Alice wasn’t really expecting much.
When Sylvia called him “brother,” it seemed more like she just needed Jayden’s power rather than a sincere attempt to bond. Alice didn’t know how Sylvia acted before using her “abilities,” but she could certainly imagine a few things.
Sylvia never directly talked about her abilities. Alice hadn’t asked her to either. However, considering what Father said back then, it wasn’t impossible to guess what they were about.
What if I could just erase my mistakes? Whenever she thought about it, Alice reached the same conclusion: “Just do what you want, and take whatever you can get!”
But still, she felt a little wronged.
Right?
After all, Alice had spent a significant amount of time with Sylvia, even if it wasn’t the longest. Although it took quite some time, Alice genuinely thought of Sylvia as a sister. The claim of her being an older sister was honestly a bit prideful.
Moreover, hadn’t Sylvia been friendly only toward Alice since childhood? While she kept a cold attitude toward their other siblings, she never hesitated to help Alice.
Sighs “Brother,” huh?
Right. She felt a bit wronged.
Even if it could all become a thing of the past, it still felt unfair. After all, Alice was the one who remembered it all.
Therefore, Sylvia’s reaction this morning was quite surprising to Alice.
“Sylvia?”
Alice hardly ever had to wake Sylvia up in the morning. Usually, Sylvia woke up earlier than her. It wasn’t that Sylvia slept less than others; she just seemed to prefer maintaining a regular lifestyle.
When there were duties to attend to, Claire would wake Sylvia up even earlier.
Alice envied Claire. The difficulty between ‘calling’ someone sister and ‘hearing’ it was like a chasm between the sky and the ground. Calling someone sister was something you could just decide to do, but hearing it required the other person to accept it and use the word themselves.
It meant if Sylvia said she didn’t want to, that was it.
“…”
Anyway.
In that context, if Sylvia was waking up later than Alice, it meant something had happened to her. It meant she had some reason, however trivial, that caused her to stay up late last night, a reason that she couldn’t just undo with her abilities.
Or, maybe she was even preparing to go back to a time before she used the word “brother” and didn’t care about little things like sleeping in.
Whatever the reason, it was about time to wake up. The Master was waiting, and from experience, the Master didn’t like lazy people. Although she wouldn’t be excommunicated or anything, that day’s training could potentially become several times more intense.
Alice raised her hand again and knocked on the door.
“Sylvia?”
There was no response from inside.
“Can I come in?”
Getting no answer despite asking for permission, Alice decided to just open the door and walk in.
What she found inside was Sylvia, who was already fully prepared to leave.
Dressed in her academy uniform, which she wore almost every day since starting at the academy, Sylvia sat in a chair with a blank expression on her face.
Yes, a blank expression.
From Alice’s perspective, who could read Sylvia’s expression, it wasn’t exactly ‘expressionless,’ but it definitely looked vacant.
“Sylvia?”
Only when Alice approached did Sylvia blink out of her daze.
“…Crown Princess.”
Hearing her addressed not as “sister” or even by her name but as “Crown Princess” made Alice’s temper rise again, but she held it in for now. If Sylvia couldn’t even hide her expression, things must be pretty serious.
“What’s wrong?”
“…”
Alice asked in a serious voice, but Sylvia stared blankly at her for a while, then suddenly raised her hand to sweep her face.
“Is it something serious?”
“Um…”
When Alice said that, Sylvia hesitated a lot.
Seeing that, Alice’s heart sank again.
*
I’m unable to go back to the moment when I called you sister.
How could I even say something like that?
Especially to someone asking with such a serious expression.
Considering the image I usually projected, I shouldn’t be this flustered. I was supposed to be cool and beautiful, after all.
Well, I did think about how that image might crumble one day.
But I never entertained the idea that it could happen at this moment.
“…It’s nothing.”
I exhaled deeply and again composed my expression. It appeared that morning had already arrived while I blanked out. I got sleep, but it wasn’t restful. After waking up multiple times during dreams where Jayden popped in saying, “Come on, call me brother again!” I was left with hardly any sleep at all.
“Really?”
Alice had a serious expression, but she didn’t pry further.
She’d always been like that. Even if I didn’t want to say anything, it seemed fine to her to leave it at that.
…Then again, she hadn’t backed off calling me sister.
Now it was too late to take it back.
I managed to suppress the urge to roll on the floor, covering my face again.
Huff.
Well, fine. Since it’s come to this, I’d better cling to whatever scraps of my character I had left.
“That’s right.”
I answered that way and stood up.
“Let’s go see the Master.”
“Ah, sure.”
I stood and confidently walked out the door.
“Um, Sylvia.”
Then, I heard a voice calling me from behind.
Turning my head—
“The way is this way, right?”
Alice pointed to the hallway in the opposite direction I was headed.
“…”
Stiffly, I turned back and walked toward Alice.
Still, she wore a serious expression…
But I could never say I wouldn’t call you sister again.
With the feeling of a girl in the nearby distance, I couldn’t even say that the checkpoint was being updated in real-time, no matter how many times I tried since then.
Alice would never miss that opportunity.
*
“Sister!”
The moment they entered the training ground, that word rang out loud enough to become almost traumatic.
For some reason, Claire was waiting at the training ground.
…Should I give Claire a nickname soon?
If I could come up with something like “Flash” from those light novels for Chuuni people, maybe Claire would be embarrassed enough to stop calling me that?
But at this point, the risk was too high.
With Claire’s cheerful personality, wouldn’t she start calling me a nickname too?
A chill ran down my spine again—a chill I felt several times yesterday.
“Claire.”
Claire dashed toward us with a beaming smile.
“Since the Master is nearby, Mother got permission for me to train here too.”
“Though the condition is that I still have to return home for evening lessons,” Leo added, following Claire.
“Evening lessons?” Alice replied, as if unsure what that meant, and Leo shrugged.
“Well, we’re from the Baron’s estate. If we were a bit higher rank nobility, there would be suitors lining up for Claire even if she wasn’t ladylike, but being from the Baron’s, we have to consider the other side’s conditions unless they’re an equal family.”
Though Claire shot Leo a glare for using honorifics like they were at the academy, she didn’t deny it.
“Well, we’ll all become adults eventually.”
“Tsk, tsk.”
At Claire’s words, the Sword Saint clicked his tongue.
“Isn’t it the case that someone your age shouldn’t even think they’re an adult? When I was your age—”
At the Sword Saint Frederick’s remark, the expressions of the three people chatting grew strange. If I hadn’t been particularly careful with my expression because of what happened yesterday, I would have shown a similar expression for a moment.
Though the Sword Saint tried to dissuade Leo when he mentioned wanting to fight in a war.
“Ahem.”
Sensing the strange atmosphere from the expressions of the three, the Sword Saint coughed slightly and said, “Well, what can we do? Times have changed, and even an old man like me has to keep up.”
Then looking around at us, he said, “Now, let’s start morning training from here. We’ll eat afterward. Understood?”
“Yes!”
A strong voice echoed throughout the training ground.
I subtly glanced at the soldiers standing by the door.
Everyone seemed to be looking at us with envious eyes.
…Well, I guess even just not participating in the training like that was commendable enough.
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