Ch.356The NPC Who Dropped the Sun. (5)

“While the concept of a ‘council’ itself isn’t bad, the system of determining the ‘chair nation’ based on visible power and wealth between countries will inevitably cause complaints and dissatisfaction from smaller nations. It will only darken the already murky color of politics. It’s obvious that behind-the-scenes maneuvering will only increase. I’m not skilled at political intrigue, let alone proficient, so it gives me a headache. Especially in the case of Aigram, which has plenty of money but no military power, they might choose not to participate at all. Well, the content itself is like a fantasy drawn by a child who knows nothing about politics. But there are some parts that could be useful if refined.”

“Hmm, there were some good points, but about 80% is unusable. It doesn’t align with the current political system and market structure. Well, I’ll adjust those parts myself.”

I talked quite a bit, but the evaluation is fucking harsh! I organized information from my past life about parliament, voting systems, national alliances, and everything else that came to mind in the most positive way possible, and this is what I get. I guess I’ve learned about the gap in knowledge between someone who actually works in the field and someone who only has secondhand information.

Damn, I was kind of hoping to hear “Jack, you’re amazing!” but that’s not happening.

“Hehe. Jack, don’t be too disappointed. Your idea of not abandoning the ruined capital’s land and having a new neutral city operated simultaneously by multiple countries rather than having a single leader was quite good. It gave me an idea of how to bring refugees who lost their homes and jobs due to the fallen empire back to the capital, preventing them from starving to death and reintegrating them into the economic cycle.”

“Yes, let’s keep this matter confidential for now. A business venture that smells so strongly of money would cause all countries to scramble to participate in the competition for interests. I’ll coordinate with the princess and Dean Naika to make the announcement. Thank you for the good insight.”

“Haha, thank you for thinking well of it. Ragni, I’m sorry for making you work hard again.”

“Tch! Because of these two, I couldn’t even ask what I wanted to, boy. I still have questions left.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Well, let’s stop here and rest. We have another meeting tomorrow, or rather, today.”

Now even bad adults know it’s time to rest. No, everyone except the Dean knows.

After listening to the King of Ponia and receiving affirmation from Ragni and me, we saw him off first, and Ragni began to move with him, saying he would escort him.

“Jack, sleep well.”

“Yeah, I’ll come as an escort in the morning too. Ms. Kara, please take care of Ragni.”

“Yes.”

After sending the three people ahead, I headed to the reception room…

“There’s no point in staying here any longer. Let’s go.”

“What? But you said you had something to ask…”

“We’re going to my room. Follow me.”

The Dean rose from her seat as if nothing was wrong and started moving toward the exit. No, do we really have to go all the way to your room…?

-Pop.

“?!! W-what?!”

“Hmm. That should do it.”

The Dean, who I thought was going out the door, suddenly reached out toward me, and the scenery changed. Huh, teleport? Where is this?!

“This is the Dean’s office at Neity. I said we were going to my room.”

“…What?!!”

I shouted in surprise at the sight of a room with piles of books and even more stacks of documents, and she told me to lower my voice because it was noisy as she sat down in her seat. No! Why did you suddenly bring me to Neity?! More importantly, aren’t you supposed to be escorting the King of Ponia…!!

“I’ve assigned spirits and that slave boy to his side. Nothing problematic should happen unless it’s something extraordinary.”

“And I’m supposed to be Ragni’s escort…!!”

“Is he so fragile that he needs your protection? Is that what you call an argument?”

“No…!!”

As I glared at her with a mix of bewilderment and disbelief at her brazen behavior, she just snorted and countered that she would send me back when the conversation was over, so I should stop with the useless talk.

Wow, this is really infuriating! This woman!!

“What is this about?! If it was about our earlier conversation, we could have just continued there…!!”

“Past life. Game. Queen.”

“…What?”

What? What did this woman just say? I stared blankly at the Dean after hearing those words pierce my ears, and she, seemingly pleased with my reaction, rested her chin on one hand and continued.

“The original empire. The instructor’s fate. And the changed history. The instructor who would have become queen. Well, I’ve heard various things. So I wanted to ask. What exactly are [you] up to?”

I think I’ve been really patient for my part. As I watched the Dean even chuckling as if telling an amusing story, my mind went blank. She heard? When? From whom? How long has she known? What is this, what’s going on…

“Now. This is a continuation of our earlier conversation. ‘Warp Gate,’ was it? Let’s hear everything about what was ‘on this continent’ in your past life and everything else you know.”

The Dean’s voice, coming from less than two meters away, echoed in my head like a distant ringing.

*

“Your Highness. Then, I shall take my leave.”

“Wait a moment, Kara.”

As Ragni, who had changed into his nightclothes after escorting the King of Ponia, stopped the maid, she tilted her head and remained in place.

“I think the empire’s matter is coming to an end, and I’ve told you everything.”

“Pardon? Ah, yes.”

“So, I’ve been wanting to ask. Are you really ‘Kara’?”

“…Pardon?”

At Ragni’s question, the maid tilted her head as if she truly didn’t understand what he meant, then quickly corrected her posture and answered.

“Yes. I am Kara. I was selected as a maid when Your Highness was three years old, and I served as your exclusive maid until you disappeared, and even after you returned, I am Kara, the maid who has served only Your Highness.”

“…That day, did you also hear the contents of Mother’s diary?”

“Yes. I was not aware that there was a diary written by the Queen, but I heard the contents properly.”

Ragni frowned at the maid’s voice, which contained nothing but the truth with honest eyes. His specialty was reading others’ voices and behavior patterns, predicting their actions and thoughts almost like future sight. So it was indeed strange. She is the ‘real Kara.’ If that’s the case…

“Alright, then let me ask. Why did you put poison in my tea when I was four years old?”

“…So you knew after all.”

Kara, who came from my mother’s home country to this country, became a maid of the empire, and then worked hard to become my exclusive maid, loved by my mother since my birth. I knew she had always been faithfully obedient to my ‘orders,’ but I didn’t know until now that she had been the Queen’s—my dead mother’s—maid.

I might have known if I had been interested, but Ragni can say for certain. The reason I kept her by my side was because I thought someone of her caliber would be able to read me and ‘protect her own life more easily.’ But in my mother’s diary, it was written that she gave Kara to me. Conversely, that means my mother must have told Kara to protect me. But why…

“Hehe. Your Highness, your eyes when you’re thinking are truly beautiful. It’s like seeing the Queen again.”

“Huh?”

Ragni tilted his head at Kara’s sudden smile, which she had never shown before, and she continued, praising even that gesture as cute and similar to the Queen’s.

“Indeed, the Queen entrusted the princess to me, not to the head maid or other maids brought from our country. And I was only able to be appointed as a maid when the princess became the royal princess. I wasn’t a particularly skilled maid because I was too young.”

The sight of Kara with her eyes wavering as if reminiscing about the past seemed genuine even to Ragni.

“However, the Queen told us all that she was sorry. Clearly, if she died, ‘we would all be disposed of.'”

“…That.”

It’s possible. Considering the emperor’s foolish character and behavior patterns, it was fully expected that he would try to execute all the maids from the vassal state who had allowed his beloved queen to die.

“So, I, the youngest among those from the vassal state, was assigned to another department while the Queen was pregnant. There, I was ordered to prepare to approach the princess as a ‘new maid.'”

A maid who was originally assigned to a foreign princess was reassigned to another department to start with menial tasks. She, who received such a demotion, was thought to have been abandoned by the Queen. That way, she could escape the Emperor’s notice and survive when other maids were punished by the Emperor.

“The Queen, the Princess were my benefactors. Originally, I would have spent my life as a commoner selling water, but she picked me up, made me an adopted daughter of a small but baronial family, and then selected me as a maid and protected me directly. And even in the empire, she wanted at least me, the young one, to survive. She entrusted her daughter to me instead. That’s how she…”

“Then, why…”

Did you poison me?

I thought Kara was an enemy too. Just unskilled at directing killing intent toward others, never having killed before. So I tried to use her instead. That’s why I couldn’t think of Kara as my person at all.

“It was necessary. I mentioned I was assigned to another department, right? That was the personnel department directly under the Prime Minister. From the moment he learned that Your Highness had a skill, he was manipulating the Emperor to somehow deal with the child born to the vassal state’s queen before you grew up. So, I wanted to at least build up your resistance to poison. That was all I could do.”

It was really difficult. Finding and obtaining over 56 types of poison that exist in the empire, carefully measuring them so they wouldn’t reach the lethal dose for a child.

Kara’s eyes were glistening, about to overflow with tears as she said that. And Ragni couldn’t help but understand that those tears came from a deep sense of powerlessness.

-Rustle.

“Without saying anything, acting on my own. I imposed my own incompetence on Your Highness under the excuse of doing it for you. I have nothing to say. Please, punish me as you see fit.”

Kara knelt down modestly, closing her eyes, showing her willingness to accept any punishment. In response to her action, Ragni…

-Hug.

“…I see, if I had paid a little more attention to you, I could have noticed right away.”

Kneeling down just the same, embracing her gently so she wouldn’t break.

She always made antidotes herself, using them to build up my resistance. But even now, I can’t forget the day I first took poison. It was truly painful. I really thought I was going to die. But I didn’t die. And thanks to that, I could notice those who were trying to kill me.

I could quickly realize that the Emperor was my enemy. Only now do I suspect that his first order might not have been just to check on me but to kill me.

“…Thank you, Kara. You were alone, unable to tell anyone, weren’t you? It must have been painful.”

“Ugh…!!”

She probably couldn’t reveal that she was my mother’s maid either. She couldn’t reveal it to me either. If I had shown favor to her, someone might have investigated her and found out immediately. If that happened, she wouldn’t have been able to stay by my side.

-Squeeze…!!

“I’m sorry…!! I’m sorry for being stupid…!! For being incompetent…!!”

“You were protecting me. All this time, from behind. You were protecting me as much as you could in your own way.”

“Hic! Now, now. I won’t put poison anymore…!!”

“Silly. You haven’t done it even once since I was 12.”

The maid’s hands clutching me as if begging not to be abandoned, her trembling body, are so grateful and lovable. It makes me wonder if my mother, who truly loved me, was like this person, a feeling different from what I feel for Jack.

“…Kara. Will you follow me even if the empire disappears? I’m going to have many children. I need a maid who will help raise them.”

“Ugh!! Yes!! Wherever Your Highness, the Princess wishes…!!!”

“But promise not to poison our children? I won’t raise them to be kings or anything like that.”

“Yes!! Yesss!!!”

Ragni, who came to see her maid’s poisoning as a form of love given by her mother, chose to stay with her.

In the room where they stayed together, the fallen sun of the empire, who had lived and survived alone without ever being loved, no longer existed.