The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 131
EP.131 Revenge (7)
The man was now sitting upright.
Of course, he wasn’t in a comfortable position. He was tightly bound to the chair. His arms were tied behind his back, his legs fastened to the chair legs, and a rope across his chest secured him to the backrest. If he wanted, he could probably wriggle in an attempt to free himself, but at best, all he’d achieve would be tipping over the chair.
Even the chair he was bound to was luxurious, like everything else in the room. It wouldn’t break from just a fall.
“The Imperial family knew,” I said, echoing the man’s last words.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said.”
Blood trickled down the man’s face. Seeing him up close, memories flooded back vividly. The man with the monocle, the distinctive mustache, and the meticulously groomed hair. His attire was different now—just a rolled-up shirt and trousers—but his face was unmistakable.
His nose was crooked, likely broken from when his face slammed into the floor earlier.
The way he obediently answered my questions suggested he believed I was interrogating him solely because I was affiliated with the Imperial family.
It was a reasonable assumption. He wouldn’t recognize me, not after I had turned back time.
“The Imperial family must have known. How could they not? There were places selling drugs and… people in the capital and other cities.”
A faint groan came from behind me, prompting me to glance back. Mia Crowfield was pale, leaning against the wall for support. She seemed unable to stand comfortably on her own.
Still, Alice hadn’t sent her out of the room. It seemed Alice believed she needed to hear this.
After all, she had been brought here for that purpose.
And despite her condition, Mia Crowfield showed no signs of wanting to leave. She clung to the wall for support, her eyes fixed squarely on the man.
“The nobles all turned a blind eye. As long as their authority wasn’t challenged and their territories remained unaffected, they didn’t bother to crack down on us. It’s easier to control when the operations are visible rather than hidden away in places they can’t monitor.”
The symbiosis between the nobles and such activities deepened over time.
“However, His Majesty the Emperor never explicitly sanctioned it. Unlike some of the nobles.”
“……”
The man offered no further defense to my response.
It was a hollow excuse. The orphanage where I once lived had been under Lucas’s surveillance. If he’d wanted to, he could have killed the director and taken all the children at any time. Yet he hadn’t bothered to take such direct action. And the Emperor had never ordered Lucas to save the children either…
…Wait.
“What was your position in the capital?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
The man stared back at me, as if to say, “You mean to tell me you came here without knowing that?”
The thought of striking his cheekbone crossed my mind, but I held back, waiting patiently for his answer.
“I was just a middleman,” he finally said. “For those too busy to visit orphanages themselves, I procured the merchandise they requested and resold it.”
“……”
I turned to Alice, who nodded stiffly, her face grim.
‘We’ve dismantled everything from the top down to reach this point,’ she had said earlier.
This man was nothing more than a small cog in the machine.
Though he maintained a façade of gentlemanly composure and an air of nonchalance, the true culprits were the nobles who placed the orders. He merely took their commissions, procured the raw materials, and distributed the finished products.
Those “products” could have been children at times—or drugs at others.
But if that were the case…
If that were the case, then the orphanage he frequented was likely just one of many.
So why had Lucas specifically kept that orphanage under surveillance? If the Emperor had no intention of eradicating the organization altogether, there was no reason for Lucas to personally oversee an orphanage.
“Sylvia.”
Alice’s voice brought me back to reality.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Her words expressed concern, but her expression betrayed the fact that she already knew I wasn’t fine.
I wasn’t. But it wasn’t because of the man. Sure, I found him repulsive, and I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if I killed him on the spot. But what was gnawing at me was something far bigger—a realization that had just struck me.
If Lucas had been deliberately keeping an eye on that orphanage—well, it was obvious there had to have been something in the orphanage he wanted. But what if his reason for being there was Claire?
If Lucas had chosen me over Claire, he must have had a reason.
And the Emperor, upon seeing me brought to him by Lucas, had decided what I was.
The something the Emperor had been searching for.
What about the original story?
In the original story, Claire, barely surviving in a nightmarish environment, awakened her abilities under extreme stress and ended up causing a massive fire in the heart of the capital. While the fire itself had been sparked by a lamp, Claire’s innate talent had enabled her to escape unscathed.
In the original story, Lucas found Claire because of that talent.
In the original story, after Claire sacrificed herself for Alice, the Emperor’s plans began to unravel rapidly.
In the original story, there were repeated hints that there was a secret behind Claire’s birth.
So then, what about here?
Here, Lucas had chosen me for my talent.
But if that’s the case, it’s all a mistake. There’s no secret behind my birth. Nothing like that even exists.
What had the Emperor mistaken me for when he accepted me?
“Sylvia?” Alice called my name again, this time more cautiously.
I looked at Alice’s face. It was a face I had seen for the past ten years. Ever since she was very young.
Maybe that was why, in the original story, Claire had sacrificed herself for Alice. For someone who was like a sister to her, someone she had bickered and fought with every day.
Then, if that’s the case…
If I were to sacrifice myself for Alice in this world…
If Claire was still alive and the story continued to flow similarly to the original…
Why hadn’t I realized this sooner? I knew Lucas had specifically taken Claire, that there were countless other orphanages. I had even pondered similar questions before. So why now?
*
“So, what exactly happened here?”
After the man was dragged out, Mia Crowfield clung to me with her questions, her voice trembling.
“Who is that man? And what connection does he have to my father…?”
Right, this is another matter we need to address.
“Mia, sit down for now.”
There was still no knight in here. We were the only ones in the room.
Alice gestured toward the bed—not the chair the man had been tied to earlier. The chair wasn’t bloodstained, but it seemed she found the idea of sitting where a criminal had been restrained unpleasant.
Though, to be fair, the bed had been used by the same criminal.
“That man… he sold goods to your father—the Count of Crowfield.”
“Goods?”
Even Mia Crowfield, after overhearing our earlier conversation, must have had an inkling of what we meant.
Was it because she didn’t want to believe it? She asked as though she had no idea what we were talking about.
“…Children. And on the flip side, opium was likely what your side was selling,” Alice replied hesitantly.
Mia’s expression became blank, her face devoid of any emotion.
“…No.”
After sitting in silence for a long moment, she muttered softly.
“No!”
Her voice grew louder.
“No, my father, my dad, would never do something like that!”
The blank look in her eyes sharpened suddenly, fiercer than I had ever seen—not just since turning back time, but in all the years I’d known her.
“You dare… to tarnish my deceased father’s honor—”
“…His eyes.”
I interrupted her just as she was about to rise to her feet.
“Do you remember your father’s eyes?”
Her gaze snapped to me, her expression still tangled with confusion.
“Have you ever seen his pupils shrunken down to tiny pinpoints?”
Her lips parted slightly.
I had. Every time I looked at the Count, his pupils were like dots. I’d never seen them change size.
The pale complexion, the emaciated frame, the dark circles under his eyes. The bloodshot whites and those unnaturally constricted pupils—always like pinpricks, even in dimly lit rooms like this one.
“It’s a characteristic of drug users. Their pupils remain contracted, even in the dark.”
“F-Father… he was just working tirelessly for the estate….”
“Do you truly believe that?”
At my question, Mia Crowfield looked up at me, unable to say a word.