The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

Did she lure her in with food?

That’s what I thought the moment Charlotte placed her hands on Mia’s shoulders.

“So it really was because of food?”

And Alice, it turned out, had the exact same thought.

“Well, it couldn’t have been just that.”

Even though I had the same idea as Alice, I still said that out loud. I meant it—at least halfway. At first, I did think Charlotte might’ve tempted her with food, but I didn’t believe Mia would actually go along with it just for that reason.

Mia was an extremely introverted person.

I was the same in that regard, but even so, if there was something I felt I had to do, I would act. Because if I didn’t, nothing would change.

But Mia wasn’t the type to act unless pushed from the outside.

Her personality had improved a lot recently, but I still doubted she would come up with the idea of becoming vice president of the student council on her own.

It was clear Charlotte had approached her first.

“Why on earth did Charlotte make that offer to Mia, and why did Mia accept it?”

Yeah. That was the real question.

On a personal level, Charlotte and Mia didn’t have a bad relationship. You could even say it was good. I hadn’t seen them laughing and chatting together often, but Charlotte always spoke to Mia with a gentle tone, and Mia would always respond just as gently... well, maybe not gently—more like timidly.

But when it came to their families, it was a different story.

Charlotte was the eldest daughter of the royal family of Belvur. Mia was the eldest daughter of the Crowfield Count family.

Both were expected to eventually inherit their respective houses without much resistance.

Crowfield had originally been Belvur land. It was famous for its fertile soil, but now, most of that rich land wasn’t used for wheat—it was used to grow poppies. Some Belvur nobles found this deeply unpleasant. Sure, morphine was considered an essential medicine in modern society, but that didn’t change the fact that opiates carried a negative image.

The land had been taken during war from Belvur in the first place, so it was natural that its current reputation wasn’t exactly favorable.

...

So, like Alice, I couldn’t fully understand Mia’s decision either.

Could it be an attempt to build a bridge for the future?

Let me say this again—Mia hated getting ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) close to power even more than I did. If possible, she would rather stay locked up in a room or her house, reading the books she loved in peace.

And yet Mia, vice president of the student council?

“I guess there’s no way to know without asking her directly, huh?”

Alice seemed to have come to the same conclusion.

It wasn’t about keeping Mia in check or anything like that.

She was just honestly, purely curious about what Mia had been thinking.

*

“The reason I accepted Her Highness Charlotte’s offer?”

The next day.

It was the weekend, so we had plenty of time.

I was a little worried Charlotte might refuse to talk to us because she’d be busy holding strategy meetings with Mia even on the weekend—but it seemed she had no such intention.

Well, it’s just a student council position after all. Alice and Charlotte were putting up a front of pride, but deep down, they probably didn’t think it was that important either.

It could influence public opinion within the academy, and might affect the academy’s internal affairs to some extent... but people who truly needed that influence usually weren’t royalty or nobility.

Unless the imperial or royal families were being crushed under the weight of other nobles—which wasn’t the case—a fully empowered emperor, an imperial family that, though pushed aside, was still very much alive, and a foreign royal princess like Charlotte didn’t really need to seize control of an academy within the Empire.

So the reason they insisted on running in the election was probably just... because they wanted to.

“Yeah. So, um...”

Asking something like ‘You don’t usually like this kind of thing, right?’ wouldn’t be a good approach.

“I was just curious why you accepted Charlotte’s offer.”

“Because I’m from the Crowfield family?”

Thankfully, Mia chose to mention her family rather than pointing out a personal flaw. Alice visibly relaxed and nodded.

“Yeah. I mean, from a house-to-house perspective, isn’t it a little awkward?”

Of course, it might’ve been even more awkward if she had sided with Alice. The bad blood between Belvur and Crowfield was long-standing and seemingly irreversible, but the one between Crowfield and the Imperial Family was only from a generation ago—and Mia herself was one of the people affected.

But we’d all witnessed firsthand how we became friends with Mia. That didn’t require any explanation.

And in that sense, we could somewhat guess how Charlotte and Mia might’ve become close, too... but still, I was curious. Curious if that reason was enough to overcome Mia’s personal disposition.

“Well... maybe.”

Mia looked slightly upward as she spoke.

She stayed quiet for a moment, lost in thought, and then slowly opened her mouth.

“Actually, I’m not really sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“When Her Highness Charlotte made the offer, I just sort of... accepted before I even realized it.”

“So... it was so sudden that you agreed without thinking?”

“It’s a little different from that. I mean...”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Mia furrowed her brow slightly and tilted her head, clearly struggling to explain. After thinking for a while, she finally spoke.

“She was the first person who’s ever made me that kind of offer.”

“Ah...”

At Mia’s words, Alice let out a sound like she’d just realized something.

“I’ve always disliked stepping forward. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle anything important... and, well, until last year, I was still having thoughts I really shouldn’t have.”

She must be referring to the time when she was planning to kill me.

“I was scared that if I talked to other people, they’d find out what I was thinking. Just having those thoughts was dangerous. So I distanced myself from others and never even considered taking on anything important. That was the most important thing to me back then.”

Mia paused briefly before continuing.

“But after I let go of those thoughts and became friends with all of you... hmm, even then, I never really wanted to do anything big. I kind of liked the way I’d been living. Just staying in my room, reading books and researching magic on my own. More than anything, I didn’t think I was capable of handling such an important position.”

In a way, that applied to all of us.

Since Mia had never said she wanted to do it, we all assumed she wouldn’t. Of course, in Alice’s case, she probably had the idea of making me her vice president from the start. I doubt she ever even considered asking Mia.

But not just for the student council—none of us ever thought of putting Mia in a position to lead something.

“Her Highness Charlotte came to me and persuaded me. At first, I told her I’d never even considered doing anything like that and declined... but she kept trying to convince me, and... well, I guess I was persuaded in the end.”

Mia said that with a soft smile at the corners of her lips.

“Once I heard her say that I could keep going, that I’d be able to handle it... I started to believe it myself.”

Alice and I stared at Mia’s smile in a bit of a daze.

“So that’s how it happened.”

It wasn’t some grand reason.

But precisely because it wasn’t anything grand, it made more sense than any political motivation.

If someone you consider one of your closest friends believes you can do something you never thought you were capable of—and entrusts that task to you—you wouldn’t even think of refusing.

I may have said what I did to Alice, but truthfully, I never had any intention of turning down the vice president position either.

“Alright then, got it.”

Alice responded with a refreshed expression.

“Looks like we’re rivals for the time being.”

At Alice’s declaration, Mia smiled faintly. Well, it looked like she was trying to put on a confident smile, but it didn’t quite work. The corners of her lips trembled, her smile was crooked, her face flushed red, and even her eyes were blinking like they were on the verge of closing.

Still, I guess it was enough to just barely qualify as a bold expression—if we stretched the definition a bit.

“Ah, let’s do our best from now on.”

“Sure, I’ll make sure to win.”

“We don’t plan to lose either.”

She’s different than she was in front of Charlotte.

Well, if she acted the same way she did in front of Charlotte, Mia would’ve been completely overwhelmed.

...Wait, no way Charlotte picked Mia for exactly that reason, right?