WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 23: The Academy Is Shutting Down (1)
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According to Violet, the midterm incident had been a very important event.
First was the romance-fantasy heroine’s awakening.
She became the Saintess and properly displayed her abilities as the heroine.
It was also an ominous turning point in the flower-filled Academy arc, just as the title suggested.
Then there was the arrival of Silence, a villain who would continue creating crises by effortlessly neutralizing even the overwhelmingly talented romance-fantasy male leads.
According to Violet, it had been important enough for her to emphasize, “It wasn’t for nothing that I thought I’d get a hole punched through my gut!”
So I could generously understand how Imperial security had been breached.
It was the first time the Academy had been attacked, after all.
They’d been hit with a counterattack during their ambush, and even the Former Magic Tower Master had been knocked out.
Later, there was an absurd story that, because a condition prevented anyone from touching those who had fallen, they could have gotten through it safely if they had simply been knocked unconscious.
Anyway, the midterm episode had been one unfair contrivance after another for Uncle Aryn.
But...
“This place got breached too?”
According to the possessor, these Dark Mages were supposed to be nothing more than a passing episode.
At most, an episode worth two chapters.
There wasn’t even a strategic reason behind it. The dungeon they happened to visit for field training had simply turned out to be the Dark Mages’ secret laboratory.
That was why I was confident.
There was no out-of-spec villain like Silence involved.
It wasn’t connected to the main story, either, so there shouldn’t have been a pile of unfair variables.
An episode so insignificant that it wouldn’t matter whether it existed or not.
That was why I’d told them about it ahead of time, so they could get some practice and earn a little merit.
And they still couldn’t stop it.
Those fucking Imperials.
They were terrible at their jobs!
“I don’t think that’s it.”
As I cursed the Empire, Violet defended it, perhaps because the Empire hadn’t fully washed out of her system yet.
Was her salary too low? Our Tinky Winky kept turning back into Violet.
“Why?”
Still, a good senior needed to listen to a junior.
If it was bullshit, I could chew them out. If it was reasonable, I could report it to the higher-ups as though it had been my own idea.
So I asked why.
“There aren’t any traces of Dark Mages.”
There were no signs of Dark Mages.
Well, that was true.
Ever since entering the dungeon, we hadn’t seen any traces connected to Dark Mages.
I’d thought the Empire was finally doing its job.
“Then what’s that?”
The Little Sword Emperor was wildly swinging his sword at Prince Ellen, his eyes red.
Anyone could see that he had been mind-controlled.
“That’s just how he normally is.”
“Does he have anger-management issues?”
He looked bad enough that even the draft board, which would still take someone with mental illness, would say, “Damn, this is a little...” and assign him Grade 4.
A romance-fantasy male lead candidate had mental illness?
“...Oh?”
Was that possible?
Looking at the state of their minds, it wouldn’t have been strange if they all had a mental disorder or two.
“Not that. The Dark Mages here were researching magic swords.”
“Don’t tell me the sword the Little Sword Emperor is holding is a magic sword.”
“It is.”
That short answer left me dumbfounded for a moment.
“...You never mentioned that, Tinky Winky.”
“...In the original story, it just passed without incident, so it didn’t matter, Senior.”
I’d clearly told her to tell me everything, yet there was information I didn’t know.
When I narrowed my eyes and glared at her, Tinky Winky avoided my gaze as she answered.
“Explain.”
“Originally, Asran gets the magic sword after fighting the Dark Mages. It gives him the classic, ‘Do you desire power?’ line, but he overcomes it in the end.”
“But?”
“He’s completely lost it?”
Why was that?
After thinking for a moment, Tinky Winky decided it was someone else’s fault.
“You’re the culprit!”
She was saying that to a senior as exalted as the heavens.
“Getting a little casual, aren’t we?”
“W-Well, you’re the culprit, Senior!”
It was basically the same thing, but I decided to let it slide.
“Fine. Why?”
“Originally, Asran only loses to Ellen. Then he grows alongside Daisy to overcome that defeat!”
“He lost to me, and couldn’t grow with Daisy?”
“It’s not that he didn’t grow at all, but because Prince Ellen started charging ahead from the very beginning unlike in the original, Daisy has definitely had fewer chances to go through her events.”
Originally, this was an event meant to show the Little Sword Emperor’s potential for growth by having him overcome it easily.
It seemed his self-esteem had dropped compared to the original, and with fewer events involving the romance-fantasy heroine, his growth had stalled.
“You said his growth was similar to the original last time.”
“Ability-wise, thanks to Prince Ellen and you being more active than in the original, he seems to have grown even more. Mentally, though, he seems worse?”
“...Do I have to take care of his mental state too?”
“If we leave him alone, Daisy will solve it, but Daisy has been busy lately...”
It did seem that several events were underway right after her awakening as the Saintess.
People from the Church of Light had been dispatched, so she often missed not only club activities but classes as well.
“Was the Church-related event you mentioned last time during summer break?”
During summer break, as was common in fantasy worlds, conflict was waiting between the rotten clergy and the romance-fantasy protagonists.
Naturally, the romance-fantasy heroine would reform the Church.
Of course, until then, Daisy’s group was scheduled to be put through the wringer by incidents related to the Church of Light.
“It would end quickly if you joined in, Senior.”
“Not a chance.”
Staying at the Academy during vacation might be standard for academy stories, but reality was different.
During vacation, you went home.
From another country’s perspective, foreign royalty remaining there during break was a nightmare.
“Then at least leave Prince Ellen behind.”
“You said he wasn’t in the original either.”
I would have taken him home even if he had been there, but apparently he hadn’t been.
As expected of Prince Ellen, a minor extra in the Academy arc.
“You were the one saying the original had to be preserved.”
“I’m telling you, it’s already completely ruined...”
“Work hard. If anything happens, report it right away.”
Unlike Prince Ellen and me, Violet was guaranteed to be forcibly involved in every incident as the heroine’s childhood friend. She let out a long sigh.
“I picked the wrong job...”
It was too late to regret it now.
She had even taken an advance payment, so if she returned to the Empire, she would only be a traitor.
“It’s over.”
As we watched from behind, Prince Ellen finally subdued the Little Sword Emperor after thinking for some time.
“If it’s a magic sword, why was it so weak?”
“It’s roughly a high-grade magic sword, so it can only raise its wielder’s tier by about one stage.”
It could raise someone’s tier by one whole stage.
In other words, it was absurdly overpowered.
“Just how huge is the gap between them?”
Still, seeing Prince Ellen defeat it so easily made me sigh.
* * *
Inside the Dark Mages’ secret laboratory.
“Look, you really can only look. The investigation isn’t over yet.”
At Uncle Aryn’s repeated words, I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.
“I don’t want to do this either, but you need to do your job properly.”
Perhaps his conscience bothered him a little. He could only awkwardly look away.
Honestly, I didn’t want to act like this toward an adult more than ten years older than me.
But the Empire had already lost far too much of my trust.
“By the way, the Empire is really scary. Dark Mages even live in a dungeon on the mountain behind the capital.”
“Ahem.”
This was probably why the Empire became the main setting of romance fantasies.
“Try managing things better.”
As I handed Uncle Aryn the sword that had become ordinary after its purification, I spoke.
Of course, I was only taking credit for it.
The one enchanted by the magic sword had been the Little Sword Emperor.
Prince Ellen had defeated him, and Daisy had purified the magic sword.
I had only watched from the back, retrieved the sword, and handed it over to the person in charge.
“Thank you.”
Either way, I had told them Dark Mages were here.
And the one who resolved the matter was also one of our royals, so it was only natural for the Empire to bow its head to us.
“I heard they were the ones researching this magic sword.”
Uncle Aryn’s expression froze for an instant at my words.
It was only for a moment, but even a trained agent seemed to have been caught off guard.
“...According to the experts’ preliminary findings, they appear to have been trying to create Ego Swords.”
“What were they planning to do with those?”
“It seems they intended to create mass-produced magic swords and sell them to Academy students.”
That was a terrifying thought.
Everybody and their dog getting sucked in by a sword asking, “Do you desire power?” and running around like lunatics.
They called it mass-produced, but it was still a replica of the magic sword that had driven even the emotionally immature Little Sword Emperor to the brink.
For ordinary people, a mass-produced version alone would be enough to control them.
“Then they must have failed.”
If they hadn’t, this should have been a main episode, not a passing event.
So naturally, I assumed the Dark Mages here had failed because they were incompetent.
“...They succeeded, though?”
Uncle Aryn seemed to relax a little.
My prediction being wrong appeared to put him in a decent mood.
“...Really?”
I could understand.
The Empire had been getting thoroughly trounced by the Kingdom in the information war this entire time.
Over incidents happening right in the heart of the Empire, no less.
Of course, the source of that information was a possessor informant who knew the world’s future.
But Uncle Aryn didn’t know that, so he must have had a lot on his mind.
“Then they must have been capable Dark Mages after all.”
The Dark Mages here hadn’t been incompetent. They had just been capable Dark Mages with terrible luck.
They had become a passing episode only because the romance-fantasy group had stumbled across them during field training and wiped them out.
If the Academy attack had invalidated the training, it wouldn’t have been strange for them to become major players in the next arc.
“This is one of the mass-produced ones.”
“Can I hold it?”
“If it’s someone as skilled as you.”
Just how highly did this uncle think of me?
...Though I had subdued the Little Sword Emperor and contributed to taking down Silence.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered what the hell our prince was even doing.
“Hmm.”
Filled with a fair bit of confidence, I drew the sword.
Then someone’s voice rang out in my head.
- Do you desire power?
“Oh.”
- I can draw out all your power.
It was rather dignified and full of confidence.
“What does it say?”
“It says it’ll draw out my power. It feels like it uses mind control to bring out the user’s full potential?”
I didn’t know about the original, but I roughly understood the mass-produced version’s ability.
People often said humans couldn’t use all their abilities. This brought them out through mind control.
For example, it could remove emotions like fear to achieve optimal movements.
It could also remove the body’s limits and draw out the greatest strength the user could produce, even if their body was damaged.
In a way, it was like the boost potion I took while fighting Silence.
- It is not a lie. Imagine what you desire.
Rather than an Ego Sword, it felt like an AI from my previous life.
It felt as though it was linked to me and trying to draw out my desires.
“Hmm, then.”
For a proper performance test, I tried to let myself be mind-controlled as much as possible without letting it take over my mind.
If it worked properly, it might be useful in the right circumstances.
- ...
I thought about my role and conveyed my wish to the mass-produced magic sword as strongly as I could.
- ......
Was it because it was mass-produced?
It seemed to be functioning, but its response was slow, like a lagging computer.
- The equipment is shutting down due to overload.
“What?”
Like a computer whose system had suddenly shut down, the mana flowing through the sword was cut off.
“What did you ask of it?”
“I asked it to tell me how to beat our prince.”
“...You can’t beat him either?”
“He beats the absolute shit out of me.”
“I’m jealous that the Kingdom’s future is so bright...”
He genuinely sounded jealous, but I wasn’t worried.
Their prince would soon play an active role as a romance-fantasy male lead, too.
Of course... Uncle Aryn was scheduled to be put through hell in that process.
“By the way, when is your birthday?”
“Why all of a sudden?”
I should buy some anti-wrinkle cream in advance for his birthday this year.
Author’s Note
Hair-loss medicine hasn’t been developed yet, so I can’t give him that as a gift.
Tomorrow is... the regular day off. Update probability: 3%.
Footnotes:
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