I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel - Chapter 46

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

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

Chapter 46: The Whole World Is Against Me (1)

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He had no presence.

That was how people saw Bellian Erich, president of the Flower Arrangement Club.

More precisely, that was the general assessment among students in the departments collectively known as General Studies.

The various departments grouped under General Studies were largely made up of commoners and lower-ranking nobles, with most students preparing for the Imperial civil service examination.

In truth, they were closer to civil service exam candidates than Academy students.

Bellian Erich was the very model of a General Studies student, for better or worse.

He could use only a few everyday spells, not even enough to call basic magic.

As for swordsmanship, he knew nothing about it.

That was why, even though he had no idea how it happened, and could not understand it at all...

Even after the professor who had merely lent their name as the club advisor to keep the club alive was replaced by the famous Sword Emperor, Erich turned down the chance to learn from him, a dream opportunity for any swordsman.

For an ordinary Academy student like Erich, learning from the Sword Emperor was far too much pressure. Besides, he had never expected to hold a sword in the first place.

So, even as the president of the Flower Arrangement Club, the hottest topic among the first-years, few people bothered Erich.

He was a fourth-year about to graduate, as were those around him.

They were too busy preparing for the Imperial civil service examination they would take after graduation.

When the Imperial Academy carried out sweeping reforms and recruited talent this year to surpass Leon and the Dale Kingdom, General Studies was the one place that had seen no changes.

Bellian expected the second semester to be the same.

“Hey, Bellian. Is it true the Saintess has a boyfriend now?”

“I really don't know...”

Still, from the first day of the New Semester, he had no choice but to admit he had been wrong.

‘How many times has this been already?’

He had expected today to be a little annoying.

He had stayed at the Academy over break, tending the flowers in the clubroom and learning what had happened in the Holy Kingdom through newspapers and rumors.

So he expected trouble for a day at the shortest, or a week at the longest.

‘But not this much!’

Bellian wanted to cry.

At least he had had time to prepare himself for the Holy Kingdom incident.

But news of the Saintess's relationship had broken over the previous weekend, and the New Semester arrived almost as soon as he heard the rumors.

Meaning he had not even had time to prepare himself mentally.

‘The New Semester's already started, so why don't they just attend class?!’

The Academy had an unwritten rule that the first class would be taken easy.

After calling attendance and casually asking whether everyone had survived the break, professors left students alone under the name of self-study.

Those students gradually gathered around Bellian and began questioning him like interrogators.

“Haah.”

After being pestered for three classes, Bellian dragged himself to the clubroom and opened the door.

That was his greatest mistake.

‘What is this?’

The moment he opened it, his breath caught.

Bellian could not understand it at all.

The Flower Arrangement Club room was the only place in the bleak Imperial Academy where he could relax.

‘So why...?’

He raised his head, shifting his gaze from the floor to what lay before him.

“Ah.”

Bellian understood why he could not breathe.

‘R-Run.’

If this was not hell, then what was?

The Academy's ecosystem destroyers sat before him with grave expressions. Bellian decided to cancel club activities for the day and make his escape.

“President?”

It was still the cheerful voice he remembered from their first meeting, but his opinion of its owner had changed every month.

At first, she had been the daughter of a lower noble family from the Imperial frontier, a place even more rural than his hometown.

Soon afterward, she had become the savior who let him preserve the Flower Arrangement Club full of precious memories.

A month later, she was a bewitching woman who had wrapped every famous first-year around her finger.

Another month later, she had become the Saintess.

Over break, she had become a revolutionary who reformed the Holy Kingdom.

And now, she was about to enter a room full of people who liked her after getting herself a boyfriend.

“Why are you standing there? Come in.”

“Ah, well...”

To him, she could only look like a devil who had turned his precious clubroom into hell.

* * *

A chill ran through me.

A dagger... no, a fucking huge sword was about to fly into my chest.

“Damn it.”

It would not actually stab me, of course.

Still, that pressure alone made me feel like I had already died several times.

“You dodge well.”

“I've always been pretty good at it.”

“Yeah. Because you're Adam.”

Since the semester began, I had been running away nonstop.

Unlike Prince Ellen, who did not understand people's feelings, or rather, people's swordplay, I had perfected the Doomed Sword and knew how to lose naturally even to the weakest student in the Swordsmanship Department whenever I wanted.

That meant I could train people at a level just slightly above their own.

After actively advertising that fact, no Swordsmanship Department student would turn down customized sparring sessions from the department's second-in-command, the guy who had even beaten the Little Sword Emperor.

In other words, I was fairly popular.

Most were guys, and while there were occasionally girls, they were all sword-crazy types, watered-down versions of Princess Hestia.

Whenever I showed up at the training grounds, students with numbered tickets would rush at me.

The Swordsmanship Club students even courted me every day, hoping to recruit me during the next club enrollment period.

Of course, it was all for work.

The conversations we had over a glass of water after sparring sometimes gave me unexpected information that the Intelligence Bureau could not obtain.

Building up my image like this would help later, too.

This time, though, being popular had become a curse.

Everyone kept asking about my relationship with Daisy.

And every time, Prince Ellen and the Little Sword Emperor's moods turned ugly.

So I had no choice but to keep running away to avoid questions about Daisy.

Fortunately, just like universities in my previous life, the Academy did not really hold classes on the first day.

As soon as attendance was taken, I could escape.

But there were always old-fashioned professors obsessed with rules who casually ignored unwritten customs, both in my previous life and here.

“Then we'll begin right away.”

That professor's name happened to be Aren.

The famous Sword Emperor and the head professor of our Swordsmanship Department.

To make matters worse, his class used one-on-one, swords-out brawl rules, so Prince Ellen, who had been waiting for his chance, inevitably caught me.

“When does class end?”

After becoming Prince Ellen's punching bag for the first time in a while and getting thoroughly beaten up, I lay sprawled on the ground and muttered with a sigh.

Come to think of it, it had not been that long.

The last time I got beaten up was when we were in the kingdom.

“I'm next.”

“Have you got no conscience?”

“...Someone told me it's important not to miss an opportunity when one comes.”

It sounded plausible enough, but what he really meant was that now Prince Ellen had wrecked me, he thought he had a chance.

This bastard had seemed to try to maintain the Little Sword Emperor's dignity at the start of the semester, even when he lost to Prince Ellen and me.

Now that his eyes had turned over because of a girl, he had completely lost it.

Wait.

“...Did Violet tell you that?”

“H-How did you know?”

The phrasing sounded familiar, so I tossed out a guess. Asran jumped in surprise and panicked.

“I just had a feeling.”

Whenever someone started acting strange, Violet was usually nearby.

Possessor trait: They try to preserve the original story, then ruin the entire thing themselves.

She was doing an amazing job of following that rule, damn it!

“D-Don't tell me. First Daisy, and now Violet too?”

At the Little Sword Emperor's innocent question, I sprang straight to my feet.

“Good. You're dead.”

There were things you could say to a person and things you could not.

No matter that Prince Ellen had just beaten the hell out of me, no matter that my entire body was screaming in pain.

After hearing an insult like that, a man had to fight with his life on the line!

“Just as I thought, you really are serious about Daisy...”

He seemed to take my reaction as anger at being accused of cheating on my lover.

The Little Sword Emperor's eyes wavered as he began looking at me like a romantic rival.

“Just pick one, please.”

They knew it was fake, and this was how they acted.

I could only tremble as I imagined what might have happened if we had kept it secret for real.

* * *

A week passed.

Around this time, preparations would begin for all sorts of events celebrating Imperial Founding Day.

Since our Academy was an Imperial Public Academy, it began opening its usually closed-off grounds to the public during the Imperial Festival, holding exchange events with other academies and other activities.

In other words, the big romance-fantasy incidents would start happening soon.

I expected the news of my relationship with the Saintess to gradually die down as preparations for the Imperial Festival began.

“Then why do more and more strange rumors get added every day?”

This was definitely someone's conspiracy.

I looked at the real owner of the storage room that was gradually becoming more like a clubroom.

“Ahem.”

As expected, it was a conspiracy.

An Imperial conspiracy, at that.

“I'm sorry.”

“You say the same thing every time.”

The people around us unconsciously nodded at my words.

Since the Academy began, Uncle Aryn, who looked as though he had rejuvenated to around his mid-forties, had often started conversations by saying he was sorry or had done something wrong.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

I was seriously miserable and wronged.

Sure, I had a purpose, but I had stopped an Academy terrorist attack.

I had told them the Dark Mages' location in advance.

I had even cleaned up the magic sword they dropped after I warned them.

“Is it because I didn't tell you there are bastards planning a terrorist attack for Imperial Founding Day too?”

“That isn't it... Wait, what? There are bastards planning what?”

Uncle Aryn, who had lowered his head in apology as if he had nothing to say, abruptly looked up.

“You're joking, right?”

“I wish I was.”

Unfortunately, this Academy was fated to become embroiled in all kinds of terrorist attacks and incidents until the romance-fantasy leads graduated.

“No, even if I overlook that there'll be a terrorist attack! How do you know about it?!”

The Empire's Intelligence Bureau was said to be a level above its counterparts even in other great powers.

It was only natural for him to suffer cognitive dissonance when the Intelligence Bureau was being outdone in intelligence on its own home soil.

For example.

“You aren't really preparing a terrorist attack yourself, are you?”

“I've been wanting to lately.”

Especially against those romance-fantasy male leads.

Still, I could endure it because even if I did nothing, it was already scheduled to be handled by free subcontractors.

“So tell me. Why did you do this to me?”

If it turned out Prince Essid had done this because he felt insulted, then even if I met real terrorists this time, I was prepared to raise my hands and volunteer to be their hostage.

“Um... There was a request from the Holy Kingdom.”

“The Holy Kingdom?”

“Yeah.”

“The Empire isn't in a position where it needs to watch the Holy Kingdom's reaction.”

No matter that most Imperial citizens believed in the Goddess, the Imperial family did not need to mind the Holy Kingdom.

There was only one exception.

“They said it was a request from the Pope.”

“...What kind of request was it?”

“If the Saintess gets married at the Academy, the Pope wants to officiate...”

Fuck, was there no cultist terrorist attack arc in the Holy Kingdom?

If there was, I wanted to help out a little.

Today, I understood a little better why romance-fantasy villains turned out the way they did.