Discovery (4)
Discovery (4)
The face of Mia Crowfield, who had just stepped into the room, was sheet-white.
She had probably realized someone was inside the moment she saw the door locked differently than usual.
And if the person inside was the very one she suspected of killing her own father, it could only be more of a shock.
And if that person was sitting on her bed, idly toying with a pistol.
...... Had I been too harsh?
The thought crossed my mind, but I dismissed it immediately. If I decided I really had been too harsh, I could simply turn back time and readjust the whole event.
"What is... the meaning of this?"
Mia looked from my face to the revolver in my hand and back again as she asked.
"Do you know what this weapon is?"
"......."
Mia Crowfield seemed to hesitate briefly. She could have plausibly denied knowing about it. It had been found under the bed, but it was not exactly a secured, locked compartment. Anyone who had not gone in already knowing, like I had, would never have noticed it.
So technically, she could claim it had simply been there all along and she had no knowledge of it. That would not be an impossible story.
But the problem was that I was the person she was dealing with.
The important thing was not that I had known there was a hidden compartment. It was that everyone around me regarded me as some kind of omniscient being.
The emperor and his children all behaved as though I possessed practically precognitive abilities, and I had demonstrated terrifying capabilities during the recent class period.
So naturally, they would assume I could find a simple object hidden under a bed.
Actually finding it and producing it was, of course, a separate issue.
"Bringing a weapon that takes live ammunition onto academy grounds is forbidden. Were you unaware?"
How she smuggled it in was not the issue. The fact that she was caught was what mattered.
"Might I ask what your reason was for bringing this pistol?"
Still seated on the bed, I looked up at Mia Crowfield as I spoke.
"...... That, that is...."
Mia Crowfield stammered for a moment. She was still deathly pale and trembling; I did feel a faint pang of sympathy.
Then again, Mia Crowfield herself might not have been at great fault. The wrongdoing belonged to her father alone. And perhaps her mother as well.
Mia herself had known nothing. She had simply grown up believing what her parents told her.
And she had not yet used this pistol.
But under imperial law, that changed things.
Expulsion from the Academy went without saying. Depending on why she had concealed a firearm, a death sentence for her personally would not even be surprising.
Moreover, there was circumstantial evidence, and if the emperor simply decided to act, trumped-up justifications could be applied.
This was a situation incomparably more dangerous than when Count Crowfield had died. If enough of a plausible cause were constructed, the entire Crowfield family could be annihilated.
After all, whatever else I was, I was an imperial princess.
"Are you... intending to kill me?"
After struggling for a long while to form a coherent sentence, Mia Crowfield finally asked me that.
"...... Let us close the door behind you and talk, first."
Only after I said that did Mia Crowfield scramble to shut the door.
Silence.
With the door closed, the two of us were alone in the room. Alice already knew because I had told her in advance, but no one else knew I had that kind of hostile history with Mia Crowfield.
"Would you care to tell me why you assume I intend to kill you?"
"...... Because I am a child of House Crowfield."
"And do you not also know that I cannot simply murder the daughter of a count on a whim?"
"B-but my father...."
Mia Crowfield swallowed once, audibly, then spoke.
"You killed my father...."
"......."
I regarded Mia Crowfield in silence.
Was that claim based on some piece of evidence, or was it blind belief?
Last time, I had framed the question by revealing the facts myself and provoking her, but confirming how she had arrived at such a conclusion was just as important.
"May I ask why you are so certain?"
I put the question to her.
"......."
At my question, Mia Crowfield squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again before she answered.
"...... Because on the day my father died, you were absent from the imperial palace."
"......."
I waited, but no more words followed.
"Is that your sole basis?"
"It was not only you. Every time a noble died under suspicious circumstances, one of the emperor's children would also disappear from the palace at the same time."
"......."
I see.
The emperor had probably never intended to hide the truth in the first place. No—he had likely made a point of displaying it openly. A message: any noble who refused to heed my words would be rooted out and eliminated.
That was why she could be this certain.
And the fact was, I truly had killed Mia Crowfield's father.
"So is that what this is? Revenge? By killing me?"
"......."
But she could not answer that question properly.
Was it because she was afraid of me? Afraid that a wrong answer would make me kill her on the spot? Afraid that would prevent her from ever getting proper revenge?
"...... That is...."
Mia Crowfield seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment, then spoke in a voice that lacked conviction.
"...... That is something I am not sure of."
"......."
Now? After all this?
She had gone so far as to acquire a pistol and Marmaros, and yet she still had not decided whether to actually kill me?
I sank into thought for a moment.
In the original story, Mia had also tried to kill Claire, only to abandon the attempt in the end. But that decision had come only after she was confronted with incontrovertible proof, in the Crowfield-focused episode, that her father had committed those crimes. That storyline was still a long way off.
And from the moment Claire first appeared, Mia Crowfield's suspicions had never once wavered.
Could that unwavering suspicion actually have been shaken, because I had appeared in the story?
Strictly speaking, wasn't I an easier target to kill? I mean, putting the method aside—psychologically easier.
She thought I was an expressionless killing machine. A person who felt not the slightest pang of conscience over taking a life.
Since I had never once shown any human side, wouldn't that have made me easier to kill?
"...... There is one thing I want to ask you."
Mia Crowfield spoke.
"Why did you act so human when you thought no one was watching?"
"...... Human?"
I tilted my head.
What did she mean, 'human'?
Had I laughed or something when I thought I was alone?
As Mia Crowfield went on, her expression looked like that of someone who had simply let go of something. She wore the look of a person too weary even to think, a person who would rather do nothing at all, just let everything go.
It was the expression of a raw recruit who had endured too much all at once and now wanted nothing more than to sink into dreamless sleep.
"......I followed you."
...... Huh?
"To observe how you behaved when you believed no one else was around."
...... What?
"And... once you were certain no one was watching, you simply acted like an ordinary person. Sniffling. Yawning. Sitting there, nodding off."
"......."
What in the world was she talking about?
When had I ever....
.......
...... Ah.
In an instant, a chill raced down my spine.
Inside the imperial palace, I had always remained sharply on edge, knowing someone was perpetually watching me. Lucas slicing me down was something I could evade by turning back time; the real problem was the timeline when Lucas did not slice me down.
Unless Lucas sprang out and declared 'Here I am!', I had no way of knowing where he was lurking.
So, in short, I had no choice but to maintain my persona meticulously at all times. If I ever let it slip, Lucas would witness it and report every detail of my conduct to the emperor. However irreverent Lucas might act in the emperor's presence, no one could deny that his fundamental respect for the emperor was genuine.
His desire to cut me down in the end was also entirely sincere, but anyway.
After arriving at the Academy, however... I had allowed myself to relax a little.
Even at the palace I had relaxed somewhat inside my own room, but not like at the Academy. Here, even if my behavior was exposed, the worst that would happen was Alice flinging open my door and barging in. Alice had already begun to read my expressions. Having her catch me in a few unguarded moments would not send her into fits of shock.
It was enough just to keep my face from disastrously crumbling the way it did when I ate parfait.
But still....
Had I relaxed too much?
Mia Crowfield had tailed me?
"Since when?"
"Answer me first."
Mia Crowfield looked at me, her expression still full of confusion.
Yet in her eyes, there was a certain resolve. As though she meant to get an answer from me, no matter what.
"Were all those actions an act? Something you performed for me to see, to throw me into confusion?"
"......."
"Is it true that you killed my father? And did you come into my room now to silence me? I cannot tell. I do not understand what logic governs your actions—whether there is any consistency to them at all."
"......."
Hmm.
Mia's surveillance had probably begun at least a week ago. The dawn I had sat nodding off while waiting for the stagecoach was the only time she could have seen me doing that.
The yawning and the sniffling would all have been then, too.
But there was no proof she had not been tailing me even earlier. I could turn back time and prevent myself from acting that way in that particular moment, and thereby erase at least that specific image... but the trouble was, I had no guarantee I had not been caught at some earlier or later point as well.
If I did turn back time... reverting all the way to the start of the semester would be the safest course.
And the moment I reached that conclusion, I felt my mind go blank.
I was into the second weekend now, but an immense amount had happened in the past two weeks. I possessed the ability to turn time backward, but I did not possess the ability to fast-forward through it.
I had painstakingly nudged events toward the outcomes I wanted, and now, because of this one variable, I would have to redo everything from the very beginning?
Well... fine.
I could probably handle things faster. The speed at which time passed would be the same, but the number of loops would be far fewer.
The real question was whether, even if I did rewind, I could maintain the exact same relationship I had built with every person I had met so far.
From their perspective, I might be someone they were meeting for the first time. But from my perspective, they were people I had encountered many times over.
Was I actually a good enough actor to pull off a flawless reprise, pretending I was meeting them for the first time and precisely recreating the image I had constructed up to now?
Moreover, I did not want to lose all those feelings, either. The emotion of meeting characters I had loved in the game, face-to-face for the first time. If I rewound the memories and experiences of that, the impact would fade by just as much.
However much I had trashed the game, the affection I had felt had been genuine.
Even toward Mia Crowfield, standing right in front of me now.
.......
"Please answer me."
When I remained silent, Mia Crowfield now spoke almost beseechingly.
"Why did you deliberately approach me when no one else ever would, and make it possible for us to work on the assignment together? How could you stand before me without showing the slightest hostility...."
The more I listened, the more things I had overlooked kept surfacing.
"......."
I raised one hand to cut off Mia's words mid-sentence.
Then, after organizing my thoughts, I slowly opened my mouth.
"......I do know the truth."
Yes. Rather than rewind and begin all over again from the very start, I was better off extracting myself from this situation first and then slowly formulating a new approach.
"However, they are things I cannot tell you right this moment."
I looked Mia Crowfield straight in the eyes as I spoke.