I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel - Chapter 10

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈

Chapter 10: My Life Was a Romance Fantasy (3)

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A week had passed since the Academy opened.

The Swordsmanship Department had the unexpected issue of the Little Sword Emperor being far weaker than expected, but everything else was much as the Intelligence Division had predicted.

Except for one thing.

The flower arrangement club.

Or rather, the Flower Arrangement Club.

“Prince Essid joined a club called the Flower Arrangement Club?”

“What kind of club is that? A flower arrangement club? The kind I’m thinking of?”

“You think it’s that simple? If His Highness had joined alone, we might’ve dismissed it as a passing whim. But look at the other members.”

“Right. Along with His Highness, there are princes from Leon and Dale, both major powers. And when you consider the other members...”

“It’s basically a secret club where all the first-year power players have gathered.”

I sat quietly, chewing on a sandwich as I concealed my presence and gathered rumors from the students.

“Please, keep thinking that.”

As I listened to the rumors about the Flower Arrangement Club, I prayed they would spread far and wide.

The fewer people who knew that important first-years, including an imperial prince and princes from powerful kingdoms, had all become rivals over the same woman within a week, the better.

Of course, it wouldn’t matter if someone told the truth.

Anyone in their right mind would think that person was insane.

“Is this really a romance fantasy?”

The more I watched the Flower Arrangement Club from afar over the past week, the more it felt like this world really was a romance fantasy.

Just like the opening of one, Daisy was innocent, the male leads were frustrating, and somehow the club was surprisingly functional.

That was why I hoped this world really was a romance fantasy.

It was better to think the things happening before my eyes were following a predetermined script. If that insane situation had developed naturally, then this world’s genre was cosmic horror.

“Please don’t let me ever have to join the Flower Arrangement Club.”

The Commander and the Intelligence Division had asked me to join it to better guide things, but I refused.

My excuse was that joining might affect that already awkward relationship web.

The truth was that I didn’t want to get caught between a bunch of romance-fantasy male leads who already looked like a complete disaster.

It probably wouldn’t happen, but what if Daisy fell for me like in one of those romance-fantasy extra stories?

I’d become the man who stole the first loves of my lord and important figures from every country, and I might get dragged into every incident that happened to a romance-fantasy heroine.

Maybe it would’ve been different if I’d fallen for Daisy at first sight like Prince Ellen had, but the moment I saw her, I felt fear rather than romantic interest.

I definitely wasn’t built to be a romance-fantasy male lead.

“Could that really happen?”

In the end, I didn’t know whether the Kingdom felt sorry for me or found my opinion reasonable, but they postponed my application to join.

Still, if anything happened, it was obvious that I, the closest agent, would be sent in.

“If I can just hold out until next year, support will come somehow.”

Since a prince of the Kingdom had come abroad to study, knights had been dispatched as guards.

They could handle outside activities, but they had no excuse to interfere with a club activity like flower arrangement.

At minimum, the Intelligence Bureau would need to plant one or two undercover agents as Academy students next year before they could operate properly.

Could I make it until then without anything happening?

“Should I write it in advance?”

I’d left behind a resignation letter with no one to receive it because of this trip to the Empire.

At this rate, I’d end up carrying a Flower Arrangement Club application in that empty space instead.

“To think I’d be betrayed like this.”

I thought I’d be able to take things a little easier at the Academy.

My plan had been to dump Prince Ellen on the Sword Emperor and the Little Sword Emperor, then enjoy my youth a little. Instead, it had fallen apart because Prince Ellen was busy enjoying his youth.

Thanks to that, I was putting the Intelligence Division’s skills to use in an Academy spy thriller.

Before entering the Academy, I’d complained about where I would ever use this stuff.

Now it was coming in handy.

“The Academy is still normal for now.”

With the Sword Emperor and the Former Magic Tower Master recruited, people had gathered not only from within the Empire but from countries throughout the continent.

The atmosphere was a little unusual, since even newly enrolled students were focused on their studies, but it was within expectations.

The weird ones were the Flower Arrangement Club members, who had formed a fucking complicated web of relationships in a single week. What was wrong with students studying hard at an Academy they’d come to attend?

“On that note, the president is way too suspicious.”

For starters, he was a squinty-eyed character.

That alone raised the odds of him being important by fifty percent.

A squinty-eyed character in a romance-fantasy Academy story.

At best, he was a retired hero or an ally with an incredibly complicated past.

At worst, he could be anything from the mid-boss of some group planning an Academy terrorist attack to the final boss who would appear at the end and stab the protagonists in the back.

I only suspected him because his hair was brown. If it had been pink, I would’ve ambushed him immediately.

“I couldn’t find anything that counted as evidence, though.”

Everything I’d seen of Bellian Erich so far suggested he was a typical minor noble.

For a moment, he had nearly fooled me with how perfectly he fit the image.

But he was too perfect, which made him suspicious.

Once I began investigating him, strange details kept turning up.

He’d completed his graduation credits last year, yet he was packing his schedule full of classes this year too?

No sane person would do that.

I was certain he was carrying out some special operation at the Academy.

Most students only barely completed their required credits in their fourth year, and some even failed to earn enough and had to repeat a year. Bellian Erich had taken enough classes to complete all his credits in his third year.

Yet he had no close friends. Hardly anyone even remembered him properly.

No matter how withdrawn someone was, they couldn’t leave so little trace behind.

That was why I was convinced this was Intelligence Division-level information concealment.

And the decisive evidence was...

“Is this how I do it?”

“It isn’t bad, but it’s too flashy overall. At times like this, you should make the main flowers stand out by using subdued flowers like these as the focus.”

“Wow!”

I wasn’t watching the Flower Arrangement Club directly, but even through eavesdropping, I could tell.

This bastard was seriously passionate about flower arrangement.

It was bad to hold fixed ideas about gender, but a nobleman in a medieval fantasy world who had even enrolled at the Academy was seriously passionate about flower arrangement?

It was more believable that he was acting the part of a Flower Arrangement Club president passionate about flower arrangement.

“All right, we’ll stop here for today.”

The moment he announced the end of club activities, I quickly cut off the eavesdropping and headed for the training grounds.

I hadn’t joined the Flower Arrangement Club, using personal training as an excuse with Prince Ellen.

If I wasn’t training, Prince Ellen could drag me into the Flower Arrangement Club.

“Wait, that isn’t even an excuse.”

I wanted to train by myself too.

It was just that Prince Ellen’s first love kept getting in the way of my training.

What a dirty, petty bastard. Catching up was hard enough, and he was even interfering with my efforts to catch up.

“Adam!”

At that moment, Prince Ellen came running toward me, his face strangely red.

I knew this wasn’t a boys’ love story, but seeing a guy act like that still made me frown.

“Did Miss Daisy confess to you?”

“Th-that isn’t it!”

Flustered by my words, he carefully took something out.

“Ah, did someone else confess to you?”

I tilted my head at the letter Prince Ellen had taken out.

Was a storyline already progressing where a male lead received a confession to provoke the heroine’s jealousy?

Our prince couldn’t have made that much progress with Daisy yet.

Given Prince Ellen’s looks, it wasn’t strange, but I’d developed a disease where everything looked like a romance fantasy.

“This isn’t mine. It’s for you, Adam.”

The sudden swerve into a boys’ love plot nearly made me swing my sword mid-training.

“Violet asked me to deliver it.”

Violet.

That was the name of Daisy’s childhood friend. Daisy was the future romance-fantasy heroine.

The purple-haired girl who had been with Daisy when I first entered the Flower Arrangement Club.

“I see.”

That was why I was sure.

“This is... a challenge to a duel.”

“Isn’t it obviously a love letter?”

Prince Ellen stared at me as if I were talking nonsense, but I was certain.

“It’s definitely a challenge to a duel.”

My face wasn’t ugly, but Prince Ellen was right beside me.

On top of that, the woman who had sent this letter was surrounded by people comparable to Prince Ellen.

Of course, those people only looked at their friend, not at her.

But girls that age usually tried even when they knew it was hopeless.

Think about it.

What kind of people were the men around Daisy?

This was a fantasy world where, if you were impressive enough, men and women alike could date multiple partners.

Still, Bellian, the Flower Arrangement Club president, was the only one whose status made him suitable as a secondary love interest.

Wouldn’t it be normal to think that if Daisy chose one of them, you might have a chance with one of the rest?

“Hmm.”

“Ah!”

When I took out the letter while thinking that, Prince Ellen hurried away, apparently believing I shouldn’t read its contents in front of him.

“She did say I should have you read it right away!”

“I see.”

The contents were short and simple.

-Today, 7 p.m.

-Rooftop of the Old School Building.

She seemed to be in a hurry if she wanted to meet today.

“See? It is a challenge to a duel.”

“I-I don’t think it is?”

Of course it was. Who only wrote a time and place in a love letter?

This was the classic format for a challenge to a duel.

According to the information, Violet was quite a capable mage.

“What an overconfident magic-slinging bitch.”

She had clearly thrown down a challenge to me, the second-ranked first-year in the Swordsmanship Department.

It was ridiculous.

Shouldn’t she beat the Little Sword Emperor, who held third place, before coming after me?

Maybe she thought I would be easier because I was not the Sword Emperor’s grandson.

“M-magic-slinging bitch!”

Prince Ellen said I would get in trouble if I used words like that carelessly. When I told him Princess Hestia had taught me the term, he lowered his head, his face red.

“Are you embarrassed by the princess?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Uh...”

Come to think of it, I would’ve been embarrassed if she were my older sister too.

Still.

“I’ll win and come back.”

If I lost, Prince Ellen was next.

We couldn’t lose this battle of pride between the Swordsmanship Department and the Magic Department.

It bothered me that a mage had chosen the location in advance, but a swordsman needed to give that much of a handicap to fight with honor.

“Um... no, yeah. Go get them.”

With Prince Ellen’s awkward sendoff behind me, I headed for the rooftop of the Old School Building.

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