WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Academy's Pure Love Dark Knight ◈
Chapter 135
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Episode 135. The Gambler's Fallacy.
* * *
My head throbs. The strange message the status window shows keeps circling in my brain.
"Something on your mind? Licht?"
"Ah, it's nothing. Kainel."
"Nothing, my ass. It's written right across your forehead, 'I've got something on my mind.'"
I was leaning back in my chair, just sighing, when Kainel needled me from the side. I was only like this because I'd nearly stumbled into a harem route.
"If something's bothering you, spit it out. The great Kainel will hear you out."
The blond-haired hero knew I'd been off ever since the sparring match. Maybe he just had sharp instincts.
A cold autumn wind blew into the academy's men's dormitory, needling at my lungs.
"..."
'Should I actually tell him?'
'Even back in reality, I owed Kainel a lot.'
Ten years, from <Knight Heart> to <Black Heart>. Even setting aside Phine, who'd been the nameless saintess, these people were a lingering ache for me.
Game characters who'd felt like real friends.
"Kainel, if you could see the future, how do you think you'd feel?"
"Huh? Licht. So you really are that kind of hero? Something like Head?"
I let out a little of the truth. Too many variables had piled up for me to keep going through academy life without telling anyone.
The affection level with the assistant instructor, Blanc.
It probably meant that depending on what the player did, other heroines could be wooed too.
"Let's just say it's something like that, for now."
It was right to assume that whatever I could do, the other side could too. That was basic PVP principle. But even so, something about it felt off.
"Kainel, hypothetically, purely hypothetically, what would you think if I told you I came from a future where Ariel became the hero?"
I looked up at the status window that had been floating there ever since the practical sparring match.
[Chartiness ♡ Nex 64%]
[Kainel ♡ Ariel 35%]
[Lee Suhyun ♡ Phine Gransia 5%]
[Dennis ♡ Baek-Mokryeon 100% 'Complete.']
[Failure penalty: ?emonification.]
The affection level with Blanc had been wiped out. The Grand Route with Phine shouldn't be affected. I'd broken the flag outright, cursing while I did it.
But the nagging feeling that I couldn't just let this go was too strong, so I decided to ask for help.
"Ariel, the hero?"
Kainel closed the textbook he'd been reading and listened closely to my question. He screwed up his face and started thinking hard.
"Being chosen by the holy sword and having to hunt down Demon Kings isn't easy either, Kainel."
"..I guess. My reputation's bad because of the Heroic Cult."
I knew Kainel's past. His parents had nearly been killed by a Demon King, and his older brother, who'd been a member of the imperial knights, had died.
It was the work of one of the Heroic Cult's Demon Kings. I was pretty sure the same bastard had burned down the forest where Ariel used to live, too.
"...and I was asked to let someone else become the hero instead of Ariel, who was suffering..."
The reason he'd flown into a rage back when I'd played the womanizer act in the carriage.
It was also the reason he'd come to hate, more than anything, people who acted high and mighty despite being nothing much, like the Heroic Cult's Demon Kings.
"..What do you think, if I twisted the future?"
"So, I became the hero of light because of that?"
Kainel and I had more in common than either of us realized.
Before he met me, he'd been holding back and pushing away his own feelings, afraid that showing them would break his relationship with his childhood friend.
"Ariel, as the hero, would be unhappy, wouldn't she? If even you, someone who took down Head, are saying that."
"Fairly unhappy, yeah."
He was listening seriously, even though it was a story I'd made up.
"If that's really how it is..."
His piercing blue eyes studied me carefully. Was this really the Yellow Dog?
"I'll say thank you, Licht."
Kainel bowed his head to me. I'd expected him to tell me to quit it with the cringey lies. Surprisingly, he seemed to believe it, just like that.
"What? Really? Everything hard you've been through might be my fault, you know?"
"Think about it, Ariel's life has already been in danger twice. Three times, actually."
Was he talking about the Shadow Wolf and Magic Hat's attacks? When Head attacked the academy, he could've targeted the hero couple too, so three was right.
"As long as I can protect Ariel, I'm fine."
'It felt like looking in a mirror.'
It was just like how I'd tried to protect Phine as the Black Knight. The kind of expression that said he'd endure any amount of pain for the person he loved.
'Yeah, this was the Kainel I knew, the hero.' He put a hand on my shoulder and went on.
"In the end, you tried to protect us with your life too, didn't you?"
'Had I? I hadn't hesitated, thinking of it as a life I'd already thrown away once. As long as I could save my Phine, that was all that mattered.'
"Being a hero's a rough job, but watching what you do, I don't really want to hate it."
Kainel let out a hollow laugh, speaking as if to reassure me.
"So it's really true. Licht."
He suddenly stopped laughing and activated his holy sword, throwing up a barrier around us.
「Let there be light.」
White radiance poured from the holy sword of light and wrapped around the room. A thin, curtain-like hemispherical barrier formed around us.
'I'd seen this during Head's attack too. Had his skill grown? A barrier that could block not just counter-detection or eavesdropping magic, but even a Demon King's authority, why bring that out now...'
"Most of what's happened so far doesn't make sense unless you came from having seen the future."
"..."
'The words that followed after all that preparation sent a chill down my spine. Then again, I'd given this guy way too many hints.'
"Well, the part about becoming the hero instead of Ariel was probably a lie. How could she be the hero?"
"..Ah, that's not it. This whole thing was made up from the start."
"You're fucking obvious when you lie. Don't even try to weasel out of it."
Kainel sighed. 'Was I really that obvious? Phine had seen through my lies plenty of times too.'
"Do you see a bunch of different possibilities, like the Sage?"
'No, what I'd seen was a single, hopeless future. A bitter taste rose in my mouth. I couldn't tell him that. Better to talk around it.'
"No, I can't see the future after it's changed, Kainel."
"..So that's why you've been so troubled."
Kainel nodded, as if he finally understood. 'Honestly, I'm scared whether my affection level with Phine will keep going properly.'
'By the original timeline, she was supposed to become the nameless saintess, and I'd gone and changed that on my own.'
'Aside from the Grand Route, Phine didn't even have an ending officially recognized by the developer, and just now, my affection level with Blanc had almost gone up.'
'I'd avoided getting close to her because I knew how this system worked.'
"Let me ask you one thing. In the future, are you and the princess actually dating?"
Kainel smirked, savoring his revenge for the carriage. Even I knew that the current Phine Gransia held feelings for me beyond friendship.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I never saw that part."
'There was what Sophitia had said up north, too, and she'd had us bathe together. She'd set up her childhood friend with a man.'
'If she really hated me, I'd have already been branded a criminal in the empire.'
'The room we'd stayed in at the hot springs had been pretty big. Two pillows had been laid out, like a room for two. She'd probably meant for us to share a room entirely, and maybe Phine had run off.'
"..Even if it ends badly in the future, I think trying to love her again is the right thing to do, Kainel."
Steadying my breath, I told Kainel the truth. It was something I'd realized after going up north: even if the affection level dropped, I had to try.
"Yeah, if that saintess and the princess are the same person, I think it's fine."
Kainel smiled, speaking of the nameless saintess. He'd just handed me the answer to something I'd been agonizing over alone.
"How did you... know that...?"
"Why? You weren't going to tell anyone I like Ariel anyway, right? I'll keep it a secret too."
The hero answered as I stared in shock. He was saying he'd keep the secret.
'He even knew about a one-sided love he'd never actually seen, since I'd said from the start that there was only ever one person I liked. Had he figured it out?'
* * *
Phine Gransia lay in her bedchamber.
'Licht... protected me again...'
She reached a hand toward the ceiling and thought of the man from today's practical sparring match. The person in the black knight's helmet who always stayed by her side, protecting her.
The way he always won, no matter the situation, made him seem like a hero out of a fairy tale. Even when Blanc had thrown a dagger to threaten her, he'd thrown himself in the way to block it.
'He's kind.'
Phine knew it. The man named Licht valued her more than his own safety. That was why, when he'd made the Heart Sword, she'd let her lips brush his cheek, just a little.
A small selfish urge, born of not wanting to lose to some so-called saintess, and of genuine curiosity about what Licht's cheek would feel like.
'If he'd opened his eyes... I'd have been so embarrassed I would've cried right there...'
Inside Phine Gransia's heart, love was sprouting, thump, thump. She thought it was a relief that it was oblivious Licht and not some other man.
'He told me to do it with someone I really loved next time... but I hate the thought of losing Licht to anyone...'
Phine pressed her hands to the center of her chest, feeling a tightness there. Since she didn't yet understand love, the faint, aching, cold sensation left her puzzled.
When she was with Licht, some corner of her heart definitely felt like it was floating, light as a cloud. But watching that assistant instructor, Blanc, made anger boil up in her.
'Licht is mine...'
The moment the sparring match ended, that woman had acted all friendly and suggested eating together, so Phine had looked into her background. But even after using the Imperial Guard to dig, not a speck of dust had turned up.
'Still, something's suspicious. I should put her under watch.'
Her odd personality had earned her a somewhat divided reputation publicly, but she really had been the previous student council president, and had attended the school normally for four years.
Even Phine's sharp eyes couldn't spot a lie in it, which meant it was at least genuine. Just thinking about it made her frown without meaning to.
"..Let's just practice magic."
To chase away the bad thoughts, Phine got up out of bed and stood.
"Licht's height was... about this. Right."
She tilted her gaze slightly upward, lifting her chin as if looking at someone a head taller than herself. On the wall she faced, someone's height had been marked with a diagonal line,
「Mirror Mirage.」
Phine chanted the spell toward it. A duplicate of Licht appeared.
More precisely, it was his appearance right after the fight with Blanc had ended. The spell reflected mental imagery.
"A failure again, this time too...?"
Without meaning to, Phine had let her affection for the man named Licht show through. The image was slightly more idealized than what she'd actually seen with her own eyes.
"This isn't it. He was firmer than this.."
Phine stood before the glass-sculpted Licht and hugged him. Thinking this wasn't the right feeling, she cast the spell again, over and over.
"The real thing really is warmer.."
After checking dozens of times, Phine let go of the embrace, hesitant. Her face burned unbearably hot, and she hid her cheeks behind her hair.
"Should I just ask Licht to let me look at his body...?"
She started rationalizing it to herself. Call it preparation to push the duplication spell to its absolute limit, or something.
The thought that, since he was a man who'd cut down even a Demon King for her sake, a statue of someone like him ought to be spread more widely across the empire.
"No. That's embarrassing.. isn't there some way to see it secretly.."
For that, matching the duplicate's accuracy exactly to Licht was essential. No matter how she thought about it, from Phine's perspective, there was only one person she wanted to copy.
The texture was still hard as glass. At this rate, she wouldn't be able to make a soft duplicate the way the Heavenly Demon had described.
At that moment, a flash of an idea struck her.
If the fake couldn't imitate the real thing, then she'd just have to do the opposite.
"Ah, that would work."
Phine let out a gasp, as if she'd just realized something.
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