The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

So, was she telling me to drop the formalities or not?

Judging by the nuance, it seemed closer to "go ahead and drop them."

I felt a bit unfairly treated, considering no one ever told Charlotte or Mia to stop using formal speech. But then again, neither of them had ever broken their speech pattern even once.

Well, Mia had.

I’ll kill you!

...She had screamed that at me once.

But that situation shouldn’t be considered a “normal” one.

For me, speaking informally was a sign of familiarity, but for Mia, that moment had been one where she was so furious she felt like she was about to lose her mind. Assuming someone’s "normal state" is their state of rage is the kind of nonsense you’d expect from idiot death game hosts, the ones who throw people into desperate situations and then babble about “true human nature emerging under extreme stress.”

Maybe I should’ve built my character to speak informally from the start?

Like Ayanami Rei or Naruto’s Oki, those famous characters. The cool, aloof beauty type. Casual speech. Occasionally showing a more human side.

...Well, it was too late for that now.

“Hey.”

Since I’d already decided to try speaking casually, I figured I might as well keep at it.

“......”

My next target was Lena.

She had stepped out during lunch to reserve some weapon parts at the shop she frequented and was just returning when I greeted her with that lighthearted “hey.”

She froze for a moment.

“The, uh, informal speech is fine, but isn’t this too sudden? Wouldn’t it be better to start from the morning if you’re going to change it up?”

That was Alice’s remark upon seeing Lena’s reaction.

“But whether it’s in the morning or at lunch, it’s still going to feel sudden for the person on the receiving end.”

“Yeah, but if you start in the morning, there’s at least been twelve hours of not seeing them. If you start at lunch, it’s like... you just saw them an hour ago, and suddenly you’re talking differently.”

Hmm. Was that so?

Either way, it was too late to reconsider now. I had already spoken informally to Lena.

“......”

Fortunately, Lena didn’t seem as taken aback as Sophia had been.

Now that I thought about it, Lena was probably the most pure-hearted person in my circle.

Even compared to Mia and Lottie, who also spoke formally, Lena was likely purer.

Sophia and Charlotte... yeah, purity wasn’t a word that applied to them.

Mia had learned more than she ever needed to know when she uncovered the things her father had done in life.

And Lottie—well, she was dating. I didn’t ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) know how far things had progressed between her and Jake, but I could bet that by the standards of this era, they had already done something that could be classified as “indecent behavior.”

I wasn’t saying Lena was completely ignorant of such things, but if I had to pick the person furthest from that world, it’d be her.

Especially when it came to relationships—she never really held grudges against anyone.

She had nothing to feel guilty about in her relationship with me, either.

Once she got past the surprise, she wouldn’t be suspicious of me like Sophia was.

Lena sat down in her seat without a word, then turned toward me.

“...So, have you finally cast off your shackles?”

“......”

A heavy silence fell over us.

Not the kind of silence that comes from something so serious that it makes everyone hold their breath.

No, this was a silence filled with a massive, unspoken question mark.

“What the hell is she talking about?”

For a moment, I almost got crushed under the weight of it myself.

Honestly, I had the same thought.

What the hell is she talking about?

I hadn’t fully grasped the situation yet, but my instincts were screaming at me.

If I let Lena keep talking, I was going to regret it immensely.

Tightly.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Before I could stand up and stop her, someone grabbed my arm.

Alice.

She looked at me with a mischievous smile.

Her lips were “smiling,” but her eyes were sparkling with pure entertainment.

“What do you mean by that?”

And then Claire spoke up, looking at Lena.

Claire had been standing nearby, listening in. Unlike Alice, she wasn’t wearing the ‘I’m going to enjoy watching you suffer’ expression, but she did seem genuinely curious about whatever Lena had heard from me.

Should I stop this here?

Should I say something to cut Lena off?

But if I did, it would only confirm to everyone that whatever she was about to say was something deeply embarrassing for me.

And even if I did manage to stop it here, Charlotte and Alice were never going to let it go.

My brain raced—

And then, suddenly, I remembered.

Right before the vacation...

I had visited Lena’s room.

I’d casually asked her to share a secret with me—

And the secret she’d shared had been way heavier than I expected.

So, in a panic, I had blurted out something to balance things out.

“That...”

Lena hesitated, glancing at me.

This was it.

I had to decide.

Should I just let it happen, get it over with here and now?

Or should I try to stop it, knowing that if I did, I’d have to repeatedly explain it later, one-on-one, to each of my friends?

...

Screw it.

It wasn’t even a real story—it was half made up anyway.

Might as well get it over with.

Screw the whole character image thing.

If the class heard, maybe they’d start looking at me differently.

But whether they looked at me with fear, or pity, or confusion, I didn’t really care.

“...No, this isn’t the right place to talk about it.”

But Lena was far more loyal than I expected.

She must have realized that some people were eavesdropping because she immediately changed her response.

And just like that, I missed my chance to say, “Go ahead and spill it.”

“......”

All my friends turned to stare at me.

...Hmm.

This was definitely going to come up again later.

*

It's better to get the pain over with quickly, so I decided to just come clean and get it over with.

Knowing Lena’s loyal nature, she wouldn’t bring this up in front of other people. So instead of meeting at our usual café, we gathered in my room.

The dorm rooms were all singles, but they were big enough that even with several people inside, it wasn’t unbearably cramped. Of course, it felt smaller than when I was alone or just with one other person, but it was manageable.

There were only four chairs around the small table meant for guests.

I sat down along with Lena, Alice, and Charlotte. Since that left no more chairs, Sophia took the study chair at my desk, while Claire, Lottie, and Mia sat on the bed.

Looking around at everyone, I realized—huh, I have quite a few friends.

Even though it was fairly easy to move around inside the dorms, a male student coming into a female student’s room wasn’t exactly normal. The way people dressed and their general mindset felt oddly modern at times, making it easy to forget, but at the end of the day, this was still a world based on the Industrial Revolution era. Even in the modern day, a guy walking into a girls' dormitory would cause an uproar. In this era? It’d be an even bigger deal.

"So, what exactly is this ‘shackle’ about?"

Alice, acting as the group's spokesperson, was the first to break the silence.

Hearing her question, Lena turned to look at me. I pressed my lips together and gave her a slight nod.

"You all know where Her Highness comes from, don’t you?"

Everyone here had heard about it at least once. Some had heard it directly from me, others had picked up rumors.

‘All of the Emperor’s children come from lowly origins.’

That was the rumor.

"So... the ‘shackle’ I mentioned was about that. It’s nothing extraordinary."

"......."

Silence settled over the room.

Huh.

Was Lena trying to protect my secret?

Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a secret.

If you thought through my origins, then worked backward, you could easily put the pieces together.

Hell, Claire was sitting right there—someone from the exact same place as me.

If I gave even the slightest hint, Claire would immediately understand.

"I... don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before, but I really like sweet things."

"You’ve never said it out loud, but it was painfully obvious."

Charlotte was the one who answered.

"That’s what this is about. The reason I like sweets is... tied to my origins. That’s all. Nothing grand."

As I slowly spoke each word, a thought crossed my mind.

Wait.

If I spin this right... I might get through this without totally humiliating myself.