fact that your father was perpetrating such atrocities?"
"I'll... with my own hands...!"
Seeing the student council president step forward, the surrounding noble ladies all rushed in to restrain Mia Crowfield.
"Wait, Lady Crowfield! First, calm down...!"
"......I understand."
When I answered quietly, the entire student council once again froze solid.
"So that is what you think."
"Sis, wait."
Just as I did not know how to sense bloodlust, I naturally did not know how to emit it either. At my utmost best, all I could probably manage was glaring at an opponent.
But perhaps they judged that something more was present.
Having confirmed that they were dealing with someone who had been killing people since the age of twelve without a single change in expression, they might have thought something was off. They might even have thought I would eliminate Crowfield right then and there.
Claire was already half-risen from her seat and watching me.
Was she thinking that no more killing should happen? At least, the look in Claire's eyes as she looked at me was not one of contempt or loathing for something repulsive. It was a gaze filled only with worry.
"J-just a moment, Claire."
Alice stammered as she spoke.
"Everyone, calm down. We don't even know if all of that is the truth."
Alice was trying to cover for me somehow.
Leo appeared utterly frozen, and Charlotte still wore an expression of confusion.
Hm.
Right. So this was how they all reacted.
I slowly scanned everyone in the student council room one last time, engraving that sight into my mind as deeply as possible.
And then—
Again.
*
"Nothing has been decided yet."
I spoke to Mia Crowfield in a calm voice.
"I will do as Her Highness... no, as Alice decides. What do you wish to do?"
"Huh? Ah, uh, um."
Alice, who had been looking back and forth between Mia Crowfield and me, answered with a trace of bewilderment.
"I am... considering it favorably."
"Then I shall consider it favorably as well."
Having answered, I let a little milk tea trickle into my mouth.
"...... In that case, I would also like to consider it favorably."
Mia Crowfield, who had been glaring at me, said that.