WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 19: Anyway, I'll Serve You Like a King (8)
──────
I drove my sword into someone’s body, but it felt like it only went halfway in.
I’d heard that if you stabbed someone wrong, the blade could catch on bone, but this felt less like bone and more like steel.
“Ugh…”
Was it because I had no mana?
Or had I made a mistake because I’d never actually stabbed a person before?
I frowned and put more force into it when something wriggling caught my eye.
Taking a closer look, characters of some kind were clinging to the area around the sword embedded in the body.
“They’ve got everything, don’t they?”
I’d heard some crazy mages carved magic circles directly into their bodies to boost their physical abilities.
This seemed like the sorcery version of that.
He’d laid down a field that suppressed everyone else’s mana, yet he could use sorcery as freely as he wanted.
Doesn’t sorcery use mana?
Then what the hell powers it?
What kind of grade-school cheat ability is that? Doesn’t the Goddess do balance patches?
Then again, she probably couldn’t, which was why the romance-fantasy crew was about to suffer like hell.
“Hoo.”
I let out a short breath and forced the blade deeper.
The characters carved into the body tried to crawl up my sword like ants, but what could I do about that?
“Just die already.”
If I had no mana, I’d use muscle.
To catch up to Prince Ellen, I’d had to gulp down restorative elixirs until I reached my limit.
To endure the energy from those elixirs, I’d pushed my physical abilities to their limit too.
“Khk!”
A pained cry escaped as the tip of my sword slowly but steadily sank deeper.
I’d stabbed him through the back, so I couldn’t see his face, but there was no way he could maintain that relaxed expression now.
Thunk!
After forcing it in for who knew how long, I felt something give way.
I’d finally pierced his heart.
I’d even coated the sword in poison, so even sorcery should have the decency to let him die at this point.
“How… do you know my name?”
Perhaps Silence knew good manners after all. The moment he realized he was dying, he asked Violet in front of him his final question.
I was the one who landed the finishing blow, yet he was completely ignoring me.
Well, his last name was Dale. I could understand.
That kingdom was full of magic-spamming assholes, after all.
Once this was over, Aryn and you flame-spamming bastard would both be dead.
I’d bill you for everything, including saving your prince.
After carefully putting some distance between us, I edged over to Violet.
It looked like Violet had handled things, but Daisy came first.
If she died, things would get really bad.
“I see.”
While I poured half a potion over Daisy’s wounds and trickled the rest down her throat, the two exchanged a few words.
Then Silence began to understand on his own.
The atmosphere was like a detective comic where the culprit had just been revealed.
What they were discussing, though, was beyond anything I’d imagined.
Secrets that only a handful of people in the Dale Kingdom could possibly know.
The suffering Silence had endured because of them.
How someone born into the royal family had given up magic and learned sorcery.
How he had survived in the Demon Realm, then returned for revenge.
He was a classic villain with a tragic backstory. It was the kind of scenario that would probably shock the prince of Dale if he heard it.
He really did seem like the sort of character who would keep showing up.
It was a real shame my recording magical artifact wasn’t working.
If I could have recorded all this and sent it home, Dale wouldn’t dare act up for ten years.
Of course, even casually leaking what I’d heard here would make them keep their heads down.
Still, evidence made a huge difference.
“My life was nothing but regrets.”
Silence turned his head toward the sky.
Of course, we were underground, so all he could see was the stone ceiling.
“That is why I tried to change those regrets. Yet I failed from the very beginning.”
Was he changing because he was about to die?
No, was this who he had always been, and the rest had just been an act?
Having discarded the frivolous manner he showed when he first appeared, Silence quietly continued speaking.
“Even so, I am glad that the lineage of sorcery continues like this.”
He’d been pulling a full-on Jujutsu Kaisen in this fantasy world.
It seemed Violet had learned sorcery by reading the Silence part of the original story.
“So this is the final test I give you.”
“What the…”
No, fuck this.
He barged in during midterms, and now he wanted to give us a test?
The professors already set exams like their own classes were the only ones that mattered.
Now some bastard who wasn’t even a professor wanted to give us a test too?
What a bastard with no professional courtesy.
“Hey, what the hell is this?”
Something dark crimson began gathering around the tip of the sword I’d driven through him.
It was the characters written on Silence’s body.
They crawled all over his body, then began gathering around his heart.
I looked toward Violet at the grotesque sight, but…
“……”
She was already half dead and could barely make a sound.
Even while talking with Silence, all she could do was move her lips slightly.
“Did you study for the test?”
I asked lightly, but Violet only gave a faint shake of her head.
“Looks like this bastard gave up on the test too.”
Damn it. I’d given up too, so I wasn’t in any position to criticize her.
Violet looked a little wronged, but if she’d stolen sorcery and learned it, she should have studied up for Professor Silence’s surprise exam in advance.
That left me with only one thing I could do.
Slap.
“Wake up, bitch!”
There was no point putting my hopes on that possessor after she’d already exhausted every last resource she had.
Once the final sorcery activated, I could feel mana moving again, but I was already completely wrecked myself.
And since I didn’t know anything about magic, I couldn’t see a way to stop that sorcery even if I weren’t half-dead.
Slap. Slap. Slap!
That left only one option.
Daisy, the protagonist of this damned romance-fantasy world, had the unconscious ability to interfere with sorcery.
“Wake up! We’re all going to die like this!”
I had no choice but to wake the romance-fantasy heroine.
Slap. Slap. Slap!
“Ah…”
After around ten slaps, a pained sound escaped her.
Thank god.
Violet’s gaze had gradually been changing into the expression she wore when she was about to kill Silence.
After seeing her spectacular fight with Silence, I was getting a little nervous.
“Hey, fall down!”
As I poured the cheap potion I’d been planning to use over Daisy’s face and rubbed it in, I spoke to Violet.
Daisy needed Violet to be in danger before she could awaken. That was what I’d heard.
Looking at Violet now, it seemed like it might be enough.
“……”
Violet only stood there, moving her lips soundlessly.
“You can’t move?”
She looked almost like a corpse propped upright.
She could no longer even nod, only blink.
“Then sorry.”
I lightly pressed down on Violet’s calf with my foot.
“……!”
Violet’s eyes widened as if asking what the hell I was doing, but she couldn’t move.
Thud!
As Violet fell face-first onto the floor…
“Violet?”
Daisy opened her eyes with timing worthy of a romance-fantasy heroine.
“Khk! The enemy got her!”
I hurried toward the unconscious Violet and showed Daisy, who was barely managing to rise, what had happened to her.
Blood covered Violet’s entire body, especially around the wounds on her right wrist and side.
Maybe because she’d fallen on her face, blood was streaming from both nostrils too.
Even I felt a little sorry for her.
The two cared so deeply for each other that they were practically about to take the yuri route.
“I’ll never forgive you.”
That seemed to be enough to trigger the romance-fantasy heroine’s awakening.
* * *
I’d sometimes wondered what people meant when they described something as holy in a novel.
Now I understood.
A light that felt holy swallowed the entire space.
“That sure works.”
Even the highest-grade potion prepared for royalty wasn’t this effective.
Holy light seeped into my body, and I could feel my whole body, ravaged by doping, healing rapidly.
“……”
The same was true for Silence.
The sorcery that had been gathering and crawling like tiny ants vanished.
Of course, the sword remained embedded in his heart.
“So this is the Saintess’s power.”
Amazing.
With that murmur, Silence’s body fell to the floor.
He was dead, right?
There was a sword through his heart. Healing even that would be overkill.
Since I’d recovered a little, I carefully approached Silence and pulled out my sword.
Blood sprayed out with a pssh, making me jump for a moment, but Silence didn’t react.
I stabbed him a couple more times just to be sure.
When there was still no reaction, I carefully rolled over the corpse.
“Ugh, hey.”
His regret-filled eyes met mine, so I closed them like I’d seen in movies.
They shut surprisingly easily.
Still, this was the first time I’d killed someone.
I didn’t feel anything particularly special.
Was it because too much had happened? Or was I just some psychopath who couldn’t feel emotions?
No, that couldn’t be it.
I was always full of rage whenever I saw brats.
“Wake up, hurry…”
While I stood guard over this expensive criminal, partly to make sure he was really dead, the romance-fantasy leads over there were recreating the original story with tears streaming down their faces.
“Then it should be about time.”
Based on my experience reading web novels, the annoying aftermath was about to start.
With Silence definitely dead, I carefully lay down beside his corpse and closed my eyes, pretending to collapse.
Sure enough, the moment I lay down, I started sensing people approaching.
“Daisy!”
The romance-fantasy male leads appeared with a huge group of reinforcements.
“…I’m going deaf.”
“Violet!”
With the romance-fantasy heroine’s emotional cry, the incident finally ended.
* * *
…Or so I thought.
Fuck.
“Commander, I’m a patient.”
-You can still talk.
The academy’s emergency treatment room.
As the greatest contributor to Silence’s defeat, I’d been assigned a private room by the academy.
It had become a curse.
No, wasn’t this too much?
Even though the Saintess’s power had healed me, my overworked body was still screaming in pain.
I was mentally exhausted too, so I planned to stay in bed for at least a few days under the pretext of treatment.
But this damned Commander was demanding an incident report because I could still communicate while lying down.
This was why my loyalty to the kingdom…
-I need to know what you did so I can settle your reward quickly.
“If that’s what this is about, you should’ve said so.”
I could feel my loyalty growing along with my incentive.
“First, the enemy was the Mage Killer, but it turns out he was royalty that Dale had erased.”
-That is a very interesting story.
“I’ll submit a formal report once I return to the dormitory.”
-That would be best.
On the screen, the Commander made a zero with his fingers.
It meant both okay and that another zero had been added to my incentive.
“Ah, and I used quite a lot of items because of who I was up against.”
The Commander frowned briefly when I said I’d used up nearly all my consumables. Still, Silence seemed to be more famous than I’d thought.
-If it was Silence, it cannot be helped.
He said he would arrange additional supplies without much fuss.
It would be best to squeeze money out of the Empire and the Dale Kingdom.
“Ah, and Daisy appears to have awakened as the Saintess.”
I gave the Commander a rough report on the miracle Daisy had performed.
The official information would reach him soon enough, but it was important that I reported it first.
“This has become troublesome.”
Daisy was no longer a low-ranking noble from another country. She was now the Saintess of the continent.
In terms of status alone, she was in a rare position where she was in no way inferior to Prince Ellen.
The kingdom might approve of Prince Ellen’s relationship now.
-That will not happen.
Fortunately, our kingdom didn’t seem likely to be swayed by the title of Saintess.
-You have worked hard. Rest now.
After we spoke a little longer, the Commander finally let me go.
Unable to overcome my mental exhaustion, I fell asleep the instant I closed my eyes.
And then…
Slap!
A crisp alarm woke me up again.
Author’s Note
The comments on the last chapter kept calling Daisy a “slow-blooming daisy” over her awakening, so I gave the direction a little thought.
They said they’d keep calling her a slow-blooming daisy if I didn’t awaken her… It was hard to resist, but I held firm.
My scheduled break this week will be Friday. Damn dentist…
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
