WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 34: The Romance Fantasy Heroine Is Strong (4)
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Life after returning to the kingdom wasn’t much different from before I entered the academy.
The only difference was that I’d heard from home for the first time in a while.
I’d thought they treated me like a child they’d half-abandoned after getting a job.
Apparently, they were simply being considerate and trying not to bother their gainfully employed child.
“You’ve improved a lot.”
I’d meant to let my family know I was still alive for the first time in ages, but the bored Commander caught me first, turning me into an unfilial son.
Officially, this man belonged to the Royal Guard, so he had damn little to do.
The Royal Guard only had work when the king was traveling or in danger. And the king of military-minded Leon would only be in danger if the kingdom was on the verge of collapse, or if Daisy came to visit our kingdom.
Come to think of it, the romance-fantasy heroine was scary.
It looked like we needed to prepare an entry ban for Daisy by any means necessary.
“I’ve been working hard.”
Since I’d fought with all my strength for the first time in a while, I could really feel how much I’d grown.
Whenever it looked like I had no chance of beating Prince Ellen, I kept things within reasonable limits.
The Sword Emperor, on the other hand, tried to beat me up even harder whenever I showed the slightest sign of improvement, so I had to rein myself in carefully.
Thanks to that, my proficiency with the Doomed Sword had risen quite a bit.
Now, even the Sword Emperor fell for it seven times out of ten.
“...Don’t tell me you’re doing it now, too?”
“Would I?”
At that, the Commander gave me a suspicious look.
This was the only place where the Instructors, including me, could go all out.
I might have aimed to be an office worker rather than a swordsman, but if I couldn’t relieve stress like this once in a while, burnout was inevitable.
“Then again, if you were holding back, you should’ve beaten Prince Ellen.”
“I told you, I won the final exam.”
“Don’t beat him in an exam. Beat him one-on-one.”
He said that, but apparently a bonus was planned.
“You still did well. He didn’t say it, but Prince Ellen seemed pretty frustrated too.”
From what I heard, after returning to the kingdom and getting thoroughly chewed out by the queen, he’d been challenging the king and the Commander to sparring matches.
“Please go easy on him. It’s exhausting.”
“It’s hard for me to go easy on Prince Ellen too.”
It sounded irresponsible for someone who was a Sword Master to say that.
The horrifying part was that he meant it.
“Want me to get you more restorative elixirs?”
“They don’t work anymore, even if I take them.”
They said the more restorative elixirs you had, the better, but there was a limit to what the body could endure.
If things went wrong, they could throw off your body’s balance. Even if they didn’t, the mana in the elixir wouldn’t be absorbed and would simply be expelled.
“Come on, move on to the next stage already.”
“It’s not like I can do that just because you say so.”
If I could, I’d have become a Sword Master already.
“Prince Ellen looks like he’ll manage it.”
“I resign.”
I said it as a joke, but after hearing about Prince Ellen’s potential from Tinky Winky, it didn’t sound like a joke to me.
Hadn’t she said that his growth seemed even faster because of me?
He’d apparently been a monster even in the original story, and that hadn’t even been his peak.
I really wanted to quit.
“Commander, when are we done?”
Just then, I spotted Senior Lucia poking her head in.
The Commander and I looked at each other at her sudden intrusion, and that alone was enough of an answer.
“Why are you here?”
“Why did you come?”
Since neither of us knew, we had no choice but to ask the person involved.
Senior Lucia let out a deep sigh, then pointed right at me.
“The seniors prepared a party to celebrate your return from your assignment.”
Apparently, everyone except me had plenty of free time.
* * *
“You’ve worked hard.”
“It’s only beginning.”
Senior Kavilan, the Instructor assigned to the Second Prince, said, handing me a drink.
Normally, Daniel, who oversaw the crown prince, would lead gatherings like this. But he was currently traveling around the kingdom with the crown prince, so Senior Kavilan, the next most senior person, seemed to have ended up hosting my welcome party.
As I accepted the drink Senior Kavilan offered and took a sip, someone shoved Senior Kavilan aside and leaned in close.
“How’s the Empire?”
It was Senior Rain, the Instructor assigned to the First Princess, Princess Hestia’s older sister.
You might think that being assigned to Princess Hestia’s sister would be rough.
Unfortunately, the princesses had personalities completely opposite to Princess Hestia’s, so Senior Lucia was the only Instructor assigned to a princess who truly suffered.
“It’s ridiculously huge.”
As an Instructor, I’d already visited the kingdom’s academies several times long ago.
Leon Kingdom’s Royal Academy was nothing to scoff at compared with other countries.
But the Empire was still the Empire.
“How huge?”
“More than five times the size of the Royal Academy?”
“...Seriously?”
Senior Rain looked unconvinced, but I could only nod.
Honestly, it could be even bigger. It certainly wasn’t smaller.
“That’s incredible.”
“What good is being big if they can’t manage it properly and get hit by terrorists?”
Senior Meles, the Instructor assigned to the Third Prince and a troublemaker on par with Princess Hestia, muttered sourly.
They seemed pretty stressed by work too, but thankfully the Third Prince had no interest in swords, so they didn’t suffer like Senior Lucia or I did.
“That’s true.”
Since I knew they would keep getting breached in the future, I had no choice but to answer sourly as well.
“I heard about it too. You fought Silence and won?”
“Oh, right. That’s what I came to hear about.”
“How did you win?”
Starting with Senior Kavilan, everyone threw questions at me.
It seemed Silence really was famous.
“Ah, well.”
Just as I was about to explain the dead man’s insanely impressive exploits, Senior Lucia, eyes blazing as she parted the seniors like the Red Sea, cut me off.
“Hey.”
“Why?”
“Whyyyy?”
At her icy voice, the other seniors cleared their throats and moved away.
The room was small, though, so they only ended up crammed into the corners.
“...When did the person in charge change?”
Unlike the knight orders, the Instructors had a freer atmosphere.
Still, they were something like a knightly organization, so I remembered there being a culture of seniority.
While I’d been away, it seemed Senior Lucia had gotten the other seniors in line.
“What do you mean, person in charge? The seniors just stepped aside for a moment.”
It didn’t look that way, but if I said one more word, it felt like she would either start crying or throw a punch, so I kept quiet.
“Why did you call me?”
“Why? Do you have no conscience?! You turned Princess Hestia upside down the moment you arrived!”
See? She immediately looked like she was about to cry. She was ready to burst into tears if anyone provoked her.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed, because the seniors crammed into the corners were inching toward the entrance.
These people had called me here, and now they were trying to abandon me.
“I’m innocent!”
Still, I stood tall.
I might have looked like the aggressor to Senior Lucia, but...
“What do you mean, innocent?”
“Princess Hestia was waiting at the Magic Tower and picked a fight with me the moment I arrived. What was I supposed to do?!”
I was clearly the victim.
I’d returned home after a long time, only for a princess to be waiting there and challenge me to a fight.
In a society where rank was everything, I had no choice but to fight Princess Hestia like I was dealing with an NPC that suddenly challenged me to a monster battle.
“You still could’ve gone easier on her.”
Remembering that made Senior Lucia lose some of her momentum.
The other seniors, who had been trying to escape, carefully returned to the corners. Seeing that, I decided to tease her a little.
“But I had to beat Princess Hestia at least once. Prince Ellen crushes me all the time, and it’s killing my confidence.”
“Then who’s going to restore mine?!”
Senior Lucia finally burst into tears, and the other seniors froze.
It seemed Princess Hestia had been beaten up by me, then taken it out on Senior Lucia.
“You can spar with the other seniors.”
The others, frozen in place, creakily turned to glare at me.
Their expressions asked whether that was really right, but they all seemed to have free time. Couldn’t they play with Senior Lucia for a while?
Just as I was about to poke at Senior Lucia a little more and make us all suffer together...
-Emergencyyyyy!
“What’s that?”
Everyone stared at me in confusion as the sound suddenly erupted from my pocket.
“It’s an emergency contact alert.”
“It sure sounds like an emergency!”
They looked like they had a lot to say, but also seemed to be telling me to check it first, so I pulled the communication orb from my pocket.
Then...
“Help!”
After hearing Violet, no, Tinky Winky’s voice say only that before vanishing...
“I don’t think it’s anything.”
“...It definitely sounds like something?!”
I casually ignored it.
#3 Holy Kingdom Correspondent, Codename Tinky Winky.
I’d never once thought a trip to the Holy Kingdom would be easy.
The Holy Kingdom arc was the growth arc of none other than Daisy, the protagonist.
It wasn’t as though, like in male-oriented fantasy novels, the protagonist’s narrative was the central focus, or that a half-baked heroine arc would bring cries of, “Kill all the heroines!”
Still, the protagonist’s story and growth were naturally the heart of a romance fantasy as well.
That was why I’d come to the Holy Kingdom fully prepared.
I hadn’t only steeled myself. I’d prepared thoroughly.
I’d taken an advance on my salary and searched both official and unofficial channels for what I needed.
I’d also layered restriction upon restriction upon restriction, making preparations so I could use the sorcery I’d gathered for about twenty seconds.
It made me want to cry that even after accumulating it for months, I only had twenty seconds. Knowing it would all disappear even if I didn’t use it this time made me want to sob.
Still, I thought it was better to prepare than to let my guard down and get myself killed.
So I’d scraped together everything, body and soul, to prepare.
And yet, it hadn’t been enough.
“Sis, are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t okay.
I barely managed to swallow the words that almost burst from my throat.
“Y-Yeah.”
“...”
At my half-hearted answer, the Pope awkwardly nodded.
The Pope was a small, timid girl who flinched just from being looked at. I’d wanted to say something to the poor thing, but...
“The Pope has been kidnapped!”
The Holy Knights shouted from behind us.
Somehow, I had become a criminal who’d kidnapped the Pope.
Of course, I hadn’t really kidnapped her.
If anything, I’d rescued the Pope from the Cardinals who had abused and gaslit her.
This had also happened in the original story.
...The problem was that it had happened about two years early.
Originally, we were supposed to win over devout people one by one through the Holy Kingdom’s factional conflict.
Then, after the secret struggle between the Saintess faction and the Cardinal faction, we would rescue the Pope imprisoned in a hidden room and purge the fallen.
For some reason, though, Daisy’s personality had changed drastically. After beating them one by one, she had eventually reached the final boss of the Holy Kingdom arc.
And in the process, I had secured the Pope.
If you asked why I’d taken on this role, surprisingly, it was because this was the easiest job.
Daisy and the romance-fantasy male leads were busy defeating corrupt clergymen alongside the Reformist Faction, who wanted to reform the Holy Kingdom!
So, with the Holy Kingdom arc progressing two years ahead of schedule, I had also seized the Pope two years early.
“There!”
“...!”
The problem was that I had to safely deliver the Pope to Daisy.
There were more Holy Knights pursuing us than expected.
“Damn it!”
I threw out the things I’d prepared in advance.
Smoke bombs, magical firebombs, caltrops, and more.
While emptying out the spatial-storage pouch I’d received after joining the Leon Kingdom, that black company of a workplace, I grabbed a crystal ball.
“...”
It was a magic crystal ball for emergency contact, given to me so I could immediately report if anything happened.
I caught my breath for a moment, gripped the crystal ball, and prepared to contact someone in case things went wrong...
“She’s over here!”
“Give me a break!”
But at the voice of a Holy Knight who had caught up with me, I hurriedly blurted out a single sentence, then picked up the Pope and began running again.
“Help!”
It was the only message I could leave behind.
Author’s Note
Dobby is free!
Footnotes:
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