The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 129
EP.129 Revenge (5)
It’s not like I was completely unprepared for this.
I could make an educated guess about the kind of information Alice had discovered. The memories from those times still lingered in the back of my mind.
Especially, it wasn’t easy to forget the face of the man who used to smash my face with his fist. If it wasn’t my face beneath that fist, it was definitely Claire’s, and that additional thought made it even harder to forget.
I did try to find that man in my own way. However, I didn’t rely on anyone else. Unlike Alice, who used imperial authority to twist things around, I moved quietly so no one would notice.
But I couldn’t find him. I didn’t actually search for long. After all, in the altered timeline, this man had never been involved with me, so what was the point of finding him?
However… it seemed that Alice had a different idea.
“Do you recognize this place?”
Alice asked me as she gazed at the scenery outside the carriage.
The view outside the window was that of a peaceful, beautiful territory. It wasn’t a poppy field, nor were there beggars on the road. The people walking around looked ordinary, neatly dressed.
A small, not-so-wide river flowed gently, with a stone bridge crossing over it. Beyond the bridge, rows of uniform brick houses stood, as if from a piece set in the Industrial Revolution era.
The carriage was heading toward the far edge of this residential area. The river seemed like a natural boundary—on one side, there were brick houses, and on the other, vast undeveloped plains.
And I remembered that place.
A bit farther away, there was a hill. On that hill, there used to be a tall tree. The tree might have been chopped down by now, but the hill would still be there.
And from atop that tree, I had once watched through a telescope as the Count’s carriage exploded. I saw the people inside the carriage turn to flesh and bone, and the innocent horses caught in the blast as well.
Of course, there was no trace of that now. Naturally, it had long since been erased.
The overall layout had not changed drastically, but the number of houses on the far side of the river had significantly increased. Some of the buildings were different from what I remembered. I could say this with certainty because I had walked through those streets many times. I even remembered the interiors of some of those buildings.
In particular, there was one building in the center, which appeared to be particularly well-maintained compared to the others.
I frowned slightly.
I wondered if that building was still being used… for that purpose.
“…..”
I wasn’t the only one with a stiff expression. Mia Crowfield, who sat next to Alice, also had a rigid look on her face.
Despite her rather youthful appearance, Mia Crowfield was about the same age as us.
She must have known what this place was, considering she was old enough to clearly remember the day her father died.
But she didn’t say a word.
She could have asked why she was brought to such a place.
Just as I had recalled, the carriage stopped in front of the pristine building.
There were already knights stationed at the entrance. The inside of the building was probably the same. There were also police officers standing around, though they looked completely confused. Beyond them, the imperial knights and the local knights stood in a tense standoff, as if prepared for conflict.
While the imperial knights were fewer in number, they were not lacking in presence. I had no evidence to support it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that if a fight broke out, the imperial knights would win.
It was likely that the sheer resolve of their presence was why the carriage had made it here safely.
“Your father is quite impressive.”
Alice, who had alighted from the carriage, said in a somewhat indifferent tone. Her gaze was directed at the knights from the local territory, who were in opposition to the imperial knights.
“Can you believe he let a place that hates him this much have their own private army?”
“…The Crowfield Territory shares a border with the Kingdom of Velbur,” Mia Crowfield muttered in response.
But Alice shrugged and replied,
“That doesn’t justify this.”
“……”
Mia Crowfield’s eyes widened in shock, but she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t argue with Alice’s words.
However, Alice didn’t glare at Mia or wear a hostile expression. Rather… her expression was the same as it had always been at school. Instead, she looked at her with a neutral expression, almost like she was looking at a friend from school.
In fact, Alice’s expression was so calm that it was almost as if she was worried about Mia.
Alice turned her head to look up at the building again, then lowered her gaze back to Mia Crowfield as she spoke.
“There’s information inside that you won’t want to hear.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Mia Crowfield shot back, her voice laced with bitterness—or at least an attempt at it—as she glared at Alice.
“From what I’ve heard, your father was a much better father than mine ever was,” Alice replied, her tone flat and emotionless.
“My father… Are you saying that Count Crowfield was involved in something that contradicts his image?”
Mia’s expression grew sharper, her bitterness turning into something closer to outright hostility.
I couldn’t blame her. If I were in her position—if my father had done something terrible that I was completely unaware of, and if my memories of him were of nothing but a kind, proud father who had been unjustly murdered—I would react the same way.
And if the daughter of the person who had ordered his assassination came to me saying, “Your father wasn’t as good as you thought he was,” how could anyone not take offense?
…Thinking about it this way, Mia Crowfield looked as though she were exerting every ounce of self-control she had. Perhaps the presence of the imperial knights surrounding us and the princess standing before her was helping her hold it together.
“Yes.”
Alice answered without any attempt to soften her words.
“……”
Mia’s expression froze, the hostility on her face resetting to something neutral. For a brief moment, she seemed deeply unsettled by how Alice could say such things without a hint of guilt.
Mia had spent the past few months seeing Alice regularly, talking with her. And a few months was plenty of time to get a general sense of someone’s character.
Mia knew that Alice wasn’t the kind of person to joke about something like this.
“Will you still go inside with us? It might hurt you deeply.”
“……”
Mia’s head slowly dropped, but then suddenly snapped up. Her eyes trembled, her lips slightly downturned, and her face was paler than usual.
Despite this, the expression on her face carried the noble dignity befitting her status.
“Fine,” Mia said, her voice trembling slightly.
“If that’s what you’re implying, I won’t avoid it. I’ll face it head-on. My father was absolutely not that kind of person.”
“……”
Alice let out a faint sigh.
“Alright, then.”
She turned and began walking, and I, along with Mia Crowfield, followed behind her.
The knight standing by the door opened it for us.
The interior of the building, despite being equipped with proper windows, felt oppressively dim.
*
As we walked, the only sounds that accompanied us were the unsettling creaks of the aged wooden stairs beneath our feet and the faint echoes of our footsteps.
If someone inside had been subdued by the knights, we should have heard complaints or resistance, but the silence was absolute, adding an uneasy weight to the atmosphere.
Every so often, we passed imperial knights standing motionless in the narrow hallway. Despite their armor, which should have clanked with their movements, they stood perfectly still, their discipline evident. It was a testament to how well-trained they were.
The stench I remembered from my last visit here was absent. Fortunately, it seemed the place was no longer being used for that purpose.
“This way, Your Highness.”
A knight stood in front of a door at the far corner of the second floor, marking the smallest room in the building.
As Alice, Mia, and I approached silently, the knight opened the door for us with the same formal precision as when we had entered the building.
Inside the room—
“Well?”
As she stepped in, Alice turned her head slightly toward me. Her face was only partially visible, obscured by her hair, so I couldn’t discern her exact expression.
But the disdain in her voice was unmistakable.
On the floor of the room, a middle-aged man lay prone, pinned under the knee of a knight. His arms were bound behind his back, immobilized under the knight’s weight. Though he appeared strong and stocky even for his age, he didn’t seem capable of overpowering the armored knight pressing down on him.
…In my childhood, he had seemed utterly terrifying.
Scattered across the floor were several books, works of classic literature hailed as masterpieces in this land.
And next to those books lay a single cracked lens from a pair of glasses.