WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 57: Don't Try to Understand (2)
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Aryn had worked in this field for decades.
That was why he could feel his own world falling apart.
“...No.”
What kind of people were Dark Mages?
They pursued forbidden knowledge, ignored the world's accepted rules, and sought truths of their own.
You could never catch them if you tried to deal with them using ordinary common sense.
They were the sort who could live perfectly well in places no human should be able to survive.
And just when you thought one person could not do much, they would go and cause a major incident.
You could not even find a trace of them with the methods used to catch ordinary criminals.
That was why the Imperial Intelligence Bureau and personnel dedicated to dark magic and Cultists worked themselves to the bone all across the Empire.
What had all their efforts even been for?
Of course, Aryn knew this was a special case.
Dark Mages and others hostile to the Empire had infiltrated the Academy, the Empire's future, to cause an incident.
No matter how large the Academy was, it was still a limited space compared to the whole Empire.
If they were moving around there to cause trouble, they were bound to stand out.
Even so, the Imperial Intelligence Bureau had struggled to find those Dark Mages.
And they had not caught that many in the end.
But look over there.
They were standing still, yet people proclaiming themselves revolutionaries came over and collapsed.
Dark Mages came over and collapsed too.
Of course, their enemies had not come just to fall over.
Honestly, even if Aryn stepped in himself, he did not think he could beat that group.
“They're... stronger than I expected?”
Daisy, the Saintess, was a legend who had shaken the world, so he had expected her to be a capable fighter.
But Violet, the girl said to be her childhood friend, was also highly skilled in battle.
Not just in raw magical ability, but real combat.
“Hmm.”
The Saintess's childhood friend, a member of the Flower Arrangement Club.
That alone had made him take notice, but he had not expected her to possess that kind of ability too.
It felt like he had found an unexpected gem, but then...
“Don't start drooling.”
A voice from beside him made Aryn frown.
“Hey, she's from the Empire.”
There was no reason for an Imperial agent considering recruiting an Imperial citizen to hear that from someone from Leon.
“Officially, she is.”
“What?”
Aryn was stunned by the next words.
“She’s a spy planted by Leon?”
“Ah, not exactly. We recruited her first.”
“What?”
At the sudden revelation, Aryn could only blink.
“You're telling me that just like this?”
Even an ordinary commoner could formally raise an issue over it, and Violet was a noble.
She might have been a low-ranking noble from the frontier, but that did not change the weight of her status.
Adam knew that, which was why he had kept it secret until now.
But then...
“Because we're close.”
Aryn frowned at Adam's utterly calm response.
“No matter how close you are, aren't there lines you shouldn't cross?”
Even people who did similar work had lines they should not cross.
No, because they did similar work, those lines mattered even more.
When Aryn pointed that out, Adam nodded as if he understood.
“You sold my personal information to the ducal lady before.”
That could certainly be made into an issue too.
But that and this were entirely different matters.
After all...
“Before I'm an Imperial agent, I'm a person of House Jeyka.”
Following his master's orders was simply what he had to do.
Which was why...
“Right. And I'm the boyfriend of that ducal lady from House Jeyka.”
Adam's next words did more than erase Aryn's frown. They made him tilt his head with a stupid expression.
“...Huh? That's fake.”
“It is. But do you think I'd agree to it for no reason?”
“...Huh?”
He had a point...!
No matter how much an Imperial ducal lady asked, having an affair with the Crown Prince's fiancée...
And having that affair while dating the Saintess of the Continent...
That was not the sort of thing a normal person would agree to!
“W-was this agreed upon...?”
No matter what, the ducal lady would not have done something that insane.
Aryn looked at Adam with wildly darting eyes and asked.
“Of course not.”
Thank goodness...
“It wasn't an agreement. She said she'd agree to whatever I asked for.”
Never mind.
No, this fucking...
“She said Uncle Aryn would take care of it.”
“Ah...”
Why were all the people he served like this?
Aryn sank to the ground and could only scream silently.
* * *
The Empire had looked like a bunch of pushovers for a while now, but that was only because it had gotten caught up in romance-fantasy developments.
Though it was sad that it would keep getting caught up in them.
That did not mean we could underestimate the Empire.
...Otherwise, Leon would just be a shitty country that could not even beat an Empire full of pushovers.
So it was best to consider Violet, or more precisely Tinky Winky, being our spy as a future discovery that was already inevitable.
That meant we needed a way to somehow smooth it over.
Senior Lorellia was someone who could help with that.
So I had no choice but to accept the two-timing, even if it made me look like trash.
...Violet aside, Tinky Winky was an agent worth that much.
“Pull yourself together. The fun part's about to start.”
“Shut up. I need some time alone.”
Uncle Aryn ignored even the battle between the Dark Mage and Daisy as it got good, wanting time to himself.
I let it go.
Agents had days when they wanted to be alone.
“Are you really not watching? Daisy's holding a sword. You don't get to see that often.”
Still, the situation had reached the point where I had to talk to him, even though he wanted to be alone.
How could I not watch Daisy with a sword?
It was my first time seeing it too, so I was a little excited.
“...What?”
Even Uncle Aryn, who was about to get worked like a dog for the crime of two-timing between the Empire and House Jeyka, could not resist the legendary sight of sword-wielding Daisy.
“Is that the thing I've only heard about? But what is that? There are weird octopus legs over there.”
“Ah, a Dark Mage looked like they were going to lose, so they stabbed two companions in the back, offered them as living sacrifices, and summoned it. Apparently, it's the Demon’s Leg.”
“If it's a demon, isn't that something the Demonkin worship? If they can summon something like that, then they're a high-ranking Dark Mage!”
Uncle Aryn made a huge fuss, asking whether it was really okay for us to just watch. I let out a small sigh.
“What does it matter if the enemy is a high-ranking Dark Mage? Their opponent is the Saintess, practically the strongest fighter on the other side.”
“Ah.”
Since ancient times, the counter to Dark Mages had been the clergy of the Holy Kingdom.
Depending on their rank, they could become easy prey instead.
But Daisy was the Saintess with the strongest divine power in the Holy Kingdom.
Even aside from being the Saintess, she was simply strong.
When facing things like dark magic, she might even be stronger than I was, or even Prince Ellen.
“I'm telling you, don't try to understand it. Just watch.”
The sword of light was not huge enough to reach the sky, as the legends spread through the Holy Kingdom claimed, but it still shone brilliantly.
As it swung, the disgusting tentacles vanished, and Uncle Aryn could only nod.
* * *
#2 Codename Tinky Winky.
The fate of a discovered spy was...
The moment Daisy's sword sliced through the air, light burst forth and the tentacles disappeared.
“T-this can't be!”
Bael, the fallen mage and boss of this episode, screamed.
“This can't be! How could the Demon’s Leg be destroyed in one strike?!”
Honestly, Bael was not wrong.
Anything with the word demon in its name was not supposed to go down easily.
But the Saintess was demons' hard counter.
So she could defeat it with absurd ease.
Of course, if things had followed the original story, she would not have been able to defeat it this easily.
“Definitely.”
The impact of Silence's absence was greater than I had expected.
He had been involved in almost everything in the Academy arc, so much that fans joked he had to be a villain on the public payroll.
Normally, he would have appeared in this episode and held off the Sword Emperor at the Academy while it descended into chaos.
But Silence was gone, and the enemies did not seem able to work together.
On top of that, Daisy had grown more than she had in the original story.
It looked like the incident would be resolved without help from the other romance-fantasy male leads or the Sword Emperor.
“There’s still... still more! I...!”
Bael shouted that it could not end like this, but demons were not cheap beings.
Bael had stabbed the hearts of two Dark Mages and offered them as sacrifices for the summoning.
“W-wait, why me?!”
The two sacrificed Dark Mages had already been the price for answering Bael's summons. Demons were simply the sort to take one extra person as a souvenir when they went back home.
“W-wait! Save me!”
Snap!
Tentacles like octopus legs wrapped around Bael's torso and dragged Bael into a darkness like a bottomless abyss.
“...Huh?”
Daisy looked flustered, but I saw that all traces of dark magic had disappeared and lightly patted her shoulder.
“It’s over.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Normally, the end would have been Silence slipping away with the remaining forces after shaking off the Sword Emperor.
But I had already taken care of Silence myself, so this was really the end.
“But what about the cleanup...?”
Daisy let out a deep sigh as she looked over the warehouse that had been turned into a complete mess by the demon summoning.
“You don't need to worry.”
It was on the outskirts, but a disturbance like this had occurred at an Academy in the middle of a festival, and no one had come running.
That meant Imperial agents had already secured the area.
If we waited a little, they would realize the incident was over and let everyone through again.
“They're already here.”
“Huh?”
At my words, Daisy widened her eyes and looked in the direction I had been watching.
“Adam?”
Did Daisy only see Adam?
That was a little suspicious.
Fake lovers might have a higher chance of getting married than real lovers, but...
She was not really going to follow the cliché of a romance-fantasy extra story, was she?
It left me feeling a little strange, but Daisy probably reacted that way because she did not know the person beside him.
Aerin Klein.
He was a supporting character on Prince Essid's side whose name had occasionally come up in the original story.
Honestly, all he did in the original was appear, receive Prince Essid's orders, and disappear.
But according to Adam, he was someone who suffered quite a lot on the Imperial side.
What was his surname again?
Cleed? Right?
“What brings you here?”
Unlike Daisy, who headed toward Adam, Aryn came toward me for some reason.
What was this?
Something felt off.
I did not think my superior had even looked my way just now...
“My name is Aerin Cleed.”
“Ah, yes.”
I nodded awkwardly at the smiling Aerin Klein. No, Cleed.
“Could we... have a word in private?”
At his quiet whisper, I turned to look for my superior.
“...”
He had the expression of someone telling me goodbye.
I could only pull a miserable face.
You bastard, you said you'd save me!
Author's Note
Yesterday, I went to Novelpia and received an award certificate.
Tomorrow, I have Civil Defense training scheduled.
So there might be a hiatus... though it is not certain.
There is a 50% chance there will be one.
If I only have to watch videos and it ends quickly, there will not be a hiatus.
If they make us do something weird or it ends late, there might be one.
Still, it is not reserve forces training, it is Civil Defense training.
There is probably a better chance that there will not be a hiatus.
Though my father starts his vacation tomorrow, so we might go get something to eat afterward and I could be a little late...
Though that is already the case now.
P.S. 1. I changed my pen name. I wanted to switch back to “Blended Pear,” which I used before, but it was already taken, so I changed it to “Pear Made by Blending.”
Everything I wrote on other platforms is also uploaded on Books, so if you have coins left over, I would appreciate it if you purchased them. The money will go into the author's bank account.
I posted more details in the Q&A.
P.S. 2. I had been saving the other contest entries because too few installments had accumulated, but when I tried to read them today, none had reached 100 chapters.
I thought, This is a little...
Then I found a work that was about ten chapters shorter. Its title was I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel...
Um, yeah.
I feel a little guilty, but I have already been on hiatus for a year at the publisher that allowed me to enter the contest despite my exclusive contract...
I had already scrapped what I was preparing yet another time because I did not like it, so once I get the new project stabilized and begin preparing for launch, I will try to make six updates per week the standard.
Though it will probably take a few months...
P.S. 3. I have been pestering the illustrator into making emotes. If you have any ideas for crown-daisy emotes, leave a comment.
Footnotes:
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