WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 51: Negotiation (3)
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There was a saying that if you couldn’t avoid something, you should enjoy it.
Of course, no one in their right mind could enjoy a date with a romance-fantasy heroine.
Still, I could make use of a romance-fantasy heroine’s special trait.
Romance-fantasy heroine trait: Incidents keep breaking out around them like they do around a bespectacled reaper.
If I used that, wouldn’t I be able to find the criminals causing trouble at the Academy on their own?
We were already moving mostly through places with few people, so I figured that if we wandered around long enough, enemies would show up sooner or later.
And sure enough, I found a Dark Mage engraving a magic circle in broad daylight.
Come to think of it, Dark Mages usually had an image of operating at night.
Maybe the hardest-working bastards in this romance-fantasy world were Dark Mages.
“A, a Dark Mage?”
Daisy’s eyes widened as she stared at a wild Dark Mage.
Thinking about it, this was the first Dark Mage she’d ever encountered despite being the Saintess.
Silence, whom she had first awakened against, had been a sorcerer whose foundation was magic.
After that, the important arcs had featured corrupt clergy from the same religion as enemies.
So Daisy, who was meeting a basic Dark Mage for the first time, said,
“Violet told me that in situations like this, you should launch a quick surprise attack!”
That statement only strengthened my belief in the theory that Violet was the root of all evil.
Then Daisy immediately ambushed the Dark Mage.
“This crazy...!”
“Ah!”
The Dark Mage only managed a short curse before she knocked them out with a one-two punch.
“Why is there a Dark Mage at the Academy...?”
Daisy frowned at the fallen Dark Mage.
To me, it was only natural for Dark Mages to show up at the Academy.
For ordinary people, though, Dark Mages were creatures from old tales, beings they would never encounter in real life.
The reason such a being was walking around the Academy in broad daylight was all because of Uncle Aryn’s incompetence... No, it wasn’t.
Before the Founding Festival, they’d caught five Dark Mages and twenty of their lackeys.
Then there were hundreds involved in the Revolutionary Army and various restoration movements.
Catching nobles and professors who had been committing corruption at the Academy along the way had just been a bonus.
In other words, people criticized him every time something happened, but Uncle Aryn wasn’t incompetent, nor was he lazy.
He was just getting unfairly screwed over by the romance-fantasy genre.
...That didn’t mean I wouldn’t criticize him.
What kind of world was this, where Dark Mages were preparing magic circles at the Academy in broad daylight?
And with the Academy open to the public, too!
“It got breached last time, too.”
“Ah.”
Daisy nodded with round eyes at my answer.
Honestly, I wanted to say that she was the culprit.
But in Great Detective Reaper, nobody knew that the reaper was the real culprit.
...Though with that many crimes happening around someone, it would be reasonable to treat them as a suspect.
“I never imagined something like this would happen twice.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Daisy, who muttered with a grave expression, that this was only the beginning.
After all...
“Huh? Wait a second.”
Ten minutes after we handed the captured Dark Mage over to the Academy, we uncannily found another Dark Mage drawing a magic circle.
* * *
She truly was the center of the romance-fantasy world, the eye of every storm.
“There’s another Dark Mage?”
When we found the second Dark Mage, Daisy was shocked, her eyes wide.
“...Right. If there’s a second one, there could be a third.”
By the time we found the third, she didn’t look surprised. She simply clenched her fists.
“...I see. If there are three of them, they must have infiltrated together!”
When she saw the fourth, she wore a half-resigned expression.
“Just die.”
When she saw the fifth, she ran over and beat them down on sight.
“An hour with Daisy is equal to two weeks with Uncle Aryn...”
Uncle Aryn had the Empire’s Intelligence Bureau behind him and spent two weeks working like a dog to catch that many Dark Mages.
Daisy achieved the same result in one hour while on a date with her fake boyfriend.
Of course, I understood that it was harder to find them when they were hiding as thoroughly as possible to infiltrate the Academy than it was after they had entered and started drawing magic circles everywhere.
But in the face of such overwhelming results, none of that mattered.
“There... aren’t going to be any more, right?”
Daisy’s eyes shook wildly.
Even for a romance-fantasy protagonist, it seemed hard to get used to Dark Mages appearing every ten minutes during a date.
“I don’t know.”
“The person who planned this date route is being awfully irresponsible!”
Daisy scrunched up her face and pouted, then suddenly exclaimed as if she’d realized something.
“...Wait! You planned this route, Adam. Don’t tell me you prepared all these Dark Mages!”
“Don’t treat me like the president of that club.”
“The club president? Do you mean Senior Bellian? What does treating you like Senior Bellian mean?”
I couldn’t bring myself to call him a mastermind, so I just vaguely explained that it felt like I was being unfairly suspected.
“The president? I never got that impression.”
Maybe because he was the only person in the clubroom who didn’t have romantic feelings for her, Daisy seemed to have quite a favorable impression of that narrow-eyed senior.
“Anyway, you’re mistaken. How would I prepare Dark Mages?”
“That’s true.”
Apparently, even Daisy thought that would be a little much. She nodded and snapped the fifth Dark Mage’s neck.
Crack.
“Did you kill them?”
“I didn’t! I only knocked them out!”
Nobody would care much if she killed a Dark Mage on the spot.
Still, seeing Daisy blush and shout that she hadn’t killed anyone, she apparently still had an aversion to taking a life.
“This isn’t a date.”
After making sure they were unconscious, not dead, Daisy let out a deep sigh and drew up divine power.
The warm light flowing from her hand touched the magic circle the Dark Mage had been drawing. The circle began to disappear in a cloud of black smoke.
“Were you looking forward to it?”
“A little. It’s my first date in my life, after all.”
“It’ll be a date you’ll never forget, at least.”
“Of course it will! How could I forget this?!”
Daisy shouted as she poked the sprawled Dark Mage with her foot.
“The memory I take away from a date is catching Dark Mages together!”
She looked a little pitiful as she screamed that this was a nightmare, but I still had to clear up the misunderstanding.
“We didn’t catch Dark Mages together. You beat them all up by yourself.”
“What?”
“If they call witnesses later, you’ll have to go alone.”
“You’re really going to act like this?!”
It was only natural.
I had genuinely done nothing but watch Daisy beat up Dark Mages.
Why would I get dragged into something annoying for no reason?
“Of course.”
“Wow...”
Daisy exclaimed in amazement as I nodded without shame.
“What? If you don’t like it, say so now. I can quit being your boyfriend whenever you want.”
“This might sound a little strange, but I’m pretty popular, you know.”
“I know.”
She was so popular that everyone in our club was clutching their heads over it.
“But you’re the first person to treat me like this.”
“...”
That was chilling.
It would’ve been nice if she’d said that while frowning like she was annoyed.
Why was she smiling?
“There was a line like that in a novel Violet showed me when we were little.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I played dumb, but Daisy brightly smiled and shouted,
“That’s right! That line! You’re the first person to ever treat me this way!”
She burst into laughter when she saw my expression darken.
After she finished laughing, the battle Saintess who had just beaten Dark Mages senseless with her bare hands said with romance-fantasy vibes,
“Would you like to extend our time as lovers?”
“Get lost.”
It was the sort of heart-dropping line that made it seem like she was trying to exploit the suspension bridge effect.
“...You weren’t seriously trying for that, were you?”
“I told you, I wasn’t.”
Ten minutes later, the mood vanished completely thanks to another Dark Mage we ran into.
* * *
“You’re really not a spy?”
“I told you, I’m not.”
“They said if you tell the truth now, the Empire’s Intelligence Bureau would be willing to recruit you.”
Three hours into my date with Daisy, we had caught nine Dark Mages.
Thankfully, we hadn’t run into anyone ranting about revolution or restoring an old kingdom.
Still, even the Empire’s Intelligence Bureau couldn’t seem to understand how we had encountered nine Dark Mages in three hours, when ordinary people and even people like us who worked in the shadows might only meet one once a year.
“Isn’t Daisy more suspicious than me?”
“Honestly, she is a little suspicious. But she’s the Empire’s Saintess. She’s the one who restored the Holy Kingdom to normal.”
There was suspicion, but Daisy had the Goddess’s favor and guarantee.
Naturally, that meant suspicion gathered around the person beside her instead.
Uncle Aryn explained it that way, then added one more thing.
“If a whole crowd from the Intelligence Bureau comes for you one day, just think that the day has come.”
“Why would they come in a crowd?”
“Because they don’t think a small group can beat you. How is the Intelligence Bureau supposed to beat someone who can take down the Little Sword Emperor?”
To us, Asran was the Doomed Sword Emperor, or the Little Little Little Little Little Sword Emperor.
Still, he was growing stronger at a rate that surpassed even the original story.
“You rate him that highly?”
“How could we not? Do you know the Little Sword Emperor has already won twelve matches in a row on the first day of the swordsmanship tournament?”
“I don’t.”
I had spent the day dating a romance-fantasy protagonist, watching the romance-fantasy heroine use Holy Punch to smash dark magic and beat nine Dark Mages senseless with her bare hands.
Would I care about some sword freak winning twelve matches in a row?
Besides...
“Our prince didn’t even participate.”
Prince Ellen had been more or less forcibly detained by Princess Hestia because she wanted him to focus on the upcoming exchange competition.
So he couldn’t participate in the swordsmanship tournament being held for the Founding Festival.
Without Prince Ellen or me there, it was Asran’s world.
“It would be different if they fought now.”
The Empire’s pride, the Sword Emperor’s grandson had returned!
Uncle Aryn wore a confident expression, but then I said,
“Then for the Academy Exchange Program, Prince Ellen should compete as a student of Leon Academy...”
“Ahem! Regardless of his nationality, Student Ellen belongs here.”
Seeing him immediately back down, even he seemed to know it wouldn’t work.
“By the way, what’s wrong with that one? Did they meet a Dark Mage on a date too?”
Though we were in the same place, I asked without even looking toward the strangely humid area.
“Ah, well.”
Glance.
Unlike me, Uncle Aryn briefly looked toward the moisture-filled corner and answered in a whisper.
“They got rejected.”
“...Really?”
Startled by that answer, I walked over to the Flame-Slinger, who had somehow made the air as humid as the rainy season despite being a fire mage.
“You really got rejected?”
“Urk!”
“Hey!”
The Flame-Slinger flailed at my blunt question, and Uncle Aryn shouted, but I didn’t care.
“You actually confessed!”
I was proud of the frustrating fool for at least trying to confess.
But then...
“Ah, no, it’s just...”
The Flame-Slinger avoided my eyes, and I got a bad feeling.
“You didn’t get rejected after confessing your feelings?”
“...I asked if they wanted to look around the festival together.”
Seeing the Flame-Slinger sniffle with a deeply wronged expression made my head hurt.
“No, how did you get rejected before you even made it past the entrance?”
“I, I still tried...”
They looked pitiful as they shrank into themselves, but the world ran on results, not effort.
“What about tomorrow?”
“...I’m scared my heart will break if I get rejected again.”
“You still have to try. Look at me. I got a date today, and I’ve got another one the day after tomorrow.”
The dates weren’t my choice, but I was still a man with dates scheduled for two days during the Founding Festival week, so I said it confidently.
“Go on a date with me.”
“...?”
The very next day, another date got added to my schedule.
...Why?
Author’s Note
More people wanted popcorn than I expected, so I brought the cover back.
I only changed it by closing the mouth slightly.
An illustration was also added to Chapter 25.
It’s an illustration of the Sword Emperor.
For the record, I had absolutely nothing to do with the illustrations, so you can say they reflect the illustrator’s taste.
PS1.
I originally came back yesterday and absolutely intended to post yesterday.
But I was exhausted, and when I went to the hospital that day, my glycated hemoglobin, which had been going down, suddenly shot up.
My diet and activity level hadn’t changed much, so the doctor thought it was probably a sleep and stress issue. I just went straight to sleep.
I’ll make sure to post at least five times a week, but depending on my condition, I may take a break even if I announce it on the day.
I listen to the doctor when I go to the hospital, at least.
PS2.
I’m planning to change my pen name back to the one I used before.
I was originally going to enter the contest without using my usual pen name, so I made this one up quickly.
Though now that I think about it, I made my original pen name up quickly too.
PS3.
My current pen name comes from Denmark Drinking Yogurt Zero Apple.
It was a drink I bought during a buy-one-get-one sale at the supermarket that day. The result came from removing “Denmark” and then “Drinking” because of the character limit.
Footnotes:
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