Arc 14: A Choice Between Two

Aten following me around had become part of my daily routine. Some people still looked surprised or whispered when they saw us, but most seemed to have gotten used to it.

After school, I headed toward Constel’s gates and spotted a familiar car. As I approached, the rear window rolled down.

“... We’ve been seeing a lot of each other, Ms. Philly.”

“Hellooo.”

Philly fluttered her hand at me. Behind me, Aten waved at her too. Now that I looked, their hand movements were similar. Mother and daughter, all right.

“Get in, Frondier.”

“I thought your business with me was finished.”

“It is. This time, I have a favor to ask.”

Hmm. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t expected this from Philly. I had a fairly good idea what the favor was, too. But she was acting far sooner than I’d anticipated. Was that how seriously she took this matter? Or did she think that highly of me?

“All right.”

“You too, Aten. Sit in the front.”

“... Okay.”

We both got in. The car pulled smoothly away, and Aten watched Philly and me through the rearview mirror from the passenger seat, looking a little awkward.

“Where are we going?”

“Terst Department Store. It’s the only place we can talk freely.”

As I thought. It seemed Philly had come to see me for precisely the reason I’d expected.

* * *

After arriving at the department store, Aten and I followed Philly to the underground hideout. Beyond the iron door was a room designed to resemble the Imperial Palace.

Philly sat at the central table and offered me the chair opposite hers. Once Aten and I were seated, she waved a hand, and all the men standing guard around us left.

Only the three of us remained. Philly took a sip of the tea that had been prepared.

“... I need to be certain.”

“...”

I made no reply. Philly continued.

“I’ve thought long and hard about the advice you gave me. There’s no denying that you risked your life to protect Aten. So I took your advice to heart as well, and thought it over again and again before deciding what to do next.”

She sounded much as she usually did, but she couldn’t hide her troubled feelings. As I’d expected, Philly had reached the right conclusion.

“... Even so, I need to be certain.”

“Very well.” I nodded. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”

“I met with Renzo.”

Aten looked a little startled at that. Philly’s tone suggested it was nothing of any consequence.

“Renzo wasn’t that foolish a man. He could see reason. He couldn’t possibly have wanted to become an enemy of the empire. That would put an end to the ‘fun’ he wants so badly.”

That was the right assessment. I nodded. Philly had said she needed certainty. My agreement alone would allow her to follow her own reasoning further.

“If you kidnap an imperial princess, death is inevitable, whatever your reasons. It means becoming an enemy of the empire.”

“That’s right.”

“But there is one way around that.”

Philly paused for a sip of tea, then murmured, her lips so close to the cup that her voice rippled its surface.

“Never getting caught in the first place.”

“...!”

Aten seemed to realize it then, too.

The biggest unforeseen factor in this attempted kidnapping was none other than me. I had stopped Renzo. The reason we knew he was the culprit now was that we had prevented the abduction.

But if anyone other than me had been beside Aten, the probability of her being kidnapped would have approached one hundred percent. And then we wouldn’t have been able to identify the culprit right away.

“All the camera drones near you had been replaced with fakes, Frondier. The drones along the escape route were probably all destroyed or replaced as well.”

Even with those precautions, though, they would have been found out eventually. Traitor or no traitor, Constel wasn’t that inept. Completely concealing the culprit’s identity was impossible. Sooner or later, Renzo’s involvement would have come to light.

But if the kidnapping had succeeded, there would have been a gap before Renzo was identified, unlike now. That gap was what the mastermind wanted.

“To understand a crime in its entirety, there are always three questions we must answer.” Philly raised her index finger. “Why this particular person?”

Aten answered.

“... In other words, why target me? That one is simple. Because I’m an imperial princess.”

Even if we couldn’t pinpoint one, there were more than enough reasons to target Aten, the Third Princess. There was no mystery there.

Philly raised her middle finger.

“Why this particular place?”

Aten answered again.

“You mean Constel. That’s easy to understand too. Renzo has an accomplice inside Constel, and I’m a student there. There’s nothing strange about that either.”

Again, there was no mystery. Philly raised her ring finger.

“Why this particular time?”

Aten considered that for a moment before replying.

“... During the practical exam. That is strange.”

Exactly. It wasn’t a particularly good time to commit the crime. The confines of the field, the drones constantly watching the students, and the time limit for sneaking in and getting back out. In the end, Renzo had failed to overcome those three conditions, exposing his crime.

“And yet the perpetrators decided this was the ‘ideal’ time.”

“That’s right.” I nodded once more.

Philly glanced at Aten then. The movement must have been unconscious. When Aten tilted her head, Philly smiled bitterly.

“... They used you, Frondier.”

“That’s right.” Once again, I gave the very same answer.

Why this particular time? The answer was simpler than one might think.

[Because Frondier would be the only one beside Aten during the practical exam.]

Frondier’s abysmal reputation. “Frondier the Human Sloth.” That image alone was enough to leave the people at Constel confused about who had kidnapped Aten.

When we faced off, Renzo had said:

[“Oh, I’m not interested in you. I’m after the princess beside you.”]

Renzo had never intended to attack me in the first place. Even if he had, he’d only meant to toy with me a little. In fact, his first blow had struck my side.

I didn’t know whether he’d held back, but he’d had openings to hit all sorts of vital spots besides my side. In other words, he hadn’t intended to kill me.

“Had the kidnapping succeeded, you would have been the only witness, Frondier. Your poor reputation would make your testimony difficult to trust. They might even suspect you of being the culprit.”

The wound in my side was staged, and Aten had been kidnapped by an accomplice working with me. They could have spun a story like that.

It was natural for a witness to come under suspicion when a crime occurred. And since that witness happened to be me, the suspicion would only grow.

“Of course, that too would eventually be resolved. Once they learned you weren’t responsible, Constel would finally, finally realize Renzo was the culprit.”

The mastermind hadn’t been trying to keep Renzo from ever being discovered, only to delay that discovery as long as possible. They had tried to use me to that end, and failed.

“... What is that supposed to mean?”

Aten’s voice broke in. Frost formed in her breath.

“What does that mean, Mom?”

Aten understood too—what Philly was about to say. Philly continued slowly.

“... There was a high probability that you and Frondier would team up for the practical exam. That’s why they targeted it. But how did they know? How did they know you would pair up with Frondier?”

In other words, the mastermind had known Aten had been sent to approach Frondier. But the people who knew that were very, very few.

“... I’m asking what that means.”

“Aten.”

Philly looked at her. There was no mistaking the mother’s smile on her face.

“Renzo’s accomplice is one of your two older sisters.”

Those words. Philly had spoken the very words Aten had been desperately hoping not to hear.

Philly had sent Aten to me to obtain information about the Dragon Heart. She hadn’t disclosed that to anyone in the Imperial Palace, not even her daughters, Sale and Elysia.

Conversely, though, those two were the only ones with any chance of uncovering that information. There were plenty of ways. The simplest example would be eavesdropping.

[“Have you made friends with your classmates?”]

[“Hmm, not really.”]

[“Oh, my! I told you to make friends, didn’t I? Studying is all well and good at your age, but friends are the most impor—”]

[“Just Frondier, a little.”]

Even a simple phone conversation like that between Philly and Aten could have been overheard by Alesia or Sale.

“... That’s a lie.”

Aten’s words were forlorn. Then she looked at me, as though hoping I would deny it.

But I couldn’t. Even before Philly’s reasoning and deductions, I had already known who the culprit was. I spoke.

“... If the culprit is the empress’s daughter, that explains why they wanted a gap before Renzo was identified. Ms. Philly has plenty of enemies. If a rumor spread that she and I were colluding, and the Imperial Palace was thrown into turmoil, the empire’s balance of power could shift in an instant.”

Then Renzo wouldn’t be an enemy of the empire. Instead, the empire would protect him. It was precisely because his accomplice was an imperial princess that he could attempt such a brazen crime.

Aten bit her lip at my words. Philly slowly spoke.

“... Frondier. Do you know which of the two is responsible?”

“... If I said I did, would you believe me?”

“Of course.”

Her words seemed sincere. Granted, Philly’s acting was too good for me to see through. But knowing her personality, she wouldn’t have asked in the first place if she didn’t believe me.

Even so, I said,

“Even if I do know, I won’t tell you who it is.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I tell you, you’ll doubt it at the very last moment.”

Philly doubted everything. That trait had indeed helped her survive the covert political battles in the Imperial Palace. But when pushed to the extreme of having to remove her own daughter, she would inevitably doubt.

Faced with her daughter tearfully denying it, pleading with all her heart, Philly couldn’t possibly remain unshaken.

“I’m simply amazed that you’re willing to believe the words of someone like me, with nothing to vouch for him.”

Yes. Even what Philly had done so far was remarkable. She had chosen to trust me, rather than my reputation. That astonished me—enough to make me reassess Philly as a character.

But that made it all the more important.

“Please reach that final answer yourself.”

Revealing the answer wasn’t my role.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

* * *

“What about Aten?”

“I think she’s quite shaken.”

Philly and I had gone up to the roof for a change of air. She was still alone, without any knights guarding her.

“... Ms. Philly. There’s something I’d like to ask you, too.”

“Ask anything. You’ve been a great help today.”

A great help? She’d seemed to know the answer already.

“You said you could see the future.”

“Sometimes. Often, it’s just a feeling.”

“About the future where Aten and Aster are together...”

“...”

I still couldn’t let go of that hope. Aster and Aten were unquestionably the best combination, with Runia, who was practically the official heroine, rounding them out. The other party members varied somewhat according to the player’s preferences, but those three were almost always fixed.

“Do you still get a bad feeling about a future where those two are together?”

Philly nodded at my question.

“Yes. Nothing has changed.”

“...”

Nothing had changed. Those words left a bitter feeling inside me.

I believed healing me had accelerated Aten’s awakening. And yet it still hadn’t changed?

As I struggled to settle my troubled thoughts, a voice suddenly reached me.

“... Frondier.”

For a moment, I thought it was Aten. But it wasn’t. It was simply Philly, standing in front of me, calling my name. That single word, stripped of formality, was warmer than anything I’d ever heard her say.

“I haven’t had any ominous feelings yet about a future where Aten is with you.”

“...”

“Would you stay by her side?”

Philly’s white hair, her red eyes, her harmless, rabbit-like face. A mother’s tenderness seemed to dwell in them.

“... She’s the one following me around, not the other way around.”

“Hehe. Then that’s settled.”

As she smiled, Philly looked as though something had reassured her deeply.