WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 71: While Everyone Sleeps (1)
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“A date?”
How would someone react when their lover asked them out on a date?
Would they be happy, their heart fluttering pleasantly?
Or would they be glad but too embarrassed to meet their lover’s eyes, fidgeting awkwardly instead?
Or perhaps, like a bold woman, they might simply say they should go right away.
The reaction would differ depending on the person and the current state of their relationship.
No, even if the same words were spoken to the same person.
Yesterday’s reaction would differ from today’s.
And today’s reaction would differ from tomorrow’s.
That was only natural in relationships between people.
And if they were lovers, one of the closest relationships people could have, things could change even more quickly.
With that in mind, I could say one thing for certain.
“…What are you trying to pull this time?!”
Daisy’s reaction was absolutely not a normal reaction to a lover asking her out on a date.
No, beyond normal or abnormal, it was more like the reaction of a scam victim dealing with a con artist.
That was a relief.
Tinky Winky kept going on beside me about how I was an extra seducing the heroine of a romance fantasy, so I’d been a little worried.
But judging by that reaction, there was no way that would happen.
“Your lover asked you out on a date. That’s harsh.”
“You’d never do something like that! And all of a sudden! You’re calling me out when everyone else is asleep, how am I not supposed to worry?”
Just hearing the words, it was a statement worth worrying about.
But still.
“Isn’t that something to worry about in a slightly different way?”
“What are you even... A-are you saying?”
Daisy had been shrieking, her face red with anger, but she gradually seemed to understand what I meant. Her voice slowly grew quieter.
“……”
Then, with her face even redder than before, she wrestled with her thoughts for a while.
“Y-you don’t mean... that, right?”
Whatever she had imagined, she only stared at the ground and muttered quietly.
“Of course not. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“……That’s the answer I wanted, but for some reason, it makes me mad.”
Daisy raised her head. Her eyes were smiling, but the corners of her mouth trembled.
No, why was she getting angry when I gave her the answer she wanted?
“So. Why a date?”
“It’s returning the favor. If someone asks you out during the Founding Festival, it’s normal to return the gesture, isn’t it?”
“What’s the real reason?”
“The people behind the Dark Mages we caught last time are supposed to show up soon. I heard they’ll appear on the Night of Demonic Energy.”
“Ah. So you needed the Saintess’s power?”
“Something like that.”
I see.
Daisy smiled brightly.
Unlike a card shark whose hands are quicker than their eyes, she was a knight whose hands and eyes were both quick. I survived.
“Excuse me?”
I quickly moved closer and caught her hand, making Daisy’s face turn red.
Of course, it wasn’t from embarrassment.
“Would you let go?”
“I don’t want to.”
The familiar magic sword was strapped to Daisy’s waist, within reach of the hand I held tightly.
Carrying a sword everywhere was exemplary behavior for a swordsman.
But what that sword had shown was still traumatic enough for the first-year Swordsmanship Department students.
“Sometimes, you just have days when you want to swing a sword around.”
“That’s an exemplary swordsman’s statement. Have you decided to transfer to the Swordsmanship Department?”
“I’m considering it. But right now, there’s one person I really want to cut.”
Was that the heart of a killer rather than a swordsman?
“There’ll be things you can cut if you wait a little longer. Please be patient, Saintess.”
“Wow. You only call me Saintess at times like this.”
Daisy let out a long sigh and relaxed her hand.
I carefully released her hand as well and smiled.
“I’ll take that as you accepting the date.”
“I really chose the wrong boyfriend.”
It was already too late.
You chose this boyfriend, so endure it with spite and guts.
* * *
# Gerard Rias - Imperial Academy Neighborhood Watch.
The Demon Realm, a land where ordinary life could not survive.
Yet humans were fragile beings, and strong ones as well.
They survived even in the Demon Realm, built walls to block their enemies, cultivated the land, and grew crops.
The cursed, forbidden land where no one had once been able to live...
Had eventually been given the name Rias and become a vital region recognized even by the Empire.
And there was a man who had inherited the name Rias and ruled that land.
Gerard Rias, the second son of House Rias.
“Hmm.”
Though he had been praised for mastering both swordsmanship and magic at a young age,
Gerard’s father had sent him to the Academy to see the wider world, since there was an obvious heir ahead of him.
There, Gerard had learned just how wide the world truly was.
In Rias, he had been regarded as the greatest talent in their history, surpassing even the eldest son.
But among the students he met at the Academy, there were monsters beyond even his ability to assess.
Ellen, Arwen, and Asran.
Rivals in love who happened to fall for the same woman and belong to the same club.
...At the same time, aside from Taylor, the friend from his territory who had entered the Academy with him, they were among the few people Gerard could cautiously call friends.
None of them used both swordsmanship and magic.
But defeating any one of them in a single field was impossible.
No, even if Gerard used both swordsmanship and magic, it would be hard to guarantee victory.
Perhaps Asran was the only one he had a chance against?
His friends were strong enough to make Gerard think such things.
Yet even they had been defeated by a single person.
Adam Smith.
A friend of a friend whose name he had never even heard before had snatched away the most beautiful flower everyone had only admired from afar.
Of course, he later heard that Adam was only a fake boyfriend.
But the club was full of people Daisy could have asked to play a fake lover.
The fact that she had chosen an outsider she barely knew shocked not only Gerard, but everyone in the Flower Arrangement Club.
And because of everyone’s attention, weren’t they meeting regularly and even going on dates?
So Gerard tried to watch the two of them while pretending otherwise.
But at the Academy, which was larger than expected, there had been more than one or two times when he lost track of them.
He had no choice but to ask the person he trusted most.
Even Taylor, an expert in these matters, had been of no help.
Of course, Taylor merely made suitable excuses because he understood Adam’s situation as a fellow professional.
But Gerard never imagined that Taylor had deceived him, so he could only bite his lip and endure.
But this time was different.
This land was called Rias.
It was the place Gerard had lived his entire life.
Even without Taylor, Gerard had plenty of eyes and ears here.
“What?”
“Apparently, they’re carrying out a secret Midnight Date.”
At the shocking news from informants who usually posed as servants cleaning the territory, Gerard could only gape.
A date.
A late-night date at that!
“S-surely not.”
Gerard usually appeared cold and indifferent, but he was a twenty-year-old man.
And if something happened to the eldest son, Gerard was the next person who would have to inherit the family.
In other words...
He had learned about sex long ago!
“That seems to be the case.”
Naturally, when he heard that lovers who had only recently become adults would secretly leave the Academy in the middle of the night for a date, his thoughts went in that direction.
He had heard that students occasionally withdrew from the Academy voluntarily because of pregnancy!
“Ghk!”
He had let his guard down a little because they were supposedly fake.
They were already planning to go that far!
“Ellen, you idiot.”
He remembered his friend’s face as Ellen insisted that Adam was not that sort of person and was harmless.
The ones who acted like they weren’t were usually the craziest ones.
“W-what should I do?”
Gerard wanted to go challenge Adam to a duel immediately, but unfortunately, he could not win.
Adam was a monster whom even Ellen could not confidently defeat.
And according to Ellen, after returning to the Academy this time, he had fought Adam in earnest and lost.
Hadn’t Ellen said so?
“……”
But the possibility of defeat was nothing to Gerard.
What he feared more than losing was this.
- Adam didn’t ask me out. I asked him.
- We’re both consenting adults. Is there a problem?
Daisy saying that it was sincere, not fake.
If that happened, what would it matter if Gerard could overwhelm a man named Adam with strength?
If Daisy herself liked it.
“N-no, that can’t be it.”
Even as he muttered that it could not be true, countless wild imaginings began to fill Gerard’s mind.
That was why...
“Daisy is going on a date.”
“Why are you making such a big deal out of that?”
“And it’s in the middle of the night, while everyone is asleep!”
“W-what?!”
Unable to bring himself to seek out Adam or Daisy, Gerard called together companions in similar situations to share the information.
“W-what do you mean?”
Ellen, who was the most shocked of them all, shouted after falling over with his chair and getting back up.
“A-Adam wouldn’t do that!”
Ellen looked utterly unable to believe it, insisting that he trusted Adam and Daisy.
Gerard put on a grave expression and dropped another piece of information.
“The day they’re meeting is the Night of Demonic Energy.”
“Gasp!”
Ellen’s face went pale, and he collapsed on the spot.
“Is that true?”
Essid looked calm, but his eyes trembled slightly.
Essid was normally skilled at keeping a poker face, so seeing him this shaken meant the shock he had received was beyond imagination.
“I swear it on the name of Rias.”
If his father had seen this, it would not have been strange for him to slap Gerard and tell him not to invoke the name of Rias over something like this.
But Gerard was that serious.
What kind of day was the Night of Demonic Energy?
For those who handled mana, it was a dangerous day that could turn them into wrecks if things went wrong.
That was why all classes were canceled, and students were even forbidden from leaving the Academy once the sun began to set!
And on a day like that, they would meet in secret.
When everyone else was holding their breath and quietly staying in their rooms, what would they do?
“Th-that bastard!”
Asran reached a conclusion similar to Gerard’s and rose with his teeth clenched.
Arwen stopped him as he seemed ready to find Adam and settle the matter immediately.
“Why?”
Asran roughly shook off Arwen’s hand.
“But what if... the one who wants it isn’t Adam, but Daisy?”
At Arwen’s fearful voice from behind him, Asran had no choice but to freeze.
Daisy? That Daisy?
Hearing Asran mutter that, they all thought the same thing.
- Scary.
Each of them possessed powerful influence not only in their own countries, but in foreign nations as well.
Even aside from that, they had the skill and talent to become idols to students their own age.
But in the end, they were merely people who had just begun to be treated as adults.
Beginners experiencing love for the first time.
No, since they were people who had never been rejected before,
Their fear of being rejected was greater than anyone else’s.
And so, since there was a problem...
“M-maybe we could secretly watch them?”
“T-that’s a good idea!”
“Right. If they do anything inappropriate as students, then we can...”
As someone had put it, they were spoiled romance-fantasy brats.
“We’re only acting as vigilantes.”
“Right, vigilantes who protect Academy rules!”
“But does the Academy even have a rule like that?”
“If there isn’t one, I’ll become Student Council President and make one!”
Normal students would never even imagine doing such things.
But they could put them into action without the slightest hesitation.
Author’s Note
I stayed up all night, so I thought I would upload today’s chapter in the afternoon and sleep before eleven...
But when I closed my eyes around six and opened them again, it was suddenly nine.
I wanted to upload it before twelve somehow, but it ended up being late. I’m sorry.
P.S. Extra chapter releases are structurally impossible right now.
The Novelpia serialization is going forward at my publisher’s expense, but I still can’t send them the files because that work requires endless revisions...
To keep my conscience clear, extra releases are impossible until I finish preparing that side.
P.S. 2. The illustrator is scheduled to be loaned to the military for a year and a half in September.
So until then, they’re unemployed, and I can work them hard.
Footnotes:
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