The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent – 23
EP.23 Reunion? (4)
The term “Children of the Emperor” wasn’t an official designation.
By saying it was not an official term, I meant it wasn’t a title we, including myself, Lucas, or Jayden, use for ourselves. There was no secret society emblem or code name associated with it. It was not a dramatic or stylish setup.
Legally, we were simply the Emperor’s sons and daughters, and in terms of status, we were not much different from Alice. We were literally adopted by the Emperor.
However, despite the legal aspect, the perception and public opinion were different. The individuals gathered by the Emperor were all exceptionally talented beings. Sometimes they even disappeared from official events, and when they returned, something from the Empire was often found missing, or someone was found dead.
These deaths and disappearances sometimes appeared as accidents, but at other times, they resembled cruel crime scenes as if meant to serve as warnings. The Empire conducted investigations, but they never manage to find solid evidence, and the cases were often closed without resolution.
So, if one wasn’t a fool, it was easy to deduce that the Emperor’s elite, exceptional individuals were involved in these incidents. Excluding Alice, who was almost always at the palace, the rest of us who were not of the same blood—were the Emperor’s top-tier pieces. We accomplished whatever task we were given without fail.
Of course, most commoners were unaware of this. Lower nobles might have heard rumors, but they likely dismissed them as coincidences. Only high-ranking nobles with the means to gather solid circumstantial evidence truly feared us. And that was precisely the emperor’s intention. If you value your life, kneel and submit. That’s the message the Emperor wanted to convey. And it would probably spread slowly throughout the entire Empire.
*
Anyway.
The whispers around me were likely because I wasn’t the “real princess.”
“Sylvia.”
“Yes.”
Alice, who was walking slightly ahead of me, stopped and turned towards me.
“Walk beside me, not behind.”
“…Understood.”
At Alice’s command, I slowly moved forward and stood beside her. Of course, I didn’t maintain an overly close distance. Even in same-gender relationships, walking around holding hands or linking arms was something you saw in comics. Well, this world was somewhat similar to that, though.
Thinking back, there wasn’t much physical contact between characters in the game. Except for female characters who formed a love line with the protagonist and had kissing scenes, or the occasional hug of joy, there was almost no physical contact between the main characters.
…Whether this was a deliberate, delicate reflection of real human behavior or just due to the limitations of graphics and motion, I would need to reconsider.
“You told me to be confident. If you’re a princess, act confidently and behave the same as me.”
“But, Princess…”
“And here, just call me ‘Alice.’ We’re the same kind of people, aren’t we? Didn’t you know that there’s no hierarchy among students?”
Alice’s stance was remarkably assertive, considering how rigidly she held her head up in front of the headmaster.
Alice, sensing my silence, averted her eyes slightly and began walking forward again. Well, since it’s a command from the princess, I decided to follow it.
I didn’t know exactly how the Academy’s classes were assigned. It wasn’t likely to be completely random. Given the way certain necessary individuals ended up in the same class, there seemed to be some purpose behind it.
Thirty nobles, including Alice and me, were divided into two groups of fifteen. Leo Grace and Claire were also placed in the same class, probably due to their status as siblings. There were also instances where the eldest son of a duke or the eldest son of a baronial family were placed in the same class, or where two people who were betrothed were placed together. It seemed that those with ‘connections’ were intentionally placed together to maintain those relationships. The fact that the groups were split exactly into fifteen members might be a coincidence, or it might have been done purposefully from the start. For reference, I knew all the students in the noble class.
One of the highlights of “Chronicles of Aetherna” was that even extra characters were given some level of backstory. Of course, it wasn’t enough to influence the main storyline directly. It was often limited to side quests that didn’t impact the main story or a few lines of dialogue. But those side quests continued through the game, with those few lines of dialogue evolving over time, sometimes continuing into sequels where the characters made appearances and referenced previous dialogues.
Honestly, despite the game’s less-than-stellar graphics and motion, the world felt alive because each character had their own story. The issue was that to earn a Platinum Medal, all achievements in the game—Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals—had to be completed, which included writing character cards for every named NPC. To complete these character cards, every single piece of dialogue had to be seen at least once. This meant searching for every hidden side quest or NPC tucked away in corners of maps. People called it an ‘NPC marathon.’ And I wrote a guide on that method.
Stupid developers.
At least, the sequel made things much more convenient by marking the characters I had interacted with or eliminating the need to search for quests separately, but it still didn’t eliminate the need for interaction.
Anyway, NPCs with dialogue were divided into those with unique modeling and dialogue, those with unique names but no special modeling, and those with no unique names, like ‘girl in a sailor suit,’ ‘commoner student,’ or ‘man in a suit.’ Noble-class NPCs all had unique modeling. While matching a polygonal mass directly to a real human face was impossible, certain hairstyles like ‘purple roll buns’ or ‘green twin tails’ weren’t exactly common. So, at least for the NPCs in the noble class, I knew their stories fairly well.
…Actually, as soon as my surroundings stabilized, I had pre-written notes on all of this. Since it was all in Korean, no one else could read it. Before entering the Academy, I had reread through all that content after a long time.
“Wait, wait a moment!”
As I was about to start the first day at the Academy with Alice, a somewhat urgent voice came from behind.
Schools typically take a little time for students to adjust, with each person’s adaptation period varying. However, in this country, very few have experienced anything like a “school.” Most nobles hired private tutors for homeschooling before coming to the Academy, while commoner children usually went to work in factories if they weren’t from bourgeois families.
That’s why the hallway was bustling with students on the first day. It wasn’t just a feeling that Alice and I had an unusually quiet space around us. In fact, the areas away from us were even more crowded, creating a sort of “circle” around us filled with people.
Yet, one person was pushing through this crowd towards us.
“Claire!”
No, two people. One girl, one boy.
The girl was Claire, and the boy was Leo. Both of them were prominent figures. Completely unexpected or not. In reality, I had expected it. Claire’s gaze at the entrance ceremony was anything but ordinary. And from my perspective as someone who had played the game, these two were prominent, but in the current setting, I was an even more significant figure. Regardless of what others acknowledged, I was still a princess.
“Eek!”
“…”
I blinked a couple of times as I watched Claire weave through the crowd, almost stumbling as she approached us.
What was this? Her actions and words seemed straight out of a romance story.
Even from a distance, she had seemed pure, but seeing her up close, she looked even more innocent. Unlike the harsh makeup she wore in the game, the Claire before me had almost no makeup at all.
And, naturally, she was beautiful. Comparable to Alice.
“Ah…”
Though she stumbled a bit, she didn’t fall awkwardly, which spoke to her discipline in training. She quickly regained her balance, straightening up with practiced ease.
“Princess.”
She immediately bowed slightly, touching the front of her uniform skirt, as if a noble in a dress was greeting royalty.
And Alice, who had just said that there was no hierarchy among students—
“Here, this side too.”
—without skipping a beat, pointed towards me with her hand.
“Yes?”
“This side, too, is a princess.”
Claire, slightly taken aback, asked again, and Alice responded in a somewhat stern tone.
I had to use superhuman patience to prevent my head from spinning around. I managed to keep my expression from faltering, though sweat trickled down my back.
Just a moment ago, Alice had mentioned there was no hierarchy among students…?
Of course, Alice couldn’t have known about Claire’s and my relationship.
From Alice’s perspective, Claire might have appeared as someone who had forcefully come to us just to make a connection with the princess.
Furthermore, just as I knew all the nobles in the elite class, Alice likely did as well. In the original work, there were scenes where characters naturally matched names without explicitly seeing or hearing them.
Claire was from the Grace family, a baronial family granted a domain directly by the Emperor and thus had significant power, though a baronial family wasn’t on par with a ducal family.
If one were to think of the Academy as a grand ballroom and consider the etiquette of addressing nobility for the first time, Claire had made a monumental blunder from the start. A baron’s heir, not even the head of the family, had addressed someone before those from ducal or count families had the chance. Moreover, Claire had made the mistake of showing courtesy to only one of the two “equal princesses” standing side by side.
“Claire…!”
Leo Grace, who had arrived late, was stunned into a rigid posture upon seeing the scene unfold before him.
Well.
In the original work, Leo was known for being exceptionally kind-hearted. Despite being a male character, he was always among the top ranks in popularity polls. The game was popular with Japanese women as well, and Leo’s just, albeit somewhat ordinary, sensibility made him a character that players could easily empathize with.
I liked him quite a lot too.
But…
Given his ordinary and empathetic nature, it was no surprise that he was now rigidly frozen by the awkward situation.
“……”
The surroundings fell into silence.
Alice, Claire, Leo, and I.
Even the people surrounding us.
No one said a word.
Seriously, what were we going to do about this awkward situation?