Chapter 28: An Invitation (Deathtrap) from the Scion of the Blue Moon

With the help of Abel’s notes as reference, Mia managed to finish composing her campaign pledges in the library. Abel himself helped her of course, and she even managed to drag Sion in, eagerly extracting ideas from him as he grumbled things like, “I’m a neutral party. I’m not supposed to help you...”

His reluctant participation amused her, and she was glad to find that he seemed to have taken on a gentler disposition. Good humor, however, could only sustain her for so long. By the time they were done, she was ready to collapse. Had her brain been an engine, it’d be running on fumes — fumes which were visibly leaking out of her in the form of steam rising from her feverish head. Sion gave her an apologetic look.

“Sorry, Mia.”

“...Eh? What now?”

She gave him a blank stare.

“Uh, about the Four Dukes. I can tell the news upset you so much you couldn’t think straight. This whole time, I didn’t see a hint of your usual brilliance. That was my mistake. I should have picked a better time to tell you.”

The considerate tone of his message was undermined by its unfortunate logical implications. In effect, he just wrote off the entirety of Mia’s brainwork — and she’d been firing on all cylinders, to boot!

What?! I-I worked so hard to come up with these too...

She would have given him the angry cheek puff, but she simply didn’t have the energy for it. Furthermore, he did help her a lot with her pledges, so tolerance seemed the correct response. Mia, you see, was a responsible adult.

...Who stumbled to her room, face-planted onto her bed, and slept like a rock until the next morning. All from drafting one list of campaign pledges.

The following day, in the classroom they had turned into a makeshift headquarters, Mia and co were discussing the election strategy, when Sapphias Etoile Bluemoon arrived and requested an audience.

“Hello, Your Highness. A good day to you.”

“Good day to you as well, Sapphias. Is your father doing well?”

“Quite well. Better than ever, in fact, by virtue of His Imperial Majesty’s good graces. And good moons, Your Highness, you’re looking beautiful as always. Time and again I find myself mesmerized by your charms.”

“My, that sweet tongue of yours... Ohoho.”

Unlike the gratingly superfluous greetings they exchanged, Mia’s inner monologue was far less friendly.

So... You’ve come at last!

The second she heard Sapphias had requested an audience, she immediately made the connection with what she’d heard from Sion.

Chaos Serpents... If you think you can snare me with your schemes, then you’d better think again! I’m going to turn this around, catch you in the act, and walk you straight off to Rafina! She hmphed with swagger, insomuch as such a thing was possible. The trapper... has become the trapped!

“Now then, Your Highness... May I ask that the room be cleared?”

Sapphias glanced around the room. That alone was enough to send a few students scurrying for the door. As a scion of one of the Four Dukes, his influence easily overshadowed that of even royalty from smaller kingdoms.

“Mia.”

Abel urged caution with a frown.

“It’s fine, Abel. Could you see to it that our friends find another room to work in?”

She then inclined her head toward Tiona as well, who promptly withdrew with Abel. It pained her to part with the two sword-proficient members of her group, but under the circumstances, she had no choice. Sapphias, who wore a satisfied smile as he watched people file out of the room, suddenly looked past Mia and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s strange. Are you weak in the ears, girl? You’ve been instructed to leave.”

Anne winced at his glare and began to shrink back, but Mia took a step forward, putting herself between them.

“She is my personal maid-in-waiting and therefore my arms and legs. She is a part of me. Would you cut my arms and legs from my body?”

She glared back, returning the favor.

“Not at all, Your Highness. Should it please you, I’ll happily abide her presence.”

He lowered his head in a respectful bow, to which Mia let out another cocky hmph.

Being alone with a member of the Chaos Serpents is far too dangerous! I’m not nearly stupid enough to allow that to happen!

“Milady...”

Anne, meanwhile, watched the ongoing exchange with tears of heartfelt emotion.

“Well, let’s hear it then. What’s the matter?” asked Mia.

“I’m here to inform Your Highness,” answered Sapphias with a friendly smile, “that the Bluemoons offer you our full support during this election. We are at your service.”

“My, what promising news this is. Did you come all this way just to tell me in person?”

“Not quite. I also bring a scheme, with which Your Highness may claim victory.”

“...Really?”

Mia leaned forward a little. A way to win against Rafina was exactly what she was missing right now.

“Do you really have such a thing?”

“I do, and it’s simple. Find Miss Rafina’s shortcomings and hammer away at them.”

“Her shortcomings, you say?”

In short, he proposed a method politely known as negative campaigning. Rather than highlighting the benefits of her own policies, Mia would find flaws in her opponent and use those as fodder for political attacks. It was doubtlessly an effective tactic, but...

“That’s certainly doable against your average noble, but does Miss Rafina actually possess the kind of shortcomings required?”

“Who cares? If she doesn’t, then we can just invent some.”

“What?”

“Rafina Orca Belluga is a saint of most virtuous character. Because of that, even the slightest flaw will become a conspicuous stain on her reputation. All that’s required is a little behind the scenes preparation. Hardly a challenge. If it pleases you, Your Highness, I’ll be more than happy to take on this task personally,” Sapphias said with a cunning grin.

She stared at him and found herself...

S-Sweet moons! I hadn’t thought of that!

...Genuinely impressed by his idea!

For Mia, who’d been thoroughly intimidated by the flawlessness of Rafina’s policies, the realization that she could just make up flaws was a real eye-opener — a groundbreaking discovery of epiphanous proportions.

You know what? Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I had this done to me tons of times during the revolution... Four out of every five rumors that said bad things about me weren’t true.

As a matter of fact, at least three out of every five had been factual criticism, but... well, that meant a good forty percent of the rumors were false, so she arguably still had a point.

What made those kinds of rumors especially pesky was that even when I personally proclaimed them false, lots of people wouldn’t believe me...

Personal experience made Sapphias’s logic seem all the more convincing, and she found herself on the verge of buying into his scheme. Something, however, held her back. Be it intuition or perception, alarms were sounding in her head.

It really gets on your nerves when someone does that to you, though.

In other words, showering someone with insults for something they never did is a great way to piss them off, and you can be sure they’ll hold a grudge for a long time.

I’m a pretty tolerant person, if I do say so myself, and even I got pretty angry. If I try a stunt like that on Rafina, she’s going to blow her top. And when she does...

Scenes of Rafina staring daggers of pure, unadulterated wrath at her as she cowered in terror filled her mind, followed by a vivid image of a very familiar path toward a very familiar head-chopping mechanism.

Eeeeek! Nope! Nope! No way am I trying something like that! I’ll end up on the guillotine so fast I won’t even know what hit me!

That’s right. This was no past-Mia. This was the Mia of the present with a lifetime’s worth of experience under her belt. A truncated lifetime, but a lifetime nonetheless. And present Mia knew very well that what one sows, one reaps. The seed that Sapphias was trying to sow would probably bloom into a gorgeous flower, but it would be a fleeting beauty, giving way to a bitter, poisonous fruit.

“A duke’s daughter of a tiny nation like Belluga is nothing before the might of us proud Tearmoon nobles. We’ll snap her like a twig, just you watch. Haha!”

She watched as Sapphias laughed with such smugness that he started bending over backwards, and that was when it hit her.

Aha! So that’s it! I know what you Chaos Serpents are doing now. You’re trying to drive a wedge between me and Rafina. Too bad for you, because I’m not going to let that happen!