[Episode 4] - The Mad Queen Who Talks to the Mirror (3)
“His Excellency the Chancellor requests an audience with Her Majesty the Queen.”
“The Chancellor?”
Why would the chancellor suddenly...?
The maid, who had spoken to me almost as if issuing a notice, looked around the room, turning her head as though searching for something. Then she tilted her head as if something seemed strange.
“Were you perhaps speaking with someone?”
“A-ah, no?”
“...? I’m certain I heard voices talking...”
Hearing the maid mutter to herself, I swallowed dryly without realizing it. I rolled only my eyes to glance at the mirror beside me.
-Shh. Don’t even look at me, and don’t answer me. To other people’s eyes, I look like an ordinary mirror. If you talk to me for no reason... you know what’ll happen, right?
Ainsel, inside the mirror, raised a finger to his lips as if telling me not to say another word. I gave the slightest nod, just enough that the maid wouldn’t notice, to show I understood.
Ainsel looked like an ordinary mirror to everyone else.
If I were seen talking to Ainsel in front of other people...
I’d look like a madwoman talking to a mirror by herself. Vivian’s nickname was already “the utter scoundrel,” and I had no desire to add the title “crazy bitch who talks to mirrors” on top of that.
“Haa—”
While I was briefly lost in thought, the maid waiting for my answer in front of me let out a deep sigh. It was a sigh deliberately made for me to hear.
“Your Majesty? His Excellency the Chancellor has requested an audience... What shall I do? Do you need to be dressed? Or shall I tell His Excellency to leave?”
...Seeing the maid’s attitude, I felt like I was beginning to understand what sort of position Vivian had held in the royal palace. Even if Vivian was rotten to the core, she still held the title of queen, yet a maid dared to disregard her so openly.
Just as I was wondering how I should answer the maid’s question, Ainsel let out a hollow laugh beside me, as if dumbfounded.
-Ha. When Vivian was alive, this wench couldn’t even meet her eyes, but the moment she heard the rumor that Vivian lost her memories, she starts crawling up without knowing her place?
.....?
Um, Lord Ainsel?
Whether he disliked the maid’s attitude or was angry that Vivian was being looked down on, Ainsel’s voice sank coldly.
-You asked me earlier to tell you how Vivian spoke and how she normally behaved, didn’t you? This is a good opportunity, so listen to me carefully and follow along properly.
Was this really the same Ainsel who had sobbed like a child earlier? At his icy voice, I tensed up and began to repeat after him.
-Ellie. Come here.
“Ellie, come here.”
Apparently the maid’s name was “Ellie.” The moment I called her name, the maid’s shoulders flinched violently. Turning her head like a creaking machine, the maid stared straight at me with trembling eyes.
“Y-Your Majesty...?”
“I told you to come here. You truly never understand unless I say it twice.”
A cold, subdued voice. As I repeated Ainsel’s words in a voice so frigid I wondered if it was really coming from my own throat, Ellie approached me on trembling legs.
-Strike Ellie hard across the cheek. Then she’ll kneel automatically.
“...Your gaze is too high.”
...Hitting someone felt like going too far, so I softened it into words as much as I could. Ellie understood what I meant and slowly knelt before me.
-...You really are different from Vivian. Fine. I’ll keep going, so follow me carefully.
I didn’t know how Ainsel felt about it, but to me, the maid kneeling in front of me was someone I had only just met. Honestly, it was already overwhelming just to repeat after Ainsel; going as far as violence was too much.
And in the first place, I’d never used violence against anyone before.
“Ellie, you disobeyed me.”
“Y-yes...?”
“What did I say last time? When I call you, how are you supposed to come?”
At those words, Ellie’s face didn’t merely turn pale—it began to turn blue. Judging from how the conversation was continuing, it seemed Ellie had been a maid serving under Vivian since Vivian was alive.
“L-like a dog, on all fours, c-crawling...”
“You remember well. Just like I do.”
Following Ainsel’s words, I smiled sweetly, and Ellie’s body began trembling like an aspen tree. She shook so badly her teeth clacked together, and her eyes darted wildly.
Ellie, having judged the rumor that Vivian had lost her memories to be false, practically flattened herself against the floor and confessed her sin like a condemned criminal on the guillotine.
“F-forgive me... I-I have committed a mortal sin... How dare I think to deceive Your Majesty...”
Like a fool, Ellie must have believed only the rumor that Vivian had lost her memories and thought she could look down on her. Did she think it would be fine to go a little far since Vivian wouldn’t remember anything?
I wondered why she had thought something so stupid... but perhaps she had simply wanted to return even a little of the torment she had suffered until now back to Vivian.
...I had expected it to some extent, but I felt like I now understood a little more just how vile Vivian’s usual personality had been, and how much those around her hated her.
“Ellie, you truly are stupid, aren’t you? What did I say you should do if you wanted my forgiveness?”
The moment Ellie lifted her head and our eyes met, she smiled brightly with a face filled with terror. Then, before I could stop her, she slammed her forehead hard against the floor.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Once, twice, three times.
‘...This is driving me insane, seriously.’
Ellie did not stop striking her forehead against the marble floor until blood flowed. Only after feeling blood trickle down from her forehead did she smile sweetly and look up at me.
“W-will this earn me Your Majesty’s forgiveness...?”
“...Yes, this much pleases me.”
The last part wasn’t me repeating after Ainsel. I simply said it on my own because I no longer wanted to see Ellie acting so fanatical.
Perhaps she was truly happy to have been forgiven, because Ellie looked at me and smiled brightly. Even though her forehead was split open and blood was streaming down.
‘...First, I need to improve Vivian’s reputation, even if only a little. At this rate, even if I live as quietly as a dead mouse, I might get stabbed to death.’
I began to think that someone whose face I didn’t even know, someone with a grudge against Vivian, might really assassinate me. At the very least, I had to avoid being stabbed to death in my sleep.
As I was wondering how to improve her reputation, Ainsel growled angrily at Ellie, who was prostrated on the floor begging for forgiveness.
-How dare a mere maid crawl up against Vivian? Know your place!
For someone who hated Vivian so much that he nearly retched, Ainsel pouncing on anyone who insulted her as if he himself had been insulted felt a little absurd.
Was this that sort of thing? Like, “I can curse my own child, but no one else can”?
‘...I don’t know. At the very least, I shouldn’t insult Vivian in front of Ainsel.’
Just as I was wondering whether I should wipe the blood streaming from Ellie’s forehead, there came another knock, knock from the door.
Startled, I looked toward the sound. A middle-aged man whose hairline had retreated halfway back, though I had no idea when he had arrived, was looking between me and Ellie with an indifferent expression. Then he let out a sigh and opened his mouth.
“...It seems the physician misdiagnosed Her Majesty the Queen after all.”
“Y-Your Excellency the Chancellor...?”
Ellie turned her head in surprise and looked at the “chancellor.” Perhaps his hair loss was progressing from stress, because he had gray hair with a hairline that had retreated halfway back, and his tired eyes were a murky blue.
In his fifties...? Sixties...? The middle-aged man, who looked so exhausted I couldn’t help but wonder, slowly entered the room, knelt on one knee beside Ellie, and looked up at me.
“I am relieved to see you are in good health, Your Majesty.”
His words sounded gentle and concerned, but his expression and voice were anything but. The chancellor, who greeted me in a voice that seemed to hold no emotion at all, smiled faintly.
And I, repeating Ainsel’s words exactly,
returned his smile with one even brighter than the chancellor’s.
“...Yes, I am in good health, but I worry that the chancellor’s hair is not.”
A small vein bulged on the chancellor’s forehead at my mocking words.
*
“Raising simulation games,” as games in which the person being raised grows through meeting various characters, naturally contain countless NPCs who help the princess grow.
Aside from members of the royal family, there were education-related figures in charge of the subject’s instruction, part-time job-related figures who helped with the subject’s social life, and so on. There were many NPCs to meet.
Among them, the chancellor was no exception.
I didn’t know his exact surname, but his name was called “Baengsho.”
An old chancellor afflicted with stress-induced hair loss, he was one of the characters in the game who served as both an education-related figure for the princess and someone who could be met in the royal palace to provide help.
‘He looks exactly like the illustration. No, is his hair a little fuller? Well, by the latter half he’ll be completely bald anyway, so what does it matter?’
As I stared intently, almost piercingly, at Baengsho’s retreating forehead, Baengsho gave a loud ahem! as if displeased.
“First, I apologize for entering Your Majesty’s room without permission. I heard quite a commotion... and I could not help but feel uneasy, wondering if something had happened to Your Majesty.”
Just from his voice alone, it was easy enough to tell that the chancellor’s words contained not the slightest sincerity. He spoke so indifferently that for a moment, I almost thought a machine was talking.
“I see... So? The chancellor must be busy as well. For what reason did you request an audience?”
“Why, of course, it was out of concern for Your Majesty. It is the chancellor’s role to assist Her Majesty the Queen, the mother of the nation.”
Huh... Did he oil his tongue before coming here?
Seeing the chancellor answer in less than a second after I asked, I couldn’t hide my surprise. I glanced aside at Ellie, who was still kneeling beside us.
“You may leave.”
“Y-yes...!”
The moment my permission to leave the room was given, Ellie bolted out of the room as if fleeing at the speed of lightning.
Only after confirming that the door had completely closed could Ainsel and I ask Baengsho what we had wanted to ask.
“Get to the point. I doubt you requested an audience because you sincerely wished to assist me.”
“My desire to assist Your Majesty is always sincere—”
“Enough. Will you only be satisfied if I rip out that oiled tongue of yours?”
At my answer, Baengsho let out a small laugh and rose from where he had been kneeling. He patted his knees as if tired, sat down in a chair, and looked at me.
“First of all, I truly did come to check Your Majesty’s condition. The physician said Your Majesty had lost your memories, after all. But... well, as you can see, it seems to have been a misdiagnosis. Haha.”
...It probably wasn’t a misdiagnosis, though. I really didn’t have Vivian’s memories. It was just that, in place of the memories I had lost, there was a fairy in the mirror helping me from the side...
“Ho.”
I did not answer Baengsho’s words and merely laughed it off.
Baengsho laughed along with a haha, then abruptly stopped laughing and opened his mouth again.
“...The fact that Your Majesty is healthy is truly good news, but it seems there is not only good news. There is one piece of bad news.”
“Bad news?”
Seeing the smile vanish from Baengsho’s face, cold sweat ran down my back. In movies or novels, whenever something like this happened, the real point was always the bad news rather than the good.
“Because of how you ‘resurrected’ at the funeral hall... rumors are spreading that Your Majesty is a ‘witch.’ For now, I have ordered the witnesses to keep silent, but...”
“...And?”
“Various discussions are taking place within the Council of Elders. Some are even saying they would not oppose a divorce between Your Majesty and His Majesty. As you know, if Your Majesty were to divorce His Majesty...”
At Baengsho’s truly grave tone, I bit my dried lips.
Surely I wouldn’t die, right? That was what I had thought, but...
“I fear you will be unable to avoid the ‘witch trial’ held by the ‘Temple.’ The matter has already reached the Temple’s ears, but thanks to the authority of Your Majesty and His Majesty, it has not yet been brought up openly.”
This son of a—
For a moment, I forcibly held back the curse that was about to burst out.
In other words, the moment I stepped down from the position of queen, the “Temple” would brand me a “witch,” open a “witch trial,” declare me a heretic, and burn me at the stake.
Seriously, what am I supposed to do...?