The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

After rewinding time, the plan I came up with was simple: preserve myself.

The first time I rewound time, I’d been thrust into life-threatening chaos right away. That made it clear—goddesses could meddle in the world to some extent. I already knew that time would rewind on its own if I lost consciousness.

And when does time "normalize" again?

“This is rather fascinating.”

—Apparently, at the precise moment it’s most convenient for me to die.

Of course, it wasn’t always like that. If it had been, I wouldn’t have ended up saddled with ridiculous nicknames like Grace’s Black and White Lily.

But it was easy enough to tell when the “normal” flow of time aligned with the goddess’s prepared moments.

So I focused on staying alive. I avoided acting alone whenever possible. If I needed to go somewhere, I made sure Leo was with me. Whenever I could, I’d drag Claire and Alice along as well. Charging headfirst into battlefields like I used to was out of the question. Because of that, the northern border zone remained in a deadlock.

... And I hadn’t encountered Lena again.

Lena had only come to the academy because of me.

It wasn’t that I wanted to leave her hanging, but there was no way to approach her for now. It wasn’t as if I, someone far removed from royalty, could demand an audience with the governor of the Riclant Autonomous Nation. And neither Claire nor Alice could simply declare their intent to meet Lena without causing a stir.

There were rumors that the Sword Saint had started moving near the border, stirring the battlefield into unrest. But leaving that aside for the moment—

My current plan was to stay alive while quickly assembling the relics. Then I could tear apart this world that blurred the line between illusion and reality, escape, and crush the goddess’s plans.

“It’s quite the coincidence to encounter my two daughters in a place like this.”

... So why, pray tell, was the Emperor standing in front of us?

The idea was to move as quickly as possible—before the Emperor could gather all the relics. That way, we’d have an easier time collecting them.

That’s why we skipped the academy and went straight to Northwood.

Sure, Chiara Verati, disguised as a bunny girl, was lurking in Northwood at the time, but we didn’t care. As long as we avoided running into her, we could loot the ruins and be done with it.

But why was the Emperor here ahead of us?

“I see you’re wondering why.”

Standing just one step ahead of us, the Emperor held a fragment of the relic and looked us over.

“In truth, I should be the one asking how you managed to find this place.”

“...”

The three of us were at a loss for words.

Even Claire, his own daughter, and Alice, her supposed sister, didn’t have an answer. As for me, I’d had no prior connection to the Emperor. At best, I’d glimpsed him at the tail end of some banquets, always keeping my distance to avoid interaction.

“You must be Sylvia Grace of the Grace family,” he said.

It wasn’t as if we hadn’t exchanged any words before. As someone relatively well-known in high society, and given the Grace family’s reputation as staunch loyalists, I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him.

“I could ask why you’re here,” he continued, “but I suppose the answer depends on the situation.”

“Is that a command from Your Majesty?” I asked cautiously.

“It could be interpreted as such.”

Claire and Alice’s gazes shifted to me.

... So much for my plan of keeping a low profile. The moment we ran into the Emperor, that went straight out the window.

I didn’t think the goddess was capable of outright controlling free will. Ultimately, she aimed to create “that kind of world,” but at least for now, she couldn’t manipulate people directly. If she could, she wouldn’t have needed to scheme against me or the Emperor in the first place.

What the goddess could do was foresee the future to some extent, planting traps to steer her opponents.

And I had walked right into one of those traps.

The question now was how she’d managed to manipulate the Emperor.

... Actually, there wasn’t much need to overthink it.

Leo had feelings for both Claire and Alice, even if he didn’t fully understand them yet. His composed behavior in front of the princess was proof enough.

Mia, too, was a perfect example. At first, she had been shadowed by a gloomy demeanor, but after I took her under my wing at the academy, her mood brightened almost instantly. She quickly overcame her stuttering, and after we reconciled to some extent, she could hold proper conversations.

Of course, she still avoided any mention of her father like the plague, but that was understandable.

Charlotte had also grown closer to Alice, just as they had in the original timeline. She had shown considerable interest in me from the start. Unlike the perfectly stoic "cool beauty" persona I’d cultivated before, my expressions now were far more varied—though most still fell under the "calm" category. As a result, I felt like I had bonded with Charlotte even faster this time around.

If that were the case, it was impossible for the Emperor not to sense something.

Even if he didn’t retain clear memories of his past failures, the residual instinct alone might have been enough to compel him to accelerate his plans.

He might even be feeling anxious about it.

Not that he would show it outwardly.

I glanced at the Emperor’s flanks, where Bella and Lucas stood. Both of them were looking at me with curious expressions.

...Right, they had their share of strong feelings about me as well.

This was why the goddess didn’t need to outright control people.

I, too, had been feeling a sense of urgency, which meant she could have easily predicted that I would make my next move as quickly as possible.

All the goddess had to do was align the Emperor’s path to intersect with mine at just the right moment.

That alone was enough to turn me into something suspicious—an enigmatic, unidentified figure gathering relics behind the Emperor’s back.

“...”

In that fleeting moment, my mind raced to its limit.

And I came to a single conclusion.

I dropped to my knees and bowed deeply on the spot.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Claire and Alice startle in unison. Claire looked like she was about to blurt out, “Sister!” but managed to stop herself.

...This wasn’t something the old me would have ever done. Back then, no matter what, I wouldn’t have compromised my cool beauty image by kneeling in front of someone else.

But that didn’t matter now.

My life was more important.

“...I greet my father.”

“...”

For a moment, the world fell into a heavy silence.

Well.

It wasn’t as if I wasn’t treated as his daughter in the original timeline anyway.

*

I had no intention of pushing Claire aside.

All I needed to do was say that I had been at the same orphanage as Claire. After all, the Emperor had been involved with so many women that it seemed he couldn’t even keep track of the hair colors of all his children.

“So, you claim to be my daughter,” the Emperor said, looking down at me with a piercing gaze.

“Yes,” I replied calmly. “I was at the same orphanage as Claire.”

“And how does that prove you are my daughter?”

“...”

Thankfully, this world didn’t have genetic testing. While certain drugs and remedies existed that seemed comparable to early 20th-century technology, complex medical procedures lagged far behind. This was a world with healing magic, so invasive surgeries or sophisticated diagnostics were largely unnecessary. Even in extreme cases, such measures were more of a last resort when a healer wasn’t available.

I remembered reading somewhere that even in the early 20th century, it was possible to test for shared bloodlines by analyzing specific proteins. But that wasn’t relevant here.

So, I decided to gamble.

“...My mother told me that my father was His Majesty the Emperor,” I said, inventing a mother out of thin air.

The Emperor tilted his head slightly, gesturing for me to continue.

I racked my brain for anything I could use.

My old name had been Sylvia Black.

In this world, surnames that referenced colors or objects were often associated with commoners. Many people didn’t even have surnames at all.

When I first learned that the Emperor’s children were likely illegitimate, I didn’t sit idly by—I did some research.

While the records had been meticulously erased, I discovered that some fallen royals had been demoted to “commoner” status.

It wasn’t as though these women had been hidden away and forcibly violated. More likely, the Emperor had struck deals with them, coerced them, or made promises to win their cooperation.

The plan had likely been in motion even before Alice was born, and after Alice’s mother’s death, the Emperor seemed to accelerate it. For all I knew, there could be other “siblings” of Alice or Claire somewhere out there, simply never chosen by the Emperor.

So, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to claim that one of the women who had been involved with the Emperor had harbored fleeting dreams—dreams of restoring her royal status or seeing her child inherit the empire.

“I don’t even remember my mother’s name now,” I continued, my voice deliberately tinged with melancholy. “But I vaguely recall what she told me while holding me in her arms: to survive no matter what, and to be of use to Your Majesty.”

Whether the Emperor had seduced, tempted, or coerced them, there was only one reason why those women would have been with a man who was otherwise their enemy.

Hope.

The hope of returning to royalty.

Or the ambition that their child might one day inherit the empire.

“That kind of ‘help’ doesn’t come without its price,” the Emperor said, his tone laced with understanding.

“...”

I didn’t reply.

But for the Emperor, my silence seemed to be enough.