I'm Not Interested in the Princess's Plaything, Though
I'm Not Interested in the Princess's Plaything, Though
Yergina Pierce.
A named character with a high probability of reaching 5-Star caliber.
With every step she took, the defined muscles of her thighs shifted visibly beneath her short armor, drawing the eye.
— Clack. Clack.
The crisp sound of metal-soled military boots echoed through the hall.
It was the people behind her who first noticed she was dragging something along.
"Aaaaah—!"
A young noblewoman's scream rang out.
The cry spread like contagion through the crowd.
"I-Is that a person?!"
"How could someone bring something so ghastly in here!"
No one had recognized it sooner—her entrance had simply been too overwhelming to process anything else. A long trail of blood streaked the path Yergina had walked.
Dragging.
Dragging it behind her, Yergina Pierce came to a stop before Hermann.
She swept her gaze across the gathered nobles, then spoke.
"Quite the splendid banquet, dear brother."
Her tone was rough, like a soldier weathered by years of war, yet the word "brother" was delivered with flawless aristocratic poise.
"Wh-What are you doing here?!"
"I heard the banquet was starting ahead of schedule, so I came running."
"You were not invited!"
"Oh my. Is there some law that says I may not attend my own family's banquet?"
"Should you not be guarding the northern border?!"
"Ah, but I had to make it to my dear brother's banquet. So I swept the place clean and came in one breath."
She planted one hand on her cocked hip and blinked one eye at Hermann. It was less a wink and more a threat.
"Spare me your lies! I know very well how fiercely those barbarians have been pressing the border lately!"
"Ah. So you did know."
Grin.
"Then why schedule a banquet on a day like this? Your little sister's out there beating back savages at the frontier, feeling terribly hurt."
"Th-That is—! A banquet must be held when the weather is fair!"
"Fair weather. Right. It has cleared up a bit lately, hasn't it. Sure. Right. Heh heh heh."
Her shoulders shook. Whatever she found so amusing, the sight alone was enough to freeze the room solid. A presence so immense that laughter alone cowed everyone around her.
With the casual motion of tossing a small knapsack, she flung what she held in her hand.
— Gurgle!
The blood-soaked man thrown at Hermann's feet convulsed.
"Wh-What is the meaning of this insanity?!"
"Getting worked up over a little mashed-up person."
"Yergina! Mind your decorum!"
"Ah. Right. Decorum. My apologies, everyone."
She gave a sloppy bow of her head toward the assembled nobles.
And when she raised her face again—
— A flash of teeth.
The grin that stretched across Yergina's lips, baring her teeth, belonged to a predator.
Her crimson eyes gleamed with a savage light.
"By the way."
Yergina seized a fistful of the collapsed man's hair.
— Slam!
She drove his head into the floor.
"Urgh—!"
A groan escaped the battered man. His breathing was so faint and ragged it seemed his life might snuff out at any moment.
Tiny shrieks and a deeper, more pervasive dread rippled through the banquet hall.
Hermann shouted.
"Th-This is barbaric!"
"Barbaric?"
Ha!
She snorted and ran a hand through her hair. The blood on her fingers streaked red through the strands.
"The reason any of you get to sit around playing your little noble games is because of the knights and soldiers holding the line at the border. Does anyone among you fine lords and ladies care to dispute that?"
"......"
"But what was that? Barbaric?"
A deathly silence fell over the hall.
Sneering, Yergina crouched beside the prostrate man. She grabbed him by the hair once more.
Urgh.
Ignoring his groan, Yergina asked, "Oi. Speak."
"A-Antigonos is eternal. Our people will never bow to a bitch like y—"
"Good enough. You've done your part."
— Crunch.
Yergina's fist detonated against his skull.
"Grrk."
The man went still.
"Antigonos's offensives grow fiercer by the day. Hermann. If you are truly the firstborn of House Pierce, stop skulking inside the estate like a rat throwing banquets. Hold your banquet at the border, out in the open."
She flicked the blood from her fist and continued.
"That is the kind of nerve a true heir of House Pierce ought to show."
Hermann Pierce stood there opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, his face slick and melting like thawing ice.
The other nobles fared no better.
In a hall full of bewildered people, Yergina alone smiled. The expression was fierce and savage, like a wild beast.
— Clack. Clack.
She strode out, following the trail of blood she had carved through the hall.
The moment Yergina vanished from view and her suffocating presence finally began to fade—
"Haaah—!"
Someone gasped as if surfacing from deep water. Others followed, their breaths ragged and desperate. A few young ladies collapsed where they stood, their legs giving out beneath them.
Ian had been observing the situation with perfect calm, unlike the rest of the nobles.
'...We've hit a pretty troublesome story branch.'
He hadn't predicted Yergina's appearance, but he had certainly considered the possibility.
He deliberately spoke to Sharon, who stood motionless nearby.
"Your sister's a bit intense, isn't sh—"
— Click.
Sharon shot Ian a look like he was an insect and walked out along the red carpet Yergina had left behind.
Ian sank into thought.
If you played through enough times, you learned that Chapter 2 contained a wide array of branching paths.
One of the significant ones was this scene: Yergina crashing the ball.
A low-probability event—but when it triggered, the internal strife within House Pierce escalated to its absolute peak.
'I had a hunch the moment Sharon popped up out of nowhere.'
When whales fight, the shrimp's back breaks—and the feud between the first and second heirs of House Pierce alone sent the story's danger level soaring.
'But at the same time, the clear potential just went up too.'
Ian scanned the banquet hall once more. The nobles still drowning in confusion. Hermann fuming in the distance.
There didn't seem to be anything else worth extracting here.
Ian stepped out through what had once been the banquet hall doors.
His destination was obvious.
◆
Chapter 2's scenario was designed around the assumption that the player had successfully awakened the heroine Sharon Pierce's talents.
In other words, the orthodox strategy was to funnel resources at her—whaling and over-investment—until Sharon Pierce reached the threshold of 5-Star, then throw her into the succession race for House Pierce.
The Northern Grand Duke had no intention of relinquishing his seat, so the succession struggle itself was largely meaningless. The core of the strategy was using that conflict to rally allies.
Flip the house upside down until even the Northern Grand Duke couldn't afford to stand idle—then exploit the chaos to gather evidence.
"...That's the textbook approach."
But in this timeline, Sharon Pierce—the heroine who was supposed to receive steady care, approach 5-Star status, and serve as bait to move the great whale—was in her current state. Naturally, he could neither use her nor had any desire to.
"The third child is completely out of the question."
House Pierce's third had never once revealed herself. Swallowing a vague sense of unease, Ian mentally erased her existence.
The situation looked dire, but Yergina's appearance in the story was a major boon. It meant he needed to spark a real fight between Hermann and Yergina.
"Whale fight, shrimp back—doesn't matter either way."
For the shrimp to survive, it had to get the whales fighting first.
Ian resolved to become the bait himself.
"...Where did she go."
He followed Yergina's trail. Fortunately, her military boot prints were visible atop the snow, making it easy to track her.
The trail led into what appeared to be a small forest cultivated within the estate grounds for leisurely strolls.
'These people really are obscenely rich.'
He tracked the footprints in the snow for some time.
"Huh?"
The prints vanished.
The moment he looked around in confusion—
— Shhk.
He felt a sensation like something slicing across his throat.
Something hot and wet trickled down his neck. He looked down and saw a small tree branch.
"What's this? Ah. The Third Imperial Princess's plaything."
He turned toward the voice. Yergina stood there, eyes like embers trapped in glass. She furrowed her brow briefly, then, as if realizing he wasn't what she'd expected, withdrew the branch and clicked her tongue.
'She cut my skin with a twig that thin?'
If he'd checked his neck and seen the perfectly straight, uniformly deep wound, he would have been far more horrified. As it was, this was bad enough.
Swallowing hard, Ian hid his tension and spoke.
"...I wouldn't go so far as 'plaything.'"
"That's what people were muttering about you."
"The name is Ian. Ian Blackangus."
"Heh. A surprisingly bold one. Amusing."
Yergina smiled—then wiped the expression clean from her face.
"So, Ian. What do you want? For the record, I'm not easily satisfied by your average plaything. And you look far too scrawny for the role."
A chill crawled down his spine, cold enough to sting. His mind threatened to go numb from the sheer gap in power. Ian clung to a semblance of composure and answered.
"I didn't come here to offer myself as a plaything."
"Then why follow me?"
She'd been on guard from the start, keeping an eye on her surroundings. Her voice sharpened. The presence she'd been holding back began to seep out.
Ian's instincts screamed one thing: she might be mistaking him for one of Hermann's men. She was merely holding back, weighing her judgment.
'One hit from that fist and I'll be paste.'
There wouldn't even be a body left to clean up.
The gap between a 5-Star and everyone else was like the gap between a human and an ant. The situation was as bad as it could get.
He had never intended to meet her like this—getting caught while tailing her. The plan was to stage a chance encounter while out for a stroll.
'...Damn it.'
Regardless.
An answer. He needed a proper answer.
Yergina's eyebrow twitched, as if her patience had reached its limit. Ian watched her fist clench slowly and opened his mouth.
"I was smitten by you, Lady Yergina."
"...What?"
The sharp edge in her eyes crumbled into disbelief.