The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 130
EP.130 Revenge (6)
“Who… is this?”
Mia Crowfield broke the silence in the room with a somewhat uneasy voice. Judging by her tone, she didn’t seem to grasp the current situation.
Neither Alice nor I answered her question.
Instead, I walked forward slowly and looked down at the man’s face.
He was staring fixedly at the floor.
What should I do?
It was a strangely ambiguous moment.
This man had beaten me—that much was true. He probably hadn’t intended to kill me. I had lost consciousness, yes, but I regained it shortly afterward. Claire had managed to escape alive in the original story, so the way he had brutalized me back then was likely just a part of the “processing.” If they were planning to sell me to a necrophiliac, it would have made more sense to kill me right there and deliver the body fresh.
Should I grab his hair and force him to look up?
I seriously considered it, but I decided against it. In this crouched position, doing something like that would give him a clear view up my skirt. Not to mention Alice and Mia Crowfield, who were standing nearby… Though, since they weren’t in school uniforms, it probably wouldn’t matter for them.
…Sigh.
Was my grudge so shallow that I could entertain such trivial thoughts in the presence of a man I had once given up on ever finding?
“……”
One thing, at least, was certain.
If it hadn’t been me that night, another girl would have suffered in my place. There were orphanages besides the one I was in, after all.
“About ten years ago,” I began after carefully sorting through my thoughts.
“There was an orphanage that burned down. Do you remember it?”
“……”
For a moment, the man didn’t respond.
Just as I was beginning to think he wouldn’t answer at all, he spoke in a rough voice.
“I remember it.”
His tone was polite.
He might not have known who we were or why we were questioning him, but he couldn’t possibly have failed to recognize the royal crest emblazoned on the knights’ armor. The griffin symbol was unmistakable—even commoners from neighboring countries would recognize it.
It wasn’t a symbol often seen up close, but its significance was undeniable.
“Were you near that area back then?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
Did he know why I was asking this? Perhaps he simply understood that not answering truthfully would make things worse for him in this situation.
“At that time… there was a woman with you. Do you know where she is now?”
The woman I referred to had looked, at first glance, like a noble. But upon closer inspection, her attire had been excessively extravagant, almost gaudy. This man had been responsible for the “processing” of the children, but the woman had played a significant role, too. She must have been close by.
“The last I saw her, she was in the capital,” he said.
“……”
I closed my mouth and stared at the back of his head.
He had thick hair. It looked like the kind of hair that belonged to someone who had never truly experienced hardship. Then again, given his line of work, perhaps he had endured hardships of a different kind. At the very least, he’d earned dirty money and lived comfortably off it without shame.
I straightened up slowly and looked around the room.
From the moment I entered the room, my gaze had been fixed on the man, leaving me no time to notice my surroundings. Now, they came into focus.
The place was unrecognizable.
The atmosphere had changed significantly since the last time I’d been here. It made sense—renovations like fresh wallpaper would have been necessary to make the place look this luxurious. After all, it had been ten years, and back then, the walls of this house had been stained—soaked in opium smoke and fluids from human bodies.
“Is this house yours?”
I asked as I slowly circled the room. Everyone held their breath. It was expected of Mia Crowfield, but even Alice, who had carried herself confidently when leading me here, and the knight pinning the man down with his knee, were now silent.
“…Yes.”
“You must have worked very hard.”
Owning even a single unit in a house like this would be almost impossible on an ordinary salary. It wasn’t simply about high property values—it was the absurdly low wages given to workers.
Ah, those good times, the Belle Époque.
A time when capitalism had reached its peak. A time when anyone could earn money through hard work and live an honest life with it.
And a time when those who paid the wages could adjust the amount however they pleased.
There were no laws to protect tenants. To pay their rent, workers had to labor fourteen hours a day. When they worked late into the night, exhaustion set in. Fatigue led to mistakes, and mistakes meant hands lost to factory presses. With no hands, there was no job.
Then the workers would spend the last of their money at an opium den or on alcohol to cut themselves off from reality. They would wander alleys, begging for enough to afford another hit or drink. When their stomachs and livers finally gave out, even the thin thread of their existence would snap—on the streets of the Great Empire, the Aetherna Empire.
And this man had worked diligently to sever those threads of life. Using children—children so young that even in this world, they would have been considered far too young—to do it.
“……”
The man couldn’t respond.
“You sold illusions to laborers ground down by life,” I said.
Through opium.
“……”
“And to children who would have otherwise died cold and meaningless deaths on the streets, you gave value. You provided them with opportunities to secure contracts with suitable employers.”
Opportunities to sell their bodies.
Whether they wanted to or not.
Even children far too young to understand what was happening to them.
“……”
The man remained silent. Was it because he couldn’t answer? Because he understood the weight of my words?
“Isn’t it something to be proud of? People like you are the ones who shine light on the darkest corners of this glorious empire, after all.”
Before I knew it, I had made a full circle around the room and was now standing in front of the man again.
The man’s head was still lowered, showing only the back of his head.
The wallpaper in the room wasn’t cheap, not by a long shot. Neither was the solid wood used for the bookshelves and desk, nor the magic-stone lamp sitting atop it. The silk curtains, the mattress, the leather-bound books neatly lined up on the shelves, the luxurious fabric of the curtains, the fine shirts hanging on the coat rack, and even the wristwatches and pocket watches carefully arranged on the desk—all bespoke and costly.
At first glance, the room gave off a cozy and humble impression, but upon closer inspection, it became clear how extravagantly this man had lived.
Now that I thought about it, even back then, he’d been the same. The fur on his coat. The cane he carried.
Nothing about him had ever looked inexpensive.
And I could easily guess how he had made his fortune.
“How did you come to own this mansion?” I asked.
“……”
“Who introduced you to it?”
I heard Mia Crowfield inhale sharply, but I didn’t turn to look. My head remained fixed, my gaze unwavering on the back of the man’s head.
“Did you have any connections with someone of importance in this land?”
“Your Hi—”
Mia Crowfield’s voice broke through loudly as she took a step forward, but Alice must have stopped her; her words were cut short. It seemed that whatever clarity had momentarily deserted Mia returned when Alice gripped her shoulder.
“……”
The man stayed silent.
Bang!
A loud noise reverberated through the room, followed by a small scream from behind me. Even the knight, who had been quietly pressing the man’s arms into the floor, looked up at me. Through the slit of his helmet, his wide, startled eyes were visible.
The man’s head had slammed into the wooden floor with a loud thud, bouncing slightly before settling. His neatly combed hair was now disheveled.
Luckily, his skull hadn’t cracked.
Or was it lucky? After all, even if it broke, it could be fixed.
I wondered how his face had fared. Had his nose broken when it struck the floor?
A low groan escaped him. Judging by how his head didn’t sag, he hadn’t lost consciousness.
Lowering my foot back onto the ground, I asked slowly, “Answer me.”
“……”
I counted to five in my head.
Five, four, three—
“You go too far.”
The man spoke with two seconds to spare.
His voice, once steady, now sounded rough, as if it had been dragged through gravel. He spoke through clenched teeth, his words leaking out like air through a crack.
“Too far?”
When I repeated his words, he continued, “The Imperial family… already knew about all of this, didn’t they?”
“……”
The room fell into a heavy silence.
I shifted my gaze toward the knight.
His eyes, still wide, met mine, just as they had been when I’d swung my foot earlier.
“Bind him and step out of the room for a moment,” I said in a calm tone.
The knight nodded.
“We will continue this conversation once you’ve left.”
“……”
The man offered no response.