I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel - Chapter 45

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 45: New Semester (5)

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“Ghhhk!”

Violet, supporting herself with nothing but her forehead, swallowed a scream.

Normally, I would've told her to stop by now.

“Does it hurt? I'm hurting more than you, asshole.”

The wounds in my heart weren't shallow enough to heal from something like this.

“H-Honestly, I don't think this is my fault!”

Tinky Winky shouted in a voice full of injustice.

Did this asshole have no conscience?

“If it isn't your fault, then whose is it?”

“Uh, um. Well.”

Tinky Winky trembled as she tried to think of the culprit, but apparently, nobody came to mind.

Feeling bad for her as she struggled, I placed a simple solution in front of her.

“W-What is this?”

“Can't you tell? It's a mirror.”

“I-I can't see it properly!”

A mirror lay before Tinky Winky, who was groaning with her forehead pressed to the floor.

“But why is this...?”

“The culprit.”

“Pardon?”

“The culprit is right in front of you.”

Of course you can't think of the culprit when the culprit is you, asshole.

“H-Hey. Say that again.”

“W-What?”

“Because of you, the whole plan fell apart.”

“Kyahhh!”

It really had been unfair.

“For starters, Prince Ellen became a completely different person.”

“S-Stop!”

Seriously, what had I even done?

“The entire story before that got completely wrecked!”

“Aaah!”

In the end, Tinky Winky went down.

She collapsed sideways, covered her face with both hands, and rolled across the floor.

“I-I did nothing wrong. I just wanted Daisy to be a little happier!”

“She got so happy that she even made herself a boyfriend through blackmail.”

“D-Don't you like it too? Even if it's fake, there's nothing lacking about our Daisy!”

“She seems a little short on basic decency.”

“You aren't any better, so aren't you a match made in heaven?”

“A match made in hell, you asshole!”

“Gah!”

I nudged Tinky Winky, who was rolling on the floor, with my foot like a soccer ball.

Violet also read the room and began rolling around enthusiastically.

After our little WWE match ended, Violet cautiously got up and spoke.

“Still, there's one thing I know for sure.”

“What?”

I frowned at the claim that there was something certain.

I couldn't trust the words of someone who had already wrecked everything while insisting on preserving the original story.

“...”

Violet shrank back when I frowned.

Then, in a voice so quiet it sounded like she was about to crawl away, she carefully shared her thoughts.

“E-Even if Daisy has become more perceptive, I don't think there'll be any major changes!”

I nodded at the opinion of Agent Tinky Winky, not Original Story-Obsessed Violet.

“Why?”

“Even if Daisy changes, the fact that those male leads are all duds won't change!”

“Hmm.”

Now that I thought about it, she was right.

For that relationship to change, someone had to confess to Daisy.

No matter how much Daisy changed, nothing would change as long as the romance-fantasy male leads remained the same.

“On top of that, I think the male leads might be included among the troublesome things we're clearing up!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Since she has a boyfriend, maybe some of them will give up?”

“It's fake.”

They might not know it was fake, but we had agreed to tell the romance-fantasy male leads everything beforehand so no troublesome situations would arise.

Daisy had been corrupted by Tinky Winky and gone a little off course.

Still, the essence of the romance-fantasy heroine, and Saintess, hadn't changed.

She might use blackmail, but she wasn't the type to lie.

No, if she lied, I could just break the contract.

“Whether it's fake isn't important. She chose someone other than the male leads, an outsider rather than one of ‘us,’ as her lover, even if he's a fake one.”

“Is that important?”

“Of course it is. Haven't you read that keymaker manga? It kept handing out keys while talking about the promised girl, then when the real promised girl was revealed, the protagonist ended up with his fake girlfriend.”

I hadn't read it, but it was famous enough that I'd heard of it.

Still.

“Don't bring manga logic into reality...”

That was a manga. This was reality.

Projecting manga onto reality was the kind of thing only terminal otaku would do. Did that make any sense?

“What are you talking about? This is a romance fantasy.”

It did make sense.

Violet's devastating retort sent chills through my entire body.

“Hey, even so. Daisy was the one who said we shouldn't fall for each other first.”

“It's so good when someone says not to fall first, then falls first themselves~”

“...We've already agreed to meet only once a month.”

“As each month passes, the heroine starts looking forward more and more to their dates. You can't resist that~”

“I'd sooner confess to an Imperial princess than Daisy.”

“Perfect timing! Prince Essid's younger half-sibling is enrolling next year! There isn't anything tastier in romance fantasy than a love triangle!”

“...You think I'm going down alone?”

I spoke with all the resolve I could muster against Violet's teasing.

“...W-What are you going to do?”

Sensing the sudden change in mood, Violet looked away with an expression of regret.

“If an Imperial princess doesn't work, I'll confess to you and drag you down with me.”

“Hey, damn it! If you're going to die, die alone!”

“You hold on to Daisy and die with her!”

This wasn't a joke.

The moment I got dragged into the romance-fantasy heroine's dating pool, we would all die together.

* * *

A lot had happened.

Still, it didn't take long to learn that Violet's prediction had been right.

“Adam.”

The Swordsmanship Department training grounds that afternoon.

The Little Sword Emperor raised his sword, looking more serious than usual.

“Another round today?”

The Little Sword Emperor always took sparring seriously, but not like this.

How should I put it?

He looked like he was facing a life-or-death enemy.

“Sure.”

Rumors had started spreading that afternoon, so I wondered whether he had heard them without meeting Daisy.

“Urk!”

After getting utterly beaten, I asked the Little Little Sword Emperor, who looked several times more devastated than usual.

“Did you hear it from Daisy?”

“I heard that the two of you are dating.”

“What about it being fake?”

“I heard that too.”

No, the second part was more important.

Why was he treating the second part like it was nothing?

“Je...alous...”

The words he muttered through gritted teeth told me why.

He was just jealous.

Poor guy.

If not for Daisy's scheme, the Leon royal family had planned to hold classes on dating courses from the second semester onward.

...Come to think of it, Daisy had been fully prepared to kick anyone who confessed to her away.

Had he actually escaped becoming the first fish released into her dating pool?

If so...

“Adam!”

Maybe because he was royalty, not merely a noble, he appeared the moment I thought of him. Speak of the king, I suppose.

There was faint hostility in his eyes, so he seemed to be in the same state as the Little Little Little Sword Emperor.

“Ah, the injury I got over break in that last fight...”

I clutched my left side and pretended to be in pain.

No matter how dense a romance-fantasy male lead was, would he ask to fight someone injured because of him?

“I heard everything.”

Ellen, however, seemed to be the typical fantasy-world royal who repaid kindness with hostility.

“I heard Daisy healed that injury completely this time.”

“Ah.”

No, he was just more perceptive than usual because it involved the romance-fantasy heroine.

“And the injury was on your right, not your left.”

“Was it?”

“I don't know. I guessed.”

...Had the male leads received a buff because the romance-fantasy heroine had become more perceptive?

Couldn't be helped.

Doomed Sword's secret art.

“Oh, Daisy?”

Vermilion Bird Divine Technique. Romance-fantasy heroine summoning.

“Huh?”

“Why is Daisy here?”

The moment the romance-fantasy male leads turned their heads at the speed of light.

“Adam!”

Ignoring my bastard owner's voice from behind me, I ran away at full speed.

* * *

The next day.

“It's fake?”

The moment Daisy, who had suddenly appeared and bragged that I was her boyfriend, left, the Flame-Slinger grabbed me by the collar and shook me around.

Naturally, I revealed every secret.

We had agreed to keep it secret, but our allies weren't strangers.

“Yeah. They know it's fake too, but their reactions aren't normal.”

“...”

All kinds of concerns flickered across the Flame-Slinger's face.

Then...

“C-Couldn't you just keep dating?”

“I heard your declaration that our alliance is over. Deal with the consequences yourself.”

“I was joking! I'm sorry!”

There were things people could say as jokes and things they couldn't.

How could they offer up the person helping them as a sacrifice for their own love life?

There was a reason Dark Mages became public enemies across the continent with only a single sacrifice.

“What will you do, Lorellia?”

“...”

Lorellia frowned at my question.

“If Adam and Daisy were going to date, they should've done it sooner.”

Her family had already decided to move toward breaking off the engagement, but an unexpected variable had appeared.

“Do you have any ideas?”

“It's not the majority opinion in the family, but there are people pushing for the engagement.”

“I thought they said there was no need to make enemies of the Imperial family and the Saintess.”

“They say they have a brilliant solution.”

“There is one?”

“...There's someone from a collateral branch who's enrolling at the Academy next year. Their appearance is fairly well known... They want to pair me with Essid, pair Daisy with that collateral relative, and create strong ties with both factions...”

Knowing how absurd the plan was, Lorellia reddened and looked away.

“Ah.”

I roughly understood.

The villainous noble coming in next year was from a collateral branch of House Jeyka.

I had wondered why Lorellia, who seemed to have better character than all the romance-fantasy male leads combined, was treated as a villainess(?) in the original story.

It seemed some minor characters came in and caused trouble, then the story simply lumped it all together under House Jeyka.

An arrogant junior who wasn't impressive themselves but acted big after backing a ducal house was exactly the sort of typical romance-fantasy villain who would appear.

Of course, it would be hard for a single villain to earn Lorellia the villainess title.

“Is it only one person?”

“...The plans differ, but it seems there are others making similar arguments.”

As expected.

Maybe I should pay more attention to House Jeyka's faction, even if Lorellia herself wasn't a concern.

Of course, Agent Tinky Winky would cut down most of them.

Tinky Winky wasn't the only secret agent infiltrating the Academy.

“Adam, you bastard! What do you mean you're dating the Saintess?!”

Uncle Aryn, who had looked far too old to be an Academy student even in the past and now looked old enough to be the head professor of nine out of ten departments, opened the window and climbed into the dormitory.

“The Academy's been breached again!”

“Shut up, asshole!”

The moment I opened my mouth, he cast a soundproofing spell over only my room. It was skill worthy of an agent entrusted with Imperial royalty.

Even if he knew the dormitory's magical circuits, casting it that quickly required repeated practice beyond sheer skill.

“How far have the rumors spread?”

“The Imperial capital and the Holy Kingdom are already full of rumors. Your name hadn't spread when I heard it, but who knows now.”

Things were moving incredibly fast for a world without smartphones.

I was already starting to fear the beginning of the semester.

So...

“If you want to know, why don't you cooperate?”

“...Can't you see what I look like?”

Uh, well. He was a little pitiful.