I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel - Chapter 39

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

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

Chapter 39: Side Quest (3)

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Honestly, it wasn't like I hadn't expected Prince Ellen to suddenly do something reckless.

Typical romance-fantasy lead behavior.

They never consider their own status. Whenever something happens, they try to solve it themselves.

The reason I kept telling Prince Ellen not to do that was for the future.

This bastard was still human. If I kept building up points like this, maybe he'd listen to me at least once someday.

...Though these spoiled romance-fantasy brats might not listen anyway.

Still, I had no choice but to keep announcing that I was racking up points so he wouldn't forget.

And if that didn't work, I'd have to seriously start planning my retirement.

Though, considering Senior Lucia, it already felt too late.

"You really didn't hesitate."

The altar we arrived at a step too late was already soaked in blood.

As far as I knew, this bastard had never killed anyone before.

Was the kingdom's education terrible, or was Prince Ellen a psychopath?

Or maybe the continent's early education, which taught people not to treat Dark Mages as human, had worked wonderfully.

"Make sure they're dealt with properly."

But there was still a long way to go.

Tinky Winky's spoilers about the future had told me we'd keep running into these bastards, so I'd looked into them.

The more I dug into Dark Mages, the more horror stories I found.

The most important of those stories was that Dark Mages were most dangerous when they looked dead.

Normally, they kept themselves out of harm's way while grinding others into sacrifices.

But when they were truly on the verge of death, they decided that if they were dying anyway, everyone should die together. They would grind up even themselves in an attempt to take everyone down with them.

That was what Dark Mages were like.

So not only did they need a finishing blow, even after their deaths had been confirmed, their bodies needed to be left somewhere visible.

A magic circle could suddenly appear on their bodies and make the corpse explode, or spread curses through the area.

Our busy prince couldn't be expected to worry about all that, so the cleanup naturally fell to those beneath him.

"I'll stay with the prince."

I dumped the work of delivering finishing blows and rescuing the brainwashed villagers on the other knights.

Then I walked toward the center of the altar, where ominous mana was pouring out.

"Urk!"

A guy who looked like a villain in every possible way was lying there, vomiting blood.

Among all the villainous-looking people I'd seen, he looked second only to the president of the Flower Arrangement Club. As he spat blood, he began reciting the sort of lines a third-rate villain would say.

"I can't believe you discovered this place. But you're already too late. This altar we created..."

Why didn't our precious prince brat know about skip buttons?

The moment an enemy started talking, he listened to every word.

"Urk!"

So I pressed the skip button for him.

"Adam?!"

Prince Ellen seemed startled when the man's head suddenly went flying, but I grabbed him and yanked him away from the corpse with a frown.

"Didn't they teach you during royal lessons? These magic-slinging bastards buy time by talking."

"Well, the others don't do that."

By "the others," he meant those romance-fantasy male leads.

"Are they enemies?"

"Th-that's not it."

"And this bastard is a Dark Mage. He was buying time while talking so he could do something... Ah, fuck."

The head and body had been separated, yet purple light began shooting from its eyes.

This was why people said to capture and beat the hell out of Dark Mages the moment they appeared.

"We don't know what it is, so let's run first."

"But!"

I turned, wondering what nonsense he was spouting, and saw symbols appearing along the wall where the eye beams had struck.

They formed chains that stretched toward the center of the altar.

At the center was the beastkin girl I had seen from afar.

"I don't think we can save her."

It was unfortunate, but trying to save her could get us killed.

So I swung my sword without hesitation, thinking I could stop Prince Ellen from advancing.

"Sorry!"

"If you're sorry, then listen to me."

As if he'd anticipated even that, Prince Ellen knocked aside my sword and ran toward the beastkin girl. I clenched my teeth and followed him.

* * *

Clang!

It was ridiculous.

Why did striking a rope with a sword sound like hitting a chunk of iron?

"Hurry up and cut it."

Otherwise, I was going to knock him out and drag him away.

"Ah, okay."

Perhaps he understood what my glare meant. Prince Ellen carefully poured mana into his blade and struck the rope.

Not long after, we managed to free the beastkin girl at the center of the altar.

"Now that we're done, run."

"Got it."

I slung the beastkin girl we'd collected over my shoulder like a sack and ran at full speed.

Even now, the purple mana filling the wall was heading toward the center of the altar...

"It's following us?"

"Can't you see that?!"

No, it had begun charging toward us.

"Your Highness!"

"Run!"

"What?"

"I said run!"

Ignoring the knights who had finished handling the surroundings and were trying to join us, we ran at full speed.

The knights had enough sense to follow behind us as fast as they could, but the mana steadily grew faster.

So...

"Split into two!"

To figure out what that thing was after, I split the group in half.

"It's only following us?"

"Next!"

We split again. Then again.

When only Prince Ellen and I remained, I had no choice but to give up.

"Should we ditch her?"

It was clear that the mana was following the beastkin girl.

So I suggested abandoning the girl first.

"No. I'll stop it!"

This bastard suddenly turned around and charged back.

"Is that bastard insane?"

Skrrt.

I made a hard turn, but my body had built up too much speed to change directions easily.

"...This is driving me crazy."

By the time I barely managed to turn around, Ellen had already been struck by the purple mana and collapsed.

* * *

I hurriedly poured a recovery potion into Prince Ellen's mouth, but it had no effect.

At least he was still breathing.

Leaving Ellen, who breathed quietly as if asleep, behind me, I forced half the remaining potion into the beastkin girl's mouth and poured the other half over her face.

Then...

"Hey, hey. Wake up. Come on, wake up."

Slap, slap.

I woke the beastkin girl by ruthlessly slapping her cheeks.

It was something I'd never have dreamed of doing in my previous life, but in a medieval fantasy world, I felt less resistance to hitting an unfamiliar woman of another race than I did to hitting a prince.

I'd already done the same thing to the romance-fantasy heroine, so there was no hesitation.

"Ugh..."

Her cheeks had turned red when the beastkin girl opened her eyes.

"Kyaaaak...ak?"

The moment her eyes opened and her pupils widened, they filled with hostility.

I understood.

I didn't know how she'd been captured, but Dark Mages wouldn't have politely asked her to become a sacrifice for their altar.

There was no way she had agreed and willingly stood at the altar's center.

She had gone through something horrible, so naturally her hostility toward humans had reached its peak.

Even if the human she saw when she opened her eyes was the person who had saved her, it was only natural for her to be hostile at first.

She didn't even know whether I had saved her or whether I was her enemy.

Explaining everything with words would probably require fighting the hostile beastkin at least once.

After subduing her, I'd have to explain everything that had happened.

Even then, it would take quite some time before the suspicious beastkin opened her heart.

That was usually how things went in novels.

But we didn't have time for that right now.

"If you don't want to die, do as I say."

"..."

What was needed here was the Leon style of persuasion.

A sword.

If vivid blue sword aura was pressed against your throat, the power of persuasion increased by one hundred percent.

Keeping my sword at her throat, I swiftly moved behind her and whispered into her ear.

"First, we rescued you."

That was entirely true.

"Th-this...?"

It was unfortunate that she didn't understand, but there was nothing to be done about that. Moving on.

"I treated all your wounds too."

That was also true.

Those were potions I'd fleeced from the Empire and Dale's royal family, potions that were hard to buy even with money.

"Then why do my cheeks hurt so much...?"

"Maybe those evil Dark Mages hit you."

That last part was a small lie told with good intentions, but compared to the price of the potions, it was cheap.

"During that process, our kingdom's prince collapsed."

Tap, tap.

I lightly tapped her cheek with the hand that wasn't holding my sword.

Her gaze shifted slightly, landing on Prince Ellen, who was bound by purple mana.

"Ah, that."

Thankfully, she seemed to know what it was.

"The mana following you attacked him. The prince sacrificed himself to protect you."

Honestly, he had thrown himself into it rather than sacrificed himself.

But the deed had already been done. Shouldn't I at least make him look good?

"Recovery potions don't help. Do you know what that is?"

I asked politely, though my sword remained at her throat.

"Before that, there's something I want to ask."

She was asking questions instead of answering.

Maybe she was tougher than she looked.

"What is it?"

"Is that guy strong?"

"Our bastard prince?"

"Yeah. That... bastard prince?"

My true feelings had slipped out, and the beastkin girl seemed flustered.

I answered her question without showing it.

"He's at a level where he has no equal. Why?"

In the future, he truly would have no equals, and even now, there weren't many who could match him.

Hearing that, the beastkin girl flinched and muttered as if lamenting.

"Then we're in trouble..."

A sudden ominous line sent chills through my entire body.

One possible development flashed through my mind.

It couldn't be that, could it?

"Don't tell me it's brainwashing?"

Violet Village. Dark Mages. Brainwashing. Salvia. Hallucinogens. An altar for sacrifices...

When I thought about everything happening in this village alongside those keywords, a familiar plot from my previous life came to mind.

In subculture stories, there were often characters who were useless trolls when they were allies but became terrifying monsters when they were enemies.

Ah, was it the other way around? Usually, enemies were strong, then became weak once they joined the allies.

"That's right. Those guys were trying to control me."

So that was it.

This was truly the worst possible development.

"How do we stop it?"

I asked for a solution.

"Well, I'm a fighter, so I don't know dark magic."

Unfortunately, she was a sword-swinger's cousin, a brawler.

Even if a dumb sword-swinger and a dumb fist-fighter joined forces, there was no way they could dispel this shitty dark magic.

I quickly put away my sword and asked for her cooperation.

"Keep that bastard from moving for now."

"Huh? Okay?"