The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#398 Crown Prince Alondre (24) - Siblings' Q&A Q. If someone stood before you who would bring about disaster in the future, what would you do? That disaster is extremely malicious. But at this point in time, they haven't actually committed any crime. And while we're at it, the surrounding circumstances have already changed, so it doesn't even seem like the disaster would happen if left as is. Should that person still be punished? Or, since it's wrong to condemn someone on mere possibility, should they be left alone? To this, Trisha Adalhedis Eizern — an ultra-gorgeous beauty, an Imperial Princess, a jack-of-all-trades, and a genius — answered as follows. A rotten seed will have done something wrong in the present too, not just the future — so just nail them for that. Or so she said. "B-brother! Just once, please forgive me just this once!! Brother!!" Trisha, age 16. While acting cute and staying close to Imperial Uncle Mihail, she rambled on to her mother about things she'd seen and heard at his side — at which point Fourth Consort Beatrix sensed something oddly off and launched an investigation. One by one, each of his various crimes — things that might otherwise have been quietly buried — went off like a chain of explosions, and punishment was carried out. Realizing that the uncle she'd been close with had fallen because of her own words, Trisha took pity on him, and 'without knowing what it was,' gifted him some wine mixed with the mood-lifting powder he liked to use. At some point, this covert assistance was 'accidentally' discovered, resulting in a visitation ban on her uncle. In the palace where Mihail was confined, the sobbing howls of a wretched man in withdrawal never ceased. "Your Majesty! How can you lend your ear to the cunning words of those scheming men! If you punish a member of the imperial family just because a mob of officials made noise, this will surely lead to the weakening of imperial authority — Your Majesty! Your Majesty-ahhhh!!" Trisha, age 17. The various misdeeds a senior elder of the imperial family had committed — using his power to touch commoner women or secretly carrying out other vile acts behind the scenes — were 'coincidentally' discovered and brought into the open. Led by Prime Minister Christoph, the Empire's capable loyal retainers remonstrated with the Emperor. The Emperor struck the elder's name from the imperial family register and ordered him to clean out a drainage tank. In the middle of the work, he burst out in anger, lost his footing, and was buried in filth on the spot — he later died of the resulting infection. "What? What did you just say! Everyone around you calling you cute, cute has made you awfully full of yourself! I'll teach you some manners today, gkh!" Trisha, age 18. She started causing violent incidents within the imperial family at the slightest provocation. Since her targets were mostly those outside the current Emperor's direct line, some viewed it as a kind of factional struggle, but that suspicion was put to rest once she also beat some of the Emperor's own children black and blue. Those around her judged her as capable and shrewd, but too self-willed, condemning people on nothing more than baseless whims or gut instinct — and thus lacking the ability to stand above anyone. "Heh heh, you'd like to try a war game, Your Highness? I can't help but think it's an unsuitable pastime for you to enjoy…… Wait, just a moment. One more round! Please, just one more round!!" Trisha, age 19. The Imperial Princess, visiting the military, launched a war game against the military commanders. Using maneuver, infiltration, and paralysis strategies, she thoroughly humiliated a military establishment that favored frontal charges centered on knights and mages, and drove them to overhaul their existing tactics and strategy on a massive scale. In the process, the fact that a member of the imperial family with no authority had meddled in military affairs on her own became a problem, earning her a brief period of house confinement, plus the title of the Eccentric Imperial Princess. "You say I seem to have no energy lately? Ha, well. I suppose that's somewhat unavoidable, given the position I'm in." Trisha, age 20. She noticed the Crown Prince — from working too much — had, to put it kindly, become more human in his words and manner, or, to put it unkindly, grown listless and ordinary. She kept silent about the 'hidden space' she had found by looking the imperial palace over piece by piece with her own eyes and piecing it together in her head, now that so much time had passed and the original blueprints and layout plans from its construction had been lost. Instead, she casually remarked to the Crown Prince that a night walk and reading were good for clearing one's head. Trisha, age 21. And Alondre, age 26. "Brother. Brother. May I ask you something?" "What is it? Ask away." "But the condition is you don't ask about the intent or reason behind the question! No deducing it either!" "Isn't that condition a bit too demanding? Tell a person not to think about something, and they'll only think about it more." "Brother isn't a person, he's the Crown Prince!" "Heh heh, fine. I'll do that, then. So what's this question?" "If Brother fiercely fought against some problem, and whether the outcome was failure or success, you reached your own conclusion one way or another — and then someone came along and, hyah!, solved the whole thing for you, how would that feel?" "Well, I don't imagine it would feel particularly good." "Is that so?" "Well, it would likely vary depending on my state of mind at the time, but it can't be pleasant to have someone else carelessly scribble over a result I achieved. If I do it myself, even failure belongs to me — but in that case, even failure stops being mine." "Right? I did agonize over it a little. Whether, cheat or whatever else, I should just go ahead and solve the problem first. But since Brother puts it that way, I suppose my choice was right after all." "You asked me not to infer the specific reason, so I won't — but in any case, I'm glad your expression looks bright." "Well then, Brother. There's one more thing I'd like to ask." "What is it about?" "Brother, you could change this country to go much more, um… 'well,' couldn't you? Is there a reason you don't?" "With His Majesty still here, it would damage our relationship if I stepped forward too much." "But knowing our lazy-genius-type Father, if Brother just tried to step forward, wouldn't he hand things over to you right away? The throne included, while he's at it?" "Hm. No, he's still in his prime — surely he wouldn't go that far." "Care to bet on it?" The Crown Prince did not call the bet. He merely looked away, quietly. Trisha stared intently at her brother's face as he did so. The world at large seemed to have a lot to say about the reforms the Crown Prince had recently been carrying out in his own personal domain, calling them too radical — but to Trisha, who knew exactly what kind of result followed when the Crown Prince acted truly 'radical,' it was a statement that only drew a laugh. No — comparing the Emperor in her memory to the Crown Prince here now, the latter would, without a doubt, be capable of stirring up something far louder and more astonishing. In that sense, the Crown Prince was truly proceeding slowly and gradually. It was only that even this looked fast to everyone watching. "Well, if you don't want to answer, you don't have to force yourself. Your cute little sister might lose sleep at night out of sheer curiosity, but what would a mere scrap of an Imperial Princess do, objecting when His Highness the Crown Prince doesn't want to talk? Boo hoo. Just please don't sell me off in a political marriage to some old potbellied man." "Alright, I concede — let's stop here." The Crown Prince raised both hands in surrender, then calmly continued. "Suppose, hypothetically, that I could do more work than roughly a hundred people, and offer more plausible solutions than they could." "Only a hundred people…?" The Crown Prince, without reacting, continued. "The first time, people might let it pass as just how it is. The second time, they'd marvel at it. By about the third time, it becomes a given." "Do you mean they stop being grateful?" "No, it just means they stop thinking of any option 'other than' my choice." A problem arises, and tremendous effort is poured into finding a solution. And then someone nearby takes one glance and simply solves it. In a situation where that keeps repeating, just how many people could still keep making the effort? Countless people pooled their strength to achieve a single result. And then that result fell behind a result made by just one person, alone. In that situation, just how many people could still refuse to give up, insisting that gathering everyone's strength and will could accomplish anything? "I suppose if everyone ends up looking to only you, Brother, that would get exhausting." "It wouldn't end at merely exhausting. If I'm unlucky, I might end up stuffed and mounted on the throne, wouldn't I?" "But Brother. The great advantage of monarchy is that, with a capable monarch, the ceiling is high — and the great flaw is that, if an incompetent monarch comes along, the country collapses, isn't it? Won't someone who'll ruin the country eventually show up among your descendants? Wouldn't a separate safeguard be needed for that?" To Trisha's question, the Crown Prince answered. "Then it should just collapse." "Yesh?" "Trisha. There's no such thing as a perfect system to begin with. In the end, it's people who use it. So a truly unworthy person can ruin a country no matter how well the system is set up." So there's no need to clumsily hook it up to a respirator and keep it limping along in a wretched extension of life. "Better for it to collapse cleanly and let a new, capable talent simply rise to the top instead. Well, someone capable enough to lop off the imperial family's head — that's its own kind of ability, isn't it?" It was an answer that, for a moment, left even the world's most ultra-gorgeous genius Imperial Princess at a loss for words. An unawakened tyrant was still, in the end, a tyrant. (E/N: I ended up going a bit overboard...Next batch is a long time away now)