Chapter 2: Miabel...Introduces Her Grandmother to a Friend!

“Wha— But... How? Huh?”

While her mouth struggled to form words, her mind couldn’t help but race along.

Sweet moons... But how exactly did I die?

The inability to resist checking her own cause of death was a tragic aspect of Mia’s nature. With guillotine and poison having had their turns, what was next in line? Would she die a peaceful death? Or another violent one? This aspect of her death was what she most wanted to know. She quickly thumbed through the book. And at the end...

“Attacked at night by bandits and killed... Then my corpse gets chewed on by wolves? This definitely does not sound like a good way to go...”

She shuddered. Succumbing to poison while bleeding out of every pore was a pretty gruesome image, but this one wasn’t much better. It might even be worse, considering the former at least happened in bed.

“W-Well, I guess if I’m killed before I get eaten, then at least the getting eaten part doesn’t hurt... Still, how in the moons did I end up getting murdered by bandits?”

She might not go around reminding people of it every day, but Mia was still the Princess of Tearmoon. There would certainly be value in holding her hostage, but there was no mention of a ransom demand either.

“...Which means I must have been killed before they could capture me. Was I shot with an arrow? Or stabbed with a knife? Ugh... Ooooh... I’m starting to feel sick just thinking about it...”

She shambled unsteadily over to her bed and fell into it face first.

“...Why was I even being attacked by bandits to begin with?”

After another read through of the Chronicles, she discovered a few more details. Firstly, she’d snuck out during the Holy Eve Festival and left Saint-Noel Island. Apparently, the bandits had attacked her while she was galloping on a horse across the plains outside the island.

“I see... Hm hm... Mmm...”

She read and reread the relevant pages, then let out a long sigh.

“Nope. I still have no idea how any of this happened. What in the moons?”

She couldn’t even imagine why she’d sneak out of Saint-Noel during the Holy Eve Festival. It seemed like such an implausible act. What could have made her behave so?

“Somehow, I get the feeling it was for some stupidly trivial reason... Fortunately, if I stay in the academy, then there shouldn’t be any problem. As long as I’m careful and never leave the island, I’ll be fine... Probably.”

Saint-Noel Island was a safe zone crafted by Rafina. Trespassing was by no means easy. Nonetheless, Mia couldn’t rid herself of a lingering hint of worry. After all, it would happen on the day of the Holy Eve Festival. Traffic in and out of the island would reach its annual peak during that time. Of course, in order to guard against assassins, there would probably be intense scrutiny of anyone coming in.

But what about those going out? Wouldn’t it be possible to hide in some sort of outbound vehicle? What if she secretly pressed some money into the hands of a merchant, asking to be taken out for an evening horseback ride? Could she get herself off the island? Perhaps. But even then, how exactly did she end up dead?

“In any case, letting my guard down would be a fatal mistake. My best bet is to hunker down on the island. I’ll still need to prepare for emergencies though, just in case.”

Under these circumstances, the first thing she needed to do was preemptively figure out what kind of things could happen during the Holy Eve Festival. Foreknowledge was critical.

“I’ll have to start by asking Miss Rafina about what she’s planning to do for the festival. Time to do some information gathering.” She paused and pursed her lips as another thought came to her. “Also, since it says I leave on horseback... I’ll need to improve my horse riding skills.”

She was up against professional bandits. And maybe wolves as well. So long as she rode a horse though, she should have a chance of getting away.

“The less I weigh, the faster the horse runs. I think I’d better focus on the horsemanship club’s activities for a while. Hm. Now that’s settled...”

Having figured out her plans for the immediate future, her attention began to drift toward a different point of interest. The Chronicles ended with her death. Therefore it told her nothing about how the academy city project went, whether the new strain of wheat was developed, or the effects of the famine. Even more pressing was the question of...

What about my kids? Bel especially... If I died so young, then Bel, who’s supposed to be my descendant, couldn’t possibly have been born... How does that work?

She turned to Bel, who was scratching her head, and studied her. Nothing seemed to have changed about the girl. That didn’t seem to line up with the account in the book.

Don’t tell me... Was Bel lying to me? Is she actually the assassin and been tricking me this whole time?!

She stared hard into Bel’s eyes. All she got out of it was a few innocent blinks and a bemused tilt of the head. Those plump cheeks of hers exuded an utterly placid aura far too removed from the violent imagery of assassins to seem plausible.

Besides, she was the one who brought me the Princess Mia Chronicles in the first place. It’d be strange to believe the book but not her. If I trust one, then I should trust the other too. In other words, there has to be some other reason why things aren’t lining up.

Humming in thought, Mia looked back and forth between Bel and the book. After a quite lot of head swiveling she arrived at a conclusion.

“Ah... I get it now. So that’s why. It—whatever ‘it’ is—got lazy...”

There was a profoundly satisfying moment as a piece clicked into place and the whole thing suddenly made sense to her. Her logic, in a nutshell, went as follows.

Rewriting passages in her diary or the Chronicles was probably not too difficult a feat. It could be accomplished with little effort, so their contents changed frequently. However, Bel was a different matter. Rewriting the memories of a human being...or even their very existence, making them disappear and reappear...these were probably very difficult. Whatever was doing this rewriting would probably find it intensely annoying to keep changing the entire fabric of reality for every little thing she did. Surely even reality-rewriting beings got tired.

So God or whatever’s doing this probably decided to wait until the course of history is firmly pointed in a direction before fixing everything else to match.

The more she thought about it, the more sense it made, and the simpler it seemed. It was like how the cafeteria worked. Changing the flavor of jam for her bread was easy, but if they had to overhaul the whole dinner menu over and over, the kitchen staff would have a fit. They’d tell her to wait until she figured everything out before giving them the order. In fact, she vaguely recalled being told this very thing in the previous timeline. Of course, that had been back when she could still throw her weight around as the selfish Princess of Tearmoon, so the complaint had been worded in a very roundabout manner.

Oho ho, I’m onto you now. You’re trying to do as little work as possible. Who’d have thought that supreme deities could be lazy too?

Having arbitrarily assigned a personality trait to this higher being, she proceeded to arbitrarily feel a connection to it. She was at a point where she felt she could pat it on the shoulder and say, “I feel you, man.”

However, as a result of doing such intensive brainwork, she failed to hear what Bel had been saying.

“Uh, Miss Mia? Are you listening?”

“Huh? Oh, uh... No, I wasn’t. Sorry about that.” She huffed out a sigh and shook her head. “There’s so much going on. I had to take a moment to sort out my thoughts. Could you repeat what you were saying again?”

“Okay. I was talking about how I met someone during the summer break, and we became really good friends. I’d like to introduce her to you.”

“My, Bel, you made a friend? Certainly. I’d love to meet her.”

Mia quickly got out of bed and put on a gentle, grandmotherly smile, which promptly turned into a strained, twitching half-grin when Bel opened the door. For good reason too, because the young girl who walked in...

“It’s an honor to meet you, Your Highness.” She had the sweetest smile. “I am the daughter of His Imperial Majesty’s faithful vassal, Duke Yellowmoon. My name is Citrina Etoile Yellowmoon.”