The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 125
EP.125 Revenge (1)
If I were a real student, the concept of vacation would’ve been delightful. School was much like a workplace—a place you had to go even when you didn’t want to, a reason to force breakfast down your throat despite the lack of appetite, and the cause of trudging along unwillingly every morning. Once you entered, you had no choice but to endure until the day’s lessons were over.
Of course, school was still better than a workplace. It ended earlier in the day, and there were two long vacations every year.
But I wasn’t an ordinary student. Neither was Alice. We were princesses, and our vacations were filled with responsibilities.
Whether it was fortunate or not, I hadn’t yet caught onto the foreshadowing of an impending event. For now, the Emperor hadn’t assigned me any tasks or proposed any deals. Most importantly, he didn’t seem to know that I’d accessed the Forbidden Library.
This fact gave me some peace of mind. The Emperor had deduced the nature of my abilities through his reasoning, not through some supernatural power that could see through me.
At least that was fortunate.
*
“You don’t need to follow me around like this,” Alice said from across the rattling carriage. Her expression was genuinely apologetic, almost enough to make me smile.
“There’s nothing for me to do if I stay in the palace,” I replied.
“You were cooped up in your room at the start of the vacation.”
That much was true, at least outwardly.
In reality, I had been roaming around the palace, infiltrating the battleship Dreadnought, which was docked for regular maintenance, mapping its interior, and sabotaging various palace facilities with improvised explosives. I recorded the results of these experiments—reaction times, structural damage, and troop mobilization speeds—repeating them dozens of times to average the data.
Every detail went into my notebook, written entirely in Korean. Even the numbers were written in artillery notation rather than Arabic numerals. After the Emperor became aware of my abilities, I always carried the notebook on me to ensure no one else could read it.
All of this was done when Alice wasn’t around. I avoided directly harming anyone, but by Imperial standards, my actions were outright treason. Above all, I didn’t want Alice to look at me with betrayal in her eyes.
The Emperor’s reactions, however, were unnervingly composed. It was as if he were saying, “You’ll just reset everything anyway, won’t you?” Of course, being the Emperor, he would’ve phrased it far more eloquently.
“Where we’re heading now is far more dangerous than anywhere you’ve been during the vacation,” I said.
“They won’t kill a princess outright. Even an ‘accident’ would cost them their entire territory,” Alice replied.
“But we’re dealing with the Crowfields.”
“Then isn’t it you who should be more cautious?”
While I had spent the vacation crafting excuses and watching for opportunities from the shadows, Alice had been drawing attention to herself with official appearances, as if to announce her candidacy for the throne.
Previously, her face hadn’t been well-known among commoners, but now her name and image were everywhere. She’d moved so publicly and persistently that even the press found it unusual.
“I’ve dealt with the Crowfields before,” she said.
“That was years ago. Their defenses and systems have become far more formidable since then.”
Hearing the certainty in her voice, I turned my gaze from the window to her.
“Did you think I wouldn’t investigate after you told me about them? When I call myself your older sister, I mean it.”
Alice spoke in a slightly firmer voice.
“And it’s my responsibility as your sister to protect you.”
“In that case, protecting the Crown Princess, the next Empress, is also—”
“No.”
Alice cut me off abruptly, her tone brooking no argument.
“The Emperor is someone who protects his loyal subjects under his own name. If you choose to follow me, then it’s my duty to protect you fully. I….”
She paused for a moment, fixing her gaze squarely on me.
“I won’t use you the way Father does. I’m not like him.”
“……”
I didn’t know how to respond.
It was heartening that she cared for me, especially since she was one of the characters I admired in the original story. But at the same time, it worried me.
In the original, Alice wasn’t this resolute at this point in the narrative. There were cracks in her character—a twisted sense of pride, a streak of inferiority that caused clashes with the protagonist, and a certain fragility that she couldn’t entirely hide.
The Alice before me now was entirely different.
Because of that, I couldn’t predict how she would act going forward. If I were trying to control events to shape the future into what I desired, I could already call my efforts a failure.
“…Even so, there’s no need for you to visit Crowfield personally,” I said, attempting to raise some form of protest.
Alice merely scoffed softly and turned her gaze to the window.
The scene outside contrasted starkly with the name Crowfield—an endless stretch of vibrant green pastures that extended to the horizon. It was hard to imagine that factories belching black smoke sat at the heart of the estate or that the place had once been infamous for selling drug-addicted children.
“You don’t know everything, do you?” Alice murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Or perhaps you just don’t know… yet.”
“……”
Alice glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, her expression unreadable.
Her gaze—
Well, I wasn’t sure how Alice would take this comparison, but there was something in her eyes that reminded me a little of the Emperor.
*
“Your Highness.”
The greeting came from the Countess of Crowfield, who approached Alice with a graceful bow. If I remembered correctly, she had grown up in another noble house before marrying into the Crowfield family. She was also distantly related to the Count of Crowfield, though such details no longer mattered now.
Pale skin, dark hair—features that gave her an air of refinement. The Count shared a similar look, making it difficult to say who Mia Crowfield resembled more. Perhaps I thought they looked alike simply because I knew they were mother and daughter.
Alice responded to the Countess’s greeting with impeccable poise, and then the Countess turned to face me.
Her gaze held no trace of hostility or negativity.
At the very least, she was far better at managing her emotions than her daughter.
It was like that in the original story too.
“……”
The Countess’s gaze lingered on my face for a moment before lowering slightly. She bowed gracefully, and I returned the gesture with equal decorum.
It was the first time the Countess had seen me, but I had seen her multiple times before—albeit years ago.
It was during the one instance I successfully infiltrated the household as a maid.
The Count of Crowfield, who so casually preyed on children far younger than himself, never displayed such behavior openly within the estate. Instead, he acted like a typical, caring head of the family. I don’t think it was an act. The Count likely… genuinely loved his wife and was a devoted father to his daughter.
He simply didn’t see the orphans as people.
And that perspective bled into his daily life in subtle ways.
Among the servants in the Count’s household were children from lower-ranking noble families and commoners. The Count was always kind to the noble-born children, speaking to them with a gentle tone as if addressing favored nieces and nephews. He even excused them from uncomfortable tasks, like when a young girl began showing the first signs of womanhood.
For the most part, he extended similar treatment to the commoner servants.
…For the most part.
But I often felt his leering gaze. That was why I, who had just become a maid, was able to get close to the Count in an instant.
Ironically, it was also why I succeeded only once in my mission. In other words, it was incredibly hard for me to find a way to protect my innocence while also trying to poison the count’s food.
Thinking back, it made sense in the original story that the Count had been dead for a few years by the time the main plot began. Claire, with her background, likely had far less tolerance for his behavior than I did.
I turned my attention away from the Countess and scanned the area until I spotted Mia Crowfield.
As expected of someone who had shown me such a complicated expression before the semester break, Mia still wore a bewildered look on her face. She barely managed to maintain the proper decorum expected between a noble and a princess.
The Countess shot Mia a brief, almost dismissive glance.
…Wasn’t that a bit too harsh for her own daughter?