episode_0117

Alice lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling.

I couldn’t sleep.

The bed of the Baron’s house was not necessarily more uncomfortable than the bed of the Academy. In fact, the most expensive brand among the bed brands was set, and if you were from a noble family with some money, or a bourgeois commoner, you would use a bed of that brand, so there was no reason to worry about being uncomfortable when you went to a house of a certain class as a guest.

The reason Alice couldn’t sleep was not because of the bed, but because of Sylvia.

Maybe it was not just Sylvia, but also Claire and the children at the orphanage who were with Claire.

To be more precise, it was because of ‘those kids who were with Sylvia.’

Alice was proud of having known Sylvia for a long time. Five years old is a very young age in a person’s life, and since they had known each other for ten years, no one would say anything if they proudly claimed to be sisters. There are probably not many people in the world who can accurately recall memories from when they were under five years old.

But… … Sylvia’s expression today seemed to be properly recalling memories from when she was five years old.

Every time Alice guessed Sylvia’s expression, the people around her were surprised, and Sylvia looked at Alice with a strange gaze, as if wondering how she could do that, but in fact, this talent was really nothing special.

If you want to read Sylvia’s expression, just look into her eyes.

The eyes that were directed at someone. Sylvia’s eyes that were directed at some object were never ’emotionless’ for even a moment. Because Sylvia was always thinking and calculating about something.

And, the expression Sylvia made today when she saw that man named Daniel was almost like ‘longing’.

It felt incredibly strange to see Sylvia’s expression of longing for something.

Discovering an unknown side of someone you were proud to have known your whole life wasn’t as fun as you might think.

I wanted to know. But the feeling I was feeling right now wasn’t something that could be summarized into just one simple emotion.

Even if it was the ceiling in a dark room, if you opened your eyes and looked up quietly, light would come in through the gaps in the shadows. Of course, it was too faint to be called ‘light’, so you couldn’t even properly see the expressions of the people next to you.

Even when I turned my head, I could barely see Sylvia’s face lying on the other bed in the guest room.

However, the shape was only vaguely visible beyond the darkness.

Come to think of it, Alice had hardly ever seen Sylvia sleep. They had been sleeping in different rooms since they were little.

Even though I sat on the train for hours, I never dozed off, and the same was true during class and during my personal breaks.

I knew that Sylvia was very regular and would go to bed at 11pm without fail—

“Ah.”

Now that I think about it, Sylvia always woke up from a deep sleep. She would always go to bed around 11 p.m. and sleep until morning. Unless she had a mission to carry out or something else to do, Sylvia always lived that kind of regular life.

Isn’t Sylvia someone who sleeps a lot?

I was surprised that I was only just now thinking like that.

Because Sylvia was always thorough, planned, and always got what she had to do done—

—Last time, not only at the ruins.

“… … .”

I felt a gun pointed at the back of my head. I didn’t see it directly, nor did I hear it. But I felt the pain clearly.

A will to kill without fail.

Sylvia, who had never shown any sign of life—that is, Sylvia, who had never shown any sign of life even when her own life was at stake—was standing in front of her, and so the alien kind of life was felt much more clearly by Alice.

It was heterogeneous. It was something I had never felt from anyone before.

But at the same time, it felt somehow familiar.

When I turned around and looked at him, I saw a gun in his hand.

The one Sylvia always carried around. It looks a little older than the one Sylvia has.

At that point, Alice stopped thinking.

Somehow, I felt like that wouldn’t work.

I felt a sense of rejection, as if I shouldn’t continue thinking about that alien human being.

“… … .”

Did you think too much?

Even though it had already been a month, the memory of that moment was still etched in Alice’s mind and would not easily be erased.

We’ll meet again someday.

At least I hoped it wasn’t the person who was sleeping next to me right now.

If Sylvia hated Alice so much that she wanted to kill her, Alice wouldn’t be able to bear it.

At least, I hope Alice is as important to Sylvia as the other orphans in this territory.

I knew I shouldn’t think like this, but

Alice felt a little sorry that she wasn’t from the orphanage.

*

Last night I woke up after a really good night’s sleep without any worries.

I woke up in the morning at a time when the sun wasn’t even up yet, and realized that I felt much more refreshed and invigorated than usual. I thought deeply to myself about the reason why.

Perhaps it’s because there are no other beings to worry about here.

Leo is an important character. He is the main character. Claire and Baroness Grace also did not have light roles in the story.

But none of those people had any reason to attack me.

Alice is even more so. Just early last year, Alice seemed to have considered me a competitor, but in the past year, she has suddenly become mature and has been calling herself my older sister.

Although he was sleeping harder than me right now.

After organizing my thoughts like that, I understood.

There was no need to think about Lucas, Leo and Claire didn’t have to go out at dawn to carry out a request, and there was no need to waste time and energy being stopped by other nobles on the street. Everyone here was honest enough for me to deal with.

“Huh.”

But strangely, I felt empty and I found myself laughing without realizing it.

I looked at Alice, but she seemed to be sleeping deeply and did not seem to hear the sound.

I got up from my bed. Most of the stuff I had at the Academy had probably already been moved to the palace, but I still brought some things that I could use while sleeping somewhere other than the palace. I put them in a large trunk.

I pulled the trunk out from under the bed and picked up a few of my underwear and clothes inside.

“… … .”

And then I quietly looked down at the clothes I had picked up.

What I had in my hand was a school uniform.

A school uniform that looks endlessly like a military uniform.

In fact, the other clothes in my trunk were the same. Even if they weren’t my school uniform, most of the clothes I wore were in a formal style. Like what Lucas and Jaden usually wore.

However, it’s not like there weren’t things like dresses.

I thought of Claire. She had just come back yesterday and was still wearing her uniform, but would she be the same today?

I like swinging a sword, but I don’t think that my tastes are all that unique to men.

I looked down at the uniform for a moment, then put it back in my trunk.

And then I took out some other clothes.

*

Even though it was summer, I didn’t want to take a cold shower.

It was a very clean shower room, but the equipment—by my standards—looked incredibly old. Well, it didn’t seem like it would be all that different from a newly built shower room. This was still the early 1900s, after all. Even though it was a different world, and things that were done with electricity in my world had been replaced by magic or steam engines, it wasn’t a world where there were smartphones and things like that.

It’s a steampunk smartphone. I’d like to see it if there was one. There are digital clocks that only run on wind-up, so I wonder if it’s not impossible to make one.

While I was absentmindedly thinking about that, the hot water was coming out of the shower head properly.

Staring blankly at the shower curtain in the steamy room, I wondered how the hot water in this shower could be made with a steam engine, but then gave up. In fact, I don’t even know how modern boilers work. It’s probably water heated by burning coal or something. I heard that in the past, apartments had boilers in their central facilities.

I laughed heartily at the thought that I had been so unaware of how the world worked, whether in this world or the other world.

Strangely enough, that fact was comforting.

If you lived without knowing anyway, wouldn’t it not matter if there were things you didn’t know in this world?

*

“… … Sylvia?”

Alice woke up after I had finished showering, drying my hair, and getting dressed. By Alice’s standards, it was a time when she could be described as sleeping in.

And then Alice looked at me with a surprised expression.

No, I guess the expression ‘surprised’ might not be enough to express that expression.

Alice’s expression when she looked at me was close to shock.