“It doesn’t seem like I need to explain who I am to you,” Celestia said to me.
“Nope. We have a fervent fan—mmgh!”
Elma had jabbed her elbow into me with unprecedented swiftness, landing a clean hit. It hurt badly—no joke. That’s not going to have damaged my ribcage, is it?
“I-I’m not super familiar with your story,” I began again, “but I know you’re of noble origin, and that Mimi is too. We found that out when we visited the capital.”
Mimi was looking at her grandmother with an ambivalent expression. “I remember now. I only met you once before, when I was young. Back then, you said you were a distant aunt…”
“As you can see, I don’t really look my age. That’s why I told you that when you were younger. I didn’t want to get too involved in Folto’s life.”
I believed that “Folto” was the name of Mimi’s dad. She’d occasionally told me stories about her past, and I thought she’d mentioned that name before. Hm? When did that happen? In bed, of course. We occasionally talk about ourselves after doing the deed.
“I doubt you want outsiders to hear the rest of this conversation,” I noted, “so would you like to take this elsewhere?”
“Since I plan to leave the Empire, that doesn’t really matter to me,” Celestia replied. “It’d make things harder for you around here, though, so how about we move to your room?”
“That’d probably be safe enough, but…” We still had to decide what to do about the guards we’d employed from Iga Security and Koga Services respectively. I also wasn’t sure whether I was allowed to invite nonregistered guests into our suite. “Mei, check with the front desk.”
“Yes, Master.”
After giving Mei that order, I called Ota over. “So, yeah… I want to have a bit of a private conversation.”
“We’re not responsible for anything that happens while we’re not present,” Ota warned me.
“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to blame anything on you guys. But she doesn’t seem to want to kill me anymore…though I still can’t drop my guard.”
I still had no idea why Celestia had wanted to kill me in the first place. However, since she likely didn’t want to explain herself in public, I had no choice but to put my head into the lion’s mouth.
In any case, at least based on appearances, Celestia was seemingly the only one in her group skilled at close combat. On the other hand, I had Mei and Elma with me; if things devolved into a fight, we wouldn’t be the ones at a disadvantage.
It took some time, but we got both the hotel and the security companies to agree to our request. The guards would stay on standby in the lounge, while the rest of us would head to the suite we’d booked.
Once we got there, Celestia remarked, “Hmph. Rooms for nobles are all the same.”
“Can we reaaally go in?” the woman she’d brought asked. “This place looks suuuper priiicy!”
“Hah…what a nice suite,” the man added. “Someday, I’d like to be able to bring girls to rooms like these.”
The group had begun sharing their impressions of our suite as soon as we exited the elevator. Celestia’s crew seems pretty down to earth. Is that by design?
“Make yourselves at home,” I said. “Mei, get us something to drink.”
“Yes, Master.”
After everyone had found a sofa or chair to sit on and gotten comfortable, I resumed the conversation we’d been having downstairs. “So where were we?”
“The unknown woman monitoring us was actually Mimi’s grandmother,” said Elma. “We stopped there.”
“Ah, right.” I turned to Celestia. “The reason you were so concerned about my background was your concern that I might’ve targeted Mimi for her lineage?”
Discussion of Mimi’s lineage required discussion of Celestia’s identity. It really wasn’t that complicated: Mimi’s grandmother had once been part of the Grakkan Empire’s imperial family, but she’d run away from home. The current emperor was her older brother.
Granny Celestia was that frigging emperor’s little sister, and Mimi was her granddaughter. That meant that Mimi was the emperor’s grandniece. Thus, she was a rightful member of the imperial family—though just barely.
“I understand,” said Dr. Shouko. “I’ve seen holo-pictures of Princess Luciada before, and since she and Mimi are practically twins, I thought Mimi might be the emperor’s secret child or something. So she’s actually Celestia’s granddaughter.”
Dr. Shouko was our newest crew member, and part of the reason I was explaining all this was to bring her up to speed. Granny Celestia didn’t speak up in response, which meant this information was mostly accurate, or at least that she was okay with people considering it accurate. In any case, we’d done a DNA test in the capital, so it wasn’t as if there was much room for doubt.
“Getting back on track, why were you so eager to kill me? I clearly sensed violent, malicious intent directed at me.”
“Well, I went back to check on Folto’s family for the first time in years, only to find that they’d passed away in an accident, and Mimi had gone missing. I gathered information only to find that a suspicious mercenary with an unclear background had taken her away with him. That mercenary had then gone to the capital and gained the emperor’s favor. I figured you were a good-for-nothing bastard who’d used Mimi to enter the emperor’s inner circle.”
“…I see. The information provided by the mercenary guild didn’t really give you insight into what the actual person was like. I’m not exactly nobility.”
No, I wasn’t a scheming noble. It annoyed me that Celestia had thought that I saved Mimi to use her as a pawn to move up in the world, but she’d had no way to know otherwise. It hadn’t helped that my background prior to showing up in the Tarmein System was a complete mystery, however hard anyone looked into it. From Granny Celestia’s perspective, a blank slate like that meant that I had connections that could erase all traces of me perfectly—connections only a high-ranking imperial noble would have. From there, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that I was someone favored by the imperial family, and that I’d been sent on a mission to arrange the murders of Folto and his family. Then, with nowhere else to go, Mimi would have no choice but to rely on me.
“I also just had a lot of pent-up rage,” Celestia added. “Those bastards who schemed against Folto and Myna and made Mimi suffer had all been cleaned out already without my doing anything. The only target I could still direct my anger at was you.”
“Myna” was the name of Mimi’s mom, although Granny Celestia’s references to their family were generally centered on Folto, since—as the DNA test indicated—her son was Mimi’s father.
“That’s what led to all this? Give me a break…”
“Things only blew up like this because you overreacted,” Celestia retorted. “A normal person wouldn’t react to murderous intent from so far away.”
“So it’s my fault?” I furrowed my brow.
Before I could continue, Mimi opened her mouth. “Um…Celestia… Lady Celestia.”
“What is it? You’re my granddaughter; you don’t need to refer to me as ‘lady.’”
“Okay. Um…why?” That “why?” mixed multiple complicated emotions: confusion, uncertainty, and a trace of anger. It must’ve been quite heavy to Celestia.
“Why…? Why, indeed? Well, Folto was his own man, and I chose to respect that. That’s all there was to it. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side. Nor was it on Myna’s, or yours.”
“Luck…wasn’t on our side?”
“That’s right. It wasn’t. Nor on mine. If I’d gone back to the colony prior to Folto and Myna’s deaths—or arrived immediately afterward, at the very least—you wouldn’t have had it so tough. Unfortunately, I was three countries and thousands of light years away. News of their passing only got to me a month ago.” Granny Celestia shrugged.
Since she’d heard about their deaths despite that great distance, she must’ve arranged for some system to alert her if anything strange occurred. Celestia’s circumstances made it difficult for her to do as she pleased in the Empire, and Folto had likely had his own reasons to want to live independently on Tarmein Prime, rather than under Celestia’s protection. Considering those factors, her couching things as “luck not being on their side” was likely quite appropriate.
“I…see…” said Mimi.
“That’s just how it is sometimes, unfortunately. At times like these, those left behind can’t do much. Just resolve things or settle accounts.”
“Resolve things…or settle accounts.”
“You resolve things by looking after whatever the departed left behind. You settle accounts by taking revenge for them.”
“That’s quite a violent pivot,” I teased. In response, the old woman glared at me. The look didn’t really scare me, but I had to admit that it was intimidating.
“In any case, the emperor seemingly settled accounts for me, since a purge took place on Tarmein Prime before we got there. The bastards who tricked Folto, as well as several other bureaucrats, were executed or shipped off to prison colonies. The count responsible for managing that star system was also held to account and ended up losing his position. The colony’s apparently much safer these days.”
“I guess that’s a perk of the emperor’s position, but…wasn’t that a clear abuse of power?”
Celestia shrugged. “He’s the emperor. It’s not like anyone can rein him in.”
True. And if there hadn’t been real issues, he wouldn’t have found anything warranting a purge. If people had been purged, that meant they’d broken the law in some way.
The slum-like Third Division district was really quite a lawless place. It contained so many down-and-out people without proper jobs that it was only natural that the person in charge was blamed and removed. That was the country’s border, after all.
Celestia continued, “After confirming the situation on Tarmein Prime, we traced you, reached this colony, and set up a surveillance net. Then you guys showed up.”
“She had her fists raised, ready to beat up the guys who’d wronged her granddaughter, only to find out that the emperor beat her to the punch!” the young man interjected. “Then who appears but you, bro—flirting with that very granddaughter!”
“So you just took your anger out on me? What the hell?”
“Didn’t I say that at the start? I’m quite satisfied with how things turned out, though, since I was able to confirm your abilities,” Celestia replied, smirking. She elegantly sipped the tea Mei had prepared.
This damn granny! She really is related to that frigging emperor!