I Favor the Villainess 189

The Situation Going Forward

“Hey, Claire, Rei. You’re back.”

When we returned to the Bauer dormitory, Dor-sama was there to greet us.
The dorm seemed to have somewhat of a hectic atmosphere, with people running around back and forth.

“Looking at you, I’m assuming you two are already aware of the situation?”
“Yes. Sousa has called for a summit.”
“That’s right.”

When we returned to our dorm room to chat with Dor-sama, Mei and Alea came by and jumped straight into Claire-sama’s chest.

“Claire-sama, welcome back!”
“Welcome back.”
“I’m home.”

Claire-sama said with a big smile on her face as she kissed Mei and Alea’s foreheads.

“…… I’m here too, you know?”
“Welcome back, Rei-okaasama.”
“Welcome back.”
“…… Something doesn’t feel right here.”

It’s fine, I’m not lonely at all.

“We have something important to discuss with my father, so could the two of you head back to your room and play for a bit?”
“Are we not allowed to come with you?”
“We also want to chat with our grandfather.”

Hmph.
Dor-sama sure is popular.
I’m not feeling jealous or anything.
Nope, not at all.

“I’m sorry, Mei, Alea. This is a conversation between adults. I’ll play with you two again later, so could you please bear with it for now?”
“Okay, but you promise, right?”
“It has to be a promise.”

Mei and Alea made a pinky promise with Dor-sama before they went back into their room.
It doesn’t really matter, but it was a little bit out of place seeing a pinky promise being made in this medieval European setting.
It seemed that there was a strange piece of Japanese culture to be found here too.

“Are you fine with staying in the living room? Rei, please prepare the tea.”
“Understood.”
“Sorry for the trouble.”

As I watched them sit by the table, I started brewing some black tea.

“So, father, about the leader of the summit… Is it really true?”

Without waiting for the tea to finish brewing, Claire-sama got started with the conversation right away.
I could hear the conversation as well, so there was no issue with it, though.

“Ahh, about that. We just received information about it from Bauer not long ago too. The person who proposed it seems to be Queen Manaria.”

In addition to the three-way alliance, it seemed that Manaria was quite active in the diplomatic scene.

“I don’t get why she would call for one right now, though. Isn’t this around the time where she should be focusing on forming the three-way alliance?”

Claire-sama asked.
I placed two cups of tea in front of them before taking my seat.

“This is just my assumption, but I think the Queen believes that if the three-way alliance is actually formed, then waging war on the Empire would be inevitable.”

Dor-sama took a sip of the black tea.
“It’s delicious,” he happily gave his impression of it.

“Isn’t that something anybody could guess, though? And to begin with, I heard that the whole reason why the three-way alliance was formed was specifically to wage a war against the Empire.”
“That’s a bit off. The purpose of the three-way alliance was to force the Empire into abandoning its aggressive and invasive diplomacy. The idea was to be able to show off our difference in strength and win without resorting to fighting.”
“But I’m guessing that wasn’t possible?”
“That’s right.”

Dor-sama had a difficult look on his face.

“I think the Empire’s offer of conciliating things before the three-way alliance has worked out well. They managed to buy themselves a lot of time already, and the Empire has managed to expand its national armament considerably in these last few months. Sousa originally sent the three countries out to observe the situation silently, but in the end, the Empire still managed to get the upper hand.”

According to Dor-sama, Dorothea was a much more diplomatic person than what meets the eye.
I didn’t expect that Dorothea would be able to pull it off, but the reality was, she did.
Or perhaps her staff and personnel were just that amazing at their jobs.

“In any case, we’re basically back to square one. It seems that the Queen wants to incorporate the Empire into a new international order, though. The summit will act as a stepping stone towards that goal.”

It seemed that, instead of making an alliance to oppose the Empire, the idea was to expand and include the Empire into a new alliance in order to block its movements and expansions.

“Wait a minute. You say that we’re forming a new international order, but as it stands right now, the Empire has the most power out of any of us right now though? Isn’t this just a good opportunity for the Empire to take advantage of the new international order instead?”

Claire-sama asked with great concern.
Well, of course.
Even in the twenty-first century, the United Nations was often biased in favor of the great powers.

“That will all depend on how capable each nation is. Well, if it plays out like the way you just mentioned, Claire, then we’ll just have to go back to trying to form the three-way alliance and face the Empire directly.”
“So basically, we’re trying this because we have nothing to lose?”
“In a nutshell, yes. But diplomacy requires you to be able to make roundabout turns like this.”

“But good grief,” Dor-sama said as he heaved a sigh.

“Claire, Rei, what do you two think of the Empire? What do you think Her Majesty Dorothea will do?”

Dor-sama asked us.
Claire-sama thought about it for a little bit before answering,

“I don’t think Dorothea is willing to give up on her aggressive diplomacy.”
“Why is that?”
“We just saw the Imperial Princess, Philine, get exiled right before our eyes. If Dorothea even had the slightest intention to change her foreign policies, then she wouldn’t have exiled her daughter, who was pleading her about it, to begin with.”
“Hmm…… Rei, what about you?”
“I agree with Claire-sama. However, it seems that Dorothea has some sort of reason behind aggressively pushing her invasive policy forward. If I can poke around a bit, perhaps I can change something.”

The elderly man said something along these lines too.
It wasn’t like Dorothea was enforcing her aggressive diplomacy because she wanted to.
He wasn’t using it as an excuse to justify her invasive policies, but if you think about it, Dorothea never tried to justify her own actions to begin with either.
Even during our first audience with her, when Claire-sama condemned her invasive policies, Dorothea acknowledged that there was truth behind her words.
Perhaps she considered herself as some kind of necessary evil.

“Do you know what the reason behind it is?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a clue. Not even her personal aide, who seems to be the closest to her, seems to know the reason why. Only the person herself does.”
“Doesn’t that mean there’s nothing we can do about it?”
“That’s true.”

This was something that she had mentioned during our first audience with her too, but unless we became her subordinates, she would not tell us anything.

“Rei, what was it…… Is there something written about the Empress in that prophecy book of yours?”

Dor-sama was probably referring to the game knowledge I had of RevoLily.
I gave the same explanation to Dor-sama regarding my knowledge of the base game as I did with Claire-sama.
That was back when I was being tested on becoming Claire-sama’s maid before the revolution happened, though.

“Nothing about the truth behind Dorothea. Her opinions do not change in any of the situations that happen.”

In Dorothea’s route, with the mother-daughter relationship, she and Philine end up embarking on a quest for world unity.
In the revolution route, Philine causes a revolution within the Empire, but Dorothea stands in her way as the enemy until the very end.
Dorothea’s opinions don’t change in any of the other routes either.

“In that case, the upcoming summit that Queen Manaria proposed might serve as a good catalyst for this. If it’s as you say it is, Rei, and she has some sort of unavoidable circumstances that force her into enforcing invasive policies, perhaps you could probe into her situation and get her to change her mind.”

Unavoidable circumstances, you say.
I don’t think there is ever any reason to invade other countries by force.
Well, I can’t deny the part where the true nature behind politics is the strong eating the weak, but I’m not a politician, so I want to cherish my values as a common person.

“In any case, it seems that I will have to get involved again. This will eat into the time I will get to spend with Mei and Alea, though.”
“Dor-sama, are you making a return to the political scene?”

Dor-sama grumbled as I asked him and grabbed him another cup of tea.

“Well, at least, I was forced to help out with the case this time around. If I were to look the other way, I’d just be passing it onto Claire and everybody else instead.”

It seemed that Arla and Irvine couldn’t be picky.
To drag somebody who was close to middle-aged like Dor-sama back into the political scene.
It meant that Bauer still could not afford to let their guard down yet.

“It’s okay if you leave it to us, you know?”
“That’s right. You’ve already worked hard enough, Dor-sama.”
“Hahaha, thank you. But you both are perhaps a little bit conceited. You both are still weak when it comes to the front lines of politics and diplomacy.”
“…… I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s exactly my point.”

Although Claire-sama and I were strangely hailed as the heroines of the revolution, we repeatedly mentioned that it was not something we could’ve pulled off by ourselves.
I received a lot of back up from Dor-sama, and it was Dor-sama that originally drew the blueprints to overthrow nobility.
To put it bluntly, you could say that Claire-sama and I were merely just pawns in Dor-sama’s game of chess.
But if we ever mentioned it, Dor-sama would deny it all.

“Well, I’ll do my best since it’ll lead to a better future for Mei and Alea.”
“If you need any help at all, please feel free to ask us.”
“That’s right.”
“Haha, thank you.”

At that moment, there was a hard knock at the door.
As Claire-sama and Dor-sama looked over at each other, I left my seat to answer the door.

“Yes…… Wait, Lana? What’s wrong?”
“This is bad! Joel got……!”
“Please stay calm. What happened to Joel?”

Lana’s face was extremely pale.
She desperately caught a breath and said,

“Joel got taken away by some imperial soldiers.”

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