When Aisha and I tried to support him, Souma put a hand on the wall. “I’m fine. Just stumbled a bit,” he said, motioning for us to stop with his free hand.
“But…” I said.
“It’s all right,” he said. “…I’d like to be alone for just a little while,”
Then he went into the governmental affairs office by himself.
From the glimpse I got of his face in profile, he looked pale and unwell. Left on our own out in the hallway, I struck up a conversation with Aisha, who had likewise been left behind and was standing there in a daze.
“He was his usual self just a moment ago,” I said. “What do you think happened to him all of a sudden?”
“I am not entirely sure myself,” said Aisha. “However…”
“However?”
“He looked like a soldier returning from his first battle,” she said, looking troubled. “Like one… who had just killed for the first time.”
“You mean he’s feeling bad over how he killed the twelve nobles?” I asked.
But Souma had done that because he’d believed it to be necessary, hadn’t he? If so, he had nothing to regret. Besides, Souma had experienced his first battle in the war with the Principality of Amidonia. He’d struck down Prince Gaius VIII of Amidonia, and he’d had the corrupt nobles executed after that. This wasn’t a first for him.
When I pointed that out, Aisha shook her head. “This is mere speculation on my part, but the time with Gaius was a case of ‘kill or be killed.’ The corrupt nobles had clearly manifested their intention to rebel against him. However, in the case of those twelve nobles, they were not immediately attempting to harm His Majesty. Even if he knows it would be harmful to leave them alive, he questions whether or not it was the right decision to kill them. In his heart, perhaps he can’t quite come to terms with it.”
Aisha looked worriedly at the door to the governmental affairs office.
He can’t come to terms with it… huh.
…Yeah. I thought Aisha’s interpretation of it was correct. I’d heard Souma had come from a peaceful world. There hadn’t been a war there in some time.
Because he had come from a world like that, Souma absolutely hated to have people die. But he wasn’t so unduly optimistic that he thought everything could be taken care of without sacrifices. That was why the policies Souma took were always focused around minimizing the sacrifice while maximizing the reward.
It was a natural frame of mind for the ruler of a nation. However, in Souma’s own heart, he wasn’t so insensitive that he could accept even those minimized sacrifices.
“Hey, Aisha,” I said. “What do you do to support a soldier like that?”
“Well… I have never been a part of the military, so I am no expert on these things… but I often hear it is best to make them forget about it.”
“Make them forget about it?” I repeated.
“I hear that their superior officers and the older soldiers will invite them out for wine and women to help them vent,” Aisha said. “It is the sort of thing that only time can heal, so they keep them from thinking about it too deeply and breaking down.”
Wine, or the other thing… huh, I thought to myself. In that case…
The trial had begun at noon. Now it was most definitely night time.
I lay alone in my bed, the governmental affairs office completely dark with all of the lights turned off.
There was a lot of work for me to do. But, just for today, I had asked Hakuya to let me shirk my duties. I just didn’t have the will to do anything. Hakuya understood that. I wished I could just go to sleep. But, contrary to that hope, I was wide awake.
If I used my head just a little, that might help, so I decided to think through whether the execution was justified or not.
I thought that executing the twelve nobles had been correct, examining it in the long term. If I’d left them alive, and if anyone had been hurt by the seed of calamity they would sow, I was sure I would have regretted that. But, well, now I was desperately holding my chest, trying not to regret that I had killed them.
“All cruelties should be carried out in one stroke.”
“A prince need not concern himself over a reputation of cruelty.”
“In order to avoid destruction, it is better to choose to fight.”
“When the time of your demise comes, it is too late for regrets.”
I went over Machiavelli’s ideas over and over again in my head. But all I was doing was looking for an excuse.
If I was going to regret something, I preferred to it be that I had chosen a path that didn’t hurt those I cared most for. I thought I had convinced myself of that before making the decision, and I resented my own heart for still wavering despite that.
While I was pondering, the door suddenly opened. I moved just my head to check, and Liscia and Aisha were standing there.
In rather provocative attire.
“Huh?!” I reacted in shock.
They were both wearing what looked like thin bathrobes that only went down to a little above the knee.
Maybe they weren’t wearing anything underneath the robes, because the cleavage that poked out from where the collar met, as well as the bare thighs that stuck out from beneath, were captivating. In the light that came in from the hallway beyond the open door, their silhouettes were accentuated in a provocative way. It made Aisha’s height and her shapely figure stand out all the more, while Liscia’s well-balanced body was beautiful, too.
It was a little too much for me to take in all at once, and I stared for a while, entranced.
…Honestly, if I hadn’t been feeling so down at the time, all reason would have likely gone out the window in an instant. However, in my current state of mind, it all seemed more like a bad joke.
“…What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
My tone was so scary that I startled myself. No, that wasn’t what I ought to have been saying, and I knew it. It was like I was taking my frustration out on them.
I kept my tone as calm as I could manage and corrected myself. “I believe I asked you two to give me some time to myself.”
“We can’t leave you alone when you’re like that, now can we?” Liscia paid my objections no heed as she came over and sat down on the edge of the bed where I was lying down.
Aisha also said “P-Pardon my intrusion,” and came around to the opposite side from Liscia before politely taking a seat.
Whether I turned my head left or right, there was a beautiful girl’s bottom. I could only cover my eyes with one arm, looking straight up. “What is this…? What do you two want…?”
“That’s, well… we want to help you forget, you could say…” Liscia said.
“Come again?” I asked incredulously.
“Anyway! You can do whatever you like with us!” Liscia burst out.
“I–It is my first time doing such a thing, so I am counting on you, Your Highness!” Aisha cried.
“You can do what you like with us”… “I am counting on you”… what are these two saying?!
“Listen… I’m not in the mood right now,” I said.
“Ohh, if only we’d had Madam Juna here with us,” Aisha said sounding disappointed.
No, Juna’s busy going through the procedure to transfer here from the Navy right now, okay? I sighed… Oh, whatever. I’m sure they’re doing it because they’re concerned.
While I was thinking that, Liscia started fidgeting. “Um, Souma…”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s a bit chilly, so can we join you under the covers for now?”
She was shivering, huh… Well, it is almost winter, after all. They must be cold in those outfits.