Chapter 394: Inevitability
“Wha…!?”
He had never imagined he would run into Elizalina here.
Shock spread across his face, and then the king spoke.
“W-why are you here!?”
“I felt sorry for you, Father. You’re so completely blind to what’s happening around you, so I came to teach you a few things.”
“What did you say…?”
As the king’s emotions shifted from shock to confusion, Elizalina curled her lips into a faint smile and continued.
“I’ll guess what you’re thinking right now. You failed to get cooperation from Florence yesterday and again today, but you think you just had bad luck twice in a row, and like I said earlier, you’re thinking, ‘next time for sure,’ right?”
“…!”
With his thoughts exposed so precisely, the king’s expression twisted.
But if he fell silent here, it would be no different from admitting defeat.
Unwilling to lose to Elizalina in any way, he leaned on his pride and replied.
“Even if that were what I was thinking, so what? You say it’s pointless to think about the next step, but do you truly believe I would stop acting based on such nonsense?”
“The premise of your thinking is wrong to begin with. Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that both yesterday and today the other party happened to be unfavorable and refused to cooperate?”
After posing the question, Elizalina went on.
“Well, it’s not impossible since it’s only happened twice, but when it happens back to back, shouldn’t you consider other possibilities? Like maybe those two events weren’t chance at all, but inevitable… something like that.”
“Inevitable…!? Th-that’s impossible!!”
“It’s easy to predict that after failing to secure the Florence house, you’d think, ‘then I’ll just bring the other ducal houses to my side,’ right?”
“Ghh… e-even if that was predictable, so what? At this point, the actions we should each take are still the same.”
“Ahaha, you really think I wouldn’t have done anything even though I could predict it? I’ve been gathering support from those willing to side with us, mainly among the ducal houses, for quite a while now.”
“Wha…!”
“Maybe Felisiana starting to appear publicly this year had an effect too, but there were far more people willing to cooperate with us than I expected. So even if you start moving now, it’s already too late.”
Two days ago, the king had visited a marquis house and secured its cooperation.
And yet, when it came to the ducal houses, he had failed two days in a row.
That fact seemed to support Elizalina’s words, but the king quickly spoke up.
“B-but that assumes the Florence ducal house would refuse to cooperate with me! From what you’re saying, your plan to gather the ducal houses depended on that premise… but there’s no way you could have predicted the Florence house would reject me!”
In other words, this was nothing more than an attempt to make him give up.
As he spoke with that intent, Elizalina answered without hesitation.
“Oh, with Florence, it’s a bit different from the other ducal houses. Not exactly personal, but we had already formed a unique kind of cooperation. So it wasn’t just a prediction, it was practically decided, part of the plan.”
“Hmph, still spouting nonsense… there’s no reason Florence would enter into such an arrangement with you…”
“You heard it from Florence, didn’t you? About the person she wants to be engaged to.”
“…Yes, some man from a count’s house, just like you all. Honestly, with her lineage and ability, how foolish… the same as you…?”
The king had believed there was no reason for the three princesses and Florence to cooperate in any special way.
But now, a common thread became clear.
“That’s right… both Florence and we wish to be with a man from a count’s family, and we share the same goal of bringing down you, Father, who refuses that. Now do you understand that everything I’ve said is the truth, and that no matter what you do from here on, it’s meaningless?”
Having shown that everything he had dismissed as nonsense was, in fact, true,
The king could do nothing but fall silent in response to Elizalina’s words.