Good grief, he truly was a man who knew how to make things difficult.
For the past few days, the problem that had been a source of worry had finally begun to show signs of resolution, and the ruler and pinnacle of the highly-mobile fortress city, Class 9 Cross Code, let out a deep sigh.
The King's Tower, which served as Cross's stronghold, had long been off-limits to everyone except Cross himself. Sitting alone in the empty tower, one could almost fall into the illusion that they were the only person left in the world.
The succession war would only begin after Cross died. By creating a situation where his children competed and vied for the throne, Cross's final duty as king was already half-complete.
All that remained was the question of when Cross's body would finally give out.
The succession war was something Cross had planned for ages. How many children to sire, what kind of education to provide, which areas controlled by which nobles to assign—all of it had been decided by Cross. Under his reign, the Code hadn't expanded much, but in its place, resources had accumulated. The next generation's Code would be able to deploy far greater forces than the original Code, who had attempted world conquest.
His long-held duty was nearing its end. Waiting alone in the King's Tower for death had become his final task.
Perhaps that was why he had checked on Alicia, whose involvement in his life had suddenly increased recently.
Alicia Code. The royal spare, created at the behest of the nobles.
A daughter born of Cross's genes through the Code's system, who held rights of succession yet was declared irrelevant to the succession war.
He had arbitrarily assigned her a minimal area, confined her in a building at its center, entrusted all management to the city system and the nobles, and cut off all involvement. He had never seen her face, never received a message from her. He had no interest.
The duty he had set for himself as this generation's Code King was to connect a stronger Code to a stronger king, and pouring royal resources into anything beyond that was nothing but wasteful.
If Klye hadn't stuck his nose in where it didn't belong, Cross would likely have ended his life without ever seeing Alicia, content as he was.
The first time he had casually checked, what caught his eye was a sight completely unlike the one from when she had made a fool of herself trying to get chocolate candy—it was Alicia, gazing out the window with a lonely expression.
A brief access to the city system was enough to understand what had happened.
That incompetent guard had put foolish ideas into Alicia's head and then left the building to go sightseeing in the city.
It was a trivial incident. If anything, the bigger problem was that Alicia, who was denied resources, had converted a guard automaton into raw materials and modified it.
Was the Code system's recreation of the advanced physical civilization era imperfect, or were these small loopholes present by design? Back when Cross wasn't yet king, he used to search for system loopholes all the time.
Day two. Alicia was wandering aimlessly around her room. Her education system's curriculum results were worse than usual, and the constantly monitored emotional graphs indicated her deepening melancholy.
Day three. Alicia sat on her bed with her knees drawn up, head bowed. At the sight of her, Cross was shaken for the first time in decades.
There was something hauntingly familiar about that figure. Memories sealed away for nearly a century came flooding back all at once.
Memories from before Cross was king—before he was even aware he would become king—that he would rather have kept forgotten.
The facial features and height were different, but the hair color, the eye color, the posture, and the mannerisms were unmistakably—the spitting image of the only woman Cross had loved before he became king.
He had completely forgotten her. She had been beautiful. Strong-willed. Bright and courteous, skilled at finding loopholes in the system, prone to starting something completely out of left field, and once she made up her mind, absolutely stubborn about it.
The woman Cross had chosen back when he didn't even have the resolve to become the next king—she had been exactly that kind of woman.
Their parting had been sudden, and at the time he had harbored resentment. But both anger and sorrow are healed by the passage of time.
That was probably why only nostalgia came flooding back like a torrent.
Cross was without question the ruler of the Code, but that didn't mean he understood everything about the city system. If anything, he probably understood less than he didn't. One doesn't need to understand the principles behind a system in order to use it.
A human manufacturing system utilizing genes.
And he didn't know everything about the system that the nobles had asked him to activate through a series of tedious procedures, which had ultimately produced Alicia.
All Cross had done was provide the genes and start the system—that was all.
But the resemblance between Alicia's mannerisms and those of his former lover was probably no coincidence.
The Code had been active for over two hundred years, and all of its data was stored within the city. The traces of research conducted, the myriad goods produced and consumed, even information about the people who had lived there—this city's system occasionally found unexpectedly clever ways to make use of it all.
Cross understood the horror of this human manufacturing system—the reason why only the king was permitted to activate it.
But what mattered wasn't the past. It was the future.
The current royals—all of his children had different mothers. The partners had been selected by the system and the nobles after Cross became king. Diversity was necessary to foster competition and produce a stronger king. To say there had been absolutely no emotion in siring children would be a lie, but it couldn't be denied that the primary objective had been to produce strong candidates for the throne.
If information from Cross's former lover had been used in Alicia's creation, then Alicia wasn't just a spare—she was the daughter born of the only woman Cross had ever loved purely.
This fact didn't change anything. He had no intention of making Alicia one of the heirs to the throne at this point. But emotionally, things were quite different.
Alicia Code was a royal spare who had already half-fulfilled her role. At least, that was how Cross had treated her, and the other royals and nobles treated her the same way.
Resources given to Alicia were kept to the bare minimum, and her treatment was similarly minimal. And when the next king took the throne, what kind of treatment would Alicia receive—at the very least, Cross didn't imagine a bright future awaited her. He had arranged it that way himself.
A king must be fair. Until now, Cross had treated all his children equally. Equally distant, never meeting them face to face.
A king must stand by the rules he has set and the decisions he has made.
There was no time left to change those principles.
His response to Klye had already been right at the line. He had instructed Nora to stop interfering with the guards and had scolded Tony for deploying the incapacitating gas. Until now, Cross had only contacted his children for official business. The perceptive ones among them would have already understood that something had changed.
To go even further—despite it being by circumstance—he had even allowed the door to be unlocked. This was a clear violation of the rules.
He had gone along with what Klye did, but how far could he push that...?
"I did my best. But... to have doubts arise at this point—was I... wrong?"
A dry voice echoed through the throne room. But the city system offered no answer.
§ § § "...Huh? Wh-what? A hole in the system!?"
The voice that rang out belonged to Her Highness's chief attendant—Olivia, whose tired expression hadn't been seen for some time after she'd disappeared. Beside her, the head butler Jean, also absent recently, was completely frozen.
At the end of their gaze stood Her Highness, freed from her confinement the previous evening. Completely oblivious to their stares, she was cheerfully looking down at the cityscape from the window.
She could have enjoyed the view from her own room, but Her Highness's mood had been at its peak ever since last night.
If I hadn't at least restrained her from leaving the building, she might have flown off somewhere like a kite with its string cut.
"There's n-no way there's a hole in the king's system! Right!?"
"Seriously, what kind of eyes do you have to notice something like that? I even poked around the system and looked into that door, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it..."
Zuri, who had also arrived that morning, twisted her face in response to Olivia, who was at the peak of confusion.
Apparently, the members of the Mourning Specter had been loyal enough to send someone to check on Her Highness every day while I was away.
"Yeah, it was full of holes, yep."
If anything, the one riddled with holes was less the system and more the king himself.
That was definitely the king who opened the door. What do you mean "find a hole"? There was no option NOT to open it.
"...The fact that a Class 6 was able to open the door is a problem, but the bigger issue is that the king allowed it. This is... going to cause a stir, no question."
"This is the w-worst! There's no excuse left..."
Jean said in a strained voice. I didn't know exactly what he meant, but all the color had drained from his weathered face.
Olivia's voice sounded like she was about to die on the spot.
Were there really that many people who didn't want Her Highness to go outside?
I glanced at the three special automata standing as if to guard Her Highness and asked, just to be sure.
"Your Highness, you've been cooped up inside for so long, and now that you finally get to go out, I was thinking we could take a look around the city together. Is that okay?"
"...You've done whatever you wanted up to this point, so why bother asking my opinion now? I can't think of any way to recover from this situation. Being obedient at this late stage won't help. We're done for—all of us, and all of you!"
Olivia was furious.
I had simply gone along with the flow the entire time—I had no memory of doing whatever I pleased. Finding Cool in the prison was because Olivia told me to go there, helping Kurahi came about because Cool and the others asked me to, and giving chocolate to Her Highness was because she came looking at it with such interest. The only thing I had done of my own volition was probably the sightseeing.
Olivia raked her fingers through her hair, glared at me, and spoke.
"Let me tell you this... The Donthan Family you drove away has split from Prince Tony and is now under Prince Angus. And they brought a whole bunch of like-minded allies with them!"
"!!"
"That's right—the end of the volume! And the mercenaries, even without a prince's orders, are united in their resolve to take you out! You must've really earned their hatred."
"I'd been wondering who Angus was all this time, but so he's a prince."
"...........!?"
Everyone kept going on about Angus this, Angus that, so I'd been a little curious who he was, and now I finally knew the truth. In other words, um... how many was that now?
Anyway, I didn't fully understand, but I did grasp that my life was being targeted.
If it were just me, with the automata I could probably escape, but with Her Highness here, we didn't have enough fighting power.
Her Highness was already brimming with enthusiasm to go look around outside. After all, she'd wanted to get out so badly she was practically frozen over.
Besides, there was the matter Nora had told me about. I'd have to meet with Kurahi at least once.
"Well, first things first, I need to go see Kurahi. Zuri, can you show me the way?"
"That's... something I'd be happy to do, but... you're bringing Her Highness too? You do know where Kurahi is right now, right?"
Not knowing where she was didn't matter. In this city where you could freely move via the web, distance was practically meaningless.
I called out to Her Highness, who was gazing out the window, pretending not to listen to the conversation.
"Your Highness."
"Let's go."
She answered immediately, even though I hadn't said a thing.
Her Highness had lived almost entirely without interacting with others. If the story about her having been in that room since birth was true, then the first conversation she'd ever had with another person must have been with me.
Even now, she still seemed to have some difficulty talking to anyone besides me. Before leaving the Code, it would be good for her to get at least somewhat accustomed to communication. Once outside, she wouldn't be a princess anymore.
She could learn how to converse from Lusha.
She'd called herself a refined product the other day, so she'd surely teach the proper etiquette.