I met all my brothers and sisters—except for one still outstanding.
As for Claire, sorry, but she’s out for now. I painted her as my sister, but for her to be one of the Emperor’s kids… well, that’s a bit of a stretch.
So I decided to catch up with Alice later.
Yeah.
Even if Claire is in her own category, Alice can’t opt out. Since I learned all the Emperor’s kids are actually related by blood, it meant Alice had to join this ‘sibling meetup.’
Especially since Alice will be the next Emperor. In a way, she’s kind of at the center of this whole circus.
“… So, you want me to release the restrictions?”
“I’m not saying to lift everything. Just to change the location of the confinement for a bit.”
Alice, who had been busy lately, promptly agreed to my request for time. I really appreciated that.
Plus, she listened to my seemingly nonsensical story with great interest.
“Go on.”
Alice said with her arms crossed.
“Where the Emperor and his kids are right now isn’t really a prison, right? So I thought maybe we could just find a building somewhere and all meet up to chat.”
“……”
Alice gave me a look, then picked up a sheet of paper that had been sitting on the table.
Oh right, we were in Alice’s room. It wasn’t her office, but considering how much she had to read, there were various papers that looked like reports scattered around. Not a mountain of them, but each one looked like a headache waiting to happen if I dared to read them.
And when Alice becomes the Emperor, she’ll have to read a lot more than that.
I’ll have to be there to read them too.
Just thinking about it made me feel dizzy, but I decided to suck it up.
Bam!
“A gryphon suddenly flew in and broke the window.”
“……”
Alice read the report.
I had no words to say.
At first, I thought she was ignoring me because my story sounded ridiculous, but the opposite was true.
“… And it says here that another prisoner was brought in through that broken window.”
I was at a loss for words.
Alice gently placed the report down and picked up another one.
“Here it states that the suddenly appeared gryphon kidnapped the first prince, Jayden.”
“Uh…”
“By the way, this report was filed directly by the knights and soldiers monitoring the mansion. They are instructed to report any anomalies. Naturally, it gets escalated directly to the Emperor. It seems the captured ones are subjects requiring special attention.”
Alice said, keeping her eyes glued to the report.
“And it mentions that the defenders have made certain assumptions about the cause? It’s written like this.”
Alice cleared her throat and read.
“It seems the Crown Princess is up to something. It would be best for the Crown Princess to meet with her directly.”
“……”
Hmm.
That makes sense.
While I thought the gryphon took care of this by itself, it was unrealistic to expect no suspicion from the other side considering the situation.
“You didn’t even give me a heads up about this.”
“……”
“Why not let the gryphon handle it again? If you grab one with your legs, you can move them all at once, right? You can ride on its back.”
“Th-that…”
“Huh? Why? Did you just realize that having gryphons break into houses and kidnap people isn’t such a good idea? Then why not just rewind time? ‘Do it again!’ Huh? Huh?”
Alice rolled up the report and seemed like she was about to jab it at me as she leaned closer.
I twisted my body, trying to dodge the report.
“Well, that might prevent you from keeping them in one place…”
“Even if you think that way, wouldn’t it have been better to at least tell me in advance? You really haven’t kicked that habit, have you?”
“……”
If I had a hundred mouths, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself.
“And right. Let’s worry about that later.”
Alice tossed the rolled-up report onto the table. After being rolled up once, it almost unfolded, but the end just barely stayed crinkled.
“So, what about this?”
Alice read the report.
“It says here someone hid a small gun in their sleeve and threatened the prince… They even fired it?”
“… It was a blank shot.”
“……”
Alice stared at me, and I averted my gaze.
“I thought I told you not to bring weapons?”
“A gun without ammo isn’t exactly a weapon, is it—”
“Sylvia.”
Alice called my name in a stern tone, forcing me to look back at her.
Her expression was serious.
“Do you… not trust me?”
“……”
“Is that why you did this?”
“… No, this is just my fault.”
I said that.
Yeah, it’s my fault.
It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t trust Alice; I just fell back into my old bad habit from the days of rewinding time. I would just take action, and if anything went wrong, I’d rewind time to fix it.
I somewhat realized I couldn’t just rewind time anymore, but when it came to needing to do something, my instincts kicked in.
“……”
Alice, sitting back in her chair with her arms crossed while watching me, let out a big sigh.
“Well, good. At least you came to tell me now.”
Had she been waiting for me to show up all this time?
Thinking about that made me feel even worse.
“I think… it’s okay.”
But Alice’s face didn’t seem very confident at all.
Watching Alice a bit nervously, she spoke.
“Isn’t there someone who might have a hard time accepting that they suddenly became so happy?”
“… Ah.”
The King of the Kingdom of Velbur and his daughter.
And the Papal State, which got fully wrapped up in this incident.
Of course, the case with the Papal State was a bit different. They were somewhat on the side of the aggressor in this scenario.
“……”
I pondered for a moment.
“So, you mean the Emperor and his children need to clearly tie up their relationship with the victims?”
“… Yeah. That’s what I think. Of course, the surface-level issues have been resolved. Velbur has achieved a complete victory, and my father… the Emperor has stepped down. All the kids trailing behind the throne have been pushed out as well. The only ones who can ascend now are you and me.”
Saying that made my stomach churn.
But Alice continued her explanation regardless of my expression.
“While there wasn’t a large-scale war, casualties still occurred. Siblings wanting to reconcile and trying to repair their relationship with their father? Sure, that’s possible. But if they appear to be living happily to others, it could worsen the relationships in the future, don’t you think?”
“……”
She sounds like she’s worried about international relations, but deep down, she’s really worried about her friend Charlotte.
Once the two become heads of their countries, they’ll hardly get to see each other.
“Should we… have the Emperor apologize?”
“Well, who knows? He might not want to see them at all.”
Alice said, resting her chin on her hand.
“Have you met Charlotte?”
“… I have.”
“Did you talk about this?”
“Yeah. We did.”
“How did it go?”
“… I don’t think it was a very comforting subject to talk about.”
When I told her that I introduced my two brothers, Charlotte said that.
“Of course, isn’t that right? If that’s the case, it’s already too early to clear any misunderstandings. It’d be better to wait until those people genuinely regret their actions.”
“… Was I, too hasty?”
“You were way too hasty.”
Alice didn’t back me up this time.
“Still, it was effective. At least, it gave them a chance to think things over differently. As for the rest… we have to hope that time will heal it.”
“……”
“Such wounds won’t heal easily, right? We can consider ourselves lucky that it ended up with this much because we were both there. From Velbur’s perspective, it’s somewhat safe to hold face.”
While she wasn’t openly backing me, she still seemed to have some comforting thoughts.
“So, I don’t think it’ll take decades. To ensure they forget to a degree, I think a few years might be enough. Once they’ve calmed down, we can slowly figure out how to communicate moving forward.”
“……”
“Until then, we’ll just have to work hard ourselves.”
Alice flashed a gentle smile at me as she spoke.
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