WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 21: A New Companion Is Always Welcome (2)
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“W-Why am I a Leon Kingdom spy?! I’m from the Empire!”
Tinky Winky was denying her own identity.
“You’d use an Imperial for an Imperial spy, not someone from Leon, right?”
You were already a proud Leon spy.
Don’t deny who you are.
-That’s right. So, my friend, what codename would you like? Adam recommended Tinky Winky, but I rejected it because it sounded too low-rent. We can’t give our new recruit a codename like that.
The Commander chuckled as he suggested changing her codename.
What was wrong with Tinky Winky? Didn’t it suit her?
“Who’s the new recruit?!”
Tinky Winky’s face turned red as she shouted.
“You are.”
-You are.
“Argh!”
Come on. That day, we opened our hearts and had a sincere conversation.
We’d already agreed on everything, yet she was pretending not to know!
It was an excellent quality for a secret agent, but we were family now. There was no need for that between us.
-Really? You mean it? If the Leon Kingdom approves, you’ll take responsibility for me?
So I neatly presented the evidence.
It was a recording magical artifact containing our conversation from that day.
There had been some editing involved, but it was all true, so that was fine.
“What is this?”
When the irrefutable evidence appeared, Violet’s eyes shook wildly.
“A recorder.”
“W-Why does something like that even exist?!”
Why else? In case I ever got unfairly accused of something.
-Adam insisted that the mages make one because it was absolutely necessary. It turned out to be more useful than expected, so every field agent has one now. Would our new recruit like one too?
“Our royal mages don’t have much to do these days. They should at least work hard on developing things like this.”
It wasn’t exactly a new invention, so it hadn’t been difficult to make.
-Or is the salary too low? I’m sorry, new recruit, but the fellow beside me drains our entire budget, so this really is the best we can do.
The Commander sold me out with a pathetic sigh.
Come on, Commander. Not in front of the new recruit. Don’t make us sound so broke!
“The Commander doesn’t do much these days either, so let’s take some from his salary.”
“Take the last drop of blood from a flea. I’m already taking money out of my own salary to give it to you, you bastard.”
“It really makes all my hard work feel worthwhile.”
“……”
Violet could only blink as she watched the two of us talk.
“What? Why?”
It was already too late. If she handed the recorder over to the Empire, she’d be finished there anyway.
I’d been ready to threaten her with that, but it didn’t seem necessary.
“There’s a salary too?”
-That’s the most important part. You didn’t tell her?
“I said we’d take responsibility, but we hadn’t negotiated a specific amount yet.”
Honestly, I’d forgotten.
“How much are we talking?”
-You’re an elite agent, so we should take good care of you. We aren’t stingy like Dale.
That was true, regardless of our relationship with Dale.
Unlike Dale, which needed all kinds of mana materials, including mana stones, we could generally solve things by tossing someone a sword.
As a result, the royal household had a much more generous budget for personnel.
Of course, if you considered all the magical materials Dale provided, the overall amount was probably similar.
Still, money would make a stronger impression than magical materials on a spy from another country.
-Roughly this much, with separate incentives based on your achievements. We can exchange it for Imperial gold coins if you need us to...
When I saw the amount he casually wrote down, I figured we really must have been short on funds.
That was what I’d earned five years ago...
“I’ll devote myself to the cause!”
It wasn’t even one-tenth of my current annual salary, but Violet seemed satisfied, so I decided to keep quiet.
* * *
That same day, our Imperial field agent and Flower Arrangement Club frontline agent was decided.
I arrived at the secret room hidden within the academy for another task.
Then...
“S-Sor...”
I encountered a pattern I’d already seen once before.
Ha. This shit again.
Come at me, flame-slinger.
I’ll torment you just as thoroughly as I did Tinky Winky.
“Sorry...”
“...?”
An unexpected curveball hit me square in the face.
What the fuck was this?
It was seriously confusing.
“And thank you. Thanks to you, the prince was safe.”
Her eyes were brimming with tears.
She bowed her head, looking like a perfectly normal person.
No, this was how she was supposed to act.
But that made me feel like trash...
I’d been ready for WWE, only to get a UFC-level apology out of nowhere. I had nothing to say.
“Thank you. Thank you so much...”
Didn’t they say the first one to cry won?
As the flame-slinger burst into full-on sobs, I awkwardly had no choice but to find another target.
“Mister, didn’t you say you’d handle everything?”
To hide my flustered expression, I glared at him even more sharply.
Of course, I wasn’t worried.
This had been a serious incident!
“Ahem.”
Thankfully, he didn’t start crying too.
If a man who looked fifteen years older than me had started bawling like the flame-slinger, I’d have run away immediately.
Then again, I would’ve beaten him until he cried.
“No, we really did prepare well. But, well...”
They must have. They wouldn’t have deliberately let Silence run free.
This incident had seriously damaged the Empire’s reputation.
They were probably sending apologies and compensation to the kingdoms with exchange students at the academy.
“How did you prepare?”
Even so, I picked a fight.
“It’s classified, so I can’t just tell you!”
I already knew everything.
Still, it couldn’t be helped.
The man knew that too.
Glance.
Glance.
“Waaah...”
I needed someone to hit until the flame-slinger, who had become a tear-slinger, calmed down.
What the hell was the prince of Dale doing...
Since his odds of becoming a male lead were low anyway, he should give up on Daisy and hurry up and take the flame-slinger away...
* * *
“Uh, well. I’m sorry.”
Prince Ellen hesitantly came to visit me and apologized.
“What are you sorry for, Prince Ellen? You simply chose your precious unrequited love over your sturdy subordinate.”
I’d recovered long ago, but for the prince’s guilt, I groaned like a patient as I answered.
“I said I’m really sorry.”
Sorry, my ass.
I remembered.
Even though we’d been friends for ten years, he’d looked for Daisy first instead of me while I was unconscious.
I’d heard that when a man got obsessed with a woman, he didn’t even care about his family.
Still, I thought he’d at least care a little.
I never expected him to abandon me until the very end!
After the romance-fantasy male leads took Daisy and Violet away, academy personnel carried me out.
It would’ve been a lie to say I wasn’t hurt.
Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to cling to him like this.
“I. Am. Fine.”
“You don’t look fine at all!”
This was my chance. I had to make him feel guilty.
This incident had given me a powerful sense of crisis.
No, Daisy might be a romance-fantasy heroine, but they’d only known each other for a few months.
Their story hadn’t even had time to build up yet, so I’d thought he wouldn’t be so blinded by her.
Yet the moment danger came, he’d casually discarded even a friend of ten years.
And hadn’t Tinky Winky told me?
Originally, Prince Ellen barely did anything during the academy arc.
Even in that situation, he became infatuated with the heroine and later went on Demon Realm dates with Daisy after graduation.
If he was already this bad during the academy arc, I was afraid to imagine what he’d be like later.
“I’m really fine. So, Prince Ellen, why don’t you go visit Daisy instead...”
“Ah, I came to visit the patient, but...”
The moment he spoke, the door opened and a familiar voice came through.
“Ah-ha.”
I narrowed my eyes at Daisy as she entered.
So this was why he’d come to visit me.
Prince Ellen shook his head as if it were unfair under my questioning gaze.
“I’m disappointed.”
With an expression full of betrayal, as if he’d even used a patient for his own purposes, I could bring down the world’s strongest swordsman.
* * *
Codename: Tinky Winky.
This friend was the real deal.
“Lorellia, the duke’s daughter of House Jeyka, the Empire’s greatest noble house.”
She’d apparently read the original work far more closely than expected, because the quality of her information was quite impressive.
“Her? The main villainess?”
“...If you’re asking whether she’s a villainess, that’s a little ambiguous. But she does fill that role.”
Once she received an advance as a sign-on bonus for joining the organization, she’d suddenly become very disciplined.
Right now, she was loyal to me as her superior.
If money couldn’t solve a problem, you had to consider whether there just wasn’t enough money.
“Ambiguous?”
“Prince Essid, her fiancé, practically abandons her. Yet instead of sending assassins, she tries to compete fairly through her own abilities.”
“Couldn’t she have felt politically threatened because her rival is the Saintess?”
“That might be part of it, but considering Lorellia’s personality, she’s simply a good person.”
From what I heard, she was the embodiment of noblesse oblige. She didn’t discriminate against commoner students.
On weekends, she participated in volunteer work for the Church, and she secretly ran three orphanages.
“What’s with this kind-hearted young lady?”
Prince Essid, who abandoned his fiancée to find another love, and Daisy, who’d unintentionally seduced him, looked like complete trash.
“In the academy graduation arc, she acknowledges her defeat and personally requests to break off the engagement to protect the prince’s political influence. Later, after the Demon Realm explosion incident, she protects the Empire in its chaos...”
“Stop. Let’s skip this one.”
She was too kind to exploit.
So I moved on to the next person.
“Marie Echid, Dale’s royal Protector. She’s been childhood friends with Arwen, the prince of Dale, for a long time...”
“Pass.”
The moment the flame-slinger appeared, I tried to skip her.
“She later falls for the temptation of a Dark Mage and becomes corrupted.”
“...Fuck.”
I’d heard information I shouldn’t have heard.
“Details.”
“If Lady Lorellia purely accepts her defeat, this one can’t accept it. She struggles desperately, then eventually gets her hands on something she should never have touched.”
“So what happens?”
“Uh, well. She was mind-controlled, so Arwen eventually frees her through his own efforts. But she loses her position as Protector, becomes half-disowned by her family, and keeps fighting in atonement after the Demon Realm explosion...”
“Argh...”
If she’d only nailed that lunatic back there, I could’ve pretended not to know.
But now I was hearing that the only normal person was going to become corrupted. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
“Make a rescue arc for her.”
“Did you take a liking to her, senior?”
“Oh? What’s this?”
I lightly flipped off Tinky Winky as she murmured that.
“The protagonist of the rescue arc is Arwen.”
“Aww...”
It wasn’t like there were no stories where extras seduced heroines, but I had no intention of fooling around romantically in this damned romance-fantasy world.
Flame-slinger... you survived because you were kind.
There was no Santa in this world, so a good child deserved the gift of keeping her pure love.
Of course, I’d only put in some effort.
I couldn’t spoon-feed them everything.
Try harder, flame-slinger!
“Then next...”
I couldn’t help being a little surprised by the continuing report.
“Every character has a girl attached to them?”
As expected of a romance-fantasy world, I was admiring it when...
“No. It’s only like this in the early first-year arc. As time passes, a few senior roles appear, and starting next year, junior roles keep appearing too.”
“...Report back at the end of the year.”
“Yes!”
Seeing Tinky Winky’s palm-forward salute, I could only feel that the future was bleak.
Author’s Note
This was originally going to be two parts, but there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary material, so I cut it down and combined it into one.
Footnotes:
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