The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 117
EP.117 Memory (3)
Alice lay on the bed, staring intently at the ceiling above her.
She couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t because the bed in the baron’s house was particularly uncomfortable compared to the academy’s. In fact, the most expensive bed brands were widely recognized, and any reasonably affluent noble family or bourgeois commoner would likely use one of those brands. There was rarely any reason to worry about the comfort of a bed when staying as a guest in a reputable household.
The reason Alice couldn’t sleep wasn’t the bed—it was Sylvia.
Or maybe it wasn’t just Sylvia but also Claire, and the children from the orphanage who had been with Claire.
More precisely—because of those children who had been with Sylvia.
Alice prided herself on having known Sylvia for a long time. Five years old was an age one could consider quite young in a person’s life, and having known each other for ten years since then, she could confidently claim a bond akin to sisterhood. Few people in the world could recall memories before the age of five with any accuracy anyway.
But today… Sylvia’s expression made it seem as though she remembered something from when she was five years old.
Whenever Alice read Sylvia’s expressions, people around them would be surprised, and Sylvia would look at her with a gaze that seemed to question how such a thing was possible. But in truth, this skill was nothing extraordinary.
If you wanted to read Sylvia’s expressions, all you had to do was quietly watch her eyes.
Those eyes, directed at someone or something, were never devoid of emotion, not even for a moment. Sylvia was always thinking, always calculating something.
And today, as Sylvia looked at that boy named Daniel, her expression was filled with something that closely resembled longing.
Seeing Sylvia wear such an expression of longing felt strangely unsettling.
Discovering an unfamiliar side to someone you’d thought you knew all your life wasn’t as pleasant as one might expect.
Alice wanted to know. But the emotions she was feeling now weren’t so simple as to be summed up in a single word.
Even in a pitch-dark room, if you kept your eyes open and stared upward, faint traces of light would inevitably seep through the shadows. Of course, that light was so dim that it wouldn’t even allow you to discern the expression of the person next to you.
When Alice turned her head, Sylvia’s face, lying on the other bed in the guest room, was barely visible.
Only her outline, blurred beyond the veil of darkness, could be made out.
Come to think of it, Alice had rarely ever seen Sylvia asleep. They’d used separate rooms since childhood, after all.
Sylvia never dozed off, not during hours-long train rides, not during class, and not even during personal breaks.
Alice knew that Sylvia led a very regimented life, going to bed unfailingly at 11 p.m. every night—
“Ah.”
It suddenly occurred to her: Sylvia always woke up feeling completely refreshed. She went to bed around 11 p.m. and slept soundly until morning. Unless she had a task to attend to or a mission to complete, Sylvia maintained her routine without fail.
Could it be that Sylvia was someone who simply needed a lot of sleep?
It was surprising that such a thought had only occurred to her now.
Sylvia, who was always meticulous, methodical, and accomplished everything she set out to do—
—not just during their last encounter at the ruins.
“……”
Alice could vividly recall the sensation of having a gun pressed against the back of her head. She hadn’t seen it directly or heard it, but the killing intent was unmistakable.
The intent to kill, no matter the cost.
Sylvia, who had never once shown anything like killing intent—not even in life-threatening moments—had been right in front of her. That incongruous, alien kind of malice felt even more pronounced to Alice because of it.
It was foreign. Unlike anything she had ever experienced from anyone.
And yet, strangely enough, it felt oddly familiar.
When Alice turned to face the person behind her, she saw the gun in their hand.
It was the same gun Sylvia always carried. Though it looked slightly older, a bit more worn than the one Sylvia owned.
At that point, Alice stopped thinking about it.
For some reason, it felt wrong to continue dwelling on that peculiar individual. There was an overwhelming sense of rejection, a feeling that she shouldn’t think about them anymore.
“……”
Was she overthinking things?
Even though a month had passed since that incident, the memory of that moment still clung to Alice’s mind like a stubborn stain, refusing to fade away.
She would meet that person again someday.
At least, she hoped the person sleeping beside her now wasn’t that same individual.
If Sylvia ever grew to hate Alice enough to want to kill her, Alice wasn’t sure she could bear it.
At the very least, she hoped that, to Sylvia, Alice would remain as important as the other orphanage companions who were now in this estate.
Alice knew she shouldn’t think this way, but…
A part of her felt slightly regretful that she wasn’t also from that orphanage.
*
Last night, Sylvia had slept deeply, without a single worry.
She’d woken up at the crack of dawn, before the sun had fully risen, and realized that she felt far more refreshed and invigorated than usual. She had spent a moment quietly pondering why.
It was probably because there was no one here she needed to keep her guard up against.
Leo was important—he was the protagonist, after all. Claire was the same, and the Baron and Baroness Grace weren’t minor characters in the story either.
But none of those people had any reason to harm her.
Alice, even less so. Just last year, Alice might have still seen Sylvia as a rival, but in the past year, she had suddenly grown more mature and now insisted on acting as her older sister.
Though at the moment, Alice was far more engrossed in her sleep than Sylvia was.
As Sylvia sorted through her thoughts, she understood.
There was no need to worry about Lucas plotting anything, nor about Leo and Claire sneaking out at dawn to handle random requests. She didn’t have to deal with unexpected encounters with other nobles along the way that would drain her energy. Everyone here was someone she could trust, people she could interact with freely and without suspicion.
“Heh.”
Even so, an inexplicable sense of emptiness welled up inside her, causing Sylvia to let out a faint chuckle.
She glanced over at Alice, who seemed to be in such a deep sleep that she hadn’t heard the sound.
I sat up in bed. Most of my belongings from the academy had already been moved to the Imperial Palace, but I had brought a few essentials for staying elsewhere, packed neatly into a large trunk.
Reaching under the bed, I dragged out the trunk and opened it to grab some underwear and clothes.
“……”
I looked down at the clothes in my hands.
It was my uniform.
An endlessly militaristic uniform.
In fact, most of the other clothes in the trunk weren’t much different. Even if they weren’t official uniforms, the majority of my wardrobe had a formal, military-inspired style. The same kind Lucas and Jayden wore daily.
Still, it wasn’t as if I didn’t own dresses or more feminine outfits.
I thought of Claire. Yesterday, she had stayed in her uniform since she’d just returned, but would she do the same today? She liked wielding a sword, but that didn’t mean every aspect of her preferences leaned masculine.
I stared at the uniform for a moment longer before putting it back in the trunk. Then, I picked out another set of clothes.
*
Although it was summer, I disliked showering with cold water.
The shower room was clean but, by my standards, appeared—ancient.
Well, even if it were a newer facility, it wouldn’t be much different. After all, this world was still in the early 1900s. Sure, it was a different world, where magic and steam engines replaced electricity for most purposes, but it wasn’t a place with smartphones or anything close to that.
A steampunk smartphone. That would be fascinating to see. If someone could design digital clocks powered entirely by wind-up mechanisms, surely they could make something like that, too.
Such idle thoughts crossed my mind as I stood under the pleasantly warm water, which flowed without issue.
I stared blankly at the shower curtain, which was still dripping with water, and thought about how they might have made the shower work with a steam engine. But I gave up. I didn’t even know how modern boilers worked. I just knew that they used coal or something to heat the water.
I laughed to myself, feeling a bit silly for not knowing how the world worked. It was strange, but that realization made me feel a bit better.
If I’d lived just fine not knowing anything before, then there was no reason to stress about being ignorant in this world either, was there?
*
“…Sylvia?”
By the time I had finished my shower, dried my hair, and dressed, Alice finally woke up. For her, it was late enough to call it sleeping in.
When Alice saw me, she froze, her expression was one of pure shock. No, calling it mere surprise wouldn’t do her reaction justice. Her expression as she looked at me was closer to utter astonishment.